Chapter 5869 Collective Action

Chapter 5869 Collective Action

The surface of the Dominion of Man had turned into a battlefield yet again.

This time the scale was a lot larger than before.

In the 4th wave of the 5th round of the ongoing lightning tribulation, over 100,000 lightning soldiers appeared at a time!

Though smaller than the Fallen Heralds of Akshi, the strange insectile aliens proved to be far trickier to defeat through massed firepower.

"They are packed in tight formations! Open fire! Bombard them to pieces!"

"It's not working! Our attacks are being repelled by their combined energy barriers! As long as the tribulation storm keeps feeding them E energy, our firepower can't exhaust the protective layers!"

The insects armed with a variety of sharp and pointy transmutated forelimbs did not appear to be simple warriors.

They were cultivators, and fought like ones.

Different from before, the cultivators were relatively weak, but they excelled at casting and maintaining cooperative spells.

Each formation consisting of tens of thousands of lightning soldiers was able to cast a mass energy barrier spell that absorbed incoming attacks with ease!

The good news was that the incoming firepower from the 5 Dread Marine Divisions that replaced the 6th Giant Trapper Division forced the enemy formations spread across the hull to hunker down.

The aliens did not have enough spare cultivators left to organize any coordinated counterattacks!

Explosions, energy beams and projectiles continually rippled against the exterior of the shining metallic bubble that surrounded the insect formations.

The insect species clearly possessed a strong affinity with the metal element, but combining it with tribulation lightning caused their cultivation techniques to become a lot stronger than normal.

It was enough to stymy the Dread Marines arrayed against them. No matter how quickly the Rubicon Spatial Transfer System filled up the emptied missile launchers with new warheads, the continuous barrage high-yield missiles failed to break open the powerful metallic barriers.

Several Dread Marine Divisions once decided to regroup and focus fire on one of the enemy formations.

That turned out to be a mistake because the metallic insects quickly redirected thousands of their own number to drilling through the hull of the Dominion of Man!

Each and every insect was able to chew through the resilient transphasic hyper alloys with great difficulty, even when they empowered their mandibles with metal-attributed E energy.

The progress of a single insect was rather slow, but when thousands of them worked together to create a large hole, the section of hull plating started to break down disturbingly quickly!

"Return to your previous assignments! Do not let any of the insect formations have free rein!"

The ongoing battle quickly returned to a stalemate, but one that favored the enemy more than the defenders.

Though the Dread Marines had not suffered any significant casualties so far, it had never been the goal of the tribulation soldiers to defeat these soldiers.

The insect formations still had spare metallic insects left to chew through the hull plating!

No matter how many meters they had to drill in order to breach into the interior of the Dominion of Man, the insects worked tirelessly to open up a gap that could be exploited by subsequent lightning soldiers or more direct tribulation attacks.

"STOP THEM AT ALL COST!"

The five Dread Marine Divisions amped up the pressure. Over 50,000 Dread Marines attacked from afar and up close. They concentrated their firepower and timed their attacks for maximum effect. A few of them even combined their weapons to launch significantly more powerful attacks that could easily shatter the armor plating of a first-class mech.

Aside from that, Blinky could also sense an unusually strong sense of resilience from the runed spiritual network.

Even if Blinky was able to penetrate or bypass the metallic energy barrier, there was absolutely no chance for the Star Cat to break apart the runed spiritual network by devouring it piece by piece.

The runes provided a powerful form of protection that was expressly put together to resist this attack vector!

The only solution that Ves could come up with was to overwhelm the runed spiritual network by relying on brute force. A strong enough attack could shatter all forms of defense!

Yet that proved to be an insurmountable problem. Neither the Dread Marines nor Ves could muster up enough raw energy to breach the defenses of the lightning insect formations.

It was not for lack of trying.

Though the Dread Marine Divisions kept trying out many different tactics and weapons systems to break past the seemingly invincible metallic energy barriers, none of their tricks were working.

Dread Captain Volkert Argile came close to calling in reinforcements anyway in order to end this confrontation.

A hollow victory was still a victory. Any outcome was better than giving the lightning insects enough time to drill a deep enough hole through the outer hull of the Dominion of Man.

Before he resorted to this dishonorable option, the dread captain contacted Ves one more time.

"Do you have any suggestions that can break this unfavorable deadlock aside from the obvious?"

Ves pressed his lips. "Energy."

"Professor?"

"It all comes down to energy." He said. "So far, the battles we have fought amount to a confrontation between two different combat paradigms. Our Dread Marines are not active cultivators. They rely far more on their strength of arms and the technological support of the Dominion of Man to produce powerful results. Our adversaries do not have access to our technological toys, but they make up for this shortcoming by relying on their vastly superior cultivation and the energies supplied by the tribulation storm. Both paradigms have their pros and cons. The main advantage of our current set of enemies is that they are able to unify their cultivation and energy manipulation to produce results that far exceed their individual efforts."

Ves could practically feel the frustration from the other side of the private communication channel.

"How do you suggest we solve this problem, then?"

"Our enemies are fueled by the tribulation storm. Our Dread Marines are at least partially fueled by the Spark Reactor. We need the latter to contribute more to the Dread Armors that are deployed in the field."

"They are not designed to channel so much energy, whether it is conventional or unconventional!" Dread Captain Argile spoke. "The exact science eludes me, but there is a high likelihood that the Dread Armors will either explode or burst into flames. They are not as flexible as you think!"

"Are you sure about that?" Ves grinned. "Have you forgotten about the lightning-baptized Dread Marines that fought in the previous waves? I suggest you swap some of the regiments in the field with the 34th Assault Regiment or the 88th Bombardment Regiment. Their Dread Armors have already been repaired and replenished by this time, correct?"

"They should be." Volkert Argile said in a much more contemplative tone. "I will take your advice under consideration. Do you have any other suggestions?"

Ves slowly grinned as a fantastic idea just emerged in his mind!

"I do... I just came up with an idea that I would like to try. It's risky, though. I need the cooperation of the engineers who are currently in charge of the Spark Reactor. I also need your crew to do whatever it takes to increase the flow of fire energy to the hull section where I am currently situated."

"I can do that, but why should we make these adjustments?"

"Energy." Ves grinned. "The key to breaking this deadlock is energy. It is not just the lighting-baptized Dread Marines that can channel greater amounts of energy. I think I should give Blinky a try!"

The Blinkyverse was ultimately too small and underdeveloped to provide sufficient help in battle at its current stage.

Since that was the case, why not switch to a much more powerful source?

The Spark Reactor was a much more powerful source of E energy!