Far away from the underground facility where a certain voribug queen was about to break out and unleash a rapidly replicating tide of voribugs, the Dark Zephyr Mark III flew out of an underground entrance and flew in the direction of the open fields of grass that surrounded Diandi Base.
An exceptionally powerful resonance shield already surrounded the high-tier expert mech!
Despite his exhaustion and his poor physical condition, Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson had reached such an emotional high that he refused to exit the cockpit!
The new and improved Dark Zephyr was everything he hoped for and more!
Although the living mech superficially retained the appearance of the Mark III, the obvious transition to archetech had made his mech frame a bit more exotic and transcendent.
A powerful E energy vortex surrounded the expert light skirmisher. The Dark Zephyr drew in freedom-attributed E energy, which was largely related to the wind element.
It was for this reason that the wind surrounding the floating machine started to whip up. With each motion, the surrounding wind of New Constantinople VIII seemed to give the machine a small boat.
The Dark Zephyr Mark III also attracted a notably greater amount of shadow energy than before. The Dark Wind Module especially attracted this E energy attribute. If not for the fact that the sun happened to dip into the late afternoon on this side of the globe, the brand-new masterwork mech would have been able to immerse himself in shadow and darkness!
Venerable Tusa had no patience to wait until darkness descended over the planet. He wanted to test his expert mech's new capabilities and more importantly verify that he had grown strong enough to earn the right to pilot the Dark Zephyr Mark III.
"VES! Where are you?! Are you coming to fight me or not?! Don't be scared! I know you can take a hit!"
Any mech pilot who dared to challenge a mech designer to a duel would be regarded as crazy at best, and an outright murderer at worst!
How could a mech designer possibly defend himself against a high-tier expert mech?
It was absolutely impossible for a single mech designer to do so even if he locked himself in the middle of a well-equipped fortification that was filled with automated defenses.
Without an army of mechs or a few expert mechs on retainer, the mech designer had no way of repelling an opposing high-tier expert mech by himself.
Yet as the much smaller body of Ves Larkinson flew out of the same underground entrance, it became clear that one of the mech designers responsible for designing and upgrading the Dark Zephyr accepted the challenge!
This was completely unimaginable in any other context, but somehow the old rules did not apply to an oddball such as Ves.
This became clear when he did not appear in the open wearing his previous lab coat and toolbelt.
He had changed to an improved and thickened version of the nanosuit he wore in past engagements.
He also held a flute in his hands. The Oceancaller's glowing runes were already visible, signifying that the high-level artifact was ready to support Ves in battle.
A part of Ves was happy that his cousin had managed to overcome the phasewater test and become so high-spirited after reuniting with his expert mech.
Another part of Ves did not look forward to rolling in mud and getting beat up by his own creation of all possibilities.
It was extremely undignified for a tier 3 galactic citizen to be dragged into a giant-sized scrap.
Yet… Ves grew excited at the thought of testing his mettle against the Dark Zephyr Mark III.
He was curious to learn how much he could resist a mech as powerful as his most recent creation in his current state.
Even though he was just a lesser phase lord, his true body was already a lot larger than before!
Combined with all of the new tricks he learned during the last lightning tribulation, Ves wondered how extensively he could put up a fight well outside of the reach of a Spark Reactor.
"Get to it already, Ves! Come and show off your full body so that I can beat you down to size!"
Ves shook his head, but obliged nonetheless.
His body slowly began to magnify in size. The dimensions that folded his true body and shunted away much of his mass gradually began to smooth out again.
It took less than half a minute for his true body to tower over the Dark Zephyr!
Even with his latest upgrade, the archemech still hadn't increased in mass and volume!
The use of lightweight alloys and archetech allowed the Larkinsons to make the expert mech a lot more powerful while still maintaining the same dimensions.
How much more powerful the Dark Zephyr had become was not entirely clear. Ves figured that he would find out soon enough.
Ves lifted his Oceancaller, which had conveniently expanded to match his current scale, and began to play a rhythmic and repetitive tune.
Although his comprehension of the water element had not made any explosive leaps as of late, his latest sublimation along with increasing his comprehension of E energy as a whole allowed him to exert considerably stronger control than before!
"Mrow!"
Aside from that, a combative-looking Blinky appeared above Ves' giant shoulder and began to disgorge as much water-attributed E energy from his internal universe as he could.
The current Blinkyverse had already completed the third stage and made a start on the fourth stage.
Although the large internal universe could not fit an entire galaxy's worth of water energy, its current reservoir was still massive enough to easily keep up this effort for days without creating a severe imbalance!
The only factor that constrained Blinky's effort was the fact that the aperture between the two universes was still too small and narrow. The opening had grown wider compared to last time, but it was still not large enough to allow Ves to wield the strength he possessed during the lightning tribulation.
Ves would have to make do. He continued to play the flute until a large water tornado formed around his body.
The Dark Zephyr Mark III continued to hover and watch on. Tusa was not doing nothing. He was analyzing his latest foe while quietly accumulating more momentum.
The high-end archemech began to draw a pair of knives from his rear holsters.
Soon enough, the knives began to release electric arcs, exposing their nature as stormblade knives!
The Dark Zephyr began to assume a peculiar offensive stance.
At the same time, the expert mech drew in more and more shadow energy.
"Shadow Dance!"
The expert light skirmisher exploded into action!
Clang!
Ves flinched as his spatial barrier received a very nasty double hit when the Dark Zephyr instantly hopped forward to deliver a lunging blow!