The Mech Touch

Ghohocolabadis had succeeded in tunneling its way into the Nyxian Gap!

The gigantic space worm that could crush CFA battleships with its body and devour entire mech regiments worth of MTA mechs had entered a region of space that was infamous for making entire warfleets disappear!

Despite the considerable risks, the Wearer of the Golden Crown and the Lady Drenched in Blood did not show any concern.

She immediately sensed the differences in a realm beyond the material one. It was kind of hard for people with her sensitivity to miss the enormous vortex swirling throughout the entire Nyxian Gap.

Yet she quickly dismissed the anomalous features. She had witnessed similar and even greater anomalies in the past. In fact, the Five Scrolls Compact possessed the greatest degree of understanding towards their properties and behavior.

These natural and ancient scars in space were often reflections of past traumas. The alien empires that reigned over the Milky Way in prior eons did not live in peace with each other. They waged terrible wars that could easily put humanity's Age of Conquest to shame!

The galaxy was old. Sentient life already emerged an incredibly long time ago. Even if the sands of time had already eradicated many of the traces of these primordial aliens, that did not stop the Compact from uncovering the hidden ruins and extraordinary traces of these past civilizations.

"What a dark little hole." Daphania muttered in contempt as she figured out the lay of the land, as it were. "It is a disgrace for the Sacred Metal Scroll to pass through this sordid region. What are those traitors thinking?!"

No one responded to her outbursts. Temple Protector Kravitz and the other grey-robed officials remained still and kept their heads bent as the Wearer of the Golden Crown continued to interface with the grey control orb.

The hierarchy of the Five Scrolls Compact was very strict and vertical, to put it lightly. Daphania was literally the direct chosen of the Water Scroll.

This meant that no one outranked her aside from the Scrolls themselves! Even the chosen of the other Sacred Scroll could not overrule her despite her young age and lack of experience.

"What is the status of our flagship?"

"Our emergence in this region is seventeen times as rough as our last jump." Temple Protector Kravitz replied, even though Daphania could have retrieved that information herself from the orb. "Our men are reporting multiple systems failures and excessive stresses through the interior of Ghohocolabadis. We are still tallying our casualties, but our initial count suggests that over 3 million slaves and supplicants have failed to survive the transition. We have also lost tens of thousands of higher-ranking supplicants. The accidents that have taken place have also caused us to lose dozens of critical researchers, combat specialists, sages, with more to come as the overall situation becomes clearer."

This damage was quite severe! Though Daphania looked down on the abnormalities of the Nyxian Gap, it still caused Ghohocolabadis to suffer extensive injuries throughout its massive worm-like body!

Yet Daphania didn't even bat her eyes at the severity of the damage.

Ghohocolabadis was so big and long that it could fit the population of an entire planet into its internal volume. The loss of all of those people was but a small price to pay to reach the Nyxian Gap as quickly as possible.

She already tuned out the rest of Temple Protector Kravitz's report. As a Sacred Speaker who ruled over an uncountable amount of cultists, the scope of damage suffered by this turbulent space jump simply didn't register as important.

Daphania had greater concerns in mind.

"I have found the failure." She spoke after a minute. "I will retrieve him from the ditch he has fallen in myself. Please present me with five milliliters of phasewater."

"Right away, Your Holiness."

Temple Protector Kravitz carefully walked forward, his boots crushing the backs of the supplicants beneath his feet. He kept his body bent and continually maintained a servile posture as he got closer.

Once he was within arm's reach, he stopped as both of his feet crushed the skulls of the poor black-robed humans lying underneath. Squashed brain matter and broken skull fragments spilled across the top of the temple pyramid as the temple protector carefully retrieved a tiny vial from the pockets of his robe.

He did not dare to dirty the vial with his fingers. Instead, he utilized his powers to lift the object and slowly push it towards the Lady Drenched in Blood.

Daphania did not turn her glowing eyes towards the approaching vial. Instead, they remained focused on the orb as if it was conveying lots of data.

When the vial came close enough, the Blessed Speaker opened her mouth. The cap of the vial screwed open and droplets of shimmering, energetic liquids floated out of the container before gently entering her body..

She directly ingested phasewater, something which no one thought was possible!

Phasewater was so potent and toxic to the human body that dying instantly was already assured. It took an extraordinarily altered physique for a human to ingest phasewater without getting torn apart or poisoned to death!

None of those outcomes came to pass. Daphania slowly felt more invigorated as a strange energy flowed through her entire body.

Her white hair flowed more vigorously behind her back as if it had completely escaped the influence of gravity.

Her dense red robe shook and became more vibrant.

Her glowing eyes rippled at a frequency that was too fast for baseline humans to notice.

Daphania cleverly and skillfully harnessed the power that flowed through her body. She manipulated it into a special pattern that caused a small patch of space next to Ghohocolabadis to shimmer.

A shaky portal opened up. Even though the Nyxian Gap tried its best to squash this portal, the Golden Crown above the Holy Daughter's head shone brighter as it blessed her endeavor.

The portal that emerged besides the Compact flagship finally stabilized to the point where it was safe for passage.

Seconds later, a wretched body soared from the portal. As soon as it emerged, Daphania quickly halted her intensive act, causing the portal to fade out of existence.

"Retrieve the failure and bring him before my throne."

"As you command, Your Holiness!" Temple Protector Kravitz shouted and bumped his fist against his chest!

The man descended upon the steps made out of human bodies in order to bring his former colleague back in person.

It wasn't until Kravitz reached the bottom of the 999 steps that he dared to use his powers to blink out of the high temple section and reappear out into space.

His robed body did not experience any of the effects of naked exposure into space. His flesh remained pale and healthy and his body heat was still stable.

The temple protector over to a disgusting body that looks no different from a dehydrated corpse. Even though it made absolutely no sense for a human body that was exposed to space to look this way, it didn't matter.

Kravitz could clearly sense the life clinging to existence inside the hollowed body.

"You had one job, Aramid. You took several decades to travel from the Ruined Temple to this little hole at the edge of the galaxy, only to fall and stumble at the end."

Even though sound did not propagate in a vacuum, Kravitz communicated at a level beyond sound pressure.

A faint, tortuous fluctuation transmitted from the mangled body. Its once-magnificent robes that temple protectors wore to convey the full majesty of their power and status to outsiders had long eroded into a blackened mess.

"Your excuses will not avail you. If you wish to defend yourself, then plead your case in front of the new Holy Daughter of the Water Scroll yourself!"

Pure panic radiated from the mangled body all of a sudden! There were even signs that the consciousness locked within the boy wanted to commit suicide, but Temple Protector Kravitz expertly waved his hand, transmitting a powerful fluctuation that locked the body and its consciousness into near-stasis.

If the fallen figure was still in his prime, he could have resisted this invisible imprisonment with ease. It was too bad that he had expended nearly his entire strength to survive the ravages of the higher dimensions.

After a brief moment of concentration, Kravitz and his package blinked back into the interior of Ghohocolabadis. The gigantic space worm did not allow anyone to teleport inside its body at random, but Kravitz had transmitted the right signal for him to pass through.

He emerged right back at the bottom of the temple pyramid. After he quickly ascended above the steps, his faster pace causing his boots to squash nearly every person he stepped upon, he reached the top and quickly paused in front of Daphania and the grey orb.

Kravitz waved his hand, causing a few black-robed supplicants to fling from the surface and soar past the top of the pyramid before falling to their deaths below.

The man dropped the ruined body that he retrieved from space onto the floor.

Failures like him deserved to eat the dirt on the bone metal surface.

Daphania finally pulled her attention away from her control orb. She turned around and beheld the ugly body with a glare that could cut through battleship hulls.

The body locked in near-stasis shuddered, but no matter how much the confined consciousness wanted to die, Kravitz would never allow that to happen!

"Do you know your failure?" Daphania asked.

"..."

"Do you understand how much you failed my predecessor?"

"..."

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF HOW MUCH YOU DAMAGED THE COMPACT?!" She shouted, her sharp voice causing the entire high temple section to amplify her fury!

"..."

"What is that?" Daphania frowned. "Speak clearer, you failure."

"..."

She frowned deeper. Though she wanted to wipe off this stain from existence, she needed some answers first.

"Release him from his bondage. I can take over from here."

"As you wish, Your Holiness."

From the moment Kravitz released his control, a much more powerful but gentle hold pinned the barely-living individual's body and soul in place.

Daphania took a faint breath before breathing out. A misty plume escaped her mouth. Under her exquisite control, her saliva descended upon the ruined body and began to heal and rejuvenate the mummified body.

In a matter of seconds, the body seemed to inflate and return to glory, though only barely as Daphania did not bother to put too much effort into restoring the fallen Compact member.

"That should be enough for you to answer my question. Now tell me. What has happened. Why did you fall?"

"Mmm… Your.. Holiness… I…"

"No excuses! I want answers!"

The eyes of the half-revived body shook even harder. It was as if he was still under heavy pressure. He shakily lifted his restored arm and slowly pointed it towards Temple Protector Kravitz.

"I-I-I-It's… a… t-t-t-trap…"

This was the first time since her ascension to her supreme position that Daphania became stumped.

"What nonsense are you talking about, you failure? What is wrong with Kravitz?"

Though she thought that the delirious failure of a temple protector had lost all sense of his awareness, a part of her still felt a thread of uncertainty. She turned her sight away from the rescued body and stared into the eyes of her right-hand man.

The confident gaze and the bold smirk on the face of her most diligent and dependable lackey looked completely out of place for a cultist who was in the presence of a Sacred Speaker!

"Welcome to the Nyxian Gap." A female voice uttered from Kravitz's throat.

An instant later, the half-restored body detonated, unleashing an explosion that was so powerful and violent that the entire pyramid temple blasted into pieces and caused the entire high temple compartment to become awash with death!

Yet all of this devastation was just the start of what was about to come!

Ghohocolabadis violently shook and vibrated as it sensed extreme danger. It even attempted to fly away from this patch of space, yet the damage it incurred due to its hasty and ill-advised space jump prevented it from jumping away or accelerating ahead in a short amount of time.

Its organs, its systems and its crew had not yet fully recovered from all of the damage!

This proved to be a fatal consequence as hundreds of asteroids around its lengthy body began to shine in ominous black.

Buried within these asteroids were large, rough chunks of dense black material that would have made Ves drool with greed.

The energies locked within tons and tons of Unending alloy began to get excited all of a sudden!

Several events happened in rapid succession.

First, the distance between the realms abruptly narrowed. The huge vortex along with the ocean of locked and undying souls became visible to the naked eye as they flowed throughout the entire zone including the body of Ghohocolabadis!

Second, as these souls passed through the bulk of the living vessel, they inexplicably became extinguished. Yet the chains that locked them in eternal torment did not disappear.

Instead, they connected to the bodies, minds and souls of the people residing within this 30 kilometer space worm!

Screams echoed throughout every single section as millions of slaves, supplicants and even more powerful cultists lost control of themselves while simultaneously losing whatever strength they possessed!

"WUUUUHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Even the mighty Ghohocolabadis itself was not immune to the intangible chains that locked onto its body and consciousness!

Though its bulk was immense and its mind even more so, that just meant that a lot more chains began to sink into Ghohocolabadis in a very short amount of time. As the vortex kept spinning, more and more ancient lifeforms that had been imprisoned in the Nyxian Gap for eons surprisingly escaped their eternal turmoil as the trap transferred all of their shackles over to the Ghohocolabadis and its crew!

The worm thrashed in an attempt to escape the shackles, yet that only made things worse for everyone as hundreds of thousands of people died as the compartments they were in bent and flung their bodies against the bulkheads!

"TRAITOR!" An angry female voice roared!

As the smoke and devastation of the initial explosion faded, a glowing blue form floated in the middle of the area that was once the top of the temple pyramid.

Daphania looked completely spotless and unaffected. The shackles that managed to imprison the power and control of every grey-robed figure that survived the explosion did not manage to get past the blue corona that surrounded her body.

Her glowing eyes pinned the body of Temple Protector Kravitz.

"WHERE IS THE METAL SCROLL?!"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Kravitz smirked while replying in a female tone.

"IMPUDENCE!"

Daphania did not treat her adversary lightly. She instantly summoned a mind storm that devastated the area around her former minion. With the power of her golden crown, the mind storm was so damaging that not even the prodigious defenses of her temple protector could resist the violence.

Yet even as she eliminated the body, nothing emerged from it, much to her surprise.

The entire flagship shook again as something even more drastic took place!

"Ghohocolabadis is in pain! Its skin is being cut in multiple places! We have already suffered over a dozen major hull breaches!"

It turned out that just before Daphania took action, giant blades of energy had formed up into space. These blades were several kilometers long and covered the entire length of Ghohocolabadis.

After a wordless command, they chopped through the body of Ghohocolabadis!

The space worm elicited a gigantic scream that surpassed the boundaries of the material realm and echoed throughout the other realms! The vortex close to Ghohocolabadis rippled, yet this did not stop its continuous shackling along with the cutting of the gigantic energy blades!

Slowly but surely, the giant blades cut straight through the body of the worm and separated it's incredibly tough and prodigious body into multiple pieces!

This shouldn't have been the end of it. Every section of the worm possessed a tenacious amount of vitality and could easily serve as a smaller but fully-functional capital ship by themselves.

It was at this time that the perpetrator of this trap revealed her presence.

Kilometers of space shimmered as a gigantic, dark body of energy materialized next to the partitioned space worm.

Though the dark, elaborately-robed figure of the woman was still small compared to the immense bulk of the Ghohocolabadis, the strange fluctuations in space did not affect her strength in the slightest!

Instead, she seemed to embrace it as if it was her home. The gigantic woman spread her arms and allowed the vortex to flow through her materialized body. Her energy levels increased by the second because of it, but this was far from enough to the gigantic woman's tastes.

Fortunately, there was another source of energy close at hand.

"The weak shall become my nourishment!"

Ghohocolabadis screamed in agony as the gigantic woman approached before breathing in. Vast amounts of energy from the space worm's body as well as the people inside escaped and flowed right into her mouth and nose!

The flow of energy increased as the gigantic woman rapidly grew stronger as she immediately converted the intake into her strength!

The partitioned pieces of Ghohocolabadis grew weaker and more feeble as this process continued without stopping. After just three agonizing minutes, practically every slave or supplicant aboard the flagship of the Five Scrolls Compact had lost all of the energies that the voracious woman took for herself!

Even Ghohocolabadis, a mighty creation of cutting-edge bioengineering that implemented the latest innovations related to phasewater and next-generation FTL travel, was rendered helpless and unable to channel any of its prodigious might due to the trap that had acted upon its gigantic body!

With one mournfully deep scream, Ghohocolabadis died before it got famous!

Only one single entity aboard the dead and broken space worm remained alive.

Daphania looked both livid and hollow as she beheld the devastation around her. All of the dead worm flesh and husky bodies floating around her were clear signs of how negligent she had been!

She directed her acrimonious gaze towards the gigantic energy form that floated a few kilometers away. "You…you…"

"Silence, child."

Before Daphania could do anything, the gigantic woman blinked close and grabbed hold of the Holy Daughter's body!

Even though the blue corona surrounding the red-garbed woman prevented the energy hand from clamping Daphania's physical body, the limb was so large in proportion to a small human body that the Holy Daughter did not have an escape route!

"IMPUDENT!" She screamed as her golden laurel wreath crown shone and a blast of radiant energy emanated from her entire body!

This energy explosion was one of her most powerful attacks. Though it was extremely wasteful, not even the likes of Temple Protector Kravitz could survive it head-on! It could even blast a hole through Ghohocolabadis' incredibly resilient hull!

Yet even as the explosive energy pressed upon the surface of hand, the limb sucked in all of the dangerous and lethal energy without any sign of pressure.

The giant energy woman grew even stronger as a consequence!

Though Daphania utilized numerous secret techniques in the following minute, the hand that imprisoned her in place never broke.

The Holy Daughter quickly started to lose confidence. She had released enough power to destroy the Ruined Temple three times over yet the only result she accomplished was to strengthen her own prison!

The blue corona surrounding her sacred body started to dim as the pressure of the giant grip acting upon her most important protective barrier grew powerful enough to crush moons!

Even if Daphania was one of the most individually powerful existences in the entire galaxy, the mastermind who set a trap for her and her men was utterly crushing her to a degree that beggared her belief!

"How!? Why are you so strong, traitor?!"

The gigantic woman's grinned. "To be honest, you and your interesting space worm could have easily squashed me like a bug if you caught me anywhere else in space. I wouldn't have even stood a chance against your slavish Temple Protector in an even battle."

"You refused to answer for your sins! You had the temerity to set a trap! This is not how everything is supposed to happen! I am too strong!"

"Hahahahahahaha!" The dark woman laughed. "That is funny! Who told you that I have to fight fair? The worst mistake you ever made was to leave your decrepit little temple. You could have avoided the worst if you stayed away from the Nyxian Gap, but now that you have entered my territory, you have literally fallen into the palm of my hand! What a Holy Daughter you are! I just knew you would underestimate the perils of my new homeground!"

The giant woman had become the dark goddess of the Nyxian Gap! She not only assimilated much of the gathered power locked within this ancient region, but also mastered a portion of the secrets buried within the relics of the past!

As the glowing blue corona came close to failure, Daphania finally felt the threat of death for the first time since her ascension. No matter how much she borrowed the power of her golden crown, she failed to summon enough strength to break past her current predicament!

"Do you realize what an utter crime you are committing? Killing me will not be the end of it! Another Holy Son or Daughter shall emerge to hunt down!"

"Then so be it! I shall gladly accept whatever the Compact will throw at me. Everyone who enters the Nyxian Gap shall become my nourishment. My hunger is endless. I am already hungering to devour your soul!"

Daphania had never heard such blatant affronts to her life! Yet the situation she faced had deteriorated so quickly and suddenly that she failed her mentality.

"Why… why are you doing this traitor? Why are you calling death and damnation upon yourself? The Compact shall never forgive you. The Compact shall never rest until my death is avenged."

The giant woman glared at the Holy Daughter. "Do you want to know why I went to these extremes? Do you want to know why I have invested so much effort into laying this elaborate trap?"

Daphania's eyes shook as she felt that her blue corona was on the verge of failure."

"It's because I want to save my son."

"IT'S BECAUSE I WANT TO SAVE MY SON!"

"IT'S BECAUSE I WANT TO SAVE MY SON!"

The entire space around the giant shook as her violent emotions resonated with the supreme amount of power she absorbed!

Daphania let out a wordless cry as the giant woman's voice broke through her protective barrier and rippled through her unprotected body!

Instantly, the giant crushed her flesh from every direction! Flesh that was as tough as the armor of a first-class multipurpose mech squeezed into bloody matter and bones that were as resilient as the hull of a CFA battleship cracked!

Yet even as the Holy Daughter's body got crushed, Daphania had not yet died!

Freed from the constraints of her corporeal body, her incorporeal existence tried to squeeze out of the giant hand and escape the confines of the trap as much as possible.

Yet for some reason, she failed to slip away! No matter where she tried to escape, the gigantic hand did not present any holes that she could squirm past!

"No!"

"Hahahahaha!" Cynthia Larkinson directed a cruel smile at her prisoner. "I know your methods. I know what you are capable of. Did you really think I would have made insufficient precautions? I already told you, Holy Daughter. From the moment you entered my territory, you forfeited any chance of freeing yourself! Now perish!"

Cynthia squeezed once again, causing the incorporeal prisoner to scream until she shattered entirely!

Before any of the broken pieces could slip away, she rapidly absorbed all of the pieces and broke it down as quickly as possible, not even caring to preserve any knowledge or memories. Only by shredding each and every aspect that belonged to Daphania would the dark goddess be able to ensure that the Sacred Speaker was utterly dead and gone!

Once she had completed a deed that would assuredly ripple throughout human space and upend human civilization in ways that she did not care to contemplate, she slowly opened her giant hand to reveal a golden laurel wreath crown that thrummed with power.

Though the crown rapidly tried to escape, Cynthia already enacted a solution. A thread of power pierced through the center of the crown and caused the solidified blood to still.

Its connection to the Water Scroll and its defiant consciousness seemed to have faltered all of a sudden, though there were signs that it could easily regain its rebellious nature!

Though holding onto this crown was incredibly dangerous and would almost certainly invite furious reprisal from the Five Scrolls Compact, Cynthia could not afford to let go of this priceless treasure.

For the sake of diverting the attention of the cult she used to be apart of, she had to attract as much of the Compact's animosity as possible.

Only by attracting her former compatriots into the quagmire of the Nyxian Gap would she be able to give her precious son the opportunity to live his life free from persecution.

"I just want to save my son."

"I just want to save my son."

"I just want to save my son."