Ves and many others were shocked at how much stronger the Living Sentinels became!
Even though the mechs only launched attacks on cheap target bots and worthless pieces of scrap the Larkinsons had tossed into space, all of the sensors and analytics showed that the Sentinels became at least 50 percent deadlier!
That was a huge leap in combat power!
Even though Commander Casella indicated that she could not sustain the expenditure of infusing so many mechs with her strength for long, the use of her Command Field at this scale could definitely overturn a crisis!
This wasn’t all, though. Ves thought up an interesting idea that he wanted to test out. He just needed the cooperation of an expert mech.
“Venerable Joshua, please move your expert mech closer and resist the incoming attacks with your resonance shield as best as possible.”
“Can I skip this mission this time? My Everchanger already got beat up earlier. My mech isn’t happy about being treated as a target dummy. Isn’t it a better idea to use the Shield of Samar?”
Ves grew annoyed. “Get moving, Joshua! Consider it practice!”
After the Everchanger begrudgingly moved into position, Casella had retracted her power from most of the Sentinel mechs.
Her willpower wore out at a faster rate when she bonded herself with so many mechs and mech pilots.
By limiting her command field’s effects to just a single rifleman mech company, the strain became a lot more tolerable.
“Fire!”
The ranged mechs that were surrounded by Casella’s characteristic dark gold glow began to fire plain and boring laser beams at the Everchanger!
Although ordinary laser beams could not pose a threat to the expert hero mech under ordinary circumstances, the ones fired by the empowered Sentinel mechs were different!
Even if their rifles hadn’t switched to light beam mode, the resonance-empowered laser beams dealt considerable damage to the Everchanger’s resonance shield!
The attacks from the ordinary mechs already contained a touch of Casella’s extraordinary will. Although the magnitude was weak, this extra property was enough to pose a real threat to the Everchanger’s considerable defenses!
“My resonance shield is draining fast!”
The Minerva’s Command Field was an amazing ability. As long as the friendly mechs were close enough, Casella could turn them into her ‘surrogates’ who were able to channel a small amount of true resonance!
This ability possessed a lot of potential!
“Please shift your Command Field’s active effect to a different unit and see whether it is just as effective.” Ves instructed.
When the Minerva began to empower a squad of Avatar mechs, the strengthening was almost just as strong.
The same applied to the mechs and mech pilots of other mech legions such as the Avatars, Battle Criers and so on. The only disappointment was that the strengthening effect was not as powerful with certain targets such as the Swordmaidens.
Commander Casella was able to figure out the reason after personally experiencing the differences.
“My Command Field ability works best with mechs and mech pilots that are close to me. My Sentinel mech pilots already respect and revere me to a greater degree, so I don’t feel any hindrance when I work with them. The Swordmaidens on the other hand largely believe in their own strength. Our attitudes are different and we don’t align with each other that much.”
“I see.” Ves replied. “That makes sense.”
“There is another matter that I should say. I think it makes a huge difference whether the mechs are alive. I can only channel a limited amount of power to any single individual with my Command Field. If I can bond with both the mech and mech pilot at the same time, I can channel at least twice as much power!”
“Well, that should be easy enough to verify.”
Ves requested the Cross Clan to dispatch one of their ordinary mechs to the testing site.
When the Command Field tried to latch on to the lifeless mech, the strengthening effect was much weaker!
“It’s a lot more difficult to channel my strength in a non-living mech.” Casella explained with a touch of frustration in her voice. “I can sense that the Crosser mech pilot respects me, but we are too different from each other. We also aren’t a part of the same ‘network’, so I have to put in extra effort to establish a bond with his mind.”