Chapter 7218: Clocking Out The Dark Apostle spent the rest of his available quota on familiarizing himself with the underground headquarters of the Phase Lord Department. The transition phase was still ongoing, so the HQ had yet to transfer in new personnel, introduce new policies or even completely clean out the Oscillating Fist’s office. The secret keepers were crawling all over it. They refused to permit the Dark Apostle to step inside the former polemarchos’ office and private chambers. While he could have forced the issue, he chose not to, even though he really wanted to go inside and rifle through the former leader’s belongings. Whatever. There was much more for the Dark Apostle to see at the headquarters. There were bioresearch departments that studied how to promote the growth of human phase lords and develop compatible phasewater organs. There were armorers, metallurgists and many other experts who were assigned to develop the weapons and raiments for every phalanx. Each of them worked in three separate groups in order to distinguish their works from each other and promote benign competition. There were also large spaces that had been transformed into giant-compatible parks, sports facilities, dining halls and most importantly enormous exercise facilities. The Ascended Giants stationed in the headquarters spent most of their time in the latter. They were all eager and hungry to strengthen themselves. The recent leadership challenge had fully showcased the combat power of the best of their race, and they were determined to bridge the gap! The Dark Apostle gained a better feel of the Phase Lord Department. In his impression, the Ascended Giants all sought to prove themselves. They were the new kids on the block, but wanted to demonstrate their dominance and superiority over others. Once the new organization charter came into force, the Phase Lord Department would give them plenty of opportunities to do so. The time for the giants to remain on standby had passed. So far, the Dark Apostle was pleased with what he saw. Despite their big egos, the giants behaved well in each other’s presence. They did not start fights for random reasons or engage in any unpleasant behavior. While the giants acted a bit too dismissively towards the human members of the Phase Lord Department, this was not a big deal. The humans themselves were already accustomed to these reactions. They all seemed to look up at the giants and always showed awe. The Dark Apostle decided to spend a bit of time on interviewing the human employees why they were so willing to let the giants boss them around. It turned out that the answer was simpler than he thought. Most of the people assigned to this department already possessed a strong interest or even obsession for human phase lords. Once the Ascended Giants came into existence, the humans around them naturally looked up to them, both figuratively and literally. There was just something about being in the same room of a humanoid figure that was many times larger and stronger than yourself that drove humans to instinctively worship the large figure. While not every human worker immediately fell to his knees, constant exposure to several dozen human phase lords ultimately wore down the resistance of even the most secularist human! It only took a few months for all of these humans to worship the Ascended Giants as gods or at the very least gods-in-the-making! Ves would probably feel horrified at how easy it was for humans to worship human phase lords as their gods and masters. However, the Dark Apostle merely smirked as a response. This was a natural response as far as he was concerned. The mortals all possessed a tendency to worship the strong, and as long as the difference was great enough, the former might actually regard the latter as gods! While the Dark Apostle understood that the rest of red humanity did not want this phenomenon to spread outside of the Phase Lord Department, he seriously doubted that the Red Collective or other institutions could stop its spread. Religion was still alive and well among humans. Many people possessed a need to believe in a greater existence or narrative. This was why every god pilot had a temple. The Dark Apostle had no doubt that so long as his giants started to showcase their prowess in public, more and more humans would begin to worship the new race. This was another reason why he was so eager to send the giants to the frontlines. They needed to rely on valiant actions in order to attract attention and worship. Whether all of this worship made a difference remained to be seen, but the Dark Apostle did not think it was useless. In fact, he thought that the opposite was the case. There had to be a very good reason for phase lords and phase whales to obsess so much over being treated as gods and demanding the mortals to worship them. The Dark Apostle simply did not understand it himself. Perhaps he would find out as his phasewater concentration continued to move closer to 100 percent. The Red Ocean might deign to give him another revelation along the way. While the Dark Apostle wanted to spend more time roaming his headquarters, he knew that his period of freedom was coming to a close. He sighed in regret as he moved back to the underground hangar bay. By the time he approached the armored shuttle that originally brought him down, he took the initiative to fold his true body back to normal human proportions. "You better appreciate what I have done for you humans. Get to work on creating those new spirits." The Dark Apostle left. Ves returned. "Ugh, I was hoping that the pain would fade further." He complained as his nanosuit automatically accommodated his reduced size. "How many days will I have to carry these aches?" Although he was able to endure the pain without too much issue, it was still an inconvenience that he could do without. He was already planning to incorporate defensive improvements in his future raiment as well as Polymetal mech. He never wanted to feel like this again! As Ves mentally went over the Dark Apostle’s memories of the recent meeting, he grew satisfied when his other self had taken over much of his proposals. Although the Dark Apostle had twisted the initial 3 principles to favor his own interpretation a bit more, the overall framework still matched his vision more or less. Together with the 4th principle, the Phase Lord Department should be well on its way to reinventing itself. Ves did not have to worry that it would blow up anytime soon. Aside from needing to create a new design spirit for the Ascended Giants, Ves did not intend to interfere with the operations of the department. He already had his hands full with his existing projects. The Dark Apostle was more than welcome to play in his own sandbox. As Ves finally returned to the Tarrasque, he quickly attended a few virtual and in-person meetings with various people such as Jovy, Commodore Reze and Saint Commander Casella Ingvar. He was not able to offer as much clarification as he would like due to confidentiality rules. He told very little to the Saint Commander, but he figured that she was smart enough to be able to connect a lot of dots. All she needed to know was that ever since ’Ves’ became the new department head of the Phase Lord Department, ’he’ had gained an extremely powerful army that consisted of 359 human phase lords in total! If he wanted to, he could assign missions that directed numerous Ascended Giants to transfer to the Premier Fleet or the expeditionary fleet and fight alongside the Larkinsons. "We do not require any further assistance at this time." The Saint Commander’s projection said. "The Premier Fleet has overperformed so far. The First Sword Mark III is a terror on the battlefield. No warship or lesser phase lord can contain or defend against this machine. The greater phase lords on the other hand must rely on Saint Piercer arms as well as proper sets of Saint Armors to be able to fight our ace swordsman mech to a standstill. Such luxurious equipment has become more common among the alien invaders, but they are still far from being able to equip every greater phase lord." The First Sword Mark III was already powerful enough to smash apart most of the alien champions, but in case Saint Dise was unable to bear the pressure, the Minerva Mark II had many ways to provide support! The combination between two radically different ace pilots resulted in excellent synergies that had yet to fail the Larkinsons on the battlefield. In short, the Premier Fleet had nothing to be concerned about. So long as the Larkinsons over there performed proper scouting and avoided the really strong fleets, Ves should have no reason for concern. In any case, there were better places to send his giants. After concluding all of the talks, Ves finally retreated to his stateroom. There, he spent time with his children, who all asked eager questions related to the Ascended Giants. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺 "Is it possible to turn cats into phase lords?!" Andraste excitedly asked as she lifted up a certain Rubarthan Sentinel Cat. "We can turn our cats into giant versions of themselves! Doesn’t that sound exciting, Clixie?!" "Miaow?!" Ves chuckled. The idea sounded ridiculous, but on second thought it might just actually work! "I don’t know. I never thought about it, pumpkin. I think it may be feasible, but it is not cost-effective. We have already spent so much resources and manpower on turning humans into phase lords. No one is extravagant enough to waste all of that on turning cats into phase lords. You are better off recruiting excellent soldiers and turning them into Ascended Giants." Besides, Ves did not want his cats to become subjected to indoctrination from the Red Ocean. He liked Clixie the way she was right now! There was no need to weaponize his pets any further. "So you are planning to create a Larkinson Phalanx, papa?" Marvaine curiously asked. "Yes. The opportunity exists. I can either take it or leave it. I have chosen the former option. It will cost me a hefty amount of political capital, but I think I can get away with it as long as I do this the clever way." "What is the clever way?" "Trying to turn a small troop of Larkinson soldiers into Ascended Giants at the public’s expense." Ves plainly admitted. "This is a really expensive business. I need to convince the RC that there is added value to raising a phalanx that consists entirely of the Larkinsons. I am still working on that. The reasons need to be compelling enough." It was not going to be easy. The RC’s budget had never been all that generous compared to the RA and the RF. Further compounding the problem was that the Phase Lord Department had always acted as a huge financial black hole since its establishment. Right now, the collies had little motivation to expand the budget of the Phase Lord Department. They wanted to see a return on investment first before they were willing to contemplate expansion. Ves already intended to deliver on that. Once the mission board started operations, squads of giants should soon appear on busy battlefields. Once the Ascended Giants started to turn losing battles around and killing alien phase lords left and right, there should be a much greater appreciation for their existence! Ves continued to cuddle with his children while answering their whimsical questions. They giggled whenever he said anything silly and occasionally grabbed his rascals so that he could shower their heads with kisses. "Hihihihi!" "Pick me up, papa!" "Let’s play a game! I want to play toss the Lucky!" "Meow meow meow!" While Ves continued to play with the kids, all of the fun and games abruptly subsided when Gloriana finally returned home. "It is time, Ves. No more delays."