Ves felt as if he was reenacting a conflict akin to the Komodo War on a spiritual level.
On one side was Zeigra. As a forr Crown Cat of Felixia, this genetically-engineered beast had long ruled over his stretch of Felixia I as the king of the jungle! A large number of chs grouped up into hunting teams attempted to challenge his might, but failed to fell their target as the supposed predators turned into Zeigra's prey!
On the other side was Nyxie. A long-dead alien tyrant who possessed an exceptionally powerful spirit, Nyxie was a future concern to Ves as his prodigious strength only grew stronger over ti! Though Ves was confident he could keep the ancient alien spiritual entity contained within the Ancient Sarcophagus for the ti being, what happened when that wasn't enough anymore?
On the surface, a matchup between the two entities was highly lopsided.
There was no way that Zeigra should be able to co out on top. In life, he was just an exobeast. A sentient exobeast, but one that mostly relied on his artificial genetics to dominate his jungle.
How could a re beast, one that hadn't lived very long no less, compete against a spiritual tyrant who managed to cling to life for at least several millennia!?
A crude analogy would be to field a third-class ch against a first-class ch!
There was no way a Blackbeak or a Desolate Soldier could harm an ultra-modern, suprely powerful multipurpose ch!
Yet Ves still went through with putting Zeigra and Nyxie in the sa imaginary space as if it was a dueling arena.
How could he prevent Zeigra from collapsing after experiencing Nyxie's might?
The answer was simple.
Cheating!
An unfair fight could be made fair by sabotaging the stronger side and assisting the weaker side!
Ves had already laid most of the groundwork by neutering Nyxie's strength. He had already weakened his spiritual fragnt by cutting away most attributes. He further pared down the fragnt's effective power by downsizing it even further.
The result was a purified spiritual fragnt that was only a shadow of its progenitor.
Even so, when Ves finally perford his spiritual counterbalancing, he discovered that he hadn't been thorough enough.
"Zeigra is losing!"
The ferocious Crown Cat was taken aback by the ominous Nyxie! What Ves hadn't anticipated was that Zeigra beca affected by Nyxie's ability to induce fear!
A sense of terror and panic exuded from Zeigra! For a mont, his confidence faltered, causing him to withdraw his predatory instincts!
"Damnit!" Ves cursed as he observed the impending debacle. "You stupid scaredy cat! How can you wear a crown if you can't even muster up so resistance? Nyxie isn't as scary as you think! His purified fragnt is weak enough for you to contend against it! Man up and fight back like your pride is at stake!"
Ves had many thods at his disposal to equalize the power disparity.
He employed various images to boost Zeigra and make him more resistant to the fear-induing effects of his opponent.
He chopped off extra portions from Nyxie's purified fragnt.
He asked the Golden Cat to lend a hand.
Through these simple ans, he quickly managed to take the wind out of Nyxie's sails. The alien tyrant's montum stalled and Zeigra gained a bit more confidence in his strength!
Slowly but surely, the ripples emanating from their clashes subsided. Eventually, their strength ca close enough that they began to achieve a stable equilibrium!
Still, just like with Silent William, the equilibrium wasn't completely equal. So far, Nyxie occupied 75 percent of the Doom Guard's space while Zeigra managed to cling onto just 25 percent.
While Ves was reasonably confident that this divide could persist, it was not ideal.
This was because the Doom Guard's glow currently retained far too much of Nyxie's unpleasant qualities!
As Ves closed his eyes in order to judge the properties of his ch design's current glow, he imdiately frowned.
"It's too creepy!"
This was partially what he wanted out of his Doom Guard, but not to this extent!
The interaction between a design spirit and a ch was multifaceted and complex. The design spirit not only affected the people around the ch, but also the person piloting the machine!
What Ves sought was to retain the deterrence power of the Doom Guard while scaring away as little custors as possible!
"This is truly a double-edged sword!"
To put it in other terms, this was a self-harming ch. It inflicted much of the harm it tried to impose to others on its own ch pilot!
Certainly, Ves tried his best to mitigate the latter interaction.
He introduced several images that would hopefully make the design spirits exhibit less hostility to the ch pilot.
He also made sure to add a standard neural interface model in the Doom Guard design as opposed to the newly-licensed high-capacity model!
The latter was just a disaster in the making for a ch like this! Ves did not wish to wake up to an article from a sensational ch publication that scread that his new Doom Guard model caused a dozen ch pilots to die from fright!
As soone who personally experienced Nyxie's deeply unsettling aura, Ves imdiately knew he had to cripple the purified fragnt even more.
"He's far too strong! Even after all of the previous cuts, he is still able to overpower Zeigra!"
Ves ruthlessly cut at the fragnt and implented so other asures to tilt the balance further in the favor of the beleaguered Crown Cat.
He paused his efforts when the equilibrium shifted at the midpoint. Both Zeigra and Nyxie occupied an equal amount of space in the Doom Guard.
Was this the balance that he should settle upon?
Ves still maintained his frown. "I don't know."
The constant cutting gradually reduced the intensity of Nyxie's fear-inducing glow to a more reasonable level. The problem was that it was still strong enough to frighten the ch pilots of the Doom Guard.
While he could just proceed with crippling the purified fragnt even further, at this point the Doom Guard would begin to lose its intrinsic advantage.
If its glow grew weak to the point that enemies were able to shrug it off, what was the point of introducing Nyxie into the Doom Guard in the first place?
Ves felt incredibly conflicted. He had to make a very difficult choice.
If he retained Nyxie's current strength, then he predicted that his custor base would probably narrow by a very significant margin. While he would be able to retain the value of the ch, its hostility towards its own ch pilots would limit its sales potential!
"In this case, the only custors who can make good use of the Doom Guard are the ch pilots who possess the most fearless hearts! Anyone whose will is weak will doubtlessly be scared to the point of freezing in place!"
On the other hand, if he weakened Nyxie even further, then he would directly expand the pool of custors who were able to field the Doom Guard. If the design spirits imposed less pressure onto the ch pilots, the Doom Guards turned into a more controllable and reliable ch.
The major downside to this asure was the reduction in fear factor. If Ves weakened the Doom Guard's glow in order to expand its accessibility, he would directly reduce the ch's ability to deter enemies as well!
As a result, his Doom Guard ca one step closer to becoming a generic striker ch model.
Without a technical edge and only a modest benefit derived from its glow, why would anyone buy a Doom Guard? The reduced effectiveness of its glow directly impacted its value proposition, which eventually depressed its sales!
"No matter which solution I choose, the money I stand to gain from selling this ch will drop regardless!" Ves cursed.
This was not good news for Ves, who sought to relieve the financial pressure of his clan by developing another cash cow.
After contemplating the pros and cons of each choice, he slowly drew out a breath.
In the end, he chose to maintain the strength of Nyxie's purified fragnt.
There were several reasons that caused him to settle on this impactful choice.
First, a perfect balance where the power disparity had been equalized was the most stable outco. Ves didn't have to worry too much about the stronger side overrunning the weaker side.
Just because it never happened in Silent William's mind didn't an it could happen in the future!
Second, Ves wanted his Doom Guard to live up to his na and reputation. Many of the ch designs he published so far exhibited pronounced strengths at the cost of applicability. Extre chs like the Aurora Titan and the Deliverer were very strong when used as intended, but they were also liabilities in situations outside of their mission profile!
Since his existing custors already knew what to expect of him, he believed the backlash to Doom Guard would not be as bad as he feared. As long as the LMC carefully inford the public of the risks of piloting the ch, the custors who valued the notable strengths of his ch would still buy his product en masse!
With a glow this useful, his custors would be fools to pass it off! Anyone who needed to buy a striker ch to round out their ch rosters would definitely take a good look at the LMC's latest offering!
A third reason why he opted to take a risk by maintaining Nyxie's potency was his belief that his custors would rise up to the occasion.
Unlike his Holy Soldier and Deliverer chs, the design spirits of the Doom Guard weren't strong enough to outright reject a ch pilot.
Sure, they could make things uncomfortable, but as long as the ch pilot learned to endure the unpleasantness, the Doom Guard would still be able to unleash its might onto the battlefield!
Ves wouldn't make this decision if it wasn't so easy and simple to pilot.
Rifleman chs and lee chs usually demanded a lot of attention from their ch pilots. A single discordant elent could ruin their concentration and ss up their moves! This was because these fast-moving chs possessed a high amount of skill expression.
A striker ch was the polar opposite. It was even simpler to pilot than a knight ch.
Its ponderous mass slowed down its movents, which ant the ch pilot didn't have to plan out every move in advance.
Its armor provided it with a generous buffer for mistakes. Even if the ch pilot got distracted by Nyxie, the Doom Guard would still be able to bull through an unfavorable situation!
Its flathrower in a wide-area configuration was one of the easiest weapon to aim. While the ch pilot still had to input the right settings for the situation, its use was extrely simple. The pilot didn't even have to be skilled in marksmanship!
All of these factors ant that it was fine if the ch pilot of a Doom Guard got a little scared. As long as the ch commander saw the value in this ch, there would always be place for it on the battlefield!
Ves tried his best to put a positive spin on his decision.
"Only the bravest and most fearless individuals will be able to pilot the Doom Guard! The weak and cowardly need not apply!"
Once he slowly wrapped up this process, the bestowal process ca at an end. The Doom Guard design, long empty, now gained its final component, thereby completing the design in full!
As Ves projected the ch design once again, it gained an entirely connotation.
"Is this.. what you ant by inducing fear?" Gloriana quivered a bit before she stiffened up. She was a Wodin and a proud Hexer! She was better than this! "The proto-gods you put into the design are quite.. effective."
Ves grinned and snapped his fingers, causing the projection to switch off. "This is just a depiction of its schematics. Let's wait until we fabricate an actual ch!"
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