Chapter 7385: Unions Saint Conrad Morgenstern managed to complete the first phase of the Mech Body Merger Process without too many complications or delays. This signified that his bond with his machine had certainly reached a qualified level. Although it was often the case that ace pilots managed to attain operation union with their machines with relative ease, that did not necessarily mean it was a trivial step. There had been ace pilots in the past who managed to get tripped up by the first but still essential step! Of course, this was most often the case with ace pilots who had abandoned their old machines for brand-new ones that had been specifically designed for their breakthroughs in mind. Though well-intentioned, the god pilot candidates overestimated their ability to acclimate to their new machines and gained a misplaced sense of confidence in how much help it could provide. Performance remained extremely important, but fit also played a huge role! The transition between an old mech and a new mech should not be too abrupt. Adding too many bells and whistles could potentially cause a subtle degree of alienation that was difficult to ascertain. If the ace pilot did not recognize these problems and requested the mech designers to address them in time, the operation union phase may very well seal his fate! Fortunately, such a case did not apply to the Voice of Liberty, but not necessarily for the right reasons. The senior ace pilot ’impulsively’ chose to break through without going through the motions that real god pilot candidates went through. One of them was to switch to a brand new god mech prototype, or upgrade their existing machines to the same standard. The advantage of attempting a breakthrough with an ’older’ machine was that the fit between mech and mech pilot was often high. The disadvantage of doing so was that the relatively lackluster performance of a mech that had never truly been designed to accommodate a god may ultimately prove inadequate when it truly mattered! Of course, the latter factor was a bit... nebulous. The technology and standards of mechs had evolved by leaps and bounds since the start of the Age of Mechs. At the start, the boundaries between junior ace mechs, senior ace mechs and god mech prototypes were a lot blurrier and less defined. The nascent mech community still had to figure out the rules of the game. There had been enough instances where powerful ace pilots had managed to break through with machines that performed much worse than contemporary ace mechs! Strictly speaking, the Voice of Liberty was correct that it was not quite necessary for him to upgrade his ace mech to the very limit of what current technology could achieve in order to succeed. After all, until recently, full superdimensional mechs did not exist, yet plenty of god pilots emerged in the previous age! Still, just because Saint Morgenstern did not take this matter too seriously did not mean that Ves agreed with this approach. He was of the opinion that any reasonable amount of preparation should be taken if the occasion allowed for it. For the ace pilot to disregard the supreme importance of his machine may end up biting him in the back at a later date! In any case, the Voice of Liberty currently faced much more difficulty in trying to attain domain field union. This was the sacred process of merging one’s Saint Kingdom with the form of the mech. That was not easy considering that a Saint Kingdom was a pure energy field while the mech was a purely material existence. At least on the surface. In truth, the boundaries between the two were not as absolute as most people thought. As Ves knew extremely well, a mech possessed both a physical component and a spiritual component. The latter was pretty much invisible for ordinary mass-produced mechs, but senior ace mechs and god mech prototypes happened to possess a much stronger and more obvious intangible footprint! Whether mech designers specialized in spiritual engineering or not, those who were able to work on mechs at this level were never weak in this aspect. Their ability to distort reality when it came to mechs was not as blatant as that of high-ranking mech pilots, but it was still impressive nonetheless! Just like mechs, the domain field of a mech pilot was not as simple as it appeared on the surface. The Saint Kingdom may be incorporeal in nature, but it possessed the power to alter and manipulate the material realm. This was especially the case for particularly powerful high-ranking mech pilots! The more a pilot approached godhood, the less the rules of nature could pose a constraint on their will. Yet however much they could bend the physical laws as if they were their playthings, there was still a hard limit at the rank of ace pilot. In order to force a Saint Kingdom to completely merge with a mech, the Voice of Liberty had to exert his willpower beyond its previous limit. This did not come without a cost! Though Ves was only able to observe the Voice of Liberty’s efforts from the perspective of an outside observer, he could still get an impression of his agony! It was as if he was trying to compress his soul in a box that was at least a hundred times too small for its size! The extreme compression rate could not be attained through normal means. The only way to make it happen was for Saint Morgenstern to use his willpower to distort reality and forcibly squeeze his Saint Kingdom into his machine! This only amplified his suffering! Distorting reality was easy when his willpower was in normal condition. It became a lot harder when he actively tried to reshape it to attain domain field union! Ves and everyone else watched on with awe and concern as the ace pilot experienced more and more pain. Yet the will and desire of the Voice of Liberty could not be defeated so easily. "I WILL NOT ALLOW MYSELF TO GET DEFEATED IN THE SECOND PHASE! ROAR FOR ME, MY INSTRUMENT!" Even as his ace mech increasingly lost definition, it was still able to play its guitar without any apparent problem! The specially-designed metal fingers continued to strum the weaponized guitar. The sounds generated from the mech-grade instrument gained a choppy and rhythmic character. Everyone within the area of effect felt increasingly more excited and energetic. A few people who couldn’t control themselves even started to bang their heads as if they were attending a concert! Whatever the case, the music not only affected others, but also the musician himself! The pain still existed, but the Voice of Liberty was able to power his way through and push past the increasingly more stiff resistance! His Saint Kingdom steadily shrunk and compressed until it had almost reached the physical size of his machine! Of course, the final steps were the most difficult one. Saint Morgenstern had already attained an incredible compression rate. In many cases, god mech prototypes tended to be a little larger than their predecessors precisely to make this step a little easier! While not every god pilot candidate opted for this choice, it had certainly provided crucial assistance in at least some cases. The Voice of Liberty did not even get to make this choice. The Sound of Revolution was perfectly sized for an ace pilot, but that might not be the case for a god pilot. Whether it is because of stubbornness or extreme confidence in oneself, Saint Morgenstern chose to push past the final barrier of resistance by tearing a piece of himself! "MY WILL IS INDOMITABLE! MY CAUSEES ARE JUST! I AM THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE! SO LONG AS HUMANS CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE, I SHALL ALWAYS BE THEIR SWORD AND SHIELD!" This was both a promise and a statement of fact! Ves didn’t exactly know why, but after the Voice of Liberty shouted those words, he successfully compressed his Saint Kingdom to the right proportions! Completing this crucial step had profound implications! For one, now that the Saint Kingdom had shrunk to match the physical proportions of the mech, the boundaries between the two had become a lot more nebulous. It became difficult if not outright impossible to distinguish between the two. The mech was the Saint Kingdom, and the Saint Kingdom was the mech. Though Ves had read plenty of theories about it, witnessing it happen in front of him still confounded him! What he just witnessed should have been impossible. There was absolutely no way that two entirely different phenomena would get mixed with each other to such an extreme. The most immediate consequence of achieving domain field union was that the Sound of Revolution had firmly broken the limitation of a material object. Due to the merger, the ace mech could not only reshape itself to a much more versatile degree, but also turn fully immaterial whenever it wanted! Of course, the Voice of Liberty did not rashly attempt to make this happen. The mech may have become capable of turning into a pure energy object, but that did not apply to the pilot. This was why the Voice of Liberty needed to complete the third phase of the Mech Body Merger Process, which was corporeal union! Ves happened to possess a bit more understanding and expertise in this specific type of fusion. The tainted breakthrough of Saint Rosa Orfan had accidentally caused her to fuse her body with her own machine. Though the accident permanently impaired the ace pilot’s quality of life, Ves had a reasonable suspicion that it may actually help her complete the third phase if she ever gained the opportunity to make her own breakthrough attempt. Saint Conrad Morgenstern did not undergo such extremes. He started out like most pilots. He still possessed a functioning human body. Trying to merge his corporeal form with his mech was therefore a much more difficult endeavor, especially when the saint had already exerted himself quite heavily in the preceding phases. Yet now that he had come this far, the Voice of Liberty did not intend to fail so soon! He mustered his increasingly more ragged willpower and forcibly pushed himself into action! "MY WILL SHALL BECOME ETERNAL! THE SHACKLES OF MY BODY SHALL NO LONGER HOLD ME BACK! SO LONG AS A SINGLE VOICE CRIES OUT FOR JUSTICE, I MUST NEVER FADE, FOR MY MISSION HAS NOT COME TO AN END!" The Voice of Liberty focused on his cause and used that to motivate him to push past the pain generated by his body! Though Ves was not able to get a clear view inside the cockpit of the powerful mech, he could guess that the saint was steadily trying to merge his frail human form with his mech. Although his machine had already become an energy-based existence in all the ways that counted, he still needed to induce the same sort of transformation on his own body! Ves was not clear of the details. He did not know whether there was only a single correct route or whether multiple viable strategies existed. Yet what he was able to sense from the incredibly bright and powerful amalgamation was a crescendo that steadily rose in power. Even now, the Sound of Revolution still played its guitar, even though its Saint Kingdom had already retracted. The reason why Ves and the others were still able to hear the instrument being played was because the secondary energy field had not faded away. Ves guessed that it was generated with the help of a key resonating exotic, which made it an intrinsic feature of the ace mech. In fact, the recent changes and transformations had strengthened this energy field, enabling it to reach further and manipulate the emotions of listeners more effectively! As always, the Voice of Liberty drew strength from his own music. Despite forcing an irreversible transformation on his body, the daring ace pilot managed to retain enough focus, will and lucidity to slowly advance the merger between flesh and machine! "Is he actually going to do it?" Ves asked as if he could not believe what was happening in front of his senses. "Never celebrate prematurely, Ves." His wife transmitted back. "Even if he manages to complete the corporeal union phase, there is still the last and most difficult phase of all. That is where most ace pilots falter despite their preparations."