Chapter 5869 Collective Action The surface of the Dominion of Man had turned into a battlefield yet again. This time the scale was a lot larger than before. In the 4th wave of the 5th round of the ongoing lightning tribulation, over 100,000 lightning soldiers appeared at a time! Though smaller than the Fallen Heralds of Akshi, the strange insectile aliens proved to be far trickier to defeat through massed firepower. "They are packed in tight formations! Open fire! Bombard them to pieces!" "It's not working! Our attacks are being repelled by their combined energy barriers! As long as the tribulation storm keeps feeding them E energy, our firepower can't exhaust the protective layers!" The insects armed with a variety of sharp and pointy transmutated forelimbs did not appear to be simple warriors. They were cultivators, and fought like ones. Different from before, the cultivators were relatively weak, but they excelled at casting and maintaining cooperative spells. Each formation consisting of tens of thousands of lightning soldiers was able to cast a mass energy barrier spell that absorbed incoming attacks with ease! The good news was that the incoming firepower from the 5 Dread Marine Divisions that replaced the 6th Giant Trapper Division forced the enemy formations spread across the hull to hunker down. The aliens did not have enough spare cultivators left to organize any coordinated counterattacks! Explosions, energy beams and projectiles continually rippled against the exterior of the shining metallic bubble that surrounded the insect formations. The insect species clearly possessed a strong affinity with the metal element, but combining it with tribulation lightning caused their cultivation techniques to become a lot stronger than normal. It was enough to stymy the Dread Marines arrayed against them. No matter how quickly the Rubicon Spatial Transfer System filled up the emptied missile launchers with new warheads, the continuous barrage high-yield missiles failed to break open the powerful metallic barriers. Several Dread Marine Divisions once decided to regroup and focus fire on one of the enemy formations. That turned out to be a mistake because the metallic insects quickly redirected thousands of their own number to drilling through the hull of the Dominion of Man! Each and every insect was able to chew through the resilient transphasic hyper alloys with great difficulty, even when they empowered their mandibles with metal-attributed E energy. The progress of a single insect was rather slow, but when thousands of them worked together to create a large hole, the section of hull plating started to break down disturbingly quickly! "Return to your previous assignments! Do not let any of the insect formations have free rein!" The ongoing battle quickly returned to a stalemate, but one that favored the enemy more than the defenders. Though the Dread Marines had not suffered any significant casualties so far, it had never been the goal of the tribulation soldiers to defeat these soldiers. The insect formations still had spare metallic insects left to chew through the hull plating! No matter how many meters they had to drill in order to breach into the interior of the Dominion of Man, the insects worked tirelessly to open up a gap that could be exploited by subsequent lightning soldiers or more direct tribulation attacks. "STOP THEM AT ALL COST!" The five Dread Marine Divisions amped up the pressure. Over 50,000 Dread Marines attacked from afar and up close. They concentrated their firepower and timed their attacks for maximum effect. A few of them even combined their weapons to launch significantly more powerful attacks that could easily shatter the armor plating of a first-class mech. Yet so long as their firepower remained dispersed, they were unable to muster enough numbers to exceed the replenishment rate of the metallic energy barriers. The obvious solution to this problem was to bring more firepower. There were still plenty of intact gun batteries that could open fire at any time. There were also a lot more Dread Marines in reserve that were chomping at the bit to participate in this glorious battle. However, Dread Captain Volkert Argile refused to send more Dread Marines for multiple reasons. Protecting the Dominion of Man was important, but it was also necessary to build the confidence and battle spirit of her powerful troop complement. Winning battles by throwing overwhelming numbers at a problem would never allow his elite troops to refine their courage and prepare them for the greater challenges ahead. Aside from that, there was a mysterious feeling in his burning heart that wanted to keep the battle fair. While it was difficult to estimate how many troops he needed to deploy to engage a wave of lightning soldiers in honorable combat, the dread captain already felt as if he had reached a certain limit. Bringing in another Dread Marine Division should easily be able to break the deadlock, but the victory would become hollow as the result had little to do with the superiority of his armed troops. The ritualistic battles between the tribulation manifestations and the armed forces of the Dominion of Man had to be fought by relying on differences in technologies, methods, tactics and coordination. This was the definitive way for an army to prove their superiority over others. Since almost everyone serving on the Dominion of Man had gotten caught up by this special atmosphere, they rejected the option of reinforcing the Dread Marines in the field. If the best human infantry force in the Red Ocean was unable to solve this problem under fair circumstances, then they no longer had the right to feel proud anymore! There was only one notable exception to this sentiment. Ves had earned a place in the field due to his undeniable contributions in engineering the ship-wide transformation that triggered a response from the heavens. Though no one would begrudge him for sitting out, he insisted on participating anyway, which meant that he had put his honor on the line as well. Ves furrowed his brows as he studied the performance of the metallic insects. Their formations were spread by several kilometers each, so he was only able to approach and study the closest one while huddling behind a dormant secondary gun battery. When he tried to use his Oceancaller to breach the metallic energy barrier with water tides, his attempt failed to exert enough pressure to break the current equilibrium. It did not matter that Blinky tried his best to increase the power of the water attacks by disgorging as much water energy from the Blinkyverse as possible! Unfortunately, the companion cat was still too weak. The aperture that connected the Blinkyverse from the main universe was too narrow to release too much water energy at a time. In a contest between two different cultivation techniques, the difference in energy levels was usually decisive enough to determine success and failure. Though Ves was pretty sure that he could easily overpower several metallic insects at a time, it was impossible for him to overcome the combined efforts of thousands of lightning soldiers! It was frustrating! The coordination of the insects was practically flawless as they synced with each other without any interruption. Their coordination was unnaturally good. It was not difficult to find out why. When Blinky observed the formation of lightning insects, the companion spirit could easily see that they were connected in a dense and sophisticated web of spiritual connections. The tribulation manifestations utilized their own version of a spiritual network. No. Calling it a spiritual network was not accurate enough. Compared to the works of Ves, the lightning soldiers employed a much more sophisticated and evolved version of a network! Blinky clearly observed the presence of runes in the spiritual connections. They did not simply follow the straightest path from one insect to another, but intertwined with countless familiar-looking runes that produced unknown but doubtlessly beneficial effects. It was impressive! Not only was the spiritual network able to connect the spiritualities of every lightning insect to a much greater extent, but also caused them to unify their minds and will without any risks to their own mental states! Aside from that, Blinky could also sense an unusually strong sense of resilience from the runed spiritual network. Even if Blinky was able to penetrate or bypass the metallic energy barrier, there was absolutely no chance for the Star Cat to break apart the runed spiritual network by devouring it piece by piece. The runes provided a powerful form of protection that was expressly put together to resist this attack vector! The only solution that Ves could come up with was to overwhelm the runed spiritual network by relying on brute force. A strong enough attack could shatter all forms of defense! Yet that proved to be an insurmountable problem. Neither the Dread Marines nor Ves could muster up enough raw energy to breach the defenses of the lightning insect formations. It was not for lack of trying. Though the Dread Marine Divisions kept trying out many different tactics and weapons systems to break past the seemingly invincible metallic energy barriers, none of their tricks were working. Dread Captain Volkert Argile came close to calling in reinforcements anyway in order to end this confrontation. A hollow victory was still a victory. Any outcome was better than giving the lightning insects enough time to drill a deep enough hole through the outer hull of the Dominion of Man. Before he resorted to this dishonorable option, the dread captain contacted Ves one more time. "Do you have any suggestions that can break this unfavorable deadlock aside from the obvious?" Ves pressed his lips. "Energy." "Professor?" "It all comes down to energy." He said. "So far, the battles we have fought amount to a confrontation between two different combat paradigms. Our Dread Marines are not active cultivators. They rely far more on their strength of arms and the technological support of the Dominion of Man to produce powerful results. Our adversaries do not have access to our technological toys, but they make up for this shortcoming by relying on their vastly superior cultivation and the energies supplied by the tribulation storm. Both paradigms have their pros and cons. The main advantage of our current set of enemies is that they are able to unify their cultivation and energy manipulation to produce results that far exceed their individual efforts." Ves could practically feel the frustration from the other side of the private communication channel. "How do you suggest we solve this problem, then?" "Our enemies are fueled by the tribulation storm. Our Dread Marines are at least partially fueled by the Spark Reactor. We need the latter to contribute more to the Dread Armors that are deployed in the field." "They are not designed to channel so much energy, whether it is conventional or unconventional!" Dread Captain Argile spoke. "The exact science eludes me, but there is a high likelihood that the Dread Armors will either explode or burst into flames. They are not as flexible as you think!" "Are you sure about that?" Ves grinned. "Have you forgotten about the lightning-baptized Dread Marines that fought in the previous waves? I suggest you swap some of the regiments in the field with the 34th Assault Regiment or the 88th Bombardment Regiment. Their Dread Armors have already been repaired and replenished by this time, correct?" "They should be." Volkert Argile said in a much more contemplative tone. "I will take your advice under consideration. Do you have any other suggestions?" Ves slowly grinned as a fantastic idea just emerged in his mind! "I do… I just came up with an idea that I would like to try. It's risky, though. I need the cooperation of the engineers who are currently in charge of the Spark Reactor. I also need your crew to do whatever it takes to increase the flow of fire energy to the hull section where I am currently situated." "I can do that, but why should we make these adjustments?" "Energy." Ves grinned. "The key to breaking this deadlock is energy. It is not just the lighting-baptized Dread Marines that can channel greater amounts of energy. I think I should give Blinky a try!" The Blinkyverse was ultimately too small and underdeveloped to provide sufficient help in battle at its current stage. Since that was the case, why not switch to a much more powerful source? The Spark Reactor was a much more powerful source of E energy!