The Mech Touch

Chapter 6541 The Specter of the Heavensword

Ketis rebuffed the Heavensword!

Such an act was unthinkable to the people who were born and raised in the

Heavensword Association!

Despite the fact that Legion Commander Charles Antunovic and President Fred Walinski had cut ties with their home state and served the Larkinson Clan with unswerving dedication for the last decade, the two men still couldn't believe that Ketis would actually choose to reject the Heavensword.

This went against everything they believed in back when they lived in the Heavensword Association!

They still couldn't understand why Ketis could bring herself to reject the temptation of promoting to a sword saint right away after accepting a baptism of power from the Heavensword.

No swordmaster from the Heavensword Association had ever refused the offer to accept a small part of the inheritance of this mysterious and unfathomably sacred weapon.

It was not just because they felt it was their duty to shoulder the burden of leading their righteous state, even if it came at the cost of forsaking their own swordsmanship and any blades they utilized in the past.

It was because no swordmaster in the history of the Heavensword Association had succeeded in promoting to a sword saint through his own merits.

The hope of the entire traditional swordsmanship community was that as long as the Heavensword Saints explored their own powers and documented their own conditions, they would leave enough clues behind to give swordmasters the inspiration they needed to promote through their own merits.

This was the noble mission that every swordmaster accepted when they selflessly sacrificed the swordsmanship that defined their identities and took up the mantle of Heavensword Saint.

One day, the Heavensworders hoped that they would gain enough information to reconstruct a path towards becoming a sword saint by themselves.

This would allow many swordmasters who had previously remained stuck at their current ranks to unlock their potential and take another step towards attaining godhood by virtue of their transcendent swordsmanship!

However...

What did that have to do with Ketis?

"You idiots. She hissed as she looked back at the gaping expressions of Charles and Fred.

As far as she was concerned, the pair of Heavensworders had completely disgraced

themselves by throwing logic out of the airlock!

"Don't you realize that the mission of a Heavensword Saint is over ever since this relic weapon chose to leave the Heavensword Association? Swordmasters are much stronger in the Red Ocean due to exposure to exotic radiation. Our growth conditions are much better than back in the Milky Way. Even if we don't make any revolutionary advancements in our swordsmanship, we will still be able to reach the threshold to sword saint if we rely on those magical new elixirs or simply growth over time!"

One of the theories that Ketis came up with to explain why proper sword saints never arose in the past was because of the lack of E energy to fuel the quantitative growth of swordmasters.

Ketis did not exactly know why expert pilots were able to grow their resonance strength to the limit of their ranks while swordmasters fell short in this aspect, but she was convinced her theory was right!

Now that red humanity had entered the Age of Dawn, Ketis completely rejected the notion that a Heavensword Saint was necessary to devise a complete promotion path for swordmasters.

She already intended to complete this mission and responsibility by relying on her own efforts!

Judging by the dazed expression of the two Heavensworders who were much older than herself, Ketis grew even more disappointed by how any subject related to the 'sacred weapon' instantly deprived them of any inkling of critical thinking.

The Heavensword was literally their god.

This explained why they dared to entertain the thought of questioning or defying its actions.

To them, their god was infallible!

Perhaps Ketis should feel grateful that the two Heavensworders at least retained enough sanctity to refrain from turning their swords against her. She could not expect anything more from these useless idiots.

When the angry swordmaster turned her attention back to what was taking place outside, she felt a little more relieved that Saint Linda Cross had intervened and placed her ace offensive space knight in front of the Heavensword.

The junior ace pilot even spread her Saint Kingdom and firmly established her dominion in the surrounding space.

The relic weapon did not seem to notice at all. No matter how hard Linda attempted to suppress the Heavensword, her willpower became as fragile as glass as it crashed against the 'tiny' weapon!

Saint Linda grimaced. Just as she and Ketis predicted, the recently revived grand work was far more powerful than it appeared on the surface!

There was an endless depth to the Heavensword that Linda could only vaguely sense through her Saint Kingdom.

It was as if the Heavensword encompassed an entirely independent kingdom of its own, and happened to be good at obscuring its borders!

Without the relic weapon's permission, Saint Linda had no means of taking a peek of what it held within.

"Back off." Linda conveyed to the Heavensword with the help of her Saint Kingdom. "Ketis does not want your power, and the many strings that come with it. Respect her choices. You have no right to impose your will onto an unwilling swordmaster."

As an ace pilot, Linda Cross possessed the courage to confront and berate a grand work. It helped a lot that the sword lacked a wielder. That massively reduced its intimidation factor and made it tolerable for the new saint to put up a brave face.

She absolutely wouldn't be as calm and composed if the Heavensword was wielded by a powerful swordsman or swordswoman!

As the Amphis Extremis clearly conveyed its intention to bar the Heavensword's way by placing its tower shield in its path, the ace space knight quietly activated its powerful SA-DIX Shield Generator and preemptively spun around the ball of its Wrecker Skull.

The ace space knight clearly meant business.

The First Sword and the Everchanger made their presence and intentions known as well. They formed a triangle formation with the Amphis Extremis and looked ready to assist when they saw an opportunity.

The First Sword unsheathed her long and deadly Decapitator.

The Everchanger held both his Vitalus luminar crystal rifle and Heartsword at the ready.

That was not all. The Minerva, alas still awaiting an upgrade, had begun to advance while leading a troop of 39 Battle Crier mechs armed with exclusive Godkiller heavy luminar

crystal rifles.

While the Saint Commander could have chosen to bring hundreds if not thousands of mechs along to support Swordmaster Ketis, Casella Ingvar did not believe that relying on quantity could make a meaningful difference in a confrontation against a weapon as mysteriously powerful as the Heavensword.

It was much more likely that the mechs would get in the way, or worse, provoke an overreaction from the sentient relic weapon!

While Saint Commander Casella and her carefully chosen subordinates were making their way over, the tension between the Heavensword and those arrayed against it continued to grow.

After a minute or so had passed, the relic weapon looked as if it had made up its mind.

It did not accept Ketis' rejection.

Seeing that its chosen wielder had enlisted the aid of numerous powerful protectors, the Heavensword clearly understood that it needed to resort to violence in order to remove

the opposition.

The Heavensword began to back off a bit before it started to eject a lot of energies.

The ancient and powerful relic weapon began to expose the tip of its vast power by releasing a lot of heavenly energy!

The space around the Heavensword immediately became a lot more sacred, pure and all-encompassing!

The amount of high-quality energy released by the Heavensword was so much that it outright managed to push back the oppressive domain field generated by the Amphis

Extremis!

"This energy!" Saint Linda Cross gasped as her ace mech increased the distance between itself and the busy sword. "I have never felt anything like it. I have a bad feeling about what it is about to do. Get ready"

The ace mech and pair of expert mechs continued to surround the Heavensword as it

continued to eject more and more heavenly energy from its hidden but undoubtedly

huge energy reservoir.

Slowly, the released energies began to gain definition. They no longer spread without direction, but gradually began to take on a more defined and familiar shape.

"Wait... doesn't that look... like a human?"

"A human wearing one of those ancient cultivator robes." The heavenly energies continued to spread and condense into a gigantic robed human figure that already began to exude an incredible sense of elegance and refinement despite the lack of fine details!

What stood out the most other than the vaguely handsome appearance of this energy projection was that it had reached a scale that was identical to that of the Amphis

Extremis!

Somehow, neither Ketis nor the others thought that was a coincidence.

Joshua threw out a guess.

"Hey... if you imagine the original owner of the Heavensword... do you think this

mysterious and disgustingly handsome guy fits the bill?"

Ketis somehow felt that her husband was correct.

The Heavensword... had likely chosen to create a large-scale energy projection of its original wielder, or at least one of them if it had multiple!

The man did not appear to be older than Ketis, but she knew that looks were incredibly

deceiving when it came to cultivators who could easily extend their lifespans by

centuries or millennia.

The aura and demeanor exuded by the projected sword wielder could only come with

the accumulation of age.

Ketis and the others even had the sense that the aura of the former owner of the Heavensword should have been a lot deeper and more profound, but because the Heavensword was unable or unwilling to replicate the man more faithfully, there was a limit to how much energy and processing power the relic weapon put into this effort. "Uhh... the energy projection is too large for his sword. Joshua state the bvious.

He was correct.... for only a few seconds.

Once the projected sword wielder had reached a stable condition, the Heavensword

magically grew in size until it was large enough to perfectly fit into its own energy projection's palm!

A huge amount of E energy radiation from the surroundings began to flow in the

direction of the enlarged sword, so much so that it had broken past the blockade erected by Saint Linda's domain field!

It was as if a slice of heaven had just descended upon reality.

The energy projection no longer looked like an ancient human swordsman anymore.

He began to exude the faint sense of a god of the sword.

With the Heavensword in hand, it looked as if the specter of an ancient god had come

back to life just to challenge the insolent ace mech and expert mechs that barred its

way!

"I should have guessed that might happen. Ves owns a weird flute that can do the resize trick as well. It figures that a grand work can also do the same."

The threat posed by the Heavensword had just become a lot greater than before!

The energy projection of the ancient swordsman was not a static construct.

As soon as the sword fell into its hands, it seemingly came to life. Non-existent wind blew at the long folds of 'his' white and blue robes and his silky locks

of shoulder-length hair.

The energy projection did not limit his actions to pretending to be a historic fashion

model.

'He' lifted his arm and pointed the tip of the enlarged Heavensword at the Amphis

Extremis in a universal challenge gesture!

The body language of the projected swordsman clearly became more aggressive as well.

The swirl of heavenly energies and E energy radiation surrounding his giant glowing form also grew distinctly more threatening.

It was as if the ancient swordsman was building up a storm centered around his form!

His presence grew more and more domineering.

All of this culminated in a single soundless declaration.

The weak have no right to resist.

Somehow, the Heavensword, or its bizarre swordsman energy projection, was able to

convey a meaning that transcended human language directly into the minds of the

surrounding individuals!

Before everyone could figure out the meaning behind the Heavensword's statement, the

ancient swordsman began to channel a lot of energies before charging straight at the Amphis Extremis!