The Unshakeable King painted the illusion of weakness at this time.
His attempts to defend his faltering spatial barrier was considerably more feeble than before.
Ves was not fooled. He urged the Dark Apostle to prioritize caution over recklessness, and this time the alternate personally obeyed without restraint.
It appeared more and more clear that the Unshakeable King had pushed his weapons and armor beyond their safety levels.
His raiment still performed fine more or less, but his Impact Hammers had taken an awful toll in a short amount of time.
The Dark Apostle knew that so long as his adversary's main weapons remained partially disabled, the Unshakeable King was unlikely to overcome the spatial suppression and teleport himself or others in close proximity to their designated targets.
The question was whether those Impact Hammers were truly stuck in a disabled state.
Not even Ves was able to make this determination.
"Bring me closer." He instructed. "I need to get a good look at them. Maybe I will pay them a visit. I won't be able to boost you as much as before, so you are on your own for the next few minutes."
"I do not need you to hold my own against the Unshakeable King." The Dark Apostle arrogantly said. "My earlier performance was just a warmup. Now that I have become used to fighting with these D-arms, I am sure I can inflict wounds on this guy."
He did not intend to make idle boasts. Just after he said that, he boldly began to fight against the Unshakeable King!
This time, the Dark Apostle properly took advantage of his better mobility and the reach of his weapon.
He did not take any excessive risks and made sure to strike with his plasma spear lunged as far forward as possible.
This put his armored form out of the reach of the Impact Hammer most of the time. While the Unshakeable King made various attempts to shift forward without warning, the Dark Apostle's caution and strategy foiled these attacks. The Unshakeable King's stressed spatial barrier only recovered by a small extent. Now, the Teragon Plasma Spear invalidated that recovery and inflicted even further damage onto it, causing it to move closer to total collapse.
The Dark Apostle grew more and more eager to see this happen. He couldn't help but fight a little more aggressively in order to hasten this favorable
outcome.
That did not mean he was unaware that this may be an elaborate trap. He practically expected it to be given the depth previously shown by the Unshakeable King.
During these exchanges, Blinky remained absent on the surface.
The Star Cat had secretly slipped inside one of the Impact Hammers.
This was very much possible since it was a pure technological product that did not possess any inherent protection against his intrusion.
It was not a weapon held by a high-ranking mech with willpower that was
strong enough to rebuke an intruding spirit.
It was not an artifact that possessed varying degrees of resistance against an unwelcome visitor.
It also was not a D-arm that was inhabited by a hostile demon.
The lack of protection gave Ves the confidence that Blinky could safely take a peek inside the weapon.
Trying to understand the Impact Hammer from the inside was a challenging exercise. Ves did not gain access to a clean and organized blueprint. He instead felt as if he was a blind person trying to work out how a device worked by touching its parts with his fingertips.
While Blinky was a lot more sophisticated than a physical limb, there was only so much he could do to help Ves piece together the blueprint.
It took a lot more time than he expected for him to understand the mechanisms that powered the concussive force effect.
It was indeed a clever piece of high technology. Ves had figured out the basic principles and could even replicate it to a lesser degree with the help of his stolen insights.
What he could determine was that the tech was not as robust as it appeared on the outside. The hammer as well as its internals had to resist enough shocks with every violent impact.
After all, Newton's Third Law still applied in this situation!
The designers did make use of a variety of exotics to mitigate the opposing reaction and dampen the shocks coursing through the Impact Hammers. They only worked up to an extent as there was not enough room for more dampening effects.
What Ves also noticed was that many parts possessed self-repair functionality. The developers of the Impact Hammer had made a good effort to prolong its lifespan and preserve its most powerful feature. The incorporation of self-healing exotics slowly restored the advanced electronics that were prone to breaking. Although their rate of recovery was slow, enough time had passed for the hammers to return to their full strength.
Ves could not let that happen!
He decided to take action himself. Just as Blinky was about to approach one of the more critical parts and got ready to ruin it by performing a small spell, another spiritual being suddenly entered the Impact Hammer, causing it to become a lot more crowded all of a sudden!
A shrunken, unarmored and translucent version of the Unshakeable King flew
in front of the intruding spiritual cat.
"You do not belong here, you human slave!"
"Mrow. Figures I would get screwed by my own invention."
Ves remembered that every Ascended Giant received their own companion spirit fruit. The human phase lords possessed powerful bodies, but their minds and spiritualities may still be vulnerable to targeted attacks, so they were advised to nurture companion spirits that could fend off such assaults. "For your attempts to desecrate my weapon, I sentence you to death!"
The miniature giant, which sounded ridiculous to say the least, uttered a warcry before charging straight at Blinky with fists rearing to punch!
The hostile companion spirit was practically shaped for battle against other spiritual beings. He closed the distance quickly and began to wail onto Blinky's manifestation with blows that were infused with the concepts of force, oscillation and space!
In other words, the giant attempted to leverage the same concepts mastered by the Oscillating Fist by deliberately shaping his qi cultivation around them. Though the companion spirit was too young, his superficial understanding of those concepts was still enough to empower him in battle!
Blinky on the other hand was more of a generalist and a supporter. Though he was still able to block the incoming attacks by conjuring a spiritual shield that was constantly being sustained by the energies pouring out of the Blinkyverse, the miniature giant proved to be surprisingly good at punching! Ves was momentarily stunned as he did not expect to be confronted by a
hostile spirit.
Yet just because he was caught off-guard did not mean he was defenseless!
The spiritual shield held. Although it was just a simple ability that shouldn't have lasted as long as it should, the difference was that it was constantly being fed by the energies of the Blinkyverse.
While the miniature giant was inflicting greater damage than what Blinky was able to recover, the latter's effort was still helpful because it dramatically delayed how long it would take for the spiritual shield to get broken. Blinky had no intention of sitting back and doing nothing. The Star Cat's purple
form began to darken slightly as he opened up his mouth and tried to suck in the miniature giant, or at least the ambient E energy radiation.
The cat had to reduce the amount of E energy being fed to the spiritual shield in order to free up enough 'bandwidth' to devour ambient E energy, but the hostile companion spirit found himself in dire straits.