Chapter 7315: Taking a Toll According to Gloriana's latest theory, the physicality of artifacts deserved further investigation. An artifact was neither fully material nor fully spiritual in nature. It was a combination of both, though neither Ves nor Gloriana could supply any further details. Ves intuitively felt that there was a lot of depth in how the spiritual affected the material. He really wanted to investigate this matter and conduct experiments but this was clearly not the time. Besides, even if he proved the validity of this assumption, that did not necessarily mean that he was able to convert his gains into tangible benefits. Ves inwardly shook his head and decided to set this profound subject aside for the time being. "Thank you for sharing your theory with me." Ves told her. "Your perspective is quite refreshing. You have certainly given me a lot of food for thought." Though she did not lead him to develop a solution, she at least got him to think. New possibilities already began to pass through his mind. So long as he spent enough time investigating them, he may be able to solve the problem one day. "I do not think that size-changing artifacts are attainable at the moment." Gloriana shared her opinion with him. "Do not let your newfound responsibilities with the Phase Lord Department detract you from your true vocation. You are a mech designer first and an Ascended Giant second. No matter how physically strong and imposing you become, a phase lord will always be inferior to true manifestations of strength. God pilots always triumph over everything else. We should do our best to strive to become Star Designers." 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮 Ves nodded in agreement. "You don't need to remind me, Gloriana. I will get to work on our ongoing mech design projects as soon as this battle has come to a conclusion. I do not intend to abandon our current campaign, but we will definitely need to take time off in order to learn from our lessons and prepare more thoroughly." The battle outside was still ongoing. Even if nothing exciting happened due to the voribugs being content to throw lots of cannon fodder at the defenses, the situation could grow worse at any second. The more time passed, the greater the probability that the Goliaths would finally enter into play. That was when the defenders would truly get tested! After completing the Withering Sting, Ves no longer bothered to fabricate additional gear. Perhaps he could still put his time to good use by rushing to fabricate a handful of exploding spears, but the material costs were too high. Ves felt it was better for him to pay more attention to the ongoing battle now that it was approaching a red-hot stage. After all intelligence was essentially to earn a clean victory. Without understanding the details of both sides, it would be difficult to pursue a solid goal. "I intend to head over to the command center." Ves announced to his wife. "Will you come as well, or do you prefer to stay?" Gloriana pressed her lips. "I will not be joining you. I do not have an eye for strategy. You can go ahead and liaise with the Rubarthans. As for myself, I intend to stay behind and lead the Design Department into assisting with repair and maintenance work. The initial first-class multipurpose mechs deployed by the Bluejay Fleet have already begun to return to replenish their supplies and undergo emergency maintenance. I can speed up this work especially for the more powerful mechs." "As you wish. Just be careful, alright?" They talked a bit more before they finally went their separate ways. When Ves entered the command center of the Tarrasque, he entered a space where all of the officers and specialists were already engrossed in their own work. His entry did not attract much attention. All of the mechers had become consumed by the heavy responsibility of coordinating the Bluejay Fleet's participation in the ongoing battle. While the Bluejay Fleet was not one of the main participants of this decisive clash, its warships could still provide a lot of fire support. The RA contingent also sent out at least half of its mechs. The frontlines sorely needed elite mech units to serve as 'firefighters'. Anytime a defensive installation started to show signs of getting overwhelmed timely reinforcements could prevent a catastrophe from occurring. Even if the defensive site had incurred too much damage, an elite mech unit could still buy enough time to evacuate any crew and salvageable supplies. At this time, the battle had already lasted long enough to exhaust the fighting power of numerous mech units and defensive platforms. The ordinary mech units organized by the Rubarthan Pact were not pushovers, but even if they consisted of excellent first-class multipurpose mech units, they still possessed limits. Ves observed mechs that had fought continuously for many hours and began to falter for various reasons. Mechs with strong melee combat features slowed down and started to make more mistakes as their pilots could no longer maintain their focus. Mechs that had blocked many attacks with their azure energy shields started to suffer real damage. Even their shield link transceivers declined in effectiveness due to how heavily they had been used. Unless a mech was truly high-end, the quality of their components could not endure repeated high-intensity combat. Ves' expression turned grave as he witnessed how extensively human fatigue and mechanical breakdowns degraded the combat power of the defensive troops in real time. "How insidious." He whispered to himself. He suddenly felt that the mutated voribugs possessed an excellent understanding of red humanity. The voribugs had deliberately sent out swarms of voribugs at the defenders of Philaster Crestia III in order to deplete the defenders. The previous scale of conflict induced enough pressure to prevent the soldiers from relaxing entirely. It also caused their hardware to get worn down at an accelerated rate. What was most important about this was that the Goliath Hive never gave the defending units enough time to recuperate and repair all of the worn down gear. Though the Rubarthans tried their best to rotate their soldiers and perform deep maintenance on heavily used assets, they were fighting an uphill battle. The difference in numbers was simply too great. All of this meant that the efforts of the preceding days finally bore fruit for the Goliath Hive! As Ves continued to observe the data, he easily noticed that much of the accumulated attrition from the previous days pushed the defensive assets to their breaking point. The rate of human errors and machine-driven malfunctions continued to pile up with every passing minute. The mech pilots and other soldiers had tried and failed to reach their peak conditions at the start of the battle. The hours-long slog where a seemingly endless tide of voribugs continually threw themselves at their guns only worsened their conditions further. The efficiency of the defenders deteriorated over time, exactly as the Goliath Hive intended. The fact that the mutated voribugs understood strategy to this extent and leveraged it to their advantage was frightening. Ves was far from the only person to make this scary realization. The others simply kept their mouths shut because they were too busy with their own pressing responsibilities. If this was what the mutated voribugs could engineer in one star system, Ves did not have much hope for the other locations on the Rubarthan front. The Rubarthan Pact alone could not hold back such a competent alien adversary. Only with the help of reinforcements from 'allies' such as the Red Collective and the Cybernetic Empire could the Rubarthans hope to withstand this invasion. "This is going to be tough, but we are not without hope." Ves manipulated the projected interface and checked the condition of the reserves. He manually examined the reserves and noted that the Rubarthans had been very careful about activating them. The elite units that represented the best and brightest in the Philaster Crestia System had only partially taken action up to this point. This included the Bluejay Fleet's mech contingent. While they possessed a lot more fighting spirit, the Rubarthans acted very restrained up to this point. Aside from sending them out on rotation to put out fires and punish overly aggressive voribug swarms, the elite mech units had yet to truly exert themselves. Ves understood the need to hold back the elites. The regular ops bore the brunt of the current assault without too much backup because their lives were ultimately more expendable. Although it was cruel to admit it, the Rubarthan Pact was still big enough to be able to replenish regular manpower without paying an excessive price. The same could not be said for the elites, who not only received top-notch training and augmentations, but also possessed much better talent and pedigrees. It did not make much sense to throw them into the vortex of attrition warfare where the aliens held all of the advantages. They were among the sharpest blades the Rubarthans had in their arsenal, which meant that they should only be employed where they could do the most damage, and not before. That time had not yet come. Ves felt rather frustrated about that. He understood the logic behind the decision to hold them back, but he could not accept it on an emotional level. The elite soldiers themselves must be feeling frustrated as well. They were not blind. A gradual slaughter took place before their machines, yet they received strict instructions to remain on standby or rest. It must be agonizing for them to hold back while their fellow comrades were being hammered by the enemy. Such a situation most certainly took a toll on their morale. After examining the friendly forces, Ves began to examine the enemy ones next. The adversary had brought out almost all of the cannon fodder bugs that it had accumulated in the sun system to this point. Even if the Goliath Hive did not place too much emphasis on quantity, the amount of bugs identified by the sensor systems exceeded his imagination. Easily hundreds of millions of individual bugs had already thrown themselves onto the humans. Many more were ready to catch a laser beam or absorb a kinetic round. Their lives were cheap, but each one that forced the defenders to expend their resources was another one that fulfilled its life mission. Due to the sheer quantity and increasingly more chaotic signal interference generated by the voribugs, it was difficult to make exact estimates on their quantity. It did not help that the voribugs were decently competent at rooting out many hidden listening posts and other sensors. The species had a knack for discovering tech and refined alloys. Stealth devices could only help so much, especially when they were surrounded by bugs on all sides. The only devices able to evade their detection were too small and weak to covertly transmit their signals back to the Rubarthans. This led to a situation where the fog of war covered large parts of the enemy swarms. While it was still possible to examine their composition based on pure visuals, the lack of stronger and more precise data made it difficult to identify the presence and strength of the Goliaths that must be hiding in the rear. Ves stepped closer to Jovy, who had been overseeing the battlefield in the last few hours. "Jovy." "Ves." "How is it going?" "You have already seen it for yourself. We are still in the attrition phase, though there are signs that it is about to come to a close. The swarms are thinning out, just as expected. Unlike the other hives, the Goliath Hive does not insist on overcoming our resistance by relying on quantity alone. The time is almost ripe for the megavoribugs to enter the stage." "That will be the moment when the Sigma Drift and the Riot Mark III will make their debut on the battlefield." Ves remarked. "The same goes for you and your Ascended Giants." Jovy mentioned. "Are you ready?" "Not really, but I don't think I have much of a choice." Ves helplessly said.