Chapter 7196: Denial of Reality The Red Collective’s predictions came true. The Oscillating Fist wanted to decide it all in the final duel. He completely dismissed the validity of the earlier three victories, treating them as nothing more than kids roughhousing with each other. The only fight that mattered was the one where the current leader dueled against the possible future leader of the Phase Lord Department. Suffice to say, Ves and the Dark Apostle grew upset. The Oscillating Fist violated the agreement and tried to impose a new one that favored him the most. For a time, the Dark Apostle fell into doubt. Were the negotiations a joke? Was the contract truly a waste of virtual paper? Was he the more authentic Ascended Giant? According to human rules, the Oscillating Fist egregiously violated the contract. This not only deprived him from protection against outside intervention, but also dishonored his name. Yet the Ascended Giants might view this conflict differently. Their culture and traditions, as young as they may be, did not place as much importance on contracts than the other races. It did not matter whether the contracts were verbal or written, all of them were worth little to nothing so long as they pertained to any mortals. From the perspective of a hardcore Ascended Giant such as the Oscillating Fist, gods did not negotiate with mortals. Gods outright claimed anything they wanted from the mortals. Every deity possessed his own kingdom in essence. The mortals that answered to them were their slaves. Slaves did not own property. They merely took custody over stuff that ultimately belonged to the god they worshiped. Gods had an absolute right to dispose of any mortal under their sway. They could change existing contracts and agreements all they liked because mortals had no bargaining power before their own deities. It should be an honor for a mortal to sacrifice everything he had to his deity! This was the extreme ideology that the Oscillating Fist strove for. Many humans grew confused at his arrogant tone and his outrageous demands, but in his opinion he was the only god who understood the true order of his race! As much as the Dark Apostle wanted to call upon the forces of the RC to bombard the Oscillating Fist, the challenger knew that this could not be done. The violation of the agreement was not serious enough to merit such a response. The Ascended Giants also wouldn’t approve of this act. The Dark Apostle was very sensitive towards the perception of other Ascended Giants. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would never be able to command their full loyalty if he showed cowardice and tried to gang up on their current leader. In order to make his new subordinates respect him from the bottom of their heart, they needed to see him defeat the Oscillating Fist by himself. He briefly examined the old leader’s equipment. Its details remained unclear, but they looked considerably higher in quality than the equipment used by the strategoi. Would this strange scaled armor be able to withstand the successive explosive impacts of two different blast lances turned D-arms? The Dark Apostle had no way of knowing the answer. He could only put his trust in the skills he acquired and the tech at his disposal. Just as he was about to accept the other man’s proposal, Ves chose to form a different response! "Screw you. No, screw you. Who do you think you are? Your willful denial of the existence of high-ranking mech pilots is pathetic. Just because you pretend they do not exist does not mean we have to conform to your distortion of reality. We refuse to acknowledge your godhood! Do you know why?! Because we know the truth of your existence! To call yourselves gods while you are merely body cultivators of the first or maybe second major cultivation rank is the height of conceit! Any first-class ace pilot can beat you up and pierce your illusion of godhood. I dare you to disagree. I can easily call over any random ace mech to prove your delusions wrong." The Oscillating Fist grew angry at the interruption. He glared daggers into the Dark Apostle’s eyes. "I advise you to shut down your unruly ’companion spirit’. He is interfering with a sacred duel between Ascended Giants. I can tolerate no interruption from outsiders." "He is not an outsider." The Dark Apostle growled now that he had found his backbone. "He is completely right. The difference between you and I is that I recognize the divinity of human god pilots. Not only that, I accept their superiority in combat. No ancient phase whale has ever managed to defeat a human deity. How can we possibly take pride in our identity as Ascended Giants when that is the case? Until this has changed, there is no shame in submitting ourselves to red humanity. After all, we subordinate ourselves to the strong. Defecting to the Red Cabal makes no sense when their gods have continually proven to be losers!" Ves’ assertive response reminded him that he had been behaving way too passively ever since the Oscillating Fist appeared! He had fallen into the narrative of the Oscillating Fist and allowed him to dictate terms without any reasonable pushback. The Dark Apostle should not have to concede to a leader who was already supposed to step down from his position! The Oscillating Fist could never be allowed to get away with his blatant attempt at rewriting the rules! At this moment, the polemarchos of the Ascended Giants did not appear pleased at the moment. His divergent perspective on reality clashed with the facts. While the Oscillating Fist had no obligation to surrender to reality, this debate was never about him in the first place. They were both trying to appeal to the 359 Ascended Giants that were currently tuning in to the live feed of the leadership challenge. The Oscillating Fist attempted to regain their loyalty by inspiring them with his superior martial prowess and appealing to their strong desire for godhood. Yet Ves and the Dark Apostle brutally attempted to pierce through this delusion and undermine the central reason why they should be allowed to lord over the mortals! It was ridiculous to treat humans as slaves when their greatest protectors could easily beat up the so-called gods of the native aliens! The Oscillating Fist raised up one of his thick gauntlets. "Enough. Talk is useless. Let us decide who is right once and for all by fighting each other to the death. Whoever is right is the one that remains alive!" "You don’t get to run away from a losing argument!" Ves argued back. "You may be able to fool yourself, but you can’t fool your former subordinates. Do you truly think you can prove you can be good steward to them when you are literally driving them to suicide? You may not like what you hear from us, but at least we recognize our current reality. From our perspective, you have no grounds to stand upon when you demand a change of rules. The agreement states that taking over the Ascended Giants only requires 3 out of 4 victories. We have satisfied these conditions. Technically speaking, we can immediately forfeit the 4th duel against you and subsequently command the RC to blast you into pieces." The Oscillating Fist grimaced when the upstart tried to threaten him. "Have you forgotten the consequences for doing so, you impertinent vermin?" Blinky smirked. "You are not the only one who can issue an ultimatum. I am more than willing to take the risk to see who the Ascended Giants will agree with more. I can promise to everyone that if any Ascended Giant dares to defect to the Red Cabal and fights against their former race, I will personally hunt each and every one of you down with all of the forces and assistance I command. It doesn’t matter if you hide at the opposite side of the dwarf galaxy. I will come for you and make sure you perish, if only to remove the stain you represent to red humanity. Do not question our ability to make good on this threat. The First Sword Mark III is out there carving apart greater phase lords like they are sushi, and that is only the first of many superdimensional ace mechs that are being released. If you think you can stand up against such a mech, then by all means indulge in your delusions of godhood." The indoctrination of the Red Ocean was not flawless. Even if the heavenly authority forcibly rewrote their cognition to undersell the threat of human high-ranking mech pilots, there was no way for them to deny what was happening on the frontlines! Accurate intelligence and reports about the battles on the frontlines had increasingly begun to praise the performance of the first wave of superdimensional ace mechs. Although there were not too many of them out there, each machine equipped with superdimensional weapons and armor had proven to be invincible against most lesser and greater phase lords! Even if the impressive superdimensional ace mechs failed to kill any enemy champions, they could still keep the latter busy and hinder them from directing their destructive power elsewhere. No matter what they might claim, Ascended Giants were still human. They had not forgotten their understanding of human power. Not even the Oscillating Fist could deny the superior combat power of human ace pilots and god pilots. The fact that the first polemarchos of the Phase Lord Department still clung to the notion of his own divinity was an absurd case of cognitive dissonance. His brainwashing clashed with reality! The problem with the Oscillating Fist was that he was too stubborn to admit that he was wrong! 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞 Since that was the case, Ves exploited this vulnerability and called his bluff! He believed that the Oscillating Fist’s threat was not as credible as it sounded because his subordinates were not as nearly in denial of reality! Both Blinky and the Dark Apostle smirked as the Oscillating Fist found himself in a difficult position. The polemarchos could either double down and die for a potentially failed cause, or he could choose to compromise at the cost of appearing weak. The latter was intolerable, but the former would lead to his immediate ruin! Despite his frequent claims to godhood, the Oscillating Fist should never be blind enough to think that he could escape from the Yernstall Central Star Node without securing safe passage. The Sapphire of the Red Ocean was firmly controlled by the Red Three! The Oscillating Fist’s handsome face made an increasingly uglier scowl as he reluctantly chose the lesser of two evils. "I can agree... to a small concession. What... do you want?" Ves had been waiting to hear that. The Oscillating Fist’s mistake was that he never held all of the cards. That did not mean that Ves and his associates could unilaterally bully the deluded fool around. No matter what, he was still the first-generation polemarchos of the Phase Lord Department. The Ascended Giants still wanted him to be treated with a measure of respect and fairness, or else the Dark Apostle will face no end of compliance issues if he took over. "Since you have demanded a change of rules, we should be able to do so as well. We can agree to your new terms so long as you agree that we are allowed to borrow the power of external sources in our fight. We have been fighting with one arm tied behind our backs. No more. Design spirits have always been a major reason why my mechs have been able to perform so well on the battlefield. I can help other Ascended Giants tap into their power through their new equipment. Let us demonstrate what they can gain by channeling the power of a design spirit during our duel. That is all I ask. If you are too much of a coward to fight us at our full strength, then you shall be judged by your fellow Ascended Giants." Accusing the Oscillating Fist of cowardice should be a good way to force him to agree!