“All squads, continue clearing the combat zone. Do not allow a single invader to escape.”
The dark gray Armed Species leader issued the command as he transferred from the battleship to a smaller assault patrol craft.
The number of Limb-species dispatched to the habitat’s star system hadn't been large. They had adhered to their usual habit of scavenging—flanking the rear to raid the home base, operating on the principle of plundering if they won and fleeing if they didn't. Their goal was simply to pile pressure onto the Gray Wing Sub-King who was away on campaign; by their logic, it was a win-win scenario.
They hadn't expected the entire fleet to suddenly stall, allowing the remaining Armed Species members to tear them to shreds.
Their only path of retreat had vanished completely.
Having neutralized the enemy’s main force within two steller hours, Kliman maintained his xenomorphic state while delegating the detailed cleanup work to his subordinates. In terms of pure combat capability, this direct subordinate—ranked just below Klark and Sakti—was exceptionally reliable.
As the large-scale offensive and defensive battle drew to a close, a vast amount of wreckage floated near the docking orbits. The aftermath was complex, but not particularly difficult to handle.
Depending on the situation, he might gather the insects capable of free movement and prepare to head to the front lines to provide further support for the Sub-King and Sakti’s side.
However, before that could happen, his information linker received an internal message.
It was an alert from the Great Information Nest—or rather, a new message bubble sent by En.
The brother who had once trained under the Armed Species leader possessed his communication channel, but he rarely reached out.
The drone, whose grasp of the common tongue was abysmal, adhered to the philosophy that brevity was power; if he could pop out a single word, he would never say two.
“Need treatment. Patrol team send here. Pod.”
At least the meaning was clear.
“You lot, find a few insects... Never mind, I’ll go down to the surface personally.”
After a moment’s thought, the dark gray female made his decision.
The ten micro-cycles during which the Limb-species had collectively gone offline were more than enough for the fierce, battle-hardened Gray Wing direct subordinates to go full throttle. It was highly likely that the Great Information Nest had performed some sort of supportive maneuver, and right now, it seemed someone there was injured.
The lightweight assault patrol craft didn't require a specific orbit or starport; it could land directly on open ground.
As a result, the tall female had barely stepped out of the craft with his subordinates when he was swarmed and seized by several buzzing insects.
En and Enna grabbed his arms from the left and right; on the other side, a thin Broad-winged drone pulled at his hand; not far away, the mate of a fallen Armed Species member—the drone with the six small grubs—was also watching anxiously.
The moment the sounds of war outside died down, they had rushed out en masse to find help, grabbing the brother guarding the gates and desperately trying to communicate with words and gestures.
Before his social phobia could even kick in, the female was dragged into the Great Information Nest.
Immediately, Kliman understood why all the drones were buzzing with such anxiety. The light-brown Short-winged drone named Xiao was cradling a white insect, surrounded by the others. Gera appeared to be unconscious.
The Nest’s tendrils hung down in a soft, harmless state, but upon closer inspection, they were all stained with dried blood.
“I’ll take him for treatment.”
The Armed Species leader, in his serious state, moved with great speed. With Klark absent, he was the only one on the entire habitat planet with the authority to use the Time River Port. He immediately began processing the access request.
To prevent the enemy from reverse-engineering the path to storm the residential nests during the war, the port had been locked behind layer upon layer of security. Now, it had to be painstakingly unlocked.
Taking the white casualty from the hands of the huddle of chattering males, Kliman walked out without a moment’s pause.
Xiao stood up instantly, without a hint of hesitation. “I’m coming too.”
The rest of the drones followed in a long string.
“What happened?” Kliman asked as he walked, glancing at the middle-caste drone beside him, who only reached his shoulder.
“The Great Information Nest connected to the wreckage of the Kamlan model. We tried to cut off the Limb-species fleet, but overusing the Nest body causes damage to the conductor.”
Xiao almost had to jog to keep up with the other’s pace, striving to explain clearly in the briefest terms possible.
The unlocked Time River connected several gates, transporting them to the medical zone in a few heartbeats. Experiencing this kind of instantaneous movement for the first time, the middle-caste drone fared alright, but the other drones with weaker constitutions nearly vomited. Kliman had to use his tail to scoop up the staggering insects.
It wasn't until Gera was placed into the treatment pod that everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief.
As if his strength had failed him, Xiao slowly slid down against the side of the pod. With trembling hands, he sent messages to Serin and the human far away on the Energy Star, telling his companions that all was well.
He was still in a semi-xenomorphic state, his feelers not yet retracted. The other drones weren't much better off.
Dried nosebleeds stained their faces and bodies, while those who had been temporarily rescued by the *Qiming*, like Kara, were covered in soot and grime, looking like a litter of kittens that had rolled down a chimney.
The males huddled together in a messy heap, seeking a sense of security in the unfamiliar environment.
Kliman was also still clad in his scales.
He hadn't exited his combat stance, as he still had to be ready to support the front lines at any moment.
The treatment pod began to fill with fluid. The bloodstains on the white insect were washed away, leaving him sleeping within with a rather sickly complexion.
“Thank you,” the dark gray female said.
He had no experience thanking a male, so the words felt hot in his mouth, as if a walnut were stuck in his throat.
That powerful, scaled tail also swayed slightly behind him.
But he tried his best to make it clear: “Thank you for your help. It was... impressive.”
That single short sentence exhausted the energy of the male-phobia sufferer. His delayed and dull hyper-intolerance finally began to flare up.
This caused the expression of gratitude to sound more like a cold threat.
En, who was clutching a gun, let out a snort of laughter—it was entirely possible the laugh contained a heavy dose of mockery and disdain.
The low-caste drone, who had been leaning against the wall, shook his hand and shoved the gun into his brother’s arms. He then stepped up to his former training instructor and unceremoniously grabbed the other’s scale-covered hand, placing it on top of his own head.
“Touch,” he said succinctly.
“Touch!”
This sounded even more like a threat than the previous thank-you.
Members of the same swarm should cuddle; only the weak are afraid to touch.
Kliman: “...”
What a difficult request to fulfill.
The surrounding insects seemed to finally recover from the tension of a moment ago, and they all let out small laughs.
When males spoke the language of emotion, their tones were far softer than those of females. They chanted words of thanks or comfort like songs, possessed of a soothing, lazy rhythm.
One by one, they retracted their feelers. Then, surrounding the Armed Species leader whose every scale was written with unease, they responded to that thank-you with a chorus of voices.
Kliman stood amidst the crowd of drones, his face a mask of expressionless stone.
Finally, he slowly and solemnly cracked a smile.
***
The Sub-King, undergoing emergency treatment, maintained an upright sitting posture, allowing two technical insects of the Gray Wing swarm to stand behind him. They worked with pained expressions to clean the pair of wings that had been deeply contaminated.
They were aboard a logistics medical ship, positioned behind the matrix at a sufficiently safe distance from the front-line combat zone. Sakti had carved out a vast safety zone between the conflict belt and the logistics ships, leaving ample space for the large numbers of Gray Wings requiring treatment.
Not long ago, as soon as they had returned to the main ship, the Core Species had—with an unyielding, forceful attitude—driven his ally to have the source of contamination removed before it could be delayed any longer.
The insect wings, crawling with black, vine-like patterns, were truly an eyesore.
At this moment, Klark was cradling a tiny, silver-gray young male.
On the body of the larva, who had not long ago left the treatment pod, one could still see wounds that hadn't fully healed—he had lost his rare wings, and his thin, scaled tail seemed to be held at an abnormal angle.
The insect had not yet woken up, unaware that he was being sheltered in the arms of the most powerful and terrifying direct subordinate in the universe.
As the sole survivor found on Angon, the young male had been immediately sent back to the fleet by Sakti for treatment.
The Sub-King had heard from the Gray Wings who had hurriedly completed the handover that the Core Species was showing signs of falling into a rage. He had been greatly surprised by this, but when he actually saw this lone survivor, he understood his ally, whose "savior complex" flared up every now and then.
The larva was very soft, very frail.
Thus, the high-ranking being suppressed his pheromones, ensuring he wouldn't harm the little one.
“It’s rare to see you with such an expression.”
The human, who had just disconnected from the Kamlan model link, sat nearby as a holographic projection. While watching the progress of the treatment, he didn't forget to engage his fosterer in some idle chatter.
Arthur was extremely exhausted. He was the only one on the Energy Star capable of acting as the intermediary, responsible for the entire debugging process of the Kamlan model.
The human, who understood what he was doing from start to finish, was under immense pressure. Once the link broke, the Great Information Nest and the drones would immediately face problems, and the subsequent risks would flow toward Klark and Sakti on the front lines.
Conversely, if a problem occurred with the Information Nest in the core star system and affected Kamlan, it would bring catastrophic consequences to his other home. The Star Graveyard itself was an unstable existence that couldn't withstand the slightest shock or vibration.
During the docking process, even someone as psychically powerful as Gera had fallen into a coma. The human had been nearly drained of his entire spirit, and for once, he failed to maintain his smile.
When it was all over, he had placed a call, wanting to confirm if his fosterer was out of danger.
Then he discovered that the damage to the other’s wings had become even more severe than before, which forced Arthur to brace himself and watch the treatment.
At first, Klark felt a bit uneasy, but the Gray Wing technicians were the ones truly suffering.
They were nearly being burned by the intensity of the human’s gaze.
“I am not...”
Thinking his human had developed an unnecessary misunderstanding, the Sub-King wanted to explain that he didn't have a habit of picking up larvae whenever and wherever he pleased, nor would he go around grabbing replacements.
“Don’t be sad.”
However, the young man whispered first, reaching out to touch the other’s furrowed brow, bringing the cool sensation of light particles.
The weary youth leaned beside Klark, resting his head on the other’s lap. He reached out to hug the female’s waist, also encircling the young male who had not yet regained consciousness.
“He will become very healthy, and he will grow up strong.”
The gentle voice was like a certain blessing. The human slowly gathered the one large and one small insect into his arms in a protective gesture.
The redundant pressure from the link caused a deep, profound exhaustion to well up within him, as if all the latent damage from moments ago was finally beginning to manifest its aftereffects. The lung lobe damaged in the Old King’s Nest had never fully healed, causing this body’s endurance to drop by an entire level.
“Do you want to rest for a while?”
The silver-gray female asked softly, his scaled tail cautiously curling around the other’s side, just as he used to do when Arthur was a child.
They both forgot that they were separated by a vast sea of stars.
This time, the human did not answer.
The human had fallen asleep.
The imaging technology reflected everything outside without reservation. Even within the treatment nest, the universe seemed to be spread out before the Sub-King.
The battle in the distance was entering its final stages. The Gray Wings were always invincible, and that black Core Species was equally all-conquering.
Further away, the sun slowly sank behind the planet.
On the other side of the collapsing habitat planet, everything was entering a countdown to disintegration due to the slowly spreading Akashic rift. There would never be another dawn.
The twilight witnessed from a space orbit was unlike any seen when looking up from the ground.
The golden-red radiance was like veins, and also like a river, injecting a final, fleeting surge of life into the fading planet.
The firelight from the explosion of the Limb-species’ central control tower was still clearly discernible, even across an entire void zone.
Because they were too close to the atmosphere, fragments of phosphorescence fell toward the surface, burning and decomposing rapidly during their descent.
The silt and plasma that had settled at the bottom of Angon for over a dozen Great Cycles were swallowed by the magma surging from the planet’s core, washing away all the ancient ailments.
Every cluster of firelight was like a speck of molten gold, flickering with a bright and fierce light in the dusk before the arrival of darkness.
This was the final sunset in the long life of this planet.
***
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 克里曼 | Kliman | A high-ranking Armed Species female under Klark/Sakti. |
| 时间河 | Time River | A high-speed transport or teleportation system used by the insects. |
| 启明 | Qiming | Likely the name of a specific ship or unit (literally "Daybreak"). |
| 安贡 | Angon | The home planet of the Limb-species. |
| 圣人病 | Savior complex | Literally "Saint's disease," referring to a compulsive need to save others. |
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