The Mech Touch

The struggle for control took a drastic turn when Joshua finally discovered and embraced his own power.

Ketis was right all along. Versatility was his greatest strength.

Joshua did not excel in any specific skill or E energy attribute. His conviction and reasons to fight were not as strong or defined as that of his peers.

That did not necessarily mean he was weak.

What he lacked in specialization, he made up for it with versatility.

His exposure to many different design spirits who all specialized in their own E energy attributes and power expressions had allowed Joshua to build up a huge repertoire of techniques and abilities!

Even if he was not able to reproduce them particularly well, it didn't matter so long as he used his strengths to counter the enemy's weaknesses!

It turned out that he did not need to pilot his Everchanger in order to leverage his own versatility.

Just his companion spirit was enough to exploit his amazing versatility in a fight between two very different souls!

Having Willy produce a light energy manifestation of the Everchanger hit multiple birds with a single stone.

First, it gave Joshua access to the power of the element that served as a direct counter to the element employed by the Bitter Swordsman!

Although Joshua was at a disadvantage because his understanding of light was not that good and couldn't gather nearly as much energy as his adversary, he could easily use it to fortify his existing strengths!

By blending life energy, light energy and his own willpower in a single combination, his facsimile Everchanger became highly resistant against the attacks launched by the Bitter Swordsman.

His lightcast Everchanger was filled with so much positive energies that Joshua felt as if he had become a beacon in the dark.

The light burned at the darkness around him and fortified his confidence.

With the small amount of true resonance that he was able to generate with his lightcast Everchanger, Joshua found that he could replicate some of the abilities and techniques he used when he piloted his actual expert mech.

"Take this!" He shouted as he infused the lightcast Vitalus rifle with greater light and life energy.

The energy beam that spat from its muzzle precisely struck the Bitter Swordsman, causing the hostile and angry artifact spirit to cry out in pain.

What distressed the Bitter Swordsman more was that the pain did not disappear.

The energy beam left behind a persistent stain of light on himself that continued to burn and inflict damage!

Although the light stain was rather small and the persistent damage was not too great, the resonance empowerment bestowed by Joshua caused this weak effect to be far more difficult to remove than normal!

Joshua grinned. The Sticky Energy Mode was one of the many small tricks he developed after working together with the Illustrious One.

The genuine sticky energy beams inflicted considerably greater persistent damage as the Illustrious One was the primary source of light energy. Joshua merely provided the true resonance and light energy that enabled an attack to persist and stay alive for a time.

Trying to satisfy all of the conditions by himself was difficult and not as effective, but at least it worked.

Joshua fought like he was piloting a mech. The Everchanger constantly spat out sticky energy beams after sticky energy beams.

The resonance-empowered attacks did not damage the Bitter Swordsman as much as he hoped, but the lightcast Everchanger was easily able to keep up the effort.

Each strike not only hurt the demonic spirit, but also caused him to become covered by another patch of persistent light energy.

Splotches of light began to cover the Bitter Swordsman, causing him to look as if he was diseased!

The spreading pain irritated the artifact spirit and broke his momentum. He was forced to slow down his attacks and direct his attention to getting rid of the sticky light that proved to be awfully persistent due to Joshua's willpower!

The fight between the two had entered a new stage. As Joshua continued to 'pilot' his lightcast Everchanger, he quickly became accustomed to fighting in this way.

He moved faster and was able to evade the attacks launched by the Bitter Swordsman more easily.

When the enemy managed to outmaneuver the lightcast Everchanger and threatened to slash the manifestation with a blade that was steeped in darkness and resentment, a lightcast version of the Heartsword occasionally blocked or parried the attack.

It quickly became clear that the lightcast Everchanger fared better when it was able to maintain distance and pelt its adversary from afar.

The Vitalus luminar crystal rifle was not a particularly advanced or powerful firearm, but that happened to be an advantage in this situation.

Joshua and Willy did not fully understand how the Everchanger worked on a technical basis.

The lightcast version created by Willy was not really a genuine replication of the expert hero mech. It was more like a superficial three-dimensional drawing. The only reason why it worked at all was because Joshua breathed life into it and also used his willpower to distort its reality.

One of the realizations that Joshua made over the course of this fight was that as long as he used enough willpower, he could turn false into true!

His strong desire to pilot the genuine Everchanger enabled him to increase the authenticity of the lightcast Everchanger.

The latter was still far from the real deal, but Joshua was already able to work with what he already managed to obtain!

The simpler the subject, the easier it was for him to make it real. Joshua was highly familiar with both the Heartsword and the Vitalus. He wielded them for many years and understood their properties. He also held strong sentiments towards them, so it was a lot easier for Willy to simulate their actual forms.

Their simplicity helped a lot as Joshua found he needed to expend less willpower to fill in the gaps and turn them into weapons that were real enough to put the Bitter Swordsman on the backfoot.

Joshua continued to gain all sorts of realizations as he fought for control over his body.

He felt truly alive at this time. Death still loomed over his head, but as long as he was able to fight like a mech pilot, he knew he was putting up his best possible fight.

The Bitter Swordsman did not stay down for long, though. The angrier he became, the more reckless he fought!

He sped up and struck harder. He forcefully burned away the persistent light spots by flooding them with darkness energy.

No matter what, the Bitter Swordsman did not allow the lightcast Everchanger to maintain its distance!

The artifact spirit no longer held back. The amount of darkness energy expended by him rose dramatically!

The Bitter Scimitar in his hands began to burn darkness energy, causing it to become infused with so much power that it started to inflict real damage on the lightcast Everchanger!

Joshua came under greater pressure. The Bitter Swordsman was far better at wielding his blade, and he possessed so much ferocity and aggression that it was easy for him to maintain the initiative.

Meanwhile, Joshua was put on the defensive as his lightcast Everchanger was receiving constant damage.

Though he was able to repair the damage easily enough, his willpower wore out faster.

Both sides were draining themselves quickly!

If this went on, the fight would turn into an endurance race. Would Joshua exhaust his willpower first, or would the Bitter Swordsman run out of energy sooner?

Joshua did not have enough confidence in his ability to win this race. He was still an expert pilot and had not yet properly developed his ability to attract and manipulate energy.

The Bitter Swordsman was comparable to a qi cultivator of the second major cultivation rank.

Though he was still in a fairly weak state, the fact that he possessed a domain of his own allowed him to leverage a lot more negative energies from the environment!

This meant that it would take a long time to exhaust the artifact spirit.

Joshua did not want to bet the outcome of this struggle on outlasting his opponent. It was way too passive of an approach.

"I can do more!"

He started to get creative. In the past, he only utilized the power of light to enhance his ranged attacks. It was a natural complement to his Vitalus luminar crystal rifle.

What if he began to use it to augment the performance of his Heartsword instead?

His melee weapon was already predominantly comprised of light energy, but Joshua began to channel even more of it in order to make it stronger!
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The heartsword became firmer and glowed brighter. It was better able to block the enemy's darkness-infused scimitar strikes.

The lightcast Everchanger was even able to hit back with the Heartsword a few times. Each time Joshua saw an opening, he took it and struck the Bitter Swordsman with a light-based attack that inflicted considerable pain!

Even so, Joshua realized that this was not enough.

His lightcast Everchanger was faring well, but all of that would end once he exhausted his willpower.

Meanwhile, his adversary was consuming a prodigious amount of negative energies in order to keep up his elevated performance.

Though the Bitter Swordsman was expending a huge amount of darkness energy, he could easily afford to do so as he was drawing most of it from E energy radiation as opposed to his own reserves!

"Willy!"

"Mraaw! Mraaw!"

The green cat attempted to do something he had never attempted to do before. He no longer stuck to channeling the light energy, but also began to draw upon other energies!

It was rather difficult for the cat to multitask, but he was still able to do so at the cost of weakening his control over light energy.

The companion spirit had taken on a heavy burden as he tried to maintain the form of the lightcast Everchanger as best as possible while also augmenting it with other energies!

Joshua began to get pushed back due to the weakening of his false mech. Despite the setback, he persisted with his new approach. He believed in his ability to leverage multiple E energy attributes at once!

"Solid Reinforcement!"

Joshua used the small amount of space energy generated by Willy to reinforce the resonance-empowered defenses of his lightcast Everchanger.

The new synergistic effect had already begun to make a difference!

The attacks inflicted by the Bitter Swordsman got reduced even further as the lightcast Everchanger was much more able to withstand the incoming scimitar strikes!

"Peace Field!"

The lightcast Everchanger began to generate an energy field that slightly negated the Bitter Swordman's darkness and lightly calmed his aggression.

The negation field was not that strong, but it was not too weak either. Joshua quickly figured out that he could blend the negation field with both light energy and life energy to make it a lot more effective and difficult to resist!

The combination was clumsy and sloppy, but it didn't matter so long as it worked!

The Bitter Swordsman indeed became hindered by the augmented negation field. He was not able to draw upon darkness energy as easily as before, and his scimitar strikes grew feebler as he was not able to channel as much ferocity in his attacks as before.

Joshua realized more and more that versatility was a power in itself. As long as he gained enough of an understanding in an E energy attribute, he and Willy could leverage it alongside other energies to produce brand-new synergies!

Seeing that he was able to shore up his defenses while also debilitating his opponent, Joshua sought a solution that could enhance his attack power.

His mind was already under heavy strain. He and Willy could not handle the burden of juggling too many E energy attributes at once. He could only add one more element to his mix.

His eyes suddenly lit up as he came up with the perfect choice for this occasion!

"Death!"