Ves became distracted by the fringe theories as he completed his experiments. One of his final tests was to expose the voribugs to different glows. With the help of Blinky, he called down the power of different design spirits such as Zeigra and the Superior Mother and observed the reactions of the bugs. The results largely disappointed him. The voribugs possessed weak spirituality, but that also served as a form of protection for them. They were much less susceptible to most effects that directly targeted their spiritualities. In fact, Ves even believed that they were unnaturally resilient towards this medium of attack. It was impossible to manipulate their emotions, and they were highly resistant towards contamination. He found that strange. The ordinary voribugs were quite weak and easy to kill on an individual basis, but their spiritualities were so well-defended that their progenitors must have put a lot of effort into their development. What exactly were the voribugs engineered to fight against? Were they solely designed to wipe out the native life forms of the Red Ocean Galaxy, or were these bioweapons meant to invade other galaxies and wipe out the mysterious life forms that dominated those cosmic regions? Ves continued to observe more puzzle pieces, but there were too few of them to form a complete enough picture. Many questions still remained unanswered. All he knew was that his anti-voribug mech was no longer effective towards the mutated and empowered variants. Absorbing more E energy did not explicitly strengthen their spirits, but instead made them more resistant. This meant that solutions that directly targeted the spiritualities of these voribugs likely wouldn't work. That was a pity. If this vulnerability still existed, then the best and most convenient solution to keep the voribugs away from an important location was to station a bunch of LMC mechs with glows or set up a qi formation that produced a large-scale mental repulsion effect. "Well, it is not as if humans are all that susceptible to these effects as before." He muttered. E energy radiation empowered humans in a different way. No matter whether they engaged in qi cultivation or not, their spiritualities all became stronger over time, enabling them to close the gap between themselves and higher existences. This automatically allowed them to resist the suppressive glows while reducing the effectiveness of supportive glows. Similar changes happened to the native aliens as well. Cheaper solutions no longer worked. In order to influence minds and spirits from a distance, red humanity needed to devise much more powerful and focused solutions. Employing spell arrays was one of them, but they were far from the only option. In any case, Ves did not become too discouraged when he learned that the voribugs could no longer be manipulated so easily with the help of glows. He would just have to figure out a way to block or kill the voribugs through physical means. After he concluded his experiments, Ves accompanied Lord Richard to a lounge room where they could sit back, collate their results and share their thoughts with each other. "I already should have guessed that the voribugs are not susceptible to cheap tricks anymore." Ves said with a sigh. "Even if my glows worked against the mutated species out in the field, I have no doubt that their queen or princesses would mutate their offspring so that they no longer became as vulnerable as before. As it is, their current resistance helps us save the effort of employing this solution." Lord Richard listened to his former collaboration partner while lifting up a cup of tea before taking a sip. It was strange for him to look so civilized and composed while millions of voribugs were being slain throughout the star system. The barrier between safety and extinction had become painfully thin. The only reason why the voribugs had not pierced it yet was because they found the defenders of Philaster Crestia III too useful to wipe out right away. When Ves was thinking about the subject of sentience in the voribug race, he frowned as he tried to imagine how numerous smart bugs existed at the moment and how many more would emerge. "Have you guys determined whether there are more sentient workings out there?" He asked. "This is one of our higher priorities, Ves. We have not been able to make direct observations as any excursion into working territory is fraught with peril. It is also very difficult to locate and approach any intelligent working as their savage species do not build any obvious palaces or strongholds. So far, we can only infer sentient thinking by analyzing their actions. This is how we have derived the existence of a single overarching queen as well as 6 princesses. The Goliaths also show much greater initiative, adaptation, emotional reactions as well as creativity than the lesser bugs. All of our high-ranking mech pilots that have fought directly against them are convinced they are dealing with a rudimentary form of individual alien intelligences." "Have the voribugs displayed any hive mind or other collective intelligence characteristics?" "Not yet." Lord Richard Brownstone shook his head. "We specifically look out for these traits. We fear that once the amount of voribugs in a star system, zone or galaxy has surpassed a threshold, the voribugs will spawn a superintelligence that can command the alien insects more effectively. There are several biotech scientists that speculate that the princesses of the hives fit this definition, but we cannot prove or disprove this theory. So far, we are operating on the assumption that this is not the case. If these princesses exist, then they must be a tangible existence." They really had no way of verifying the answer. The Rubarthans had already sent a large amount of scout vessels into voribug space, but they did not expect to obtain any immediate answers. These scouting missions were basically long shots. "Do not enter star systems that the voribugs have completely conquered if you can help it." Lord Richard warned. "Space is largely empty, and the same applies to those star systems. However, the voribugs are very adaptable and are in the process of developing means to intercept and destroy intruding vessels." It was always a gamble for small ships, even stealth vessels, to sneak into enemy territory. If any voribugs happened to be in the vicinity, they could easily come and interfere with the vessels just enough to prevent them from escaping into FTL travel. What was even worse was that the voribugs also possessed the means to interdict warp travel! There existed several varieties of transphasic voribugs that could debilitate the mobility of any starship! "Their solutions are not mature yet, so strong enough warp drives and superdrives can still overcome the interdiction field. However, if there are too many bugs in the vicinity that are all producing the same effect, then their quantity can overwhelm any drive no matter how strong it may be. This is why it is absolutely important to never let yourself get surrounded by a swarm of voribugs." The good news was that the prevalence of voribugs capable of interdicting warp travel was inconsistent. Read on lig‌ht‌no‌‌vel‌world‌.o‌rg They were more prevalent in star systems that were rich in phasewater, but the Hives deliberately redistributed their transphasic bug subspecies in order to make their distribution more even. If this was the case, then it may not be a good idea for the Bluejay Fleet to go on the offensive. Ves needed to wait until red humanity learned more about this new enemy and developed more countermeasures against their existence. The Riot Mark III at least needed to get operational again. He hoped that Saint Rosa Orfan would wake up soon and agree to fight despite her problematic physical condition. With an ace mech at his disposal, Ves had much greater confidence in the Bluejay Fleet's ability to willpower various crises. As Ves and his Rubarthan friend continued to talk, they eventually directed their attention to counters. "Now that you have partially learned what we are fighting against, do you have any bright ideas on how to counter the mutated workings?" Ves grimaced. "No. Not yet. I only know what I cannot do. We can't bank on glows or other solutions designed to influence the minds and spirits of these oddly resistant workings. I still think that the Red Collective presents the greatest hope of repelling these aliens. Our resident formation master informed me of a grand plan to devise a planetary-wide defensive formation that can efficiently annihilate countless weak voribugs." "I have recently been informed of such plans." The Rubarthan Senior responded. "In my opinion and the opinion of my superiors, they are all gambits with a low chance of success. Most of these plans will fail, but it will still be worth it as long as one or two succeed. I do not possess the expertise to evaluate the likelihood that a defensive formation can successfully alleviate our defensive burden. I would much prefer to focus on what I can do in my own power, which is designing mechs. I believe that you must harbor the same desire." "You are exactly right, but... the difficulty is high. I believe that viable solutions exist, but I lack the inspiration to develop them. I had hoped that examining specimens would refresh my mind and give me a few leads, but that has not happened. All I can think about is arming mechs with regular weapons that eventually exhaust their supplies and grow tired. That is not an effective way to fight against endless tides of cannon fodder. At least the Goliaths come in much smaller numbers." Lord Richard did not look optimistic. "So far. We have studied the material composition of many Goliath carcasses. They are large and powerful, but they are not as big as phase lords. This means that it is very much possible to produce them in greater numbers so long as the local or regional voribug presence has gained control over resource-rich sun systems. Although the quality and combat power of a Goliath is not that impressive at the moment, the voribugs can already rely on their superior reproduction rates to field hundreds if not thousands of them at a time. This is a completely maddening scenario. We cannot possibly produce champions as quickly as our insectile adversaries. This is why we welcome the arrival of your 'Ascended Giants'. They may be the only assets standing in the way of total defeat in this star system." "The Goliath Hive may be making an effort to imitate its adversaries at the moment, but there was no rule that stated that they had to make a 100 percent copy. The best way for the Goliath voribugs to go about it was to combine the best practices of the enemy with the natural advantages of their own race. Therefore, so long as the mutated voribugs could gather the necessary resources, there was nothing wrong with producing a thousand Goliaths and throwing them directly against the orbital defenses of Philaster Crestia III! Even if the vast majority of the Goliaths ended up getting killed, the Goliath Hive could simply recycle the carcasses of the deceased Goliaths while simultaneously plunder the resources of conquered territory to replenish the losses. "If this is the case, then we need to devise solutions that can effectively defeat a large amount of Goliaths in a short amount of time." Ves surmised. "It is too inefficient to rely on a small number of high-ranking mechs or a limited quantity of Ascended Giants to bear all of the burden of defeating these powerful bugs. We need to empower regular mechs with the ability to slay these giant insects." Perhaps he should take a look at a few old solutions and update them to the current needs of the market. Ves did not necessarily have to fixate on completely new and original design applications in order to defeat the bugs. "I agree, Ves. We need to develop a systematic counter against an adversary that prefers to rely on numbers to win every battle. Only human ingenuity can save us from defeat."