The Mech Touch novel Chapter 7305

The mood among the Ascended Giants assigned to the Bluejay Fleet remained glum during the return journey.

As soon as the Dark Apostle reluctantly shrunk his true body and relinquished control back to Ves, the former also foisted this mess onto his other self.

"I am not good with this stuff. You deal with this problem."

Ves grimaced but did not reject this responsibility.

As a leading figure and a former patriarch, he was no stranger to sacrifice. He had driven the lives of many Larkinsons to their deaths due to his decisions and mistakes.

This time was no different except for the fact that this was the first time that two Ascended Giants fell as a consequence of his orders and decisions.

He could not escape culpability for the losses suffered during the reconnaissance mission.

Suffice to say, the surviving giants did not feel happy about this. They had been thrown into an adverse situation and had been forced to confront a completely unfamiliar alien super enemy.

If their luck was any worse, they could have easily suffered double or even triple losses!

Even so, the unfortunate demise of the Divine Wheel and the Divine Aporia was already far too much as far as most giants were concerned.

Ves also thought this way. He still felt that if he formed a more meticulous plan or let the Dark Apostle accompany his troops from the start, he may have been able to prevent the losses from occurring.

He shook his head.

Thinking too much about what-ifs was a dead end. Ves had led enough operations to overcome this kind of guilt.

If he wanted to atone for any perceived mistakes, then he needed to focus on doing better next time.

He already began to formulate a few ideas on how to prevent this outcome from happening again. He needed to have a good talk with the cadre of the Phase Lord Department in order to explore which ones they should pursue.

For now, he was more interested in learning whether the sacrifice had been worth it. Had they managed to retrieve enough data?

"We are still analyzing the data, Ves." The projection of Lord Richard Brownstone responded. "Your men have retrieved 21 out of 30 data modules. That is less than ideal. While the remaining 9 data spikes transmitted crucial data to the scout vessels, they only managed to do so for a short amount of time before the battle moon crushed them apart. Whether that is enough to understand the full scope of the battle moon remains to be seen. From what we are able to gather so far, the VOBM is anything but a simple collection of low-quality flesh. There are significant anomalies hidden beneath the surface that have taken all of us by surprise. We should have preliminary answers available to you by the time you return to Philaster Crestia III."

That sounded rather mysterious. The Rubarthan analysts may have gotten stumped by what the data had shown to them. That reinforced the theory that the enemy battle moon possessed a hidden secret.

If nobody took the initiative to probe the VOBM at an early stage, then it may have been able to catch the Rubarthan defenders off-guard during a critical moment!

"Tell me everything once I get back." Ves responded in a serious tone. "My troops have suffered. I at least need to know whether their sacrifice was not in vain. I hope you will also abide by the agreement of compensating my department for our losses."

"No problem." Richard said. "We have no intention of hiding the results of our analysis. We know who is responsible for helping us understand the depth of the enemy battle moon. You are entitled to know the full details. As for compensation, we have no intention of reneging on our promises. The Brownstone Principality is already arranging a shipment of phasewater and other precious materials to the headquarters of the Phase Lord Department. We estimate that this should be enough to nurture two human phase lords."

The compensation could not bring back the dead, but the resources should at least make it a lot easier to replace the losses. That was all Ves could ask for. He did not dare to issue any excessive demands.

"That is all I wanted to hear for the time being. We will talk more once I return."

The call ended.

Ves spent a few minutes on paying attention to enemy pursuit.

The voribugs originally assigned to guard the battle moon had become incensed after the phase lords damaged the exterior of the castle.

Although the VOMB maintained its position for the time being, hundreds of thousands of mutated voribugs still chased after the retreating vessels. The annoying bugs showed no sign of giving up. It would be problematic if other bugs appeared and blocked their passage.

The Rubarthan spacers were not blind. They could think up this possibility as well, which was why they took more precautions.

Strangely enough, no surprise ambushes took place during the return trip. The bug swarms chasing after the scout vessels never turned away. The Goliath Hive simply sent them on a chase without bothering to command them to stop for whatever reason.

The defenders of Philaster Crestia III eventually wiped them out as soon as the insects entered into weapon range. They all died without achieving anything important aside from deterring the scout vessels from attempting a second reconnaissance mission.

Maybe that was the point. More than a few people started to suspect that the mutated voribugs initiated a secret change.

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