The Mech Touch

All of the red humans watching the broadcast from their own homes and workplaces became awed by what was taking place in the Shrine of Light.

Unlike the individuals who received the privilege to attend the founding ceremony in person, those watching from remote did not get to enjoy the purifying light and sacred atmosphere of this dazzling grand chamber.

Neither did they experience the subtle spatial manipulation generated by 60 human phase lords working in total unison.

The upsized human soldiers wearing extremely well-designed blue raiments with purple accents looked even more eye-catching due to the spectacular plumes extending from their helmets. Their alternating blue-and-white colorations made them look taller, more special and more uniform.

While the human phase lords mounted a variety of different weapons onto their backs, they currently held giant black halberds in their hands. They all maintained the exact same stances, causing the long weapons to generate a black pattern that emphasized the impeccable training and discipline of these giant superhumans.

Their long and vicious transphasic hyper polearms looked as if they were tailor-made to tear and pierce through phase lord flesh and warship hulls alike!

Ves along with every other red human couldn't wait to see these human phase lords in action.

Even if they only deployed in smaller numbers, they could potentially achieve a lot more results on the battlefield if they compensated their lack of cultivation progress with numbers and teamwork.

However, there may be a chance that the 60 powerful giants might not set foot on the battlefield anytime soon. They may instead be used as an elite guard unit assigned to defend the Astral Octagon and other strategically valuable facilities of the Red Collective.

At most, these initial human phase lords may be used to train batches of subsequent phase lords that emerged at a later date.

The Phase Lord Department had a vested interest in producing more human phase lords. It would never have as much say within the power structure of the RC if the number of human phase lords was not large enough to affect the Red War.

As the 60 giants reached their positions around the center and took up guard stances, they finally announced their designation to the masses!

The lead officer with a more elaborately shaped plume on his helmet bellowed out his words with an earthshaking roar!

"UR-TITAN PHALANX!"

The rest of the giants proceeded to slam their armored feet against the crystal deck and echo those words with their loudest voices!

CRACK!

"UR-TITAN PHALANX!"

"THE MIGHTY SHALL FALL!"

"THE MIGHTY SHALL FALL!"

The entire Shrine of Light seemed to shake as those loud roars intertwined and resonated with each other, causing the people sitting the closest towards the center to feel as if their eardrums were under pressure!

There was power in those roars. The Ur-Titan Phalanx not only announced their identities with pride and conviction, but also set themselves apart from the phase leaders of the native aliens!

The Ur-Titans not only addressed their fellow red humans, but also any native aliens that managed to watch this footage!

By explicitly organizing themselves into formal and disciplined military units, the Ur-Titans completely rejected the deification of phase lords.

As enormous and alien as they appeared, these Ur-Titans nonetheless clung to their identities as red humans and readily acknowledged their own mortality.

The separation between ordinary humans and human phase lords was much smaller than the enormous divide between native aliens and their high-and-mighty gods!

Ves guessed that this fundamental attitude caused the Ur-Titans to adopt such a strange motto. It initially sounded as if they were belittling their own combat effectiveness, but it was actually aimed straight at the phase lords and phase whales among the native aliens!

The use of the word phalanx was another interesting choice. It evoked the image of hundreds if not thousands of soldiers holding out long spears in the same direction. Every soldier looked and moved identically, making it impossible to distinguish any single individual from the formation.

This was a clear signal that the Phase Lord Department adopted combat doctrines that relied upon drilling phase lords into army units.

This contradicted sharply with the practice of nurturing every talented fighter into individual champions as was common among mech pilots.

As the Ur-Titans settled into their places, the next unit of cultivators emerged from the open entrance!

Everyone shifted their attention to the much smaller but vastly more numerous infantrymen that marched into the Shrine of Light.

These human-scaled soldiers were all clad in ominous black transphasic hyper armor plating made of very impressive materials. Fiery orange highlights shone between the seams, each of them exuding a strong sense of fire.

The temperature seemed to grow hotter around them as hundreds and eventually a thousand of them entered the Shrine of Light.

As far as equipment went, they carried long rifles on their backs, tower shields in one arm and short but thick hammers in their other arm.

Their footsteps were much softer than the ones made by the Ur-Titans, but the human troopers were so much more numerous that they generated a different kind of momentum.

Different from the Ur-Titans, a handful of black-and-orange soldiers also carried tall banners that proudly displayed their insignia as well as a big '1st', which indicated that this military unit was just the first of many.

The most striking part about the banners was that they depicted a broken planet in flames. That certainly hinted that this unit meant business.

The soldiers marched in lockstep with each other, but since their human-scaled legs were much smaller than that of the Ur-Titans, they took a lot longer to approach the center.

Nobody minded the delay. People continued to grow more and more fascinated by this troop of elite soldiers.

It went without saying that they should be anything but ordinary footsoldiers. Infantry still played a vital role in many military organizations, but their prestige was always the lowest due to the suppression of mechs.

Now that Carmine mechs entered the scene, it became questionable whether it was worthwhile enough to invest in the establishment of elite infantry units.

Even so, that did not diminish people's appreciation for this top elite infantry force. With the introduction of the Ur-Titan Phalanx, most people managed to figure out that these black-and-orange soldiers had to possess special abilities of their own in order to earn their place in this founding ceremony.

In fact, calling it a founding ceremony was not quite comprehensive. The planners actually turned the first phase of the event into a military parade of sorts!

The reason for that was easy to figure out. Few people took the Red Collective seriously. It was too new and relied on the handouts of the major players in order to build its headquarters and staff its offices. It lacked the might and deterrence that the mechers and the fleeters built up over 4 centuries.

Starting off by showing off the elite military units that it had raised in the last year was a good way to reverse this prevailing image.

The Red Collective needed to show its muscles, or at least the hint of them, in order to get taken seriously in today's society!

Only when people feared the chance that they would receive an unwelcome visit from a few Ur-Titans or other powerful cultivators would they put away their bag of dirty tricks and do their business honestly with the new superorganization.

At this time, the 1000 armored troopers finally came close to the center of the Shrine of Light. Their black and fiery plating contrasted sharply against the bright and crystalline interior of the ceremonial chamber.

The banner holders raised their poles higher while the leading officer took a few steps forward, thereby drawing everyone's attention.

He slowly raised his ornate black hammer and proceeded to activate a function that caused the weapon to light up in flames!

The hot flames already caused the air above the weapon to shimmer, but the infantry commander was not done.

He began to exert his cultivation to add a spiritual quality to the flames!

This caused the flames to grow larger and more extraordinary, though the hammer itself remained unharmed!

This was not all. What the commander did next surprised Ves and many other people.

His companion spirit sprung forth from his chest!

What was interesting to Ves was that the companion spirit did not take the shape of a cat, a bird, a human or any other organism.

Instead, the commander's companion spirit came in the form of a hammer whose shape was identical to the weapon in his grasp!

The weapon-shaped companion spirit floated in the air for a few seconds before it flew into the physical hammer.

Everything seemed to change after that. Now that the hammer received a very welcome guest, it lit up and evolved into a more advanced form.

The fire that blazed from the hammerhead underwent a qualitative transformation!

Though it still burned orange, the size of the flames and the heat emanating from them had drastically risen!

Not only that, but the flames seemed to come under the control of a conscious being, causing them to assume shapes that natural fire could never produce!

The commander held up his torch-like hammer before crashing it onto the front surface of his tower shield.

Clang!

Not only did the impact produce a loud noise, but it also caused the flames to crash and spread across the front in a cone-like blast!

At this time, the 999 troopers standing behind the commander proceeded to raise their own hammers and made the same actions!

Each of them practiced the same fire-attributed qi cultivation method.

Each of them possessed hammers that burst into flames.

Each of them developed the exact same fire hammers as their companion spirits.

When these fire hammers inhabited the physical hammers, the latter came to life and started to produce much more powerful and exotic flames!

As the fire cultivators slammed their fire-empowered hammers against their tower shields, they produced such a massive wave of fire explosions that it engulfed much of their formation!

WOOSH!

The flames looked powerful and deadly enough to kill hundreds of thousands of people if they happened to fall within the range of those destructive fire bursts!

The power of a single fire burst might not be impressive, but when so many fire cultivators pulled off the same move in close proximity, they somehow managed to amplify each other's actions, enabling them to inflict greater damage in combination!

Fortunately, their black-and-orange armor was highly resistant towards fire damage, so the soldiers did not suffer any injuries as far as anyone could tell!

Ves' eyes lit up in interest!

He already had a theory of what just happened.

The physical hammers were excellent technical products, but possessed low metaphysical properties.

They were not comparable to the likes of the Oceancaller and the Flower Parasol.

However, once the soldiers inserted their companion spirits into their hammers, their weapons temporarily turned into high-level artifacts, thereby gaining new and more effective capabilities!

Although the hammers could not pass off as authentic high-level artifacts, they gained enough of a boost that it didn't matter too much!

There was huge potential in this approach. The cultivation of the infantry soldiers and their companion spirits was currently a little low, but once they had more time to build up their power, they could unleash an unimaginable amount of power, especially when they fought as an army!

The fire soldiers began to make their next move.

The commander raised his flaming hammer before his companion spirit shot out and rose into the air.

Once the lone fire hammer reached a commanding height, 999 other troopers pulled off the same move.

1000 fire hammers rose in the air and formed a perfect array that mirrored the column of fire soldiers.

Then, almost all of the hammers began to fly forward. They slowly converged upon the fire hammer at the front that belonged to the commander of the unit.

Ves and many other observers grew surprised when they saw that the hammers seamlessly merged with each other.

There was no sign of rejection!

The sight initially did not appear to be too special, but then the sequence kept repeating. One fire hammer after another kept merging into the commander's fire hammer.

This subsequently caused the leading fire hammer to grow larger, hotter and more imposing than before.

Once there was only 1 fire hammer left, it had reached a scale that made it look as if it could dent a mech!

The infantry commander kept his free arm raised before decisively swinging it downwards.

At the same time, the massive fire hammer descended from the air like a falling meteorite and slammed against the crystal floor with apocalyptic force!

BOOOOM!

The collision produced such an enormous release of kinetic force and flames that it was as if a giant incendiary bomb just exploded at the impact site!

Destructive flames and shockwaves spread everywhere and threatened to kill the people sitting closest in the center of the chamber!

Fortunately for everyone, multiple strong azure energy shields came to life and easily contained the pre-planned display of power.

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