When the honor guard returned to the underground mech hall, they dragged a couple of limping and infirm comrades.

Against the onslaught of the ultralifers, the newly-formed and equipped honor guard performed quite decently.

After all, it was not easy to fight against opponents who outnumbered them several times over. Although the Larkinson soldiers mainly had Lucky to thank for their quick victory, they did not come out unscathed during the entire incident.

Ves remained impassive as he saw the varying states of his own men. Some had lost limbs. Others suffered internal injuries after an attack penetrated their combat armor.

One body didn't move at all. The honor guard had suffered its first casualty when the soldier that initially got struck through the chest suffered several gunshots to his head. The enemy troops managed to pierce the helmet and deal irreversible damage to the head.

There was no going back after that.

Fortunately, it didn't seem that count would go any higher. One of the honor guards also qualified as a medic. Together with the high-tech treatment capabilities of their armored suits, none of the injured clansmen risked dying anytime soon. No matter what damage they suffered, as long as the head was intact, everything could be fixed or replaced once they returned to safety.

Nitaa looked disappointed as she marched up to Ves. "Sir, we successfully repelled the hostile infantry, but half of us have lost combat effectiveness."

"I know. I tracked the battle. You performed quite well against second-class opponents, I think. You killed 52 enemy troopers while only losing one of your own in return. That's an excellent ratio. There is no need for you to feel ashamed of yourself."

"You don't need to be gentle to us. Our performance is not up to par. We need to do better in order to live up to the expectations of our role. We cannot remain dependent on Lucky all the time."

"Meow." Lucky nodded his head.

The gem cat didn't want to fight all the time either. Taking action was tiring, risky and not even his main purpose. Just because he had become good at it didn't mean he wanted to kill people left and right whenever Ves encountered trouble!

Ves knew that Nitaa made a very good point. Up until recently, Ves invested much of his attention to strengthening the Larkinson Clan's mech forces. His constant efforts paid off and his mech forces had become much stronger as a result.

He thought about what he had done to foster the growth of the Avatars of Myth, Living Sentinels and so on. He designed Larkinson-exclusive mechs that possessed unique advantages. He developed prime mechs that allowed his expert pilots to exert their strength to a greater degree. He invented battle networks to allow his mech pilots to pool their strengths and exert greater power than ever before.

On top of that, he also directed the attention of his clan to strengthening his mech forces. Many Larkinsons endeavored to expand and improve these vital troops since the founding of the clan. The leadership and institutions of the clan had become so fixated on strengthening the Larkinson Clan's mech forces that other priorities didn't get as much attention!

The lack of development of the Larkinson's infantry forces had become more acute than ever now that Ves ended up in this situation. In a place where his own mechs were far away and where many indoor spaces only allowed the entry of human-sized combatants, he began to feel awfully exposed!

"I'll allocate more resources and attention to strengthening my guard forces." Ves promised to her. "Considering my growth in status along with all of the dangerous areas we might enter, my threat level will only continue to rise. I'm already satisfied with the trajectory of our mech forces, so I don't need to invest as much attention to them. Providing you with better gear is already on my list."

There were many more aspects that his honor guard and his other infantry forces had to work on besides acquiring stronger equipment. However, it took time and lots of continuous effort to raise the standard of his infantry from an afterthought to a reliable and powerful combat asset.

Ves thought about one of the discussions he held with General Verle. Considering how little attention his infantry received so far, he felt it was better if they stepped outside the shadows of his mech forces.

Even if the division complicated security matters, his infantry should nonetheless gain their own identities! Only in this way would they be able to take pride in their service!

The underground hall suddenly shook. A distant explosion caused the ground to rumble to such a degree that a couple of items on the table fell to the floor. Even Lucky jumped from the table in panic!

Ves quickly studied the sensor readings from his Odineye to figure out what happened, but aside from seeing lots of people fall over or run around like headless chickens, he failed to spot a threat.

"I need to supply more power." He concluded.

Being able to observe several hundred meters in every direction was very valuable, but it left him dangerously ignorant of threats lurking beyond! The area outside of the Odineye's current detection range was completely shrouded in darkness as far as he was concerned, and that was a very major deficiency!

While the underground mech hall he was in right now was not as well-equipped as a proper mech workshop, it still offered several useful amenities meant to make it easier to service giant machines.

Power supply was one of the most essential functions. Some tools and equipment required lots of power to function, and it would be inconvenient if they couldn't be used because there wasn't a source of secure and stable power output nearby!

Ves looked around and quickly marched over to the side. He reached out and peeled away a biometal panel that hid an industrial power outlet.

Such outlets were present in pretty much any area where mechs were being worked on. The only complication was that the outlet in this case was organic in nature!

"Well, electricity is electricity. It doesn't matter if it's being channeled by a regular cord or an organic cord."

Despite not knowing too much about biotechnology, the design of the power outlet mirrored that of a conventional one. After a few seconds, he roughly understood its operation and pressed a few buttons.

A medium-sized cable dropped from a cavity. Ves pulled out the fleshy tentacle and attached its disturbingly life-like plug into a socket to the side of his Unending Regalia.

He performed some diagnostics and experimentally channeled external power to some inconsequential modules. After confirming that the external power source worked normally enough, he cautiously directed more and more power to the Odineye.

Due to its relative size, Ves had little choice but to mount it to the back of his combat armor. Right now, the orb glowed brighter and brighter as Ves received more sensor input.

In the vision provided by his implant, it was as if the surrounding retreated at a steady pace, revealing people, spaces and assets that were previously obscured.

"Amazing!"

Ves knew he couldn't sustain this condition for long, though. The Odineye was remarkably energy-efficient so it did not warm up due to waste heat generation, but the story was different for the power management system of his Unending Regalia!

Parts of his suit were steadily warming up. Even though its heat management system was not a slouch, it was not designed to deal with power levels that were more usually seen in mechs than infantry suits!

Still, as the fog expanded, Ves managed to observe a lot of interesting activity!

Most of them weren't immediately relevant to him. The refugees wandering around, the arena personnel using their privileges to hole themselves up into boltholes, the invaders moving in to attack their enemies and so on didn't interest him as long as he wasn't involved.

Soon enough, he found out where the massive explosion came from. It turned out that a mech squad that consisted of nine biomechs had forcefully breached a large hangar hatch two kilometers away!

The hatch was heavily armored, so a single large explosion wasn't enough to break it completely. Several melee biomechs carefully applied force in order to expand the breach they made.

Ves grew a bit suspicious towards these biomechs. Why would they expend so much effort to create an entrance?

He instructed his Odineye to resolve more details from this unknown mech force.

There was a risk involved with doing so. Active scanning always allowed the target to pick up something unusual. Fortunately, the situation was so chaotic right now that Ves doubted that his scans would attract too much attention.

After his Odineye strained to gather more data, Ves finally learned who they belonged to and what their mission might be. "Damn! We're in trouble!"

He recognized a couple of signs that reminded him a lot of the deceased infantry that had attempted to work their way to this hall. It turned out that the unit that his honor guard had fought was merely a reconnaissance unit!

Once the ultralifers confirmed Ves' current position, they quickly decided to send in the big guns!

"What is the matter?" Captain Rivington asked.

"You guys need to hurry up! A hostile mech squad has just entered the tunnel complex some distance away. They're likely going to make their way here to kill us all before we can evacuate."

"How soon?!"

"A few minutes, maybe ten. It depends on how many obstructions they encounter and how much they insist on fulfilling their mission. Regardless, we need to get all of the mechs up-and-running in 5 minutes at most!"

The team captain cursed. "Boys! You heard the man! Rush your work and don't pay any attention to the details. Skip every check and steps that aren't crucial. Mr. Larkinson, can you assist?!"

"I won't be of much use, but I will do what I can."

"Thank you! I'll be entering the cockpit."

All five mech pilots entered the cockpits of their respective biomechs. Captain Rivington, Carlie Jinten and Oliver Vlambeer did so with practised ease and familiarity.

It was different for Venerable Jannzi and Vincent. Even though they both read through a crash course in piloting biomechs, these organic machines possessed so many different nuances that it was impossible to master their use in a single sitting.

Not even expert pilots were capable of doing so despite their superhuman learning capabilities!

At least the former possessed a tough stomach. "Ugh, the things I do for the Larkinson Clan."

Vincent on the other hand was shaking in his hover chair again. Ves had to approach him and push him forward in order to get the wavering expert candidate to move.

"Aren't you a man? Then go pilot this mech already. You'll feel much better once you have the Rotingring's formidable power at your disposal."

"It's a biomech, Ves! Don't you think it's icky for mech pilots to interface with a giant fleshy body? It's like piloting a human suit!"

Ves firmly clapped Vincent's back. "Don't think so much and go! A biomech may be different from a normal mech, but its role is still the same! Hostile mechs are on the way and it's likely they have it out for us. You can either choose to fight them in this useless hover chair or yours or you can man up and fight our hunters with your full strength!"

Vincent reluctantly entered the cockpit of the Rotenring.

While the mech pilots seated themselves and got ready, Ves quickly checked the progress of the biomech technicians. They had sped up their work enormously after hearing that hostile mechs were on their way, so much so that they didn't even bother to fix obvious faults!

Soon, the biomechs woke up. The ones piloted by the Roving Hunters booted up without a problem, but the other two were experiencing some difficulties.

It was not that simple to interface with a biomech!