The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2163

Chapter 2163 Too Strong

When Task Force Predator reached the edge of the Nyxian Gap, the transition became obvious.

Entering the Nyxian Gap was not that simple, but it wasn't difficult either.

Instead of traveling to a star system, any ship that wanted to reach the gap simply had to program the FTL drive to travel in its general direction. At some point, the spatial warping reached a point where a starship's FTL drive automatically shut down.

This condition essentially meant that any pirate vessel could easily shrug off pursuit! To any Peacekeeper outfit, the difficulty of determining the exact coordinates of the emergence point of a fleeing pirate vessel was nigh-impossible! Even a 0.01 deviation in angle could result in days or weeks worth of distance between the hunter and the hunted.

Many people therefore likened the Nyxian Gap as an abyss. Hardly anything that entered it went back outside. If the Gap did spit something up, then more often than not they were pirates looking to raid vulnerable trade convoys.

Not a single state had managed to tame the Nyxian Gap. Neither the Sentinel Kingdom nor the Hexadric Hegemony managed to exert effective control over the region. The MTA declined to invest the resources needed to root out all of the pirates, fearful of losing too many assets to the Gap's inexplicable anomalies.

"The only way to exert true control over the Nyxian Gap is through a slow, unstoppable invasion involving millions of mechs." Major Verle spoke as he stood alongside Ves. "Within this star sector, only the second-rate states are able to commit to such an operation. Neither will do so until the entire star sector is in their grasp."

Ves nodded. "Even then, they probably won't care. The Nyxian Gap might be a source of rare exotics that aren't commonly found elsewhere, but the yield is a little low. It's more likely that whoever wins the Komodo War will just treat the Nyxian Gap as a playground for their private outfits."

Anyone who performed a cost-benefit analysis would make the same conclusion as the MTA. Forceful conquest of the entire Nyxian Gap was too costly and too troublesome. It was much cheaper to contain it by stationing some garrisons outside while allowing mercenaries, treasure hunters, prospectors and other rabble to dive inside and find their fortune.

In fact, the Sentinel Kingdom and the other states surrounding the Nyxian Gap already adopted this strategy.

Though the Nyxian pirates sparked a lot of unrest lately, as a whole they were too scattered and weak to pose a serious threat to states.

The power of a faction or organization depended on a robust foundation. States held too many advantages in this area. They ruled over many stable and productive planets, each of which hosted populations that numbered in the millions to billions.

The entire population of humans in the Nyxian Gap only numbered a hundred million at the most, and that was one of the most optimistic estimates!

Just an average industrial planet such as Cinach XI alone already possessed more than ten times the population of the Gap. It's production output was also at least two orders of magnitude higher!

Pirates weren't known to be productive, industrious or capable of running prosperous states. The Nyxian Gap didn't offer an environment that was conducive towards founding major settlements.

As a result, the Nyxian Gap wasn't even worth colonizing.

"Don't underestimate the power of the Nyxian pirates." Major Verle nonetheless cautioned. "While the individual pirate organizations and alliances pose no threat to a state, it's a different story when it comes to smaller players like us. According to my research, there are a decent number of entrenched pirate organizations that have managed to survive the perils thrown at them for centuries and accumulated enough power to become a behemoth. It is rumored that their elite units consist of second-class mechs."

"I'm aware. Most of them are based in the core regions, though. As long as we stick to the periphery, we won't touch their bottom line."

It was incredibly difficult for Nyxian pirates to produce, field and maintain second-class mechs. Not only did they need to gather a lot of higher-grade exotics, but also acquire excellent production equipment and have someone skilled enough to fabricate the mechs.

Then, they needed to obtain the second-class mech pilots that were capable of wielding so much power.

Yet the biggest issue that plagued them was the expense and difficulty of maintaining these sophisticated machines.

Even if a pirate gang stumbled upon a derelict second-class mech in space and somehow got it to work, eventually the mech would falter due to an inability to maintain it. Such a machine required the care of knowledgeable and excellent mech technicians.

If there was one thing the Nyxian Gap had in common with the frontier, it was that technical personnel were very hard to come by! Most ship crew and mech technicians that ended up working for the Nyxian Gap either started off as fugitives, outlaws or kidnapped trade vessel crewmen!

Hearing all of this reminded Ves of the frontier. The circumstances might be a little different due to the complicated environment, but there were enough similarities to make him feel as if he entered familiar territory.

When over sixty vessels, most of which consisted of light carriers, entered into the endless field of asteroids, the Larkinsons officially entered the Nyxian Gap.

It became very obvious once they crossed into the threshold. Ves felt a bit sick as he felt as if his body had been stretched a bit.

"That's the spatial warping at work. You'll get used to it, though the sensations will get worse the closer you travel towards the center of the Gap."

While Ves had already expected to feel discomfited from reading various reports, he nonetheless frowned.

He sensed another form of instability around him. Rather than affecting his body, it affected his spiritual senses instead!

Ves recalled that the Ancient Sarcophagus that trapped Nyxie used to emerge from the Gap. Since the ancient alien tyrant possessed an immense amount of spiritual strength, it shouldn't have been surprising that the area he came from also exhibited unknown spiritual phenomena!

Discovering this came as an unwelcome surprise. Ves couldn't handle too many complications. However, possessing the ability to sense spiritual disturbances might not be detrimental. Perhaps he would be able to sense potential threats ahead of time.

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