Chapter 3902: A Devil's Bargain

Once Ves made his decision, the Everchanger decisively moved away from the unstable hole in the fabric of space!

The journey was not easy. The destabilization of space produced so much turbulence that any unprotected mechs would have malfunctioned at this point!

Ves only had to look at the nearby mechs and fish-whale bodies to observe the devastating effects.

Half of them somehow got sucked into the space hole. The other half became crushed or torn apart from the stresses of warped and deformed space.

Much to his distress, the gigantic, half-eaten body of the entity known as the Phase King suffered the latter fate!

The cruelest part about this was that the Phase King was still alive!

Despite the heavy injuries and despite the Cerebral King biting off large amounts of flesh and organs from its body, the Phase King still managed to cling to life in its own way!

It was rather amazing to see how resilient a top fish-whale could be. The Phase King even managed to put up a bit of resistance against the spatial tearing effects due to its own mastery of spatial manipulation along with the inherent resistance imparted by its phasewater-saturated flesh!

Still, the injured and dying Phase King could only do so much. The Cerebral King had specifically eaten its most powerful and developed phasewater organs. The wounded king fish had precious little resources left to do anything else but prolong its inevitable death.

The Phase King only resisted because it was in its nature to do so. The proud and ancient king fish did not survive for this long if it was willing to accept defeat so easily!

It especially did not want to give the Cerebral King the satisfaction of causing its own death!

As the Everchanger kept flying away, Ves looked at the precious Phaser fish-whale bodies flying into the Royal Tomb or getting torn apart with regret.

If Task Force Fisherman had an hour or so to clean up the battlefield, he was sure that his mechs and shuttles would be able to return to the expeditionary fleet with a larger bounty of precious Phaser fish-whale organs!

It didn't matter if the shuttles ran out of cargo space. The mechs could just use their limbs to grab onto the surplus organs. Since much of the space inside Purgatory consisted of empty vacuum, the organs shouldn't rot and decay so quickly.

Even if the organs ultimately died, they could still perform a lot of destructive research on the organic material.

After that, they could easily extract all of the phasewater infused into the flesh, thereby obtaining a lot of additional kilograms of phasewater!

To see all of that potential wealth being wasted at such a close distance caused Ves to feel incredibly frustrated!

When the projected view focused on the dying body of the Phase King, Ves suddenly jerked.

"Wait a second! Joshua!"

"Yes, patriarch?"

"Turn around and head over to the Phase King's body! Try and grab hold of it to see if you can drag it out of the danger zone. It's too precious for us to abandon!"

"Are you kidding, sir?! Look at the size of its body! It's too big and massive! There's no way my mech can drag it out by itself!"

Ves sobered up a little after that. He had become so frustrated at losing out on so many gains that his emotions got the better of his rationality.

Joshua was right. The Phase King's body was still as large as a sub-capital ship despite all of the injuries it had suffered.

It would take far too much time and effort for a single mech or even several mechs to drag out of the region of turbulent space!

That didn't mean that Ves wanted to give up on it, though. His eyes turned narrow and ruthless as he quickly considered alternative ideas.

"Do as I say and reach the Phase King's side! If we can retrieve its whole body, then we should at least be able to salvage an organ or something! C'mon, Joshua! It's just a short trip!"

"The Everchanger…"

"Trust in my work! I know exactly how much abuse it can take! This little space turbulence won't tear it apart too much. If the damage isn't too big, you can easily repair it by resonating with the Fixer Iron integrated in the Everchanger."

The Everchanger came with a resonating ability that allowed it to regenerate moderate damage!

Even though there were many limitations to this ability, it was still an amazing feature that massively boosted the expert hero mech's survivability.

If enemies didn't learn about this function beforehand, they would be in for a nasty surprise when the Everchanger refreshed its damaged frame!

That was something to consider for the future. Right now, Ves just wanted to make sure that he could retrieve at least one final gain from this place!

While the Everchanger moved closer, Ves accessed all of the sensor readings and visual feeds. He needed to understand the condition of the body as much as possible in order to determine where he could obtain the most profit.

"The damn Cerebral King already made off with all of the good stuff!"

The fish-whales all seemed to possess the innate ability to determine the best parts to cannibalize from each other's bodies. The Cerebral King was even better at it since it had studied fish-whale physiology intensively for so many years!

Although Ves could still observe that the Phase King's body still retained many tons of flesh, they were basically ordinary flesh and muscle mass that had no significant value.

"What a poor creature."

The Phase King that was still clinging to life rolled its intact eyes at the metal machine that was hovering a short distance away.

The ultimate loser of the battle experienced a lot of mixed feelings and emotions during its final moments.

Ves was sensitive to these fluctuations. He quickly turned his attention away from the Phase King's ravaged body and focused on the king fish's relatively powerful spirit.

Although the Phase King was not as strong as the Cerebral King in this aspect, the creature did not get to live this long if its spirituality was weak!

In fact, one of the theories that Ves always held about life was that any organism's spirituality would eventually grow to a formidable height if they lived long enough

When the expeditionary fleet first encountered the Titania, Ves became incredibly impressed by the astral beast's age and wisdom.

He would have thought that the Phase King's spirituality far surpassed that of the Titania, but the reality was quite different!

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"It's not as strong or rich…"

The Titania possessed a wealth of knowledge and memories that enriched her life. Even if the current incarnation of the design spirit lost enormous portions of her original self, what was left could still dwarf the limited and monotonous thoughts of the Phase King!

It shouldn't have been a surprise that such a massive disparity existed. So what if the Phase King was just as old as the Cerebral King?

By spending nearly its entire life on a boring and underdeveloped place like the Lake Continent, the Phase King hadn't lived a life that was diverse and varied enough as the Titania!

Although these shortcomings diminished the value of the Phase King's spirituality, Ves did not feel like being picky at this time.

Instead, his eyes began to glint as he thought about the best possible way to get one last piece of profit out of this escalating debacle.

He concentrated his mind and tried to reach out to the Phase King.

"Do you want to live?"

DEATH… COMES…

"That isn't necessarily true. I can save you, Mr. Phase King."

IMPOSSIBLE… BODY… FAILING… GODBLOOD… LOST….

"Nothing is impossible, buddy. Did our mechs not prove that to you during the battle earlier? We outsiders are not as limited as you fish-whales. We have mastered powers and abilities that your race has never even imagined. Besides, even if you doubt my words, there is no harm in believing me. You will die anyway if nothing happens. Do you want the Cerebral King to get its way and have you perish from your wounds?"

The mention of its old foe galvanized the Phase King. Its eyes grew more determined.

UNACCEPTABLE. MUST… NOT… LET… OLD… ENEMY… SUCCEED…

"Work with me, then." Ves continued to coax the Phase King. "Accept my offer of help and allow me to preserve your mind and spirit. With my help, you don't need to rely on your failing body to remain alive. I can help you persist and live on in another form. The changes will be great, but it is better than suffering a true death."

Despite the attractive offer, the Phase King was no fool. Its eyes displayed a lot of wariness.

OUTSIDERS ARE ENEMIES. WHY SAVE MY LIFE?

"I admit that we humans harmed you and your Phasers to take your phasewater for ourselves, but that is all in the past. We do not hate you or wish for you to die. We pursue profit. Saving you conforms to this goal. You are much more useful to us alive than dead. Let me be honest so that you do not think I am deceiving you. If I can save you and bring a portion of you out of this pocket space, I intend to make use of you to help my mechs become stronger. If you have seen us fight in the previous battle, then maybe you have noticed the powerful entities that are helping our mechs fight. I want you to become one of our helpers."

INCOMPREHENSION. WHY… COOPERATION?

Ves smirked. "Because that is the only way you can continue to live and grow as a spiritual entity. You see, without your powerful body, you will have to feed and sustain yourself in a different manner. I can offer you power, longevity, respect and contact with many interesting humans spread across many different parts of the cosmos if you agree to work together with me. Just look at how many different spiritual entities similar to you have already chosen to cooperate in the same way. They were much weaker than you in the beginning, but have grown much more powerful in a few years. Do you wish to surpass the Cerebral King?

MUST… LIVE… MUST… GROW… STRONGER… MUST… TAKE… REVENGE…

"Then accept my offer and cooperate with me. Together, we can save your life and take you out of here. After that, I can settle you into your new life."

HOW?

"Let me think."

Ves hadn't thought to bring a spare P-stone for this trip. However, much of the Everchanger was made out of Unending alloy which could function in a similar way.

He didn't know what would happen if he forcefully transplanted the Phase King's spirituality into the Everchanger. This was a drastic and exceedingly reckless course of action.

As Ves continued to observe the Phase King's ruined body, he suddenly noticed that the giant creature's head was not in a bad condition.

Though its various wounds had scorched its head and exposed parts of its skull, its brains should still be intact!

"Joshua! Try to carve out a large hole from the Phase King's skull!"

"What?! Why would you want to do that, sir?!"

"Let's see if we can save the Phase King by taking out its brain!"

"Won't it be too big?"

"I'm not so sure about that. Proportionally, the brains of many large alien species including the phase whales aren't all that big. It doesn't take much space to regulate an exponentially larger body, you know. You should talk to the exobiologists if you want to learn more. Please proceed, Joshua! We don't have much time left!"

Under Ves' instruction, the Everchanger approached the Phase King's immense skull and began to saw through the bone matter with its resonance-empowered sword.

This was hard work and Joshua had to apply a lot of force in order to open a hole quickly enough.

It was fortunate that the Phase King did not put up any defenses if it was able to. The operation would have been a lot harder if the Everchanger had to overcome additional spatial barriers!

Blood and other disgusting matter spread out from the expanding cut. The work was grisly business and Joshua couldn't prevent his sword from cutting through portions of brain matter.

When the Everchanger finally succeeded in opening up a large chunk of skull, a damaged brain that was smaller than an average fish-whale organ rested inside.

"See? I told you so. Now do your best to cut it out and bring it away."

Though Joshua moved to enact this order, he was still skeptical about this whole operation.

"Will this even work? I can hardly imagine how we can keep this brain alive."

"We only need to preserve it long enough to bring it back to one of our cargo shuttles. We can throw out one of our salvaged organs from the specialized preservation containers and put this brain inside instead. That should help preserve it to an extent!"

Ves wasn't sure at all whether these dubious actions could actually sustain the living brain of a king fish. It didn't hurt to try, though.

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Dead or alive, the brain of a creature as remarkable as the Phase King was probably worth as much as all of the other organs retrieved by Task Force Fisherman!

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