Saint Commander Casella Ingvar was one of the most powerful assets on the battlefield. Even though her power and abilities were constrained by the limitations of an expert mech that she had already outgrown, she was still able to Commandeer a huge amount of mechs just fine! What mattered the most was not the relatively small amount of true resonance that she was able to channel through her Knights. The biggest reason why her Commandeered mechs performed so much better than usual was because she was able to control their operations directly if she chose! In many cases, Casella felt that it was necessary to take control away from the mech pilots and reduce them to bystanders. She did not do this because she was an egotistical control freak, but because her combat skills were simply so much better, especially when it came to controlling ranged mechs. Casella was willing to retain more autonomy to her Commandeered melee mechs as her melee combat skills were not as good. Even so, their mech pilots still had to move to the coordinates and attack the enemies that she designated for them. Casella could only make the most of her Knights if they moved in complete coordination with each other. Although the results she achieved were remarkable so far, the pressure on her shoulders was extremely heavy. The mechs she assigned to dismantle the curious orven gunships only comprised a small part of the forces that were under her direct control and blessing. She was actually Commandeering a lot of Transcendent Punisher Mark III’s and other powerful ranged mechs for the sole purpose of sieging the enemy phase lords from a far! From her perspective, the confrontations between mechs and phasefighters were not that important for the time being. It would certainly be bad if the mechs got beaten back by alien small craft, but so long as the scrappy human machines managed to keep the phasefighters at bay, there was no need for her to expend her attention and energy on giving them a boost. The enemy warships were a more serious concern. For now, the CFA warships along with the many orbital defenses surrounding the fortress planet were doing a good job at putting the alien warships under pressure. What the defensive platforms and orbital fortresses lacked in mobility, they made up for it with many layers of thick alloy armor. While the exotics and hypers used to make the orbital defenses were not too expensive or high in quality, the structures were easily able to stack multiple layers of meters-thick armor plating without compromising much of their other functions! Combined with modern and serviceable titan shields, the orbital defenses were just tough and sturdy enough to withstand multiple relentless salvos launched by the enemy warships. Of course, the story may be different as the battle progressed. The lack of mobility meant that the orbital defenses were sitting ducks. They could not evade any attacks, nor retreat when their titan shields were on the verge of getting depleted. The enemy warships were more flexible than that. Whenever their azure energy shield coverage started to look shaky, they were able to fall back and recover their energy defenses and conduct repairs. This was a simple but effective tactic that the aliens relied upon to preserve their warships, especially after they lost a bunch of battleships due to Davia Stark’s breakthrough! If possible, Commander Casella wanted to direct the firepower of her Knights at these warships just before their energy shields were reaching their critical limits. Doing so would cause them to suffer real damage and may even cause them to get crippled as long as they sustained enough concentrated attacks. However, she did not have the luxury to do this because the enemy phase lords needed to be taken care of as well! Now that the five phase lords had moved into fighting range, they had begun to unleash the anger that they repressed since the Amaranto Mark III took away the life of one of their own. The Eight Lord of Takansha was the weakest and most vulnerable phase lord. His threat level was limited, but that did not mean he could be ignored. He still retained the ability to project remote spatial barriers that added an extra layer of defense onto heavily damaged and exposed warships. The orven lesser phase lord was content to play a support role. He continuously projected one spatial barrier after another that successfully blocked numerous attack salvos launched by the humans. Zren-Divar and the Fatedriver preferred to take more physical action. The orven and jureg lesser phase lords were all equipped with heavier and more threatening raiments. The gun turrets mounted across the surface opened fire at warships, orbital defenses and the expert mechs that sought to stop them in their tracks. Although the two martial lesser phase lords were powerful enough to crush any expert mech in a contest of strength, the C-Man and other powerful machines relied on their smaller sizes and superior mobility to evade every attack. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦 The expert pilots that had chosen to challenge the lesser phase lords did not dare to fly too close or commit too much to an attack. They constantly had to keep track of their opponent’s movements and evade in time when the giant aliens launched their counterattacks! So far, neither side was able to inflict much serious damage to each other. The expert mechs did not have the hard power to break past the spatial barriers of the enemy phase lords so quickly. Even as they attracted the firepower of numerous mechs and warships, the lesser phase lords were still able to withstand a lot of attacks for a time. In order to deplete their defenses faster, it became vital for melee expert mechs to approach Zren-Divar and the Fatedriver in order to interdict their warp travel capabilities and weaken their spatial barriers. "Our space suppression modules aren’t working too well against these lesser phase lords. Their spatial barriers are so strong that we are only suppressing a part of their power." "Ah!" Venerable Vincent Ricklin cried as the Fatedriver somehow managed to slam his C-Man with a giant ritualistic metal rod! "How did he manage to predict my movements? Is this guy truly able to forecast the future?" This was not the only time that his C-Man suffered from attacks that he normally should have avoided. The Fatedriver defied his predictions time and time again. The jureg lesser phase lord occasionally put himself in a position where he could easily counterattack the C-Man! "This alien bastard is begging to grate my nerves. I need to teach him a stronger lesson!" While the Fatedriver was uncommonly good at spotting opportunities only for him to exploit them, he did not reveal any other challenging traits. This was a specialized phase lord who was clearly working up to an excellent state, but had to go through a prolonged period of relative weakness due to missing several crucial phasewater organs. Saint Commander Casella immediately concluded that the expert mechs would be able to cope with the Fatedriver for the time being. Zren-Divar posed a significantly greater threat in comparison. He did not reveal any specializations or unique power expressions. The reason why the Riot Mark II piloted by Venerable Rosa Orfan and several other expert mechs struggled to avoid damage in their bout was because Zren-Divar made significantly better use of his raiment than other phase lords! The alien fought as if he was a giant mech or better yet a juggernaut. His raiment was clearly modeled after a first-class multipurpose mech, because it was loaded with many integrated weapon systems! Plasma bolts, positron beams, gauss rounds and other attacks launched in the direction of the expert mechs. While the Riot and the other machines were able to evade the majority of incoming strikes, there were too many for the expert mechs to avoid them all! This caused the Riot’s resonance shield to weaken and wobble in an instant! "Hah! Is that the best you can do, orven? It will take far more than that to take me down!" The orven phase lord that moonlighted as a juggernaut did not dismiss the expert mechs. Too many phase lords had already paid the price for underestimating any human mech. Zren-Divar continued to lash out at the expert mechs that constantly circles around his true body and sought to wear down his defenses with constant attacks. The occasional fire support provided by Casella’s Commandeered mechs had saved the expert mechs from suffering more serious damage. Zren-Divar was aware of the presence of the powerful Saint Commander, but he had little choice but to allow the humans to play their tricks. To the native aliens, the goal of this offensive was not to kill as many humans as possible. They instead sought to conquer the star system. It was not necessary to crush each and every expert mech, especially if they possessed superior mobility! Zren-Divar therefore focused on attacking the assets of the human defenders. No matter whether they were carrier vessels or orbital fortresses, all of it was fair game as far as the alien was concerned. Discover hidden content at empire The alien actually lifted a custom-developed plasma rifle and started to shoot out large and hot bolts that could overload azure energy shields in an instant and melt a serious hole through the hull of an enemy vessel! The alien used a plasma rifle that was big enough to be mounted on warships to bring the hurt directly to the human defenders! Venerable Rosa Orfan and the others were not willing to let that happen. The bright orange-coated Riot flew close in order to start spreading more chaos and instability. The expert spearman mech tried his best to drain the defenses of the enemy, but even though he was merely a ’lesser phase lord’ did not mean his defensive phasewater organs were below par! For now, both Zren-Divar and the expert mechs that fought against this particular phase lord had entered into another temporary stalemate. The balance could easily tip in one direction or another, so Saint Commander Casella needed to be ready as well in order to capitalize on the weaknesses shown by the enemies. As threatening as the lesser phase lords may be, the human defenders had enough expert pilots and ace pilots at their disposal to contain and suppress Zren-Divar. However, the phase lord soon gained the upper hand when he reached behind his back and activated a juggernaut-grade plasma sword! The potent weapon might not have any transphasic enhancements, but the sheer heat and power radiating from the plasma blade were indications that the weapon was already effective at overwhelming defenses. The plasma sword might not be as good as a saint arm, but no expert mech wanted to get struck by the energy weapon. Venerable Rosa Orfan saw no reason to back off. Instead, she flew her outdated riot even more aggressively. The expert pilot knew she was playing with fire by exposing her lastgen expert mech to an extremely well-equipped lesser phase lord. Just getting whacked by the plasma sword a few times may be enough to break the Riot’s resonance shield and dig through the armor plating that was supposed to keep the machine intact! "Heh, I never wanted this to be easy." Venerable Orfan grinned as she grew more and more excited as the fight continued. "Come! Hit me if you can!" The Riot was not the most mobile or agile of mechs, but the expert spearman mech was still able to evade the enemy plasma sword multiple times due to Venerable Orfan’s powerful intuition. She just knew in which direction the Riot had to evade in order to prevent adverse contact with the plasma sword! All the while, the Riot occasionally swooped in to land another blow against the orvan phase lord’s spatial barrier. While the spear wielded by the Riot was not strong anymore by modern standards, Venerable Orfan demonstrated an unusual degree of patience and kept up his effort to whittle down her opponent’s formidable energy defenses. Her blood kept pumping faster in her veins as she barely managed to anticipate and evade one plasma sword attack after another!