The fight between the Divine Arsonist and the Ekstrom Goliath was emblematic of theVoribug War.Red humanity possessed great strength, but none of it was optimized against this newkind of opponent.The Goliaths of the enemy did not possess any miraculous energy shields, norpossessed the capability to generate an energy field that bent and broke the laws ofphysics.What they did have was the power of pure biology. Their regeneration rates wereastonishing, with the Ekstrom strain featuring the most formidable recovery capabilities.In hindsight, the matchup between the Divine Arsonist and the Ekstrom Goliath was quitepoor.The former simply did not carry the right weapons to damage and kill the latter in a fastand effective manner.So long as the Ekstrom Goliath was alive, it could always regenerate its body, includingorgans that were deemed vital!The other Goliath strains did not regenerate as fast as the Ekstrom, but they were nottoo far behind either."Are all Goliaths as difficult to kill2" Ves asked.Lord Richard Brownstone looked severe as he offered his response. "The Ekstrom straintrades mobility for defense and regeneration, but that does not mean the other strainsare that much weaker in this regard. What you should also keep in mind is that thehigher the Level of the megavoribug, the faster it is able to regenerate. In fact, therecovery rate is one of the principal variables that determines its threat level. WeakerGoliaths do not possess exaggerated regeneration capabilities, so they can be defeatedby weaker mechs. As for the stronger ones, if our combined firepower or champions arenot strong enough to exceed their high-speed regeneration, then we will fall into theenemy's rhythm."The Goliath Hive may have tried to imitate its enemies by developing its own champions,but the Goliaths still favored attritional warfare when confronting opposition."It is strange that they have yet to develop a means to generate their own spatialbarriers." Gloriana voiced her own observation as she stood behind her own workstation. "Phase lords are biological, and so are the voribugs. The latter have alreadydemonstrated strong biotech R&D capabilities. As inhuman as they behave and appear,their race or 'civilization' is clearly led by an intelligence that has transcended thesavagery of beasts. Its demonstrated biotech applications makes it clear that themutated voribugs can produce remarkable results. Why haven't they formed their ownform of energy shielding?"That was an important question. Ves began to wonder about this himself."We believe... that the mutated voribugs simply decided not to bother with it" TheRubarthan Senior Mech Designer replied. "Organic means of replicating energy shieldscan only reach the performance of relatively standard units. The cost of inserting theminto ordinary voribugs is uneconomical. They are all cannon fodder. The resources ittakes to produce them are small, but once they are equipped with organic energyshields, they become too pricey to sacrifice on a whim. As for larger and more preciousunits such as the Goliaths, the scalability and upper ceiling of organic energy shields arepoor to mediocre. At best, the Goliath Hive would be able to reproduce the energyshielding systems of alien warships, but that is not enough protection when confrontingchampions.”The mutated voribugs were not stupid.They lived and breathed attrition warfare, so all of their bug subspecies were designedwith cost effectiveness as their primary goal.Even the Goliaths had to be worth the huge price it took to harvest high-grade resourcesand grow them over a longer period of time."It is not that simple to replicate the defenses of a phase lord or a phase whale, honey."Ves told his wife. "What makes phase lords different from other organisms is not that ourbodies are filled with varying concentrations of phasewater, but that we have becomesuperdimensional life forms, if only barely. Our bodies, our minds and our souls havemore deeply crossed the barriers between dimensions, allowing us to tap into higher-dimensional energies and wield strange new powers in a somewhat uniform fashion. Youcannot replicate this effect through pure biotechnological tinkering."Gloriana did not quite agree with that argument. "Not every answer has to be related tosystematic cultivation. Haven't we stumbled upon the fish-whale race during our earlypioneering days? The phase whale who conducted those experiments made a goodattempt at merging the special properties of his own race into a more reproduciblehybrid race.""I am not entirely convinced that the fish-whales, at least the more powerful ones, havecome close enough to match genuine phase leaders." Ves voiced. "I do admit that theexistence of the fish-whales may be the future of the mutated voribugs, but I think it willrequire a lot more R&D in order to produce such a remarkable result. For now, I do notthink the Goliath Hive or any of the other hives have a compelling reason to direct ahuge amount of resources in this research. They are better off relying on their existingadvantages.”Phase leaders were special no matter the variety. Ves refused to believe that the fruits ofbody cultivation could be replicated without excessive effort by the mutated voribugs.According to Rubarthan observations, the bodies of transphasic voribugs andmegavoribugs resemble exobeasts that have grown up in phasewater-rich ecosystems.While that certainly made them stronger while giving them a touch ofsuperdimensionality, they were still far from leveraging the amazing potential ofphasewater like genuine phase whales and phase lords.In any case, Ves believed it was safe to assume that the mutated voribugs did notpossess the ability to replicate the more profound capabilities of phase lords.That did not make them any less scarier, unfortunately.Ves shifted his gaze over to the other “duels’.The high-ranking mechs dispatched by the Rubarthans struggled a lot less, and that wasnot only because their opposing Goliaths were much weaker.The expert mechs hailing from the Brownstone Principality were better equipped andadapted to fight against an adversary that liked to use swarms of cannon fodder andrelied on fast-regenerating Goliaths to make themselves a strong enough nuisance.Besides the largest and most outrageous Ekstroms, the other Goliath strains eachpossessed their own notable strengths.Ves found himself particularly attracted to a megavoribug that was much slimmer andmore agile in build.its body was sleek and predatory. The hexapod alien dueled against an opposing expertlight skirmisher. It tried its best to rake its claws across the resonance shield and armorof the opposing machine.While the bug was so slim that it did not possess any obvious ranged attack capabilities,it was able to spit out a deadly spray of acid that the expert mech took pains to avoid. Itwas also capable of generating a surprisingly good imitation of the space suppressorfield.All of these advantages and more allowed the agile Level 6 Goliath to keep up with themobility of a powerful high-tier expert light skirmisher!The fight between these powerful champions appeared like a dance between twodeadly but graceful opponents.So far, it did not seem as if it would end anytime soon.The expert light skirmisher still managed to maintain its resonance shield. It was clearthat its pilot tried to conserve its defensive resources as much as possible.Once its resonance shield broke, the Rubarthan machine would be in for a much toughertime.The slim Goliath on the other hand had suffered repeated strikes onto its body.The plasma daggers wielded by the opposing high-tier expert mech significantlyhindered the giant insect's regeneration, but by staying mobile, the Goliath was able togive the damaged sections of its body enough rest time to recover.Both of them moved so quickly that the cannon fodder bugs simply had no way ofcatching up to their targets!Lord Richard noticed what Ves was paying attention to. He smiled."The Quickdraw is piloted by Venerable Urdred Texis, one of the retainers of ourBrownstone Principality. His expert light skirmisher is least prone to getting swarmed bythe mutated voribugs, but that only applies so long as it is able to retain its mobility. Solong as it remains in its current state, the Quickdraw can evade many traps. Its greatestweakness is its lack of offensive capabilities. Since Venerable Texis is not yet an acepilot, he lacks a Saint Kingdom that can amplify and extend the range of his attacks. Theplasma daggers alone are at least moderately effective against the smaller Sudfar strain.The Quickdraw is a much worse match against a meatshield such as the Ekstrom strain.""So this high-speed megavoribug is called the Sudfar strain, eh?""Yes. The Sudfar strain is the Goliath Hive's counterpart to light skirmishers. It is a highlyspecialized and optimized organic subspecies that is constantly becoming a little fasterand more agile while not trading in as much defensive power. Its acid-spittingcapabilities are fairly recent, and we expect the Goliath Princess to arm the Sudfar strainwith more advantages down the line."That was bad news. The Sudfar strain's excellent speed and maneuverability could turnit into a potential nightmare to regular forces. It could charge straight towards a humanfleet and evade many attacks while wearing down the azure energy shields ofbattleships and fleet carriers.Once the Sudfar Goliath broke upon the energy shields of those large and expensivevessels, the giant insect could quickly wreak havoc at close range!"Is there anything else that we need to know about the Sudfar Goliath?" Ves asked."They are almost unkillable if we do not field our own corresponding expert lightskirmisher or ace light skirmisher." Lord Richard Brownstone said with a frown. "High-ranking mechs with formidable ranged attack capabilities can certainly track and hit thefast-moving Sudfars, but their regeneration speeds are relatively fast and theirperformance does not diminish too much even if they have lost over 30 percent of theirbiomass. As long as they can still move at high speeds, they can always abandon theiroffensive plans and retreat to safety at a rapid pace. Remember. The mutated voribugshave no honor. The decision to attack or retreat is purely based on rational decision-making."In other words, the Goliath Hive did not care about the lives and deaths of individualvoribugs or megavoribugs.The Goliaths could be brave to the point of suicidal in one instant, and switch to beingshameless cowards that ran away like scurrying rats in the next instant!Their lack of pride or genuine fighter spirit disturbed red humanity.People like Ves and the other members of the mech community were simply not used tofighting against a formidable adversary that purely treated its armed forces likeexpendable commodities.Even though the Goliaths had been proven to be sapient and capable of recognizingtheir own individuality, they were still treated as cogs in a very large organic machine."Have you managed to capture a living Sudfar Goliath or at least an intact corpse? Iwould like to study it and understand why it can be so fast but still possess such goodregeneration capabilities.” Gloriana asked.She was not well-versed in exobiology, but she could still glean a lot of clues byapplying her existing understanding in mech design."I am afraid I must disappoint you, Madame." Lord Richard shook his head. "I havementioned before that each Goliath is protected against hostile examinations. As soonas they are dead or defeated, their molecules begin to separate from each other. Theirdisintegration works too quickly. We have employed various means to preserve them,but even our best attempts have led to the capture of molten biomass that only vaguelyresembles a Goliath. The best way to study their properties is to observe them on thebattlefield such as today. This is one of the reasons why we are playing along with theGoliath Hive." < Chapter 7264 “ N