Chapter 5868 Water Wave Ever since he took part in battle, Ves never truly felt satisfied with his performance. Sure, he was able to employ tricks that the Dread Marines couldn't replicate, but he felt a bit outclassed. It shouldn't have been a surprise. Ves was a mech designer. He was not a qi cultivator, so trying to fight like one would never yield great results. While Ves accepted the reality that he would never become a great qi cultivator, it was different in the case of Blinky. His companion spirit was his second life. The Star Cat may technically serve as an extension of his own Spirituality, but he had gained enough independence to adopt another form of cultivation. Ves had specifically worked on the Imaginary Universe Method Version 3.0 in the hopes of transforming Blinky into a scary and versatile True God one day. He clearly had high hopes in his companion spirit's ability to absorb, process, manipulate and exploit E energy of all varieties. The problem was that the cultivation required a huge amount of ramping up before it could begin to show its strengths! The Blinkyverse had made a lot of progress towards forming its first complete star system, but that was just a fraction of the full potential of this spiritual pocket universe. Ves therefore did not expect too much from combining Blinky with his spiritual manifestations. It would be delusional to think he could function in the same way as Emma. Not only was Blinky unable to travel too far from Ves, the Star Cat also lacked the reinforcement of Irene's willpower. High-ranking mech pilots would have been really handy in this battle. Any powerful expert mech, ace mech or god mech would have been able to counter all of the spiritual tricks employed by the Fallen Warriors of Akshi and overwhelm them by relying on brute force! Alas, Ves was not a mech pilot. He was a mech designer. One who also happened to be a phase lord. If this was just a regular battle, Ves would have unfolded his true body and started to punch the Fallen Heralds a long time ago. It was a pity that he needed to play his part in the ongoing information war. There was no reason to give the Subjugation King a good look at the combat capabilities of a phase lord. "I need to advance." Ves notified the Dread Marines assigned to guard his life. "Sir, that is ill-advised. You are already under threat from this distance. You will make yourself much more vulnerable to attack if you proceed with your action." "I know the risks, but I can take a hit." Ves began to retrieve a very girly umbrella from the back of his Unending Regalia. "The Dominion of Man will step in if that is not the case. The Rubicon Spatial Transfer System still maintains an active lock on my body. You can accompany me, but please do not impede my passage." His commanding tone was evidently enough to get his bodyguards to play along. "Very well, but if you have to move forward, at least position yourself behind one of the secondary gun batteries up ahead." "That is a good idea." Ves began to step forward while Blinky dove out of his head. The purple companion spirit flew forward and began to merge into a nearby water wave that had just emerged. The combination was unexpectedly smooth. Ves felt much more in control of the water wave than before. Why hadn't he done this before? It was as if he had switched from typing a document with one hand to two hands! As much as Ves wanted to explore his new capabilities, he still had a battle to attend to. He continued to move forward in order to give Blinky the space needed to get involved in the battle. Once Ves approached a secondary cannon battery and sheltered behind its armored bulk, he concentrated on playing the flute and directing Blinky's actions. At the same time, his newly obtained Flower Parasol unfolded and began to display its pink radiance to everyone who paid attention in his direction. Perhaps it was an illusion, but perhaps even the giant three-eyed alien face twitched when the Flower Parasol began to brighten up the surroundings. "Mrow!" Though Ves felt a lot more nervous now that he got closer to the action, he also felt a lot more thrilled. His mood became electric and his musical performance became more energetic! As the Dread Marines mysteriously began to hear music in spite of the fact that their communication channels only transmitted essential information, the water wave started to do a lot more work! "Mrow!" Blinky began to disgorge large amounts of water-attributed E-energy that he had stored from the primordial planet's ocean as well as the asteroid belts of the incomplete star system. It did not look like it, but the relatively small companion spirit had absorbed so much water energy that it would take months to drain his reserve at this rate! Of course, the integrity of the Blinkyverse would become compromised a lot sooner than that. A severe imbalance in the elements would weaken the foundation of the internal universe and make it vulnerable to external breaches. Blinky could not spew out water energy without limit. It was fine for him to keep this up for an hour or so, but any longer would produce noticeable imbalances that would take a lot of time to remedy. For now, the companion spirit's efforts were making a considerable difference. The water wave directed by Ves and the Oceancaller became faster and engulfed the burning Dread Armors a lot more effectively. It became a lot easier to douse the corrupting flames when there was more water energy available. Even if the quality of water energy was not that strung, Blinky was able to produce an ample quantity of it at a time. "Whatever you are doing is working, sir. Keep up the good work, but take care not to attract more attention. Some of the lightning soldiers are already showing signs of trying to locate the source of the water." Ves felt a lot more fulfilled than before. Though he still wasn't close enough to the action for his liking, he was contributing a lot more to the battle than before. Even though there were way too many Dread Marines that caught fire due to the ubiquitous energy attacks unleashed by the Fallen Heralds of Akshi, the Blinky-empowered water wave was able to save many of them from getting burned and corrupted. Each Dread Armor that surrendered to the corrupting flames was another precious tribulation-forged asset that got lost. By saving them, the Dominion of Man would be able to field a considerably more powerful Dread Marine in the future, especially after they had been repaired. Around 800 lightning soldiers were left at this time. The powerful mech-sized cultivators swung their axes as fast as they could. It did not matter if they failed to strike any Dread Marines because all kinds of fire spells continued to fling from their blades. The 6th Giant Trapper Division gained the upper hand again, and it was not entirely due to Ves. Around 800 lightning soldiers were left at this time. The powerful mech-sized cultivators swung their axes as fast as they could. It did not matter if they failed to strike any Dread Marines because all kinds of fire spells continued to fling from their blades. It took a bit of time, but eventually the Light Dread Marines had made their moves! Utilizing their stealth capabilities to the fullest, they had managed to sneak close enough to make their final sprint and set off their trap! It turned out that many of the Light Dread Marines were armed with transphasic knives that radiated with the power of destruction! Though Blinky was close enough to determine that the knives were not Destroyer weapons, they were still quite potent nonetheless. The fleeters must have poured a lot of research into developing a substitute or alternative to Destroyer weapons. Just as with dreadnoughts, the CFA or RA must have come pretty close to attaining the desired result, but ultimately came up short as the researchers were unable to produce the most difficult breakthroughs. This was probably how they ended up in the hands of the Dread Marines. The special knives did not possess the fiery heat and power of plasma weapons, but they happened to be a lot stealthier while still retaining plenty of lethality. Each of the Light Dread Marines took advantage of the vulnerability of injured lightning soldiers who had lost their flame barriers. The relatively small but nimble machines evaded every nearby attack with exceptional grace and stabbed their imitation Destroyer knives at any weak point they could observe! Every stab inflicted considerable damage that nearly always proved crippling, if not fatal! Hundreds of tribulation energy explosions engulfed the site as the Fallen Heralds lost a lot of battle strength in an instant! Just as the surviving lightning soldiers tried to burn the offenders that had entered into their midst, the Light Dread Marines instantly retreated and engaged their powerful stealth systems again. Only a handful of unlucky Light Dread Marines got burned by errant flame attacks, and all of them quickly dove into Ves' water wave before getting teleported back into the ship. Frustrated, the surviving Fallen Heralds of Akshi intensified their struggle! They did their best to make up with the huge amount of numbers they lost by getting assassinated by small human infantry troops! "The 3rd wave is winding down." An officer spoke at one point. "There are only 200 lightning soldiers left. We outnumber them so much that they cannot withstand our attacks for long." "I can see that." Ves responded. "How much have you expended yourself? Can you fight in the next wave?" "It should be no problem. My energy expenditure is not as great as you think. I have a huge energy reservoir. What you should really be worried about is whether I will run myself ragged. My mental capacity is finite." "I will pass on your words." The 3rd wave finally crumbled as the lightning warriors failed to inflict severe damage onto the Giant Trappers. The taste of victory was sweet. Over 7000 Dread Marines remained undamaged after all of this fighting. This was truly impressive considering they had just completed a bout against enemies that resembled mechs in scale. While the crew of the Dominion of Man awaited the arrival of the next wave, Ves quickly evaluated his performance so far. Using Blinky as a means to empower his spiritual manipulation worked well. It would have been better if his companion spirit did not have to stay within a certain range of Ves. Perhaps he should look into solutions that could increase this limit. As Ves compared his performance against the Fallen Heralds of Akshi, there were still reasons for him to feel dissatisfied at his combat methods. Neither Ves nor Blinky fought like real qi cultivators. Oh, they simulated it decently enough, but they lacked the understanding and the practice to fight like the Fallen Heralds. The difference between Ves and his last adversaries was that the latter actively leveraged the power of E energy radiation to empower all of their moves! The Fallen Heralds weren't actually all that strong. Their attacks hit a lot harder than they should and their defenses could withstand considerably greater damage than anyone expected. The reason for that was because they were capable of channeling the power of heaven to augment all of their moves! Even though the Dominion of Man absorbed huge amounts of ambient E energy radiation from the immediate environment, every lightning soldier was able to draw tribulation energy from the storm above everyone's heads. The point was that Ves did not do enough to leverage the power of heaven. The only reason why he was capable of conjuring so much water and drawing in so much water energy was because his Oceancaller was doing all of the heavy lifting. Ves had always been content to outsource this function to his relic while he focused on other matters. This might serve as an acceptable excuse for a mech designer like Ves, but it was absolutely unacceptable for a pure qi life form like Blinky! Instead of trying to borrow the power of heaven to do more with less, his companion spirit focused on disgorging large amounts of water energy from a hidden reservoir as if he was a brute! This clearly needed to change.