Chapter 7328: Trial of Control When the voribugs switched up their strategies, Saint Orfan grew annoyed. The enemy Goliaths deliberately avoided her ace mech! Once she was done with beating up her existing prey, she left the weakest Goliaths for the other defenders and tried to hunt down more serious opponents. Yet whenever her Riot approached a Level 7 Goliaths, all of the other high-level Goliaths immediately flew away! Even the targeted Goliath did its best to waste as much time as possible by fleeing from the Riot. The mutated voribugs clearly understood that there was no escaping the bloodthirsty ace pilot. More than a dozen Goliaths had already fallen at her hands, but that was far from enough to sate her growing need for alien blood. Her anger continued to boil and surge within her mech frame, yet the opportunities for venting began to dwindle as the Goliath Hive played hard to get! "COME BACK HERE!" Yet no matter how much she admonished the enemy, the Goliaths continued to act without honor or pride. Saint Orfan’s mood continued to worsen as the enemy Goliaths reduced her killing efficiency with their despicable tactics and maneuvering. They constantly led the Riot Mark III into obscure directions. By the time her machine caught up to its prey and butchered it with the tier 3 Destroyer spear, the next closest target would take many minutes to intercept! "AARGGGHH!" Her frustration continued to assail her mood. Many thoughts began to leave her mind as her anger occupied a greater part of her mind. Her change in demeanor reflected onto her ace mech. The Prophet’s Bane clearly exerted a greater influence on its form as its mutations grew sharper and more severe. Its current appearance differed significantly from its initial form! Multiple asymmetrical spikes extended from its chest plating, shoulder plating and arms. The angles and proportions of its limbs grew sharper and more deformed. Its head began to mimic the features of an angry demon. Even its coating began to shift from bright orange to a more ominous shade of crimson! Perhaps the only parts about the Riot Mark III that remained untouched by all of the strange mutations were its weapons. The sacrificial spears endured light to moderate mutations, but the more crucial tier 3 Destroyer spear remained unsullied! The reason for this remained unclear. Perhaps it was because they counted as separate equipment, or because of the interference produced by Destroyer particles. Barring this exception, much of the Riot Mark III had deviated from its initially perfect contours and turned into a metallic beast that radiated violence and disorder in equal terms! More and more people grew concerned at the visible deterioration of the Riot Mark III. Whatever unholy tech that Ves employed onto the ace mech clearly possessed a great amount of complications. Ves tried his best to calm Saint Orfan down or at least redirect her attention! "Rosa! Stop! You are not accomplishing anything by chasing after lone Goliaths! The enemy is deliberately leading you on a wild goose chase! Calm down and come back! The final phase of the battle is approaching. We need you here where you can do the most good." His communications seemed to fall on deaf ears. Ves only received incoherent screams in response! "It sounds like this gambit of yours is not as successful as you thought." The Dark Apostle couldn’t help but comment. "You can’t expect for Saint Orfan to perfectly isolate herself from the Middle Demon that has taken over 90 percent of her soul. That would be like denying the core of what you are. It is unnatural." Ves had the feeling that his other self was alluding to more than just this case. Blinky turned towards the armored Dark Apostle. "Give me a break. We can discuss whatever issue you have with me at a later date. We need to address the immediate issue first. Something has clearly gone wrong with Saint Orfan. Her resonance strength remains stable, but her emotional stability has dropped. We need to intervene before she directs her aggression against allies. I don’t like the way she is looking at nearby mechs." Surprisingly, his other self did not agree with this decision. "Give her time." "Pardon?" "This is her trial." The Ascended Giant voiced his opinion. "As far as I am concerned, unless she has crossed the line, it is better to let her solve her own problem. This is clearly an issue that will happen again in the future. Relying on others is not a permanent solution, especially when we are talking about proud ace pilots such as her. As one warrior to another, I do not wish to steal her chance to redeem herself. Trust me, Ves. She will be much happier with us if we leave her to find her way back to sanity with her own strength." "..." While Ves did not feel good about this suggestion, he had to admit that the Dark Apostle made a powerful argument. The downside was that the outcome was highly uncertain. What if Saint Orfan took an hour to extricate herself from her volatile mindstate? 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂 The longer she remained in this condition, the greater the probability that the Prophet’s Bane would complete his takeover! Even if the worst outcome did not come to pass, just the fact that the Riot Mark III remained unresponsive for such a long period of time would have devastating consequences for this battle! "Fine." Ves sighed. "Since I have already taken so many bets on the Riot Mark III, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to make another one. I won’t try to wake her up for the time being. This does not apply when she actually harms any friendlies. I really hope she has not lost control to the point of treating her allies as enemies. Even if I won’t take action, the Rubarthans cannot stay still." With that dealt with, both of them turned their attention back to the Incubator. Enough time had passed for the Voribug Organic Battle Moon to approach Philaster Crestia III. At this time, the gravity generated by the VOBM had begun to exert tidal forces onto the planet. Many different orbital defenses along with over a hundred warships opened fire onto the planet. Even the large-scale surface-to-orbit weapon systems that the Rubarthans built on the globe had begun to bombard the Incubator! All of this damage ravaged the ’landscape’ of the moon-sized organic construct. Craters and ash continued to accumulate at a rapid rate, yet none of the attacks came close to hurting the core of the Incubator. The VOBM was much more resilient than an ordinary planet or moon! In the time preceding its unveiling, the mutated voribug gathered a large amount of high-quality exotics and hypers from the outer system. As the Goliath Hive commenced their final assault, a large number of voribugs assumed salvage duty. They sought out useful pieces of high-quality debris and diverted them to the battle moon. Through this unremittent effort, the Incubator managed to absorb many pieces of broken warship hull plating and broken mech frames. The Incubator rapidly digested all of this salvage en masse. The best materials probably got diverted to the core, while everything else went on to reinforce the outer and middle structure of the battle moon. All of this feeding made it increasingly harder to penetrate the deeper layers of the enormous battle moon. Siege weapons designed to annihilate cities and shatter continents produced unexpectedly low yields when employed against the massive flesh satellite. Attacking the Voribug Organic Battle Moon was as difficult as attacking a full alloy war planet! "We need to bring out the planet killers!" "Not yet! Their effectiveness is not guaranteed, and we need higher authorization to escalate the war." "If we do not destroy this Incubator soon, it will crash through our orbital network and crash into the planet! What is worse is that we are giving whatever Goliath is gestating in the core enough time to mature!" While the Rubarthan commanders argued whether to employ the most destructive weapons of mass destruction at their disposal, the Ascended Giants all regrouped so that they could face the ultimate threat. Previously, they had done a good job of holding back the quadrants. The teams of Ur-Titans and Faceless Giants worked well with each other. They had managed to hold back or take down dozens of Goliaths, though most of them were admittedly low-level specimens. The only group of Ascended Giants that failed to make a lot of accomplishments were the Ur-Titans assigned to stall the Incubator. Despite being armed with powerful ranged weapons, their absolute firepower was a far cry from that of a typical sub-capital warship. Their spatial abilities were useless against an enemy construct of this scale. Perhaps they may have been able to sabotage the VOBM more effectively if they descended onto the surface, but they did not dare to do so as they still recalled how they almost got captured by the tentacles spawned from the surface. As such, the Ur-Titans could do little aside from bombarding the organic cannons from a distance and hunting down the voribugs and Goliaths that constantly delivered salvage. The good news was that they never experienced any serious danger. Even as they clashed against the Goliaths assigned to escort the Incubator, the Ur-Titans relied on their Rubarthan plasma halberds and their serviceable mid-grade superdimensional armor to achieve superiority. The reserves, which included the Dark Apostle and Divine Harpoon, previously dispatched a handful of Ascended Giants to reinforce units that looked like they needed assistance. The two leading giants chose to hold back at this time. Their power remained unused, which was good because they most definitely needed all of the strength that they could muster against the final opponent. The eradication of the voribug swarms and the defeat or withdrawal of over 200 Goliaths did not make the defenders feel as if they had won this engagement. None of these enemies mattered if they were being truthful. Everyone could figure out that the true threat had always been the Incubator from beginning to end. While the Goliath Hive indeed suffered enormous losses, much of it consisted of bug variations that could easily be replenished over time. This also included Level 7 Goliaths! While it demanded a considerable amount of time, energy and high-quality resources, as long as the hive possessed the ability to produce them on demand, they remained dispensable. What truly mattered was the unknown but most definitely remarkable Goliath that was continuing to absorb high-quality resources. The behavior of the Goliath Hive had been clear to everyone. All of the voribugs on this battlefield acted in service of the Incubator. Nothing made this clearer than the brazen attempt to kidnap the expert mechs. While the Rubarthan ace pilots did their best to chase after these shameless Goliaths and rescue their weaker compatriots, their numbers were not enough to rescue every expert pilot. It pained them to see the Goliaths toss one expert mech after another to the surface of the VOBM. Tentacles eagerly reached out to tangle and envelop these precious shells. Just as the trapped expert pilots transmitted their final words, the tentacles mercilessly shoved the powerful machines below the surface of the battle moon. All transmissions ceased shortly after that. Few people believed this was because the VOBM successfully jammed every signal. "Monstrous." The Divine Harpoon said. "Those Goliaths attempted to kidnap our Faceless Giants as well. If not for the fact that they grouped up and enjoyed the shelter of our Ur-Titans, those filthy insects would have sacrificed our kind as well. The fact that none of our giants or the Rubarthan ace mechs have befallen this fate is a success in my view. We managed to prevent the worst from happening. The Incubator cannot derive as much ’nutrients’ from those captured expert mechs. Even the Goliaths that dove straight into the battle moon won’t be able to offer much either." The Dark Apostle nodded in agreement. "That is all true, but... even if we have prevented the birth of a suspected Level 9 Goliath, do we have enough assets left to stop a Level 8 Goliath?" "...We shall see."