Chapter 5874 Cresting Momentum Ves always got his best ideas for mech design when he was in the middle of a battle. This time was no exception as he recognized the huge potential for synergies between his design philosophy and that of Master Benedict. The powerful combination that he had managed to produce with the help of Blinky opened up his eyes for a much more potent mech, one that was not only powerful enough to defeat mundane opponents, but also metaphysical ones! The key was energy. Ves specialized in E technology. He was good at empowering mechs. More specifically, he was able to make them alive and allow them to leverage E energy in much more efficient ways. The longer they existed, the stronger they became. Every living mech possessed the capacity to learn new techniques, advance their cultivation and develop stronger affinities with familiar E energy attributes. Yet for all of their growth potential, it took a huge amount of time before any of his living mechs reached the level of the Ouroboros. The painful truth was that most of his living mechs weren't strong to boost their direct combat power by a large enough margin. A second-class living mech was still a second-class living mech. There was practically no hope of elevating their combat power to the point where they could pose a credible threat to a first-class mech. Granted, the same could be said for machines developed by other mech designers. What was different this time was that Ves saw much greater hope of being able to bridge this enormous gap. He just needed to get Master Benedict onboard his plan. The former Skull Architect possessed the right solution to complement his living mech. The Mars that both of them had collaborated on already showed a semblance of that. It was a pity that Patriarch Reginald Cross ultimately did not appreciate a living mech with an attitude and wiped out all traces of independence. The current iteration of the Mars had become a powerful second skin mech that perfectly suited the Cross Patriarch's inclinations, but the loss of an independent personality had deprived it of other possibilities. If not for this unfortunate turn of events, Ves would have been able to make his current realization a lot sooner. Witnessing Blinky and Caramond blast powerful insect champions with fire blasts was an exhilarating experience. Ves could clearly see the parallels between Blinky and his living mechs. Ves became so fired up that he felt tempted to drop everything and contact Master Benedict Cortez right away in order to propose a possible collaboration! Of course, he quickly resisted this silly impulse as this was not the time for him to think about mech design. As much as he wanted to give in to his mech design urges, it was a lot more important to ensure the survival of the Dominion of Man. Ves grinned. "It's a good thing that Caramond has forged a real legion of supersoldiers this time." After vanquishing over 100,000 lightning insects, the Bloodfire Legion had already taken shape Each and every Dread Marine that took part in the fight had transformed in many different ways. What Ves valued the most was that every Dread Armor was able to channel a lot more fire energy before reaching their safety thresholds. This meant that they could hit harder, resist more damage and move faster. There was a noticeable difference in performance between the Dread Marines that joined the Bloodfire Legion at the start and the ones that joined afterwards. This was good news as there was plenty of room for growth. The current iteration of the Bloodfire Legion was only in its initial growth stage. Soon enough, the storm clouds launched another series of lightning bolts that deposited another army of lighting soldiers across the surface of the hull! "Damn, these are elites!" Ves cursed. The 5th wave of lightning soldiers reminded Ves a lot of the Fallen Heralds of Akshi. The biggest difference this time was that the aliens resembled shark-like creatures that were clearly aquatic in nature. Each of them appeared to be powerful water cultivators. Many of them had already summoned massive bodies of water that not only offered excellent resistance to fire-attributed attacks, but also corroded any metal they came across! "Eliminate them as quickly as possible! Their corrosive water is wreaking havoc on the hull plating and the gun batteries! The Dominion of Man cannot afford to lose her offensive arsenal!" "These aliens must burn!" The Bloodfire Legion was forced to split up in order to prevent the latest tribulation manifestations from wrecking the exterior of the dreadnought. In order to cope with all of the shark cultivators, the Rubicon Spatial Transfer System teleported 50,000 fresh Dread Marines across multiple critical areas. The battle did not start off well for the defenders. The aliens were smaller in number, but each of them exuded power that was only a bit less than the insect champions. With thousands of them spread across the hull of the Dominion of Man, they could clearly do a lot of damage if left unchecked! The water summoned by all of the sharks functioned as a thick and resilient protective barrier. It took far more heat and energy to remove them than plain water. The strong water-attributed E energy infused in the water bodies continually made it a pain to boil it all away. What was worse was that the shark cultivators swam so fast that they were able to catch up to all but the fastest Dread Marines! Accompanied by their large bodies of dangerous water, the shark cultivators loved to engulf entire formations of Dread Marines and corrode their thick metal shells. "Don't get trapped in the water! Any Dread Marine that falls into the unnatural water will not only lose access to fire energy, but will also be surrounded by enough interference to prevent a teleportation lock. In other words, anyone who can't get rescued in time will die!" The Dread Marines started to suffer hundreds of casualties in quick succession as the shark cultivators proved to be highly capable of inflicting mass casualties on the battlefield. The only units that were able to defeat the shark cultivators a lot faster than the other ones were the Dread Marines of the 34th Assault Regiment, the 88th Bombardment Regiment and the 6th Giant Trapper Division. Many Dread Marine units were forced to concentrate their firepower to quickly boil away large bodies of water in order to rescue their trapped compatriots in time. However, the corrosive effect was so strong that many Dread Armors fell apart in less than a minute! The only units that were able to defeat the shark cultivators a lot faster than the other ones were the Dread Marines of the 34th Assault Regiment, the 88th Bombardment Regiment and the 6th Giant Trapper Division. They glowed much hotter and easily channeled twice if not thrice as much fire energy than the more junior members of the Bloodfire Legion. "Let our fire boil the seas!" "Humanity shall prevail!" "I will not let a shark melt my Dread Armor!" Though the shark cultivators still inflicted casualties by the thousands, none of the Dread Marines shirked their duty. Instead, they felt honored that they were selected to fight on the Dominion of Man's behalf and felt as if they were fulfilling a sacred duty for the betterment of their race. As fire and water continued to clash across the exterior of the Dominion of Man, Blinky and Caramond made sure to boost the Bloodfire Legion while also leveraging their growing command of fire energy. "Boil!" The descended Caramond pointed his black scepter at the nearest body of water and unleashed an enormous firebreath! The shark cultivator clearly recognized the threat and attempted to change direction, but Caramond did not give his opponent enough time to make a getaway. A huge quantity of corrosive water boiled away in a matter of seconds! Stripped of protection, the shark cultivator soon burned to the point of exploding, releasing a large amount of tribulation energy in the process. While Caramond received less of a reward than when he eliminated the champion insects, there were so many shark cultivators that he was bound to reach an entirely new tier of strength once he was done! Ves found himself forced to move at higher speeds in order to move Caramond close enough to eliminate the shark cultivators with simple, raw fire energy attacks! There was so little sophistication and nuance in the way that Blinky shaped the fire energy that even Caramond was able to master the techniques after a short amount of time! However, there was no need to employ more complicated attacks as the water bodies could only be neutralized by boiling them all away. Shark cultivator after shark cultivator fell in rapid succession due to Caramond's eager hunting effort. More Dread Marines got freed up after eliminating a bunch of shark cultivators. Each of them reinforced their beleaguered compatriots and relied on a growing numbers advantage to eliminate the shark cultivators. Once around a third of the shark cultivators got put down, the Bloodfire Legion received a lot of new members while taking much less time to steamroll over the remaining lightning soldiers. That did not mean that Caramond took it easy. Since all of his firepower was supplied by the Spark Reactor, neither Blinky nor Caramond expended a lot of energy during this entire sequence. The only issue was that Blinky experienced increasing strain. The effort required to maintain a partially merged state with Caramond grew increasingly more cumbersome, so they couldn't maintain this state forever. This pushed Caramond to fight even harder. Not only did he want to harvest more destruction and creation energy, he also wanted to complete the final wave of the 5th round as soon as possible. "That's it for the corrosive sharks!" "The hull has received heavy damage, and we have lost much more Dread Marines than before." The Dominion of Man incurred serious damage to her exterior this time. Many tertiary and secondary gun batteries had received so much damage that repairing them during this incident was unthinkable. The corrosive water had also dug fairly deep trenches into the hull. The dreadnought spun her hull 90 degrees in order to prevent the next wave of enemies to complete the job and invade the interior of the massive warship. Caramond did not seem to care all that much. His Bloodfire Legion had become a lot stronger and more numerous than before. His own strength had undergone a considerable evolution as well as he found himself able to channel and control fire energy a lot better. The ancestral spirit even had a feeling that the tribulation energies had somehow improved the Bloodfire Pact itself! The next few waves presented greater and greater challenges to the defenders. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞 Caramond and his Bloodfire Legion did their best to advance their strength and stay ahead of the curve. The lightning soldiers brought greater numbers, deadlier abilities and more confounding tricks. Tens of thousands of Dread Marines fell in battle or permanently lost their precious lightning-baptized Dread Armors as they faced a multitude of fearsome opponents from Messier 87. Yet as the defenders of the Dominion of Man vanquished each and every wave without showing any signs of falling behind, everyone became convinced that it was inevitable for them to vanquish the 5th round! That was when the 9th and last wave arrived. A single, titanic green lightning bolt struck the hull! When the flash abated, every Dread Marine momentarily froze as they beheld their next opponent. A tall figure that could tower over several mechs stacked on top of each other greeted their sight. The vaguely insectile creature possessed a body that shone and crackled with both tribulation lightning and flashes of brightness. The vaguely humanoid alien exuded a huge amount of power, far more than any individual lightning soldier that appeared in the previous waves. The cultivation strength of this final opponent was insanely high, but that was not the scariest part about this adversary. What truly frightened Ves and the others was that the head of this tribulation manifestation was identical to the giant head of the imperious three-eyed alien peering down from above! "It's… it's a clone of the Subjugation King!"