The Mech Touch novel Chapter 823

Qilanxo. The second-oldest and most powerful sacred god of the Eastern Samar Pantheon. The mate to Pairixan and a mother of more than a thousand godlings. This was an entity who lived through more than ten of Ves’ lifetimes.

She had seen sacred gods and blessed people rise and fall. She experienced the turmoil after the Great Father Pairaxis perished abruptly without designating an heir for his two most promising sons.

She survived the giant explosion that felled Pairixan, her mate, and Piezonis, her strongest son and a sacred god who was a bit more than a hundred years old. This only highlighted her formidable defensive powers. She handedly outperformed an entire mech company of heavy knight mechs in terms of enduring destructive shelling!

Now, Qilanxo fell into the laps of the Flagrant Swordmaidens. The Western Samar Pantheon that still reigned over the ancient city of Samar seemed more interested in taking over the eastern side of the city than taking revenge for Pairixan’s folly.

Ves bet that she knew that she had been turned into abandoned goods. Depending on the mentality of the god species, this old beast with many more years to go in her life wouldn’t be resigned to die so easily.

For what cause would her death matter to her? For a dumb brute of a mate who picked a fight against an opponent with horrible offensive powers? For a sacred god who never outgrew to be his own god?

While Qilanxo hadn’t really communicated all that much with her captors, the psychologists and exobiologists composed a detailed report of her personality. Ves patiently read through all the documents concerning her willingness to cooperate. He also browsed the documents related to the body structure of the sacred gods.

Compared to the wild gods, the growth of the sacred gods diverged despite essentially belonging to the same species. The main changes revolved around the miraculous god crystals, whom the scientists still puzzled over their use despite collecting a bunch of them from the carcasses of the dead sacred gods.

Very likely, the only way the engineers could figure out how to activate the god crystals and use them as replacement power generators was to gain Qilanxo’s cooperation. Through some unknown procedure, nineteen god crystals rested against her hide, half of them buried into her flesh while the other half remained exposed to the air.

These god crystals allowed Qilanxo to call down an energy tornado and fill up her energy reservoirs to fuel her defensive powers. Maintaining her space barrier drained a large amount of energy, so much so that they could easily fuel the operation of the entire ground expedition for a day, if not more!

That didn’t sound so impressive, but in fact this represented an incredible amount of energy. More than that, the sacred god made use of the energy with unparalleled efficiency, wasting relatively low amounts of waste heat for all the energy she expended.

To Ves, everything about Qilanxo seemed to be a well-engineered sacred god. Even among ace mechs piloted by seasoned ace pilots who possessed comparable powers, Qilanxo ranked on the upper end of the scale.

The major problem right now that Qilanxo appeared to grieve for her fallen beast rider, her chosen. All the Vandals knew was that her human companion was a woman from their footage of the battle. They hadn’t been able to figure out anything else as Qilanxo obviously couldn’t talk.

The spy drones hovering in the outskirts of Samar also didn’t really find out anything pertinent. The mortal citizens all kept a healthy distance from the sacred gods. Besides, with Pailanon in charge, no one dared to speak about worshipping the old gods anymore.

The lack of information concerning her former beast rider inconvenienced Ves in his new assignment. He’d been put in charge of the project meant to pair Qilanxo up with a new beast rider.

He had no clue where to start.

Fortunately, the Vandals assigned some random exobiologists and other experts to his project, though they appeared they would rather join the other, more interesting projects that studied the physiology of these god species. These chums got the short end of the stick.

Ves called the small group of experts together in a free room attached to the giant holding facility built around Qilanxo’s imprisoned form. Many temporary labs had been set up as well to help Qilanxo recover and to study her living physique.

Compared to those large work teams, the project team led by Ves didn’t amount to much, even though their work played a critical role in enhancing the strength of the Flagrant Swordmaidens.

"Alright, fellows, you all know why we are here." He began after a brief round of introductions. None of the experts impressed Ves that much. "Qilanxo is our first captive sacred god, and it’s a waste to keep her as our prisoner when she can be so much more. The same defensive prowess that she used to shield her fellow sacred gods from the combined firepower of all of our mechs and cannons can be employed to protect our own assets in future battles. Having her on our side is almost the same thing as having an ace mech on our side!"

Equating Qilanxo to an ace mech immediately affected the experts around the table. Some of their eyes grew hot when they realized the magnitude of such an outcome.

With an entity comparable to an ace mech by their side, the ground forces would become a lot more assured of victory!

Still, getting there wouldn’t be easy.

"At this moment, Qilanxo has not been willing to divulge too much information." Someone involved with communication reported. "While we’ve confirmed that Qilanxo is able to speak and understand the standard language, she isn’t in the mood to communicate. As for the reason, you all know that already."

"Would it be callous of us if we push a new beast rider onto her? Maybe we need to give her more time to grieve."

"You’re treating Qilanxo like a traumatized human. She’s much older than us, and by all accounts her last beast rider isn’t the first one she paired up with. I think the sacred god is a lot more resilient than you think."

Ves agreed with this sentiment. "Regardless how Qilanxo feels about taking on a new beast rider, we don’t have the time to allow her to process her loss. She needs to get over with it and accept a new beast rider from us regardless of how much it affects her mood."

He couldn’t take forever with this project. They needed someone close to Qilanxo so that the Flagrant Swordmaidens became more assured that she wouldn’t act out against them. A sacred god without a beast rider would forever be a loose cannon who could turn against them at any moment.