Chapter 6432 Pure and Light The Shrine of Light was a remarkable architectural work. The enormous chamber that was located in the very center of the Astral Octagon obtained its light from all sorts of external sources, most notably the trinary stars that supplied the Yernstall Central Star Node with a lot of light and energy. The Dyson swarms that intercepted a significant fraction of the outgoing electromagnetic radiation still let out enough illumination to light up much of the Astral Octagon's interior. It took precise calculations and a lot of artistic imagination to shape light into art. This was especially the case when the Shrine of Light had to look good at every hour of the day! Throw in the orbital mechanics of the Astral Octagon, La Reine and the motion of other large light-reflecting objects, the calculations quickly turned dizzyingly complex! Ves knew a thing or two about light, crystals and optics, but he felt as if he was a small child compared to the architects and designers who masterminded the creation of the Shrine of Light! This was because the crystals did not only shape light. They also shaped the passage of E energy. Ves did not know what hyper materials had been used to produce this subtle effect, but Ves could clearly feel that the crystals had significantly reduced the passage of negative E energy radiation, while also increasing the concentrating positive E energy radiation towards the center of the Astral Octagon. This caused everyone to feel lighter, more optimistic and more hopeful. The people that kept entering the Shrine of Light from different directions all felt as if their burdens had lifted and that that red humanity was no longer doomed. It was… heavenly. He strongly suspected that a Star Designer like the Plasma Shaper or the Dimensional Architect was responsible for conceiving this magnificent space. As a mech designer with a strong appreciation for both science and art, he continued to remain dazzled by the unique and dynamic interplay between white and colored light rays. Nothing looked artificial. The massive chamber that was large enough to house starships offered a huge amount of space to showcase momentary objects painted by specific combinations of light rays. From pyramids to peacocks, the lightshow constantly created new illusions that looked so ethereal that Ves felt as if he had stepped into a heavenly theater. He could tell that he was far from the only person who became impressed by the sight. The Shrine of Light quickly earned its way to the list of heritage sites due to brilliant architectural design! Soon enough, the councilors split in half. Those in darker red robes ascended one flight of stairs and sat on their designated crystal seats. Those in brighter red robes ascended two flights of stairs. They soon stepped foot on an enormous rectangular crystal platform where their crystal seats, no, thrones awaited their arrival. Naturally, Ves received instructions to claim the crystal throne that was placed in the center of the front row. This was a silent confirmation that he was most likely able to claim the highest position in the Upper Throne. Ves exchanged a brief look with Councilor Jackarie. The senator from the Pantheon of Modern Gods did not possess a high status within the Upper Council, so he had to sit much further behind. The two nodded before they went their separate ways. None of the councilors were accompanied by bodyguards or assistants at this time. Their followers could only wait around in a waiting room or take their places at the general seating places. Hundreds of thousands of guests had arrived to witness the founding ceremony in person. Many of them were leaders in their respective states, but the Red Collective also made sure that enough 'ordinary people' obtained a chance to attend this historic event. None of the guests made any noise at this time. The chamber deliberately dampened sound waves generated from human speech, thereby causing the Shrine of Light to make an even stronger otherworldly impression. The unusual changes in the composition of E energy radiation gently suppressed any unrest or uncertainty. All of the people that entered the Shrine of Light found that their patience and forbearance had magically increased. They could sit in this magnificent chamber and observe the endless interplay of light rays taking place above their heads for hours without growing bored! Even Lucky grew fascinated as he jumped onto Ves' lap and settled into place. The seats began to fill up quickly. The process had been planned months in advance by the most competent planners in the Red Ocean. Nothing at all went wrong during this crucial day. Once all of the guests had arrived and taken their places, the enormous double doors slowly slammed shut. The Shrine of Light had become an enclosed chamber, at least for the time being. Absolute silence stretched for two more minutes. People could only hear their own breathing, but nothing else. No pompous music began to echo across the walls. No colorful banners emerged to announce the establishment of the Red Collective. No flower petals fell from above. Only light and silence dominated the Shrine of Light. Just as everyone expected for this silent moment to persist for a few more minutes, the largest set of double doors located at the far end of the chamber slowly slid open. A large number of metal-on-crystal collisions sounded in the chamber. It sounded as if a troop of mechs was about to enter the Shrine of Light. As the large mech-like shapes stepped forward until they finally began to pass through the entrance, it soon became clear that they were not what everyone thought! The giant forms initially looked like humanoid mechs, but it became clear that they only shared a resemblance to the classic machines. Underneath all of the thick layers of armor were giant human forms that had been magnified to the scale of mechs! Ves along with many other people reacted in complete surprise at the sight! Those were actual humans moving underneath their well-designed raiments! Ves could tell that they were humans because no biomechs possessed that distinctive human look. It was extremely unlikely for the Red Collective to attempt to fool the masses by commissioning biomechs that just happened to look extremely human-like. The obvious conclusion was that the Red Collective had finally decided to showcase its initial unit of human phase lords in public! Many councilors including Ves had not been deeply involved in the planning of the founding ceremony. At most, they made suggestions or made contributions to specific sections, but none of them were aware of the full program. If the Red Collective wanted to make a dramatic first or second impression, then it had most definitely succeeded! It was not just the remarkable nature of human phase lords that captivated observers. As pairs of human phase lords wearing identical blue-coated raiments with purple accents continued to pass through the enormous entrance, more of them kept approaching from behind. Their quantity already impressed a lot of people. As pairs of human phase lords wearing identical blue-coated raiments with purple accents continued to pass through the enormous entrance, more of them kept approaching from behind. The synchronized footsteps they made on the surface of the crystal floor caused the entire shrine to vibrate and echo at increasing amplitudes. It was not until a whopping 60 human phase lords managed to get past the opened double doors that the procession finally reached its limit! A lot of people grew relieved, but there were also viewers who grew disappointed. Was that it? Did red humanity spend so much time and resources to figure out how to raise human phase lords, only to produce 60 of them in the end? Their scale also seemed lacking. It was quite impressive for humans to be able to grow to the scale of mechs, but that was trivial in the eyes of a true alien phase lord or phase whale! Still, not everyone dismissed the combat power of these human phase lords. What they lacked in size, they made up for it in quantity. Depending on how difficult it was to cultivate human phase lords, it may be possible for red humanity to counter the threat of alien phase lords by throwing lots of human ones on the battlefield! Second, human phase lords were still a new phenomenon. There was still room for growth for each of these giant human soldiers. They just needed more time and phasewater to double or triple the height of their true bodies and become as powerful as Ves at his current level of cultivation! Third, their raiments were much more advanced than the more rudimentary ones utilized by the native aliens. Red humanity had access to over four centuries of mech development. Even if phase lord raiments needed to be completely hollow, that still left a lot of external space to mount armor plating, external power sources, flight systems and other modules! There were also swords, spears, rifles, cannons and other handheld equipment! Each of these phase lord-adapted products were originally derived from highly optimized and developed mech systems! Merging mech technology with human phase lord thereby resulted in a much greater synergy between technology and body cultivation! As such, the gathering of 60 human phase lords equipped with purpose-built raiments exuded a much stronger sense of oppression than 60 first-class multipurpose mechs! Part of it was because of red humanity's unfamiliarity with the human variant of phase lords, but another part of it was because each of them generated a remarkably consistent spatial energy field that charged the surrounding air in a very subtle manner. Ves' expression changed a little. As the first human phase lord, he could roughly figure out what these giant soldiers were doing. They were just employing a trick to increase their intimidation factor. However, the implications were much greater than that. When 60 human phase lords vibrated the fabric of space at nearly the same frequency, they generated a form of spatial resonance that could produce much more devastating consequences if they were being serious! His head immediately thought about the possible combat applications of this method. If the Red Collective ever sent out this elite human phase lord unit at an enemy force, the 60 giants could assume a formation and use their Maracos organs to shake the fabric of space at the same frequency but with much greater power than before! As long as the quantity and power was enough, then they could potentially generate a cataclysmic space quake that could sunder entire alien assault fleets and tear apart the spatial barriers of formidable alien phase lords! Ves immediately realized the difference between the human and alien approach towards phase lords. The native aliens all the way to the Red Cabal considered phase lords and phase whales to be literal gods. No god was the same. Each of them possessed their own legendary stories that propelled them to godhood. Every phase leader sought to create his own divine myth and did all they could to differentiate themselves from their rival gods. The very notion of gathering a bunch of alien phase lords together and forcing them to develop the same powers and integrate the same phasewater organs sounded heretical to the native aliens! A god was not supposed to be a faceless grunt! Red humanity clearly though differently. The Red Collective's Phase Lord Department had no qualms about cultivating multiple human phase lords in the same way. This was because humans did not regard phase lords as gods, not even their human variants! Since humans just regarded them as overgrown people with magical spatial abilities, they did not have any taboos about training them into gigantic elite troopers that fully leveraged the advantage of teamwork and coordination! Impressive. Creative. This was the sort of imagination and planning that red humanity depended upon to overcome their numerically superior foes. Ves could easily foresee that once the RC started to send out squads or companies of human phase lords in the field, entire war theaters might turn around due to the amazing combat effectiveness of these superhuman assets!