Along with a vastly enhanced intelligence, my resonance with machines had also shot through the roof.

Before the latest upgrade, I could extend my resonance to approximately a hundred meters around me, and the feedback I received from my resonance was rather murky.

I could still make out the different machines; cars, trucks, helicopters and the sort, but it was not without difficulty. Sensing these machines around me was like looking into the distance through a layer of fog.

Making out which ones were mechas was much easier due to their mecha cores. In my resonance sensing, the blue mecha cores were shining like giant lighthouses in the deep darkness of night. Fog or no fog, the brightness of the lighthouse could not be denied.

But after the upgrade, it was like the fog had lifted. I knew exactly what every single machine was doing within a radius of five hundred meters around me.

It was almost as strong as the resonance I felt when I had physical contact with the machines. It wasn't quite as strong, but it was close.

I could feel my heart start to beat faster.

In one of my father's military books, there was a comment made by a renowned general. He said, "This is the first thing you have to do to your enemies in every battle - blind the bastards."

Which basically meant take out their scouts, their sentries and grab the flow of information into their camp by the neck and start squeezing.

Even without my ability to break down machines and devour them, my resonance would prove to be extremely useful. I would never be one of those bastards who got blinded.

As I continue to grow and the range of my resonance expands, I would eventually get to the point where I would always know how many and what sort of machines were arrayed against me.

And considering that most potent strike forces capable of threatening me would need to involve at least some sort of machine, I would be almost immune to ambush.

And that was merely my resonance.

It wasn't even the real power of my red mecha core!

At that moment, I was exceedingly excited.

I knew that once I lose the need to keep my powers a secret, I can enter ANY battlefield, I would be absolutely unstoppable. With that kind of range for my red energy, I would be impervious to close range and medium range mechas!

Every machine entering the range of my red energy could be obliterated as and when I liked!

It was an incredible thought.

Throw me into any setting, and I would dominate.

Urban, jungle, desert, snow, underwater, anything.

I was a walking machine detector, obliterator and devourer.

Just imagine this- Oh wait, you don't need to imagine.

The Defense of Belgorod.

That was me at my very best urban mode. Untouchable, and absolutely dominating.

Well for half of the battle, at least.

Emma, that little minx. She truly makes for a terrifying, terrifying enemy. If not for her devious sneak attack on my position, I would have managed to hold that town for sure.

She was the reason why I said I was "almost" immune to ambush, because well, she did ambush me and forced me out of the city.

Still, what was the final tally? Three hundred medium mechas, two hundred light mechas and fifty heavy mechas? All of that absorbed without breaking a sweat, and within the first five minutes of battle.

I might have lost the city, but I definitely won the battle for resources.

By that point in my life, I was already so strong that you could throw the entire mechanized armed forces of the European Empire at me, and I would still be able to hold that city.

Of course, this was assuming that there were no other experimental cores out there.

Anyway, at that time, I was thinking that if they could build one, they could build two, right? And judging by the circumstances in which I found my red mecha core, a lot of time had passed since its creation. Many other experimental cores could be made in that time.

And if there were many other experimental cores, then that simply meant that there would be many others capable of shutting me down.

I needed to maintain my cover. I could not afford dealing with a bunch of elite investigators from the various superpowers sniffing at my trail. I had bigger things to do than to worry about finally being discovered each and every day!

Of course we know now that the "devour" of the red mecha core is one of a kind. But I didn't know that then. So I "kept my head down", just in case.

At a 'glance', I immediately knew that the remaining four Red Dragon blue mechas were idling in the middle of the Red Dragon Base. They had suffered light to medium damage from their earlier skirmish, but were still very much operational. There were also sixty three Red Dragon exo-suits active, and of those, fifty two were already critically low in power.

True to their high level of training, emergency repairs were already beginning on the four blue mechas. I could sense various strange and unique machines latching and working on the blue mechas, repairing the mechas on the fly to a much higher degree than I thought possible. Deep within my subconscious, I made a note to make sure I absorb those machines later.

However, I knew those emergency repairs were merely temporary stopgaps for the more obvious damages at best, and without fully diagnosing and repairing the blue mechas in a proper facility, they would not be returning to full power anytime soon.

In short, the Red Dragons were in full defensive mode. I didn't have to worry about them swarming over to my position any time soon.

Their only hope was for their glorious leader to win her own battle, return to them triumphantly, and send these military dogs running with their tails between their legs.

And in their desperation, and because all their hopes lied with the white mecha, they were the first to send out scouts to find out what was happening.

On the other side of the battlefield, I could sense that the military was still very much close to their full strength.

They still had ten blue mechas, and a literal horde of exo-suits, at least a thousand of them.