“That was lucky. Although I conducted experiments, to be honest, whether we could fight normally in space was still an unknown.”
Lin Miao and Elise's collective consciousness were actually quite worried, despite the fear and despair Adian felt during the battle with the Rum and the subsequent ambush of the reinforcements.
This was their first time engaging in space combat, and they had zero prior experience.
As the first creation of the space mutants, the Hive Mothership was still an experimental subject requiring significant improvements and modifications. Its parameters were far inferior to spaceships like the Rum.
The victory was largely due to the Rum's crew being caught off guard by an enemy they had never seen before, and the fact that the Rum was an obsolete, decommissioned warship.
Additionally, the Hive Mothership had been able to concentrate its fire just as the reinforcements arrived and were unable to mount an effective defense after warping.
【Elise is satisfied with the accumulation of experience】
However, as long as they achieved a single victory, the Great Devourer colony could learn and grow from it.
They possessed the ability to acquire technology and knowledge by interrogating prisoners and then adapting that knowledge for their own use.
“Monsters like I've never seen!”
“Commander, we have to evade!”
The support from the newly created individuals wasn't limited to the space where the Rum was located.
Kerrigan had been subdued, and the nest on the Second Pioneering Planet, which they had finally occupied, was on the verge of being lost.
Another variant appeared from the Stargate opened by Gaia, beginning to tear through the sky.
Though much smaller than the Hive Mothership, this variant was still larger than the biggest terrestrial variants. It resembled a giant centipede swimming through the sea.
Its head, emerging from a hard carapace, looked like that of a mantis with massive scythe-like mandibles, while its flippers had been replaced by supple tentacles.
Elise had designed this Brood Lord variant to assist the Hive Mothership and perform independent missions, completely mimicking the Rum that had ravaged Cadia.
However, the price of mimicking its abilities was a terrifying appearance ugly enough to evoke instinctive dread.
“Ugh...”
“Bombardment from the sky! Get down!”
The hard ventral carapace split open, and a massive Disintegration Cannon rose from within, unleashing beams of light.
The firepower erupting from its ship-sized body even surpassed that of the Behemoths built for combat.
Elise had been furious at being toyed with by the enemy ship, which is why she had modeled the Brood Lord after it.
The Goddess of Light Association had not expected such ship-level aerial firepower. As a result, they were beaten back just like the Great Devourers who had been toyed with by the Rum.
“Ha! That feels good.”
Yuno couldn't help but laugh as she watched the Brood Lord's bombardment level the ground.
“...Incredible.”
Begrun also muttered under his breath, watching the enemy being shelled from the distant sky.
It was as if all the hard fighting of the past few days had been for nothing; the overwhelming firepower had completely suppressed the once-arrogant enemies.
“Shoot them down!”
The Goddess of Light Association hastily deployed wyvern-shaped puppet forces like the Heavenly Wyverns to deal with the Brood Lord. However, as if mocking them, the Brood Lord flew to an altitude they couldn't reach, shaking off their attacks.
“The counterattack begins.”
Elise grinned at the sight.
While she could endure when necessary, Elise was not one who enjoyed being on the receiving end of an attack.
Her innate nature was to keep attacking and prey upon others to her heart's content.
Finally, the time had come to run wild.
...
“Gaia's recovery is complete.”
At the moment of victory in space and on the new battlefield, Gaia's once-destroyed body regrew on Cadia and began its tuning.
This robbed Hestia of the opportunity to send troops to Cadia for revenge.
According to the original plan, the Rum, which provided the coordinates, was to rendezvous with the support fleet to sweep Cadia. Then, the Goddess of Light Association would open a Stargate to deploy ground forces.
But not only the Rum, but even the arriving support fleet had been attacked by the unexpected Great Devourer space mutants. Furthermore, the recovered Gaia had begun tuning, preventing the opening of the enemy Stargate.
“...”
Gaia extended her upper body from a stalk and looked toward the sky.
Something was slowly descending toward the ground from the far-off heavens.
The spaceships firmly grasped by the Hive Motherships were all being dragged through the atmosphere toward the surface in a suppressed state.
How much knowledge and how many vast worlds were contained within those ships and the minds of the crew members who operated them?
Gaia was also analyzing and learning from this knowledge, so she showed great interest and curiosity.
“I will begin the mission immediately upon arrival.”
Inside the Rum's cabin, Celia sat in Captain Adian's seat, watching the ground draw closer.
Elise had once again entrusted Celia with a mission: to understand the enemy's technology and civilization through the captured prisoners and spoils of war.
Because she had performed so exceptionally, Elise was now pushing all such matters onto Celia.
“Ugh...”
Adian, who had finally regained consciousness after being drugged, groaned on the floor.
Celia showed a slightly surprised expression as she saw Adian struggling to look at her.
“How did you wake up so quickly? I sensed almost no resistance from you.”
Celia was puzzled by how someone like Adian—who had no holy power, no magic power, and no spells—could recover so fast.
Since he was truly an ordinary person without any power, she had adjusted the toxin dosage accordingly, but he had woken from the anesthesia faster than expected.
“There... are ways.”
Adian looked at Celia's face and said no more.
He felt there was no need to tell her that he could quickly neutralize the paralyzing toxin because of the power of the nanobots implanted in his body.
The Hive Mothership that had captured the Rum finally landed its massive hull on the ground with a thud.
Adian frowned and said, “What do you plan to do with us now? Monster.”
No matter how beautiful her face was, or whether they could communicate, to Adian, Celia was ultimately a monster no different from the Great Devourers—and a servant of an Outer God.
“We have our ways.”
Celia watched as worker ants with twitching antennae entered the cabin, binding the fallen crew members and Adian before taking them out.
The Great Devourer would, of course, treat them just as they had treated previous captives.
Forcibly severing their connection to the gods, implanting mutant parasites within them, and seizing control of their bodies so they couldn't betray them and could only speak the truth.
Of course, it wouldn't be painful.
As long as they were loyal and obedient to the Great Devourer, they could keep their lives and live a new one.
Celia's gaze drifted into the distance, where Kane, the Chief Tech from the Goddess of Light Association, was watching the subdued crew members being dragged out of the spaceship.
She only hoped that Adian and the crew would also submit as quickly as possible and become part of the colony without suffering.
“Contact the home planet! We need more reinforcements! Especially... we especially need a way to counter the enemy's space weapons!”
Of course, on the new battlefield—the Second Pioneering Zone—the war was still raging.
The migratory colony, which had been at a disadvantage, finally launched a counterattack after receiving support from the main nest colony.
Another Hive Mothership shuttled between space and the atmosphere, unleashing a relentless bombardment that instantly put the Goddess of Light Association at a disadvantage.
This was because those sent to the Second Pioneering Zone had almost no means of countering space weapons.
However, it was a futile cry.
Since Gaia had already taken the lead in tuning the planet, the Goddess of Light Association now had no way to provide them with support.
“We must occupy the enemy's fortress and secure the nest.”
Elise sent Lisette with reinforcements to support the migratory colony.
While the migratory colony regained its strength, the large force led by Lisette began attacking the retreating enemies and the half-destroyed enemy fortress following the bombardment by the Black Great Devourer.
“It finally came to this!”
“Evacuate, quickly! To the shelter!”
The tide of battle turned in an instant. The command system was shaken, and the Pioneering Zone, which had issued an emergency mobilization order, fell into chaos.
Citizens rushed to flee to shelters with their families, while a small number of troops took up arms to resist the Great Devourers.
“Punish them.”
The anger and obsession of Elise, who had successfully reversed a major crisis, shook the hive mind.
She intended to trample the enemy underfoot and go on a killing spree to vent her long-suppressed frustrations.
“Monster!”
A paladin stood before the Great Devourers that swarmed like a thick dark cloud, covering the earth, doing his best to block them.
Lisette stepped in front of that paladin.
Rather than dying miserably...
Lisette increased her power output, swinging the blades extending from the backs of her hands. She shattered the paladin's sword with a single strike and then cut through his body.
She felt that rather than being torn apart alive by the stingers and mandibles of other emotionless Great Devourers, it was far better to meet the end through a duel like a knight.
This faint struggle, which couldn't even be called resistance, was ruthlessly trampled.
Lisette stared blankly at the collapsing Pioneering Zone.
Rate on N.U.
