The Mech Touch

6896  Priestly Order

The offer from the Enforcement Department intrigued Ves a lot.

Compared to the powerful soldiers offered by the Phase Lord Department, the Enforcement Department mainly offered support personnel.

Compared to human phase lords, support cultivators such as formation masters and gardeners did not sound as powerful.

Yet their work could have an amazing effect on the Premier Fleet.

They worked as force multipliers. They added value by amplifying the strengths of existing soldiers.

The question now was whether the force multipliers provided by the Enforcement Department were strong enough to exceed the benefits of having 12 human phase lords on the battlefield.

Ves was not entirely certain about it yet. He needed to know more about the eclectic mix of cultivators the Enforcement Department had managed to include in its proposal.

He gazed closely at Eliza Mo Ragadan. She had done an excellent job at maintaining her impartiality. She had not shown any obvious bias towards either of the two offers.

The two might not have spent much time in the same location, but they had spoken enough times over the comm that they had developed a tacit understanding with each other.

Her primary loyalty was in the Red Collective. She was a consummate careerist who had always made it clear that she served the Office of the Chief Councilor of the Upper Council rather than Ves Larkinson directly.

This was an important distinction. While Eliza would take reasonable measures to uphold his interests within the halls of the Astral Octagon, she possessed clear bottom lines that should never be crossed.

This made it hard for Ves to fully trust Eliza or pull her into his inner circle.