Transferring ownership of a few failed swarms wasn't a difficult task; it was simply that few Zerg were idle enough to waste their own resources doing so.
The real trouble, however, appeared in an unexpected place.
When Gera saw the black Core Species again, the coat the male had put on only a few days ago was shredded like a spiderweb, unable to cover even a single breathing slit. It possessed a certain beauty reminiscent of early deconstructivism.
Sacre hadn't woken him when he left, taking the initiative to give the listless little male a day off. He had also casually summoned the "Chosen Worker," Kai, to watch the house.
The threatened mid-level Zerg didn't dare step into the nest to say hello to the male inside. Instead, it paced the street like a large watchdog, squatting one moment and sitting the next, only scurrying away when the Core Species returned.
As soon as he entered the nest, Sacre saw the white male, who had slept the whole day, clambering groggily out of the bedding. Upon sniffing the familiar pheromones, Gera’s tail began to wag cheerfully before he even opened his eyes.
But as those four eyes blinked and his vision cleared, the male wore an expression of utter disbelief. Given how conservative Zerg females usually were, such a situation was rare.
"Ah."
Gera stared at him, seemingly at a loss for words.
The Core Species quickly found a blanket to wrap himself in. He had fought a crowd of powerful worker-females at the Great Sacrificial Arena until his clothes were blown to ribbons, and he hadn't felt anything was amiss while swaggering back home clad only in his scales.
It had to be said that for any species, picking up bad habits was much easier than learning good ones. Three cosmic cycles ago, he would have preferred to move about in an exoskeleton suit; now, he could half-streak down the street without any psychological pressure. It was much like humans walking back to the showers with their arms around each other's shoulders after training, chests bare.
However, the moment he saw Gera, his sense of morality began to ring alarm bells.
The other was a male, yet Zerg males and human males were entirely different things, just as Zerg females had nothing to do with what humans defined as female. This misalignment often threw Sacre’s gender recognition system into chaos.
Ultimately, he reached a conclusion that bordered on tautology: as long as a Zerg was a different gender from himself, he would treat them as the opposite sex.
"W-what happened to you?" Gera asked, stammering.
Sacre was concise: "Had a fight."
As for the reason, the spectators watching the match today had been incensed to the point of exploding by the high-ranking Core Species’ "dine and dash" behavior.
The match was originally scheduled for the losers of the failed swarms to continue fighting other worker-females. However, Sacre had made a sudden, emergency intervention, resulting in him standing face-to-face with those five half-dead Zerg.
He had been worried about hitting them too hard and crushing them, but those Zerg couldn't even stand. They collapsed in a heap, sprawling across the ground in all directions.
Losers were supposed to be dragged onto the high platform for punishment, but Sacre took all five dying females away in one go. The few worker-females who had luckily survived yesterday's sacrificial match perfectly formed a "takeout family bucket."
Kata had provided energy stones to the other administrators of Angon, and they had turned a blind eye. The audience, however, wasn't buying it.
They had entered the arena to see heads fly, not some disgusting display of solidarity and mutual aid.
Several hot-tempered Zerg charged down into the Great Sacrificial Arena on the spot, clashing with the Core Species.
Sacre didn't indulge them, taking down the soft-shelled creatures with one punch each.
The habits of this swarm were identical to the wild and savage folkways of Ja; the one with the hardest fists always had the final say. Polite negotiation was useless, so he simply beat all the troublemakers into submission before talking.
Zerg were creatures of collective action; a single spark could ignite a massacre. Consequently, the entire Great Sacrificial Arena erupted. The "good colleagues" Sacre had previously beaten into submission helped the Core Species pummel the audience. The crowd split into the Core Species fan faction, the fire-stoking cheer faction, the "teach the Core Species a lesson" faction, and the "I don't care, I just want to fight" faction.
For a time, wings and appendages flew everywhere, and the sound of buzzing and hissing threatened to lift the roof off the nest.
In such a chaotic scene, Sacre upheld the principle of indiscriminate slaughter—punching whoever came close—and managed to carve out a safety zone around himself.
The other Zerg noticed this immediately. Using the group of colleagues who had invited him to sun his wings as a foundation, a large number of Zerg from the same camp crowded around the Core Species, forming a defensive circle.
Whenever any brawling worker-female tried to break through this perimeter, they were whipped back by the Core Species, who sat atop a high pile of Zerg.
The black female grabbed one unlucky perpetrator by the tail and swung him like a windmill, maintaining an airtight defense. The spectators were mostly low-to-mid-level species; he could take on thirty at once.
The absurd farce only ended when the other administrators began spraying expellant.
This expellant was more like a pheromone attack. The smell was so pungent it nearly caused the Core Species’ scent glands and respiratory system to go on strike. All the females looked like dogs ambushed by a skunk. The low-to-mid-level workers had an even lower tolerance for the expellant, letting out a chorus of frantic hisses and curses as foul as could be.
A sacrificial match without sacrifices, broken rules, a pile of spectators being carried out, and a Great Sacrificial Arena filled with an indescribable stench.
It was arguably the most ridiculous and abstract match in the history of Ja.
"IS—THERE—SOMETHING—WRONG—WITH—YOU—?!"
Kata’s roar was deafening.
"Why do you cause something catastrophic every single time?!"
If it were human, it looked like it would be having a hypertensive crisis. "Katra’s nest is right at the base of the Great Sacrificial Arena! If you disturb it and it finds out you're doing this kind of thing in its arena, you're dead!"
Sacre gave non-committal "I'll be careful next time" responses while directing his injured colleagues to help move the unconscious worker-females from the defeated swarms.
The elderly administrator was so angry it used its light-screen to smack the Core Species’ head several times. Aside from bending the screen, it was useless.
The black worker-female led a group of Zerg, carrying his "takeout bucket," and strolled over to the starport.
This strange procession walked down the street with a hundred percent head-turn rate.
Now that he had a group of "Chosen Workers," happiness was instantaneous.
After changing owners, the battered ship welcomed this many passengers for the first time. Sacre took turns throwing the five unlucky souls into the healing pods for emergency treatment.
The previous sacrificial match had been too brutal; these lucky survivors of the failed swarms still exhibited a sort of "shattered beauty." They had been forcibly driven onto the field today, unable to even walk steadily.
It had reached the point where Sacre, who was supposed to be fighting, barely had to lift a finger before these elderly, weak, and disabled Zerg collapsed.
He had basically just stood there and picked up the spoils.
No wonder the audience was indignant.
One of the mid-level worker-females woke up just as it was placed in the healing pod. Its entire chest had been torn open; Sacre had no doubt that if the attack had been any deeper, the central heart would have been crushed.
"You..." the worker-female let out a weak sound. Its mutated state presented a soft, earthy deep brown. It immediately noticed Sacre standing among the crowd of low-to-mid-level workers.
The tall Core Species was cold and heartless, reaching out to press the fill button. The rushing restoration fluid instantly drowned out the other's intermittent hissing.
He didn't want to hear any nonsense right now.
Carefully going over his accounts, he found that while his laborers had indeed increased, his energy stones had decreased. He wouldn't get any rewards from that disastrous match, and he would have to reimburse Kata out of his own pocket later. He might even have to pay extra for beating up the audience, which made Sacre’s teeth itch.
Furthermore, there were now five more mouths to feed.
He needed to find a way to fix these worker-females quickly and then drive them all out to work.
The largest penetrating wound was soon treated, but that deep brown mid-level Zerg was far more stubborn than it looked.
Staggering out of the healing pod, it immediately approached the Core Species again, crouching on the floor on all fours in a curled posture. All its mutated scales were painstakingly retracted beneath its skin.
Without the cover of scales, the shocking wounds left by the sacrificial match were displayed without reservation on its body.
Sacre couldn't help but marvel once again at the Zerg’s tenacious vitality.
If a human were left for a whole day with their chest wide open and covered in wounds, they would have successfully ascended to heaven long ago.
"You... saved my swarm," the other let out a hiss of submission toward the high-ranking species, adopting a posture of surrender with its short wings pressed tight against its back.
The black worker-female before it was expressionless, sitting lazily. His powerful tail swept gently, and behind him stood a group of "unlucky" worker-females who could barely be called colleagues, acting as naturally as underlings backing up their boss.
"I have things for you to do."
Those golden-brown eyes looked like a lurking beast. Even without mutation, they exerted immense pressure on any Zerg facing them.
"What do you need us to do?"
There was no unprovoked kindness among the Zerg. The mid-level species accepted the other's statement without surprise, lowering its head even further.
Nothing was more important than staying alive.
However, the other did not answer.
It heard the black female chuckle as he stood up from the chair. "We'll talk tomorrow. First, get your companions back to life."
Then, as if out of habit, the Core Species added, "There's food in the cargo hold. Find a place to sleep after you eat."
Sacre then left the apprehensive brown mid-level Zerg on the ship, dismissed his colleagues on the spot, and sauntered back to the nest.
The battered ship’s key had been upgraded to include his and Gera’s biological information; there was no longer any need to worry about other Zerg "zero-dollar-shopping" it away. All weapons were also locked up. Given the physical fitness of low-to-mid-level workers, it would be difficult to pry open the hatch with bare hands.
Unless these Zerg decided to slip out of the ship themselves, there was indeed no need to stay and observe the healing process.
But the moment he stepped through the door and saw the white male, Sacre suddenly remembered the fact that his clothes were gone.
The brawl at the Great Sacrificial Arena hadn't hurt him, but it had hurt his clothes.
Sacrificing one coat per match was a steep price indeed.
Gera burst into laughter at the stiff expression on the Core Species’ face. He dove into the other's embrace, pushing aside the messy blankets, his little tail wagging rapidly.
Sacre, who hadn't experienced this enthusiastic welcome the day before because the male had been listless, felt a rare sense of lack from the missing ritual.
Humans could form a habit in just a few days; the power of habit was terrifying.
He was now quite used to catching a little male with fluttering wings the moment he pushed open the door.
Compared to the other's gloomy expression, he much preferred seeing Gera in high spirits.
Thus, the Core Species picked him up. The blanket was large—enough to wrap himself and then use the excess to wrap up a male as well.
The other squirmed around in the blanket like a "caterpillar-cat."
"I'll take you to the starport tomorrow morning," Sacre said, naturally stroking Gera’s little wings—they were truly great to pet, a silky experience.
"I've found a few... voluntary laborers."
***
