During the initial test of the Instrument of Doom, its full-powered blast managed to pierce through sixteen or so asteroids before it could penetrate no further.
Though the test was anything but rigorous due to the considerable variations between asteroids, it was still a clear sign that the penetration power of this weapon was unreal!
However, nothing came for free.
The Phase King had to cooperate with Venerable Stark and the Amaranto to channel a considerable part of his energy to the attack.
Doing it once or twice was not a big deal, but the more the design spirit had to exert his power, the more strain everyone incurred.
Design spirits existed in a different realm and were not meant to affect the material realm to such an exaggerated degree.
Though the Instrument of Doom had become an interface that allowed the Phase King to exert his powers in different ways, it did not change the fact that he was operating out of the confines of his own reality.
The Amaranto meanwhile had to struggle to control and withstand the additional power provided by the Phase King. The expert mech had not been designed to wield the enormous power of the Instrument of Doom and already incurred a small amount of internal damage as a consequence.
As for Venerable Stark, she constantly had to exercise her mind and will to control and direct all of the forces at her disposal. Each time she called upon the Phase King, she had to leverage her force of will and true resonance to give the design spirit greater room to operate in the material realm.
When Ves studied the operation of blessed weapons such as the Instrument of Doom and the Gray Lotus, he concluded that they weren't actually that powerful when utilized by mundane mech pilots.
The two guns were first-generation products that possessed significant flaws and shortcomings.
The greatest deficiency was that they lacked a fully functional channel that bridged the gap between the imaginary realm and the material realm. The design spirits that resided in the former could not channel their energies freely to the latter.
For now, true resonance generated between expert pilots and expert mechs provided a barely functional bridge between the two realms, but this was not an optimal solution.
Ves needed to invent a more permanent channel in a similar vein to Master Benedict's signature Endex System. This was the only way to allow his blessed weapons to operate without requiring the cheating power of a high-ranking mech pilot!
This was an avenue of future research that Ves was more than willing to embark upon if time permitted.
However, that was a matter for the future.
At this time, Venerable Stark had no choice but to help the Phase King bridge the gap between the imaginary realm and the material realm by leveraging her formidable willpower.
She did so with considerable effectiveness. When Ves glanced at the resonance meter for the Amaranto, he could see that the expert rifleman mech's true resonance peaked at 39.1 laveres!
That was deep in the territory of a mid-tier expert pilot. Venerable Stark's growth had always been stellar due to her strong conviction and her incredible fortune for being paired with a masterwork expert mech.
As long as Davia Stark's resonance strength reached 40 laveres, then the Larkinson Clan would gain its first official high-tier expert pilot!
However, this was an artificial distinction. The lavere scale was mostly arbitrary and the thresholds that defined low-tier, medium-tier and high-tier expert pilots were also arbitrary for the most part.
For all intents and purposes, Venerable Stark damage output had already reached the standard of a high-tier expert pilot, especially when her expert mech had access to powerful firearms such as the Instrument of Vengeance and the Instrument of Doom.
This was why Ves had high expectations for the powerful shot that the Amaranto just unleashed against the phase lord.
Yet as the explosion of energies settled down so that many different sensors could observe the aftermath of the blessed attack, Ves and many others grew disappointed at the result.
"Is… that it? That… is not what I expected."
The good news was that the Instrument of Doom was capable of punching through the phase lord's unreasonably strong spatial barrier.
Unlike the battleship he launched from, the alien powerhouse was only capable of maintaining a single layer at a time.
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As long as any attack managed to get through, it was free to inflict damage onto a more solid target!
That was what the Amaranto's latest attack had managed to do. The assistance of the Phase King played a crucial role in helping the powerful energy beam attack drill through the powerful spatial barrier through a combination of skill and power.
Yet despite all of this effort, the exceptional suit of armor worn by the phase lord managed to fend off what little managed to squeeze through!
Although the armor incurred enough damage to weaken its ability to fend off another attack, it was not quite the result that Ves desired.
"Even if this attack managed to punch through the armor, the nunser's physical body is comparable to a biomech in terms of size and resilience."
The phase lord reacted as if he was taken aback by the effectiveness of the attack.
The powerful alien had previously sparred against the Unrelenting for a brief amount of time.
Venerable Neville Magrin had just come off his best state at that time, but even he failed to overcome the phase lord's armor.
Patriarch Reginald and the Mars probably wouldn't have been able to do any better.
The reason why a weaker mech managed to outperform the two ace mechs in this aspect was due to the interference of the Phase King!
Different from every other variable, the Phase King was technically a native.
Not only was he derived from an artificial species that had lived with phasewater for over a million years, but the formidable design spirit recently absorbed the vast majority of the unclean whale's remnant spirituality!
The Phase King couldn't be more familiar with native phasewater manipulation methods. Even if his formidable knowledge and instinctual understanding weren't entirely systematic, the design spirit's phasewater affinity was so great that he was by far the best at overcoming powerful spatial defenses!
Venerable Stark clearly recognized this advantage and already readied her Amaranto for another shot!
The expert mech along with its oversized energy cannon began to glow again. The manifestation of the Phase King seemed to dance around the formidable weapon as if he was caressing it like a lover.
However, the hostile alien god was anything but pleased with the sight. After getting struck by an astonishingly penetrating attack, the enemy made his displeasure known in a much clearer manner than before!
"Sir! We're picking up another transmission from the enemy phase lord! This time, the alien has translated his words in human standard language!"
That certainly caught the attention of Ves and Master Benedict.
The two mech designers curiously listened to what the alien wanted to say.
[I AM THE TRAMPLER OF STARS, THE HOUSEMASTER OF THE FRACTURED HOUSE OF THE COLLAPSING STAR, THE VANQUISHER-COMMANDER OF THE RED CABAL. WHO IS THE HUMAN THAT HAS SUBVERTED THE POWER OF ONE OF OUR GODS?]
Master Benedict along with several other people immediately turned to Ves.
"Ehhh… should I respond?"