Published at 16th of April 2026 6:30 am

Chapter 7460 Evolving Command Field

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The battle finally entered the main phase as the majority of assets on both sides directly made contact with each other.

Although the much smaller and numerically inferior human force largely avoided close contact and relied on clever maneuvers to maintain a healthy distance, it was undeniable that both sides fought seriously against each other.

Saint Commander Casella Ingvar completely controlled the main human assets. Many of the mechs and warships obeyed her instructions and followed her intentions no matter their allegiance.

They no longer considered themselves purely Larkinson or Terran at this time.

They were red humans.

They were members of an embattled race that had endured countless attacks and invasions in the span of just a few standard years.

All of them had witnessed their fair share of deaths and atrocities. They harbored very sympathy towards their alien opponents.

Now that they finally gained an opportunity to go on the offensive for once, none of the human attackers intended to show mercy to those that had been on the cusp of launching another incursion into human-occupied space!

The initial results astounded the unprepared defenders.

Not all of them possessed familiarity with the armed forces of the Larkinson Clan. Even if their leaders had received detailed briefings and intelligence reports, many low-ranked soldiers remained in the dark.

As cannon fodder, learning too much about the formidable nature of the human menace would only serve to demoralize them before they even released their shot!

Besides, there were far too many human heroes and groups that possessed their own strengths. It would overwhelm the aliens if they received briefings on every single possible threat they might encounter.

Under more prepared circumstances, the alien leaders could have worked around this state of ignorance.

Unfortunately, the combined fleet led by the Larkinsons commenced their assault far too quickly to allow that to happen!

This meant that the vast majority of alien soldiers had no proper idea how to fight against a force led by an ace commander!

The Minerva Mark II did not even make an appearance. As the most powerful force multiplier of the Larkinson Clan, Saint Commander Casella Ingvar gave up any chance of earning personal glory in favor of keeping herself and her ace command mech hidden from enemy sensor systems.

She chose to embed her living mech right into a specially made slot added to the command bridge of the Tortuous Scream.

The converted alien battleship possessed ample space and could easily accommodate the systems necessary to produce a strong data link.

This way, the Saint Commander's ability to oversee the entire battlefield and calculate solutions received an enormous boost!

While the ace command mech remained physically linked to the bridge, the Minerva Mark II gained full access to the SF-02 Smart AI Data Processing Cluster.

This not only boosted the effectiveness of the Minerva Mark II command and control functions, but also created additional synergy between the ace command mech and one of the battleship's smart AIs!

Sovvy was in his element.

As an RF-developed Smart AI based on the SEA SOVEREIGN template, Sovvy possessed strong understanding and insight of both human and alien naval assets and systems.

Though he did not possess the ingenuity and brilliance of the Saint Commander herself, Sovvy proved to be a stable and reliable assistant. He could not track many more details than Casella Ingvar, but also micromanage human warships more effectively.

The smart AI had earned Casella's trust over the course of many battles prior to this campaign. She did not hesitate to delegate most naval decisions to the artificial war mind.

The two did not even have to speak verbally with each other. Casella was neurally linked to the Minerva Mark II, which maintained an active data link with the Tortuous Scream.

Though she could not 'control' the alien battleship as if the 3.6 kilometer-long hull was her mech, she could still micromanage her systems to an extent.

She occasionally took advantage of this by selectively activating directional sensor bursts in order to gather more data on specific enemy formations or firing the primary cannon batteries at particularly important targets.

However, compared to the large but relatively slow-firing main cannon batteries, the true reason why the Torturous Scream proved to be a nightmare for alien homeships was her massive array of bunker mechs!

The Larkinsons made the bold decision to tear out all of her secondary and tertiary gun batteries and replace them with bunkers whenever possible.

The result of all of this was that the massive hull boasted 155 specially designed artillery bunkers, each of which hosted modified FFEE1100-L Omega Threshers!

This exclusive Larkinson variant was solely made to utilize the relatively large first-class luminar crystal cannons mounted on the bunkers.

These fixed cannons complimented the base armaments of the Omega Threshers nicely. The mech model's iconic Omega Laser Cannons worked decently well against a large variety of targets, but when they needed to wear down the defenses of enemy warships, the added firepower of the fixed luminar crystal cannons practically tripled or quadrupled their siege power!

This was especially the case when both the Omega Threshers as well as the fixed luminar crystal cannons were fully linked to the battleship's comprehensive systems!

Unlike old-style bunker mechs that still needed to maintain separation with the starships they were embedded with, the Omega Threshers employed by the Larkinsons no longer had to abide by this pedantic rule.

No matter how frequently they pulled the trigger of their energy weapons, the enormous hull efficiently siphoned away much of the excess heat.

The mechs had no concerns about depleting their energy reserves either. So long as the power lines could handle the load, the Omega Threshers could fire their attacks with complete abandon!

What was even more impressive was that roughly a third of them had been Enfeoffed by Casella!

Every other mech had already been Commandeered by the ace commander.

This meant that they not only gained the empowerment of her true resonance, but also came under her direct supervision.

Of course, compared to past battles, Casella showed a greater willingness to grant autonomy to her subordinates. She no longer insisted on controlling their machines more directly, but allowed them to rely on their own skills so that they could grow better.

A similar but much weaker effect applied to the starships and their crews under her command.

Though her ability to Commandeer warships was nowhere near as effective as with mechs, she had been working on strengthening her ability to empower non-mech assets as of late.

Her progress so far was slow, but even a tiny boost could make a significant difference. Warship cannons empowered by a mote of true resonance could easily improve their damage potential and penetration power by 20 percent at the very least!

Yet this amplification was trivial compared to the 63 lucky machines that had been elevated into Casella's Barons.

This had been her true focus in her development as an ace commander. Far too often, she encountered situations where quality trumped quantity.

In order to improve her ability to resist formidable enemies, she had been working hard to increase the capacity of her Enfeoffment ability.

Though she was still far from being able to elevate all 155 bunker mechs into Barons, her current strength proved more than adequate for the occasion!

Every Enfeoffed Omega Thresher struck at distant battleships with thunderous power.

Their large luminar crystal cannons and abundant Omega Laser Cannons burned through powerful azure energy shields with a degree of resonance empowerment that could easily match that of a low-tier expert mech!

While that may still sound relatively underwhelming on an individual basis, the notion of employing 63 expert mechs at once sounded terrifying!

The native aliens most certainly did not enjoy the experience!

In many cases, the Barons only needed to launch two to four salvos of resonance-empowered energy beams to completely gut apart an enemy capital ship no matter their length or bulk!

Azure energy shields mostly lasted one or two rounds before they got overwhelmed. Their hulls offered relatively little resistance against concentrated firepower.

Casella understood alien naval design well enough to be able to deduce the locations of their power generators and other critical systems.

Even if she encountered a relatively obscure and unfamiliar alien ship design, she could easily borrow Sovvy's more expansive databases and data-driven analytical engine to achieve an 80 percent critical hit rate!

In the few minutes since the battle began proper, no other ship within the combined fleet proved to be a ship crusher as outrageously effective as the Tortuous Scream!

Under Casella's Command Field, this impossible warship effectively combined the best of ranged mechs with the best of an armed capital vessel, thereby leading the downfall of a dozen enemy battleships at an extended range!

This naturally alarmed the native aliens so much that they quickly raised the Torturous Scream's priority to the top!

If they continued to allow the Premier Fleet's flagship to pummel their vulnerable assets with impunity, they would eventually lose all of their large hulls!

This collective recognition partially negated the chaos and disarray spread by the Dark Zephyr Mark III.

Though the ace light skirmisher still harassed the aliens from the sides and the rear, the native aliens uncommonly found a common direction by charging towards the Tortuous Scream!

Casella smirked inside the cockpit of her Minerva Mark II when she saw this response. "Predictable."

By going on the offense, the alien fleets not only distanced themselves from the abundant amount of orbital defensive platforms, but also transferred the initiative to the human attackers.

Many of the assets under her Command Field dynamically adjusted their positioning. They vaguely formed a crescent, which forced the charging enemy strike craft and warships to endure a brutal crossfire in order to get close.

Even though the alien commanders understood that the cost was massive, they still had hope of achieving their objective due to the difference in mobility.

The Tortuous Scream's mobility remained poor despite her overhaul and resonance empowerment.

This meant that alien phasefighter squadrons and most alien warships could still close the distance and overwhelm her defenses in time!

Besides, the aliens did not solely rely on their mundane assets to take out this priority target.

After a shamefully long period of time, the alien phase lords finally got their act together. They had finally set their egos aside and no longer argued about trivialities. They collectively decided to support their fleets while at the same time coordinating their actions with each other.

Three alien phase lords already began to fly ahead of their vanguard elements and attempt to squeeze and disrupt the space surrounding the Larkinson Premier Fleet!

However, their spatial manipulation attempts encountered an uncommon degree of resistance.

The human ships did not slow down all that much nor began to suffer inexplicable malfunctions.

These were all modern first-class ships built for combat at this level. Their transphasic hulls and systems inherently possessed a certain degree of resistance against spatial effects.

Furthermore, Casella's Command Field provided a light to moderate degree of blanket protection to every empowered mech or starship.

Even if they only received protection equivalent to a quasi-expert mech, this already made an extensive amount of difference!

The alien phase lords grew disturbed, but did not lose hope.

Since affecting the human ships at long range did not work, they just needed to get closer!

Their phasewater organs were still subject to the inverse square law, which effectively meant that they could manipulate space far more effectively at close range!

More alien phase lords emerged from their respective fleets as well.

If three of them proved insufficient to destabilize the human vessels, then they just had to throw in more!

The total quantity of enemy lesser and greater phase lords remained unclear.

Both sides tried to keep their cards close to their chests.

The fact that the native aliens already sent out so many phase lords at this relatively early stage signified that they were either desperate or held back more in reserve.

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