“Where am I...?”
Like all Legion Commanders, Yuno had lost consciousness when her connection with the Goddess of Light was severed, and her spirit had been forcibly integrated into the hive mind.
She stared blankly at the vast space surrounding her.
“To think such a thing exists... Hah, no wonder we couldn’t win a war even with the forces of a Pioneering Zone. A monster where the entire colony moves as a single body... For an ordinary soldier, is there anything more terrifying?”
“It is natural to be surprised the first time you see it.”
Begrun appeared silently beside Yuno. Unlike in reality, within the hive mind, Begrun completely retained his appearance from when he was human.
Yuno wasn’t particularly shocked; at this point, nothing would surprise her. “Why did you spare my life?”
“The Queen values your combat prowess and personality. Your body is already under the Great Queen’s control, and the technological traces etched into you are being studied in depth.”
Begrun mentioned that Yuno’s body had already been dissected under Elise’s command.
The holy core transplanted into her heart, the circuits implanted along her spine, and so on—Elise was identifying and learning from everything that could further enhance her own knowledge and technology.
Her body no longer belonged to Yuno.
However, what Kerrigan wanted was not the technology inside Yuno’s body. She simply needed an interesting toy she could fight with whenever she pleased.
To that end, she had to persuade Yuno’s ego, and Begrun had volunteered for the task, much like how Celia had persuaded Lisette.
“If I abandon the Goddess and choose you all, can I continue to fight the Queen?”
“...She is someone who cannot sit still for a single moment.”
Begrun shook his head with a wry smile, thinking of Kerrigan’s overly active personality. It was a stark contrast to Elise, who preferred to sit firmly on her throne and control everything.
While it was fine during war, Begrun found it difficult to deal with Kerrigan alone during peaceful times. Specifically, it was almost impossible for Begrun to truly fight someone he had resolved to protect, so Kerrigan had always wanted an opponent she could fight with her full strength and sincerity.
“I know how pious and loyal the members of the Goddess of Light Association are to the Goddess, but you seem to have something more important than her.”
Begrun looked at Yuno as if he had seen right through her. Hearing this, Yuno grinned.
In fact, Begrun was right. Yuno’s loyalty was ultimately only to an existence that allowed her to constantly fight and kill enemies. The reason it had been the Goddess Hestia was simply because Hestia had found her first.
If Begrun hadn’t realized this, he wouldn’t have tried to persuade her, and Kerrigan wouldn’t have gone out of her way to spare Yuno’s life.
“What can you give me?”
Yuno straightened her slender shoulders and looked up at Begrun, asking directly.
“Everything.”
At that moment, Elise’s voice echoed from the massive consciousness that had been silently watching her. A simple opportunity was not enough for a successful persuasion. Even for a god, it was difficult to employ a servant without paying a price.
Only by offering a price sincere and great enough to make the servant willing to sacrifice their heart and soul could their true power be brought forth. Elise and the Great Devourer colony, who followed Lin Miao, had long since understood this truth of all things.
...
“!”
A cocoon tore open, and someone emerged amidst a surge of viscous nutrient solution.
This being, covered in a hard black exoskeleton that resembled heavy armor, landed on the ground. Inside the helmet covering her head, several red beams of light flickered like the simple eyes of an insect.
Unlike Begrun’s burly build, she was slender, though nearly two meters tall. Soon, the helmet split open like an insect’s mandible with a click, revealing the face of a girl with azure hair.
Beneath Yuno’s pale skin, several black veins throbbed. The holy core in her heart had been replaced with a new-type magic heart, and the implanted holy circuits had been swapped for a Great Devourer-style circuit created using a Gene Stealer’s body.
“Whew.”
Kerrigan grinned as she watched Yuno, who had molted into her knight. Elise had thoroughly modified Yuno and returned her to Kerrigan as promised. She was both a trophy from her victory and a new toy with a personality similar to her own. Kerrigan was naturally delighted.
“Want to fight? I do need to adjust to this.”
Yuno let out a smirk as she confirmed Kerrigan’s intent through the hive mind. Kerrigan was like that—having received a new toy, she naturally wanted to play with it.
In that instant, Yuno drew an exoskeleton spear that shone like obsidian and pointed its tip toward her Queen, Kerrigan, without hesitation.
Elise did not like Kerrigan’s attitude of playing entirely according to her whims by fighting Yuno. Specifically, she could clearly feel Kerrigan’s pure joy through the hive mind, which made her even more dissatisfied.
“The Second Queen’s power shouldn’t be necessary to clean up the aftermath.”
Celia chimed in to soothe Elise, reading the room. Regardless, the main force of the Goddess of Light Association had been crushed, and Cadia had effectively fallen into their hands.
With only insignificant remnants remaining, Kerrigan and the migratory colony truly had nothing special to do. Thus, although Elise felt dissatisfied as Celia suggested, she did not attempt to control Kerrigan.
“The local Yordles...”
Celia frowned as she received the massive influx of information from all directions through the hive mind, organizing the situation. The failure of the Goddess of Light Association was not just their own problem.
The native Yordles, who had been domesticated by the Association over the past ten years, had suddenly become like kites with their strings cut. Those who viewed them as traitors were rioting everywhere due to the Cordyceps infection. If left alone, the Yordles, now split into two factions, would surely slaughter each other across the entire continent.
“I’m not interested. Deal with it yourself.”
Elise pushed the Yordle problem entirely onto Celia. To Elise, the Yordles were truly less than the insects on the roadside. If not for Lin Miao’s sake, she would have preferred to simply eliminate them all and turn them into a handful of nutrients to save on processing power.
Celia was a very useful advisor at times like this.
“...I will handle it.”
Celia could not refuse the order and had no choice but to accept. The reason she had become a member of the colony and remained loyal to Elise was precisely because she believed this was the only way to save more lives from this destructive legion, and only she could do it.
“Gaia, track down the remaining remnants.”
Having pushed the work onto Celia, Elise ordered her third sister, Gaia, to track down the last of the remnants on this land. Gaia, who could already interfere with the planet’s energy flow and circulation, found the fortresses where the remnants were hiding without any effort.
“Lisette, kill them.”
Next, she sent Lisette to lead the troops to thoroughly punish them, beginning the process of erasing the final traces. It was a brutal massacre. They fought back desperately, only to be slaughtered in a dead end with no way out.
“Aaaaaah!”
The Goddess Hestia turned pale with rage, her hair disheveled as she watched her servants being completely wiped out on Planet Cadia. This wasn’t just a matter of pride; having her servants and territory stolen directly affected her Divine Status.
But it wasn’t over yet.
Elise personally dragged out the captives she had forcibly kept—including Chief Tech Kane—after severing their connection to their god for interrogation. Through the magic Elise personally cast, Kane saw that terrifyingly beautiful face through a screen.
He trembled and kowtowed to the Great Queen of the colony, cold sweat pouring down his face.
“W-What do you want?”
Kane didn’t dare look directly at Elise. He saw her sitting arrogantly on her throne and asked tremblingly what she wanted. Even if Elise could understand and speak human language, in Kane’s eyes, she was no different from an extraterrestrial lifeform whose true identity was impossible to fathom.
Unlike when he had faced Celia, whose heart was no different from a human’s, he felt a pressure from an entirely different Divine Status this time.
“Coordinates.”
“...Pardon?”
“Coordinates for the Goddess’s other planes. Speak them. Now.”
Elise looked down at Kane with contempt, the corners of her mouth curling up slightly.
“Attacking Hestia’s Pioneering Zone worked quite well. Perhaps because all of the Goddess’s attention is focused there, her plans for Earth have been completely shelved.”
In fact, Elise was carrying out Lin Miao’s will. Lin Miao was satisfied to see that Hestia was so preoccupied with the war that she had almost entirely abandoned her interference with Earth.
“Since we’ve found an excuse, let’s keep going.”
He constantly checked the Divine Net forum to observe the trends and judged that this war could continue. Regardless, the Great Devourer craved continuous combat. Only by constantly fighting and becoming stronger could they endure a full-scale war with a high-tier deity in the future.
The next target the Great Devourer wanted to attack was another of Hestia’s Pioneering Zones, where there was no way to defend the Stargate because Tuning had not yet been completed.
Kane closed his eyes tightly upon hearing that plan. Due to their crushing defeat, a threat endangering the very existence of the Goddess of Light Association was raging uncontrollably.
“Gaia, what is the current situation?”
Elise instructed Gaia to share information through the hive mind. Almost simultaneously, a vibration traveled from the roots deep within the planet’s crust.
The boiling magma and the massive energy surging from the leylines of Planet Cadia flowed along Gaia’s vast roots, which were like a neural network. Like a pillar supporting the world, Gaia’s upper body emerged from a massive fleshy pillar.
Her two red eyes flickered with light without blinking.
“Observation results have been compiled. Beginning report.”
Her beautiful female voice carried a mechanical coldness.
“Planet Cadia is under substantive occupation. Residual resistance forces are down to a small fraction and are expected to be dismantled within 1 day and 2 hours. Planetary flow interference force has significantly increased. Total resources have risen more than threefold compared to the Terra period after incorporating Cadia. Potential troop production value is estimated to increase by 2.34 times. The estimated number of production units is 236,570,869.”
Gaia’s countless tentacles grew on a massive stalk, writhing toward the sky. The sensory organ leaves emitted a dark green light, scanning the subtle air currents. The atmosphere, ocean currents, and leylines—all flows were reduced to data sets and poured into the colony.
“Colony growth is expected to increase significantly. 1,264 locations for planetary base nests have been confirmed, with another 3,589 candidate sites under analysis.”
Gaia’s voice fell expressionlessly. Elise grinned after listening to the entire report.
To them, predation meant the growth of power. Since they had achieved victory and devoured the spoils, they could continue to fight in an even stronger state.
Rate on N.U.
