"We’re saved!"
Though more than a few people privately grumbled about the delay, each of them still felt grateful that their powerful Saint Commander finally came to the rescue!
Even without moving away from her central position, the Minerva Mark II was able to assert a fairly strong claim on the space occupied by the combined fleet.
Within her expansive domain field, it became a lot more difficult for hostile presences to have their way inside the defensive perimeter!
The local space immediately grew less oppressive. Casella’s presence and willpower never felt as reassuring as this moment. Amplified by the true resonance generated with her ace command mech, her domain field brought back the light in a pocket that was being threatened by darkness!
The warships of the combined fleet showed greater coordination and less panic. The mechs fought more boldly and did not relent in their efforts to rescue the missing assets.
Yet just as the Command Field was about to press back the dark miasma even further and create more space for the combined fleet, the adversary quickly responded to this development.
Ves and other sensitive individuals noticed it first. They felt a huge buildup of negative energies just beyond the barrier!
The dark miasma churned and roiled as if multiple invisible spoons tried to stir it all up. The strong rotational forces that appeared in four cardinal directions significantly changed the impact of the environment on Casella’s Saint Kingdom as well as the strained defensive spell array.
The expansion of the Minerva Mark II’s Command Field slowed down. Though it was still strong enough to push outwards, it had clearly encountered greater resistance than before!
Yet that was clearly not the extent of the enemy’s response. The 4 separate ’cyclones’ somehow resonated with each other in a mysterious way. Ves widened his eyes as his companion spirit vaguely sensed that they were not separate actions, but multiple components tied together in a greater whole!
All of the quantitative changes ultimately began to produce a qualitative change!
The surrounding dark miasma that had been caught up in the cyclones no longer exhibited as much lethargy and passivity as before.
As they got caught up in the rotational forces, the death energy seemed to become more active. Whatever the unseen aliens were doing caused the negative energies to become imbued with unknown properties!
Once empowered by this strange and indecipherable process, the activated energies crashed into the defensive barriers with unnatural power!
This time, they managed to push back the expanding Command Field!
"What?!"
"How can an ace commander’s domain field be repelled by low-grade death energy?!"
Although their unseen opponents had utilized special means to increase the concentration and directionality of the dark miasma, that still did not explain how it had suddenly become a lot more effective at suppressing Casella’s willpower!
Ves quickly narrowed his eyes as he let Blinky observe the gargantuant flow of energies. He quickly noticed a few important patterns.
He reported his findings over the command channel.
"Those energy vortices are not natural. They are actively being generated by the enemy! Not only that, but they are perfectly synced together! I think... that the enemy has deployed a qi formation that happens to be effective in suppressing our Command Field! We are caught up in a clash between energy fields."
This was a mode of warfare that Ves and the other humans had barely touched upon in previous battles.
As the changes brought by exotic radiation continued to change the rules, competition between energy fields would likely become more and more common over time.
The Red Collective had already proven the effectiveness of qi formations at the start of the Age of Dawn.
It was unreasonable to believe that the deathborn, who originated from a much larger and more powerful galaxy, did not know how to manipulate E energy in the same way!
"The enemy is not ignorant of our capabilities." Casella Ingvar immediately concluded. "I cannot sense the invisible hand that is directing this play, but I can feel the effects. I have to expend a lot more willpower and effort to prevent my Command Field from collapsing further. The quantity of death energy crashing into our direction has increased, and the harm they cause has grown stronger as well. I cannot Commandeer or Enfeoff as many mechs either. So long as the energy vortices remain in place, I need to direct most of my power and energy into holding the line. If I withdraw my strength, the defensive spell array alone will not be able to maintain our bubble of safety."

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