The Apocalypse Wardens made an explosive first impression.
The black-clad soldiers proceeded to part in half before taking up positions on both sides of the central avenue.
They stood just before the giant feet of the Ur-Titans.
The Apocalypse Wardens looked tiny in comparison to the Ur-Titans, which caused them to look a lot weaker.
However, their quantity was much greater, which immediately conveyed multiple different meanings.
It was clear that it took a huge amount of resources to cultivate just 60 human phase lords.
Sure, the investment was far greater this time because red humanity was going in blind. Now that they successfully explored a viable pathway to turn humans into bonafide phase lords, the department responsible for raising them could train subsequent batches a lot more efficiently.
Even so, the demand for phasewater would always remain. The body mass of just a single human phase lord already encompassed the body mass of lots of Apocalypse Wardens!
Multiply that by 60, then the absolute amount of phasewater required to produce all of these human phase lords was astronomical!
What was even more troublesome was that the Ur-Titans were all at the low end of the lesser phase lord stage at the moment. Their body cultivation had made relatively little progress. None of them had reached the size of more combat capable alien phase lords such as the Trampler of Stars or the arche lesser phase lords.
The cost to increase the cultivation of the Ur-Titans by a noticeable degree would probably take 3 to 10 as much phasewater!
While the Ur-Titans may be able to reach the size of Ves or even more, the benefits of doing so were questionable!
Right now, it was clear that the Phase Lord Department saw more merit in making human phase lords as large as mechs before equipping them with mech-like gear.
This was the poor man's approach towards weaponizing phase lords, but Ves did not blame the Phase Lord Department.
Phasewater was still a scarce resource, and the major players were extremely reluctant to donate tons of this exotic substance just to pursue an incredibly resource-heavy method of body cultivation.
Even if it was not cost effective to raise human phase lords for the purpose of raising special combat units that could make a difference in the ongoing war, the Red Collective still had to engage in this research, if only to understand their enemies better.
Compared to the giant soldiers, the much smaller Apocalypse Warden troopers appeared much more reasonable.
The fact that the Cultivation Method Department managed to train 1000 soldiers in a consistent manner and have them develop the exact same traits and abilities was a testament to the universality of their solutions!
It showed that the difficulty and resource intensity of raising a battalion of fire-attributed qi cultivators was likely not as expensive!
In fact, even if the Apocalypse Wardens were equipped with excellent first-class combat equipment made out of expensive exotics and hypers, the small scale of every soldier meant that the total resource usage was quite low, especially compared to mechs!
The unveiling of the Apocalypse Wardens therefore highlighted the advantages of fielding militarized qi cultivators. They derived a lot of strength from absorbing E energy radiation that was always freely available. They were much less reliant on high-grade resources that red humanity was short of at the moment.
Of course, not every sect or organization could raise a troop as luxurious as the Apocalypse Wardens.
The Red Collective had much greater access to phasewater and other high-quality resources.
The RC had also taken over the management of companion spirit fruit trees, so it could easily supply a lot of soldiers with companion spirits.
Other forces would have a much harder time to raise troops as strong as the Apocalypse Wardens.
However, there was no need to reach their level of strength. It was already good to raise lots of soldiers that possessed half or even a quarter of the combat power as the Apocalypse Wardens!
As long as the price of raising them was much lower as well, this could still turn into a profitable exchange!
Of course, the bigger question was where all of these powerful qi cultivation soldiers should fight.
They could not fight in open space, and they were not that useful in planetary battles unless they fought in urban regions.
Ves personally figured that there were three good uses to these enhanced infantry soldiers.
First, they could serve as excellent guards and defenders of urban settlements.
Second, they should be able to board and take over enemy warships a lot more effectively.
Third, they could raid enemy cities and sneak into deep and well-protected facilities without inflicting excessive collateral damage.
Finally, they could be used for infiltration. Nobody would be on guard against ordinary humans.
Even without any combat gear, the Apocalypse Wardens should still be able to inflict a lot of damage by themselves!
Perhaps there may be other uses for qi cultivation soldiers, but this was what he could think of at the moment.
The parade continued onwards, though the subsequent formations of cultivations did not make impressions as shocking as that of the Ur-Titans and the Apocalypse Wardens.
Perhaps that was all the Red Collective had been able to produce in a short amount of time.
It could also be that the RC still wanted to keep its trump cards hidden and avoid showing off too much strategically valuable information to the native aliens.
Whatever the case, the next groups of cultivators showcased different strengths and possibilities.
For example, there was a troop of robed women who elegantly danced and spun across the air without the use of technology. Each time they swung their fans, they released gusts of winds that could blast people away.
There was a group of humans who wore ordinary clothes, yet made themselves completely invisible and unnoticeable. They managed to do this without wearing any devices on their person!
There was another group of people who were able to generate force fields, allowing them to act as hidden bodyguards so long as they did not expose their true identities.
The power of these qi cultivators was not high, but their lack of dependence on technology made them very suitable in situations where heavy hardware could not be relied upon.
They also became even more effective if they did make use of modern equipment. Their cultivation-derived abilities could easily synergize with a lot of useful technological solutions!
After the Red Collective was done with showing off some of its muscles, the parade began to change in tone.
Instead of presenting soldiers, the Red Collective began to unveil a variety of non-combatants.
The first group of non-combatants consisted of people that gave off a familiar impression to Ves.
These were green-robed figures who all brought small-sized trees and plants with them. Their plants were transported by floating bots of various sizes.
Once the wood cultivators reached the center of the Shrine of Light, they briefly showcased their abilities.