Chapter 6367 High Stakes Struggle The battle against the cosmopolitans and the native aliens entered into a heated stage. While the defending side held the advantage on the surface, many mech pilots and other personnel clearly understood that taking down the relatively mundane enemy mechs, phasefighters and warships ultimately did not matter too much. Failing to defeat them would only cause the Bluejay Fleet to cement its defeat. Beating them did not translate into victory as they had never served as the true threat in the first place. The real enemies that the Bluejay Fleet needed to defeat were the greater and lesser phase lords that possessed the power to bull through everything! The Rosfield Cannons installed on Fort Rock and the primary gun batteries of the larger warships of the Bluejay Fleet continually pummeled the spatial barrier of the Arena Lord of Ya-gwasa, but it had proven to be disgustingly tough and powerful! Although the Arena Lord clearly lacked the ability to manipulate the fabric of space across vast stretches of space, he had put a lot of resources and effort into developing his close-ranged combat capabilities. Strengthening his defenses was one of the most basic but reliable means to outlast an opponent in a duel! Many phase lords tended to believe their bodies were already large and powerful enough to withstand a huge amount of punishment. They instead spent their time and resources on developing flashier abilities that could further emphasize their status as gods, such as the power to warp and knead space. The Distance Shaper was the archetypical example of such a phase lord. The erudite orven god had completely committed himself to this strategy and was able to help the relatively weaker strike craft and the warships of his side survive longer by manipulating the circumstances in their favor! Yet when it came to dealing with overwhelming firepower and highly resistant ace mechs under heavy suppression, even a greater phase lord such as a Distance Shaper might feel uncomfortable! This was where phase lords who strengthened their fundamentals began to stand out. The Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa strongly believed that all of those fancy tricks were far too unreliable. Depending on their strength would only lead to disappointment when the enemy had become strong enough to cope with such means. Tricks could never overcome every adversity. The Arena Lord might not be able to fight as freely as he liked against an ace mech with a Destroyer weapon and a fleet that constantly bombarded his spatial barrier, but he was doing surprisingly well despite lacking enough assistance! "$#@&@#@#!" "I AM INEXHAUSTIBLE! IF YOU THINK YOU CAN TIRE ME OUT, THEN THINK AGAIN. THE PHASEWATER PRODUCTION SYSTEM THAT I HAVE EARNED THROUGH MY OWN EFFORT HAS STRENGTHENED MY PHYSIQUE BEYOND ITS PREVIOUS LIMITS. I AM A MUCH MORE POWERFUL GOD THAN YOU CAN COMPREHEND. IF YOU DID NOT WIELD A SPEAR THAT YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO USE, I WOULD HAVE CRUSHED YOU LIKE THE INSECT YOU ARE MUCH SOONER." Saint Tusa ignored most of what the enemy phase lord said as his Dark Zephyr rapidly swooped in and thrust a shadowy dark spear against the spatial barrier! The energy barrier held up quite well, but Tusa could clearly sense that it had grown a lot brittler than before. The continuous attacks from the warships and space fortress along with driving the tip of the tier 3 Destroyer spear against this defensive measure were slowly producing a result! No greater phase lord was invincible! The Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa may possess much stronger spatial barriers than usual, but everything had a limit. As the Dark Zephyr continued to circle around in order to launch another attack, the Arena Lord clearly prepared to launch another counterattack. The Saint Piercer held in the alien's grasp had yet to pierce through the Dark Zephyr, but it was getting harder for Tusa to avoid a direct hit. Just as Saint Tusa was learning how to cope with the Arena Lord's fast and accurate reactions, the greater phase lord had also taken his opponent's measure. The Dark Zephyr had proven to be exceptionally difficult to hit. The Arena Lord might hold contempt for humans and their false gods, but he had never dueled against an opponent as elusive as Saint Tusa in the past! That was enough to raise the Arena Lord's respect towards the ace mech and treat this opponent with a serious attitude. Considering that the ace pilot did not reject the assistance of others during the fight, the Arena Lord felt no obligation to stick to his own means when fighting back. As the Dark Zephyr's shadowy form began to explode into a cloud of shadows that made it much more difficult to track the ace light skirmisher's coordinates, the Arena Lord finally enacted the plan that he had been cooking up in his mind! "#@$&@!" "NOW!" The DIstance Shaper immediately unleashed the spatial ability that he had been preparing after receiving the Arena Lord's silent signal. Though the orven greater phase lord had been fighting under heavy suppression for a while, the powerful being still had ways to cope against this adversity! After raising his palm, he voluntarily separated a portion of his own phasewater-infused flesh and blood and launched it toward the Arena Lord like an organic missile! The strong spatial warping around the flesh missile allowed it to resist the spatial suppression by a noticeable extent and fly forward at a much faster pace than it should! The flesh missile only had to cross a relatively short distance and reach the side of the Arena Lord before exploding in a bloody mess that spread phasewater-infused tissue in every direction! Saint Tusa managed to detect the threat in advance, but the Distance Shaper's sacrificial play unfolded so quickly that his Dark Zephyr was unable to abort his attack run in time to get out of the danger zone! The cloud of shadow became pierced by hundreds of smaller flesh projectiles! The Dark Zephyr might not be able to change his course, but he was still able to use his Saint Kingdom to slow down and weaken the flesh particles just enough to avoid getting struck! Yet that was not the true intention of the Distance Shaper. Somehow, the greater phase lord was still able to exert control over his split and exploded organic tissue. Normally, the particles of flesh should have continued to expand and fly away on their current trajectories, but after the Distance Shaper slightly exerted his power, the organic projectiles abruptly stopped and froze in place! Saint Tusa's eyes widened as he sensed much greater threat from this unusual move! Before he new it, the flesh particles began to burn up and evaporate! As they did so, they acted on the surrounding space, causing it to turn more solid and difficult to navigate through! As Saint Tusa unflinchingly sought to bring his Dark Zephyr out of this trap, he found to his horror that his ace mech became a lot slower than before! "No! We didn't slow down! The damn Distance Shaper has stretched out the surrounding space!" Tusa still felt confident he could bring his ace light skirmisher out of this trap, but that took time that he did not have at the moment! Due to his constant exertions, he was no longer able to employ his Free Flight and Leap of True Freedom abilities as quickly as before. Tusa also had a hunch that his resonance strength was far from powerful enough to break the spatial expansion effect generated by the Distance Shaper, especially now that the greater phase lord decisively sacrificed a portion of his own flesh and blood to strengthen this move! "If I can't get away…" The Larkinson ace pilot had never taken his attention off the Arena Lord, so he could clearly observe the nunser greater phase lord turning around and moving closer with the Saint Piercer ready to impale his machine! Unlike the Dark Zephyr, the Arena Lord appeared to be immune to the distance stretching effect. This was normally not possible, but the Arena Lord and the Distance Shaper both figured out a way to prevent their abilities from interfering with each other! From the perspective of the Dark Zephyr, the Arena Lord advanced much faster than usual, making it even more difficult to evade the spear thrust that Tusa knew was coming! The two greater phase lords finally exposed the strength that entities of their exalted status should possess. They were too strong and clever to surrender to the handicaps that the Bluejay Fleet had imposed. Seeing that there was no way for his Dark Zephyr to evade this trap, Saint Tusa decided to unveil his own true capabilities! There were two distinct abilities that he had yet to employ against his opponents. He had been saving the Dark Zephyr's Ultimate Ability as a killer move. Although saving it up for so long made his life harder, Tusa still insisted on keeping it in reserve until he finally obtained a golden opportunity to strike a heavy blow against his adversary. That left the Dark Zephyr's latest resonating ability. Saint Tusa had chosen the Banisher Edition out of all of the other potential upgrade trajectories for good reasons. One of them was to give him a way to cope against situations where he was being overpowered by superior opponents! Unfortunately, this situation was anything but ideal to him. His proficiency in the Banish resonating ability was still too low, and he had a strong suspicion that it would prove less than effective against the Saint Piercer wielded by the Arena Lord! Fortunately, Saint Tusa had a much better target to employ his latest ability. Instead of trying to Banish an overambitious target like the Saint Piercer or a small portion of the Arena Lord's limbs, the Dark Zephyr turned around and banished dozens of stationary flesh projectiles! "Nngh! Banish!" Tusa almost stumbled when he encountered the active resistance of the Distance Shaper. Fortunately, the flesh projectiles were small and already in the process of falling apart, so his ace mech ultimately managed to disappear them into another dimension, if only for a few seconds! A few seconds was more than enough for the Dark Zephyr to take advantage of the collapse of the spatial expansion effect and dodge out of the way of an extraordinary spear that could have pierced through the ace light skirmisher's torso without hindrance! In fact, the Dark Zephyr was able to accomplish more than this. Tusa couldn't help but retaliate and took advantage of the Arena Lord's committed state to swoop in and press the tip of the tier 3 Destroyer spear against the phase lord's spatial barrier! This time, the layer of defense visibly looked more and more stressed! It was not too far away from collapsing! 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦 Once that happened, the Dark Zephyr would not only be able to inflict serious material damage to the Arena Lord, but the warship-grade guns of the Bluejay Fleet would also be able to shatter a lot of flesh from a distance! Despite all of these dangers, the Arena Lord showed no sign of flagging! He had grown so angry and frustrated at the near-hit that he unleashed a frustrated roar! "#W$&Y@#@!" "COWARD! COME BACK AND FACE ME LIKE A WARRIOR! I SHALL SHATTER YOUR METAL SHELL AND DROWN YOUR PUNY PINK BODY IN A POOL OF MY OWN BLOOD!" The Arena Lord did more than yell out his frustrations, though. He lifted his upper arm and changed his grip of his Saint Piercer so that he held it in a throwing stance! After a brief wind-up, the Arena Lord threw the extraordinarily sharp spear forward with such a blazing speed that it would accurately impale the Dark Zephyr in no time, especially when the latter had not yet built up enough distance! Saint Tusa tried to react in a hurry and force his Dark Zephyr to dodge out of the way, but the Distance Shaper exerted his own power and tried to warp the space around the ace mech! The Dark Zephyr's domain field managed to negate most of this remote effect, but the greater phase lord had concentrated his power just enough that at least some of his efforts managed to produce a result! The ace mech's trajectory unexpectedly changed in such a way that a complete evasion could no longer be accomplished! "No!" Tusa and his battle partner seemed to explode their potential at the last second, allowing them to jerk the mech frame to the side just enough for the Saint Piercer to graze the archemech's side!