The black Core Seed remained unconscious for nearly an entire day.
The moment he returned to the starship, he collapsed completely. The male and the short-wingers nearby were scared half to death, putting on a display of frantic chaos worthy of a stage play.
He drifted awake a few times during the ordeal, but he lacked the strength to undo his alienated state. Left with no other choice, he simply closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
Engaging in a head-on confrontation with a fully matured Core Seed in its prime was perhaps the greatest setback Sakti had suffered since his rebirth.
A portion of his ribcage was severely fractured, with jagged shards of bone protruding outward from his chest, tearing through the respiratory slits where his torso met his abdomen.
The effort of staying alive had drained every drop of energy from this body. His scales were pitted and scarred all over, and with no new ones growing in yet, the entire insect looked like a lizard suffering from patchy baldness.
He wanted to ask how Kata and Xiao were doing, but his body was too heavy to obey his will.
An immense accumulation of exhaustion exploded all at once. His consciousness drifted in and out of clarity, as if he had returned to his days spent inside a pupa.
Then, he felt something entwine itself around his mental sea. It felt similar to the sensation of synchronizing with the Red Tai Sui; soon, a low, humming drone flowed in along mental tendrils, erecting a barrier between his consciousness and the pain.
He caught the faint, sweet scent of the male’s pheromones and recognized Gera’s voice. Relaxing his body, he sank completely into a warm darkness.
In the midst of his fragmented and incoherent coma, Sakti dreamed of memories from the past.
Those scenes now appeared dim and mottled, like old film reels, carrying an unreal sense of estrangement.
He heard the sound of suppressed weeping, and then he realized the noise was coming from his secretary, Klein Yang.
At that time, the man had not yet become the Imperial Secretary. Because his scores on every flight simulation barely scraped past the passing line, he was agonizing over whether to stay on the front lines or transfer to a logistical civilian post.
Sakti saw himself forcibly overriding a command, reaching out to wrench open the cockpit door and dragging Klein out from the corner of his seat.
That was the first time he had seen his stoic, deadpan old friend lose all composure, curling up inside the mecha and wailing loudly, his face smeared with snot and tears.
Unlike the shiftless bastards Sakti usually hung around with, Klein was the quintessential "model child," full of rigid, elite mannerisms.
He possessed every element required for a "normal life": parents who bickered occasionally but loved each other, a peaceful and affluent home, a well-mapped life plan, perpetually meticulous attire, and a future that was boring but stable, devoid of displacement or suffering.
These were the elements that had defined Klein Yang in his early years.
For a time, this had made Sakti very annoyed with him.
Just as a bad student often can't stand a good one, everything Klein possessed made Sakti almost spark with envy.
Thus, while he turned up his nose at the little prude, he would also find his eyes wandering, too embarrassed to look Klein’s parents in the eye when they tidied the bedroom they had specially reserved for him.
Klein always looked at him as if he were an idiot, as if he were some kind of brainless mollusk.
But those fragments—the things in his consciousness that could be called the concept of "home"—quickly dissolved.
He had once feared getting close to it; now, he could never get close to it again.
He roughly shoved a box into the other man’s arms.
"It’s yours," he said, not caring whether the other wanted it or not.
Klein took the box blankly. A terrified white cat scrambled and struggled inside, yet it could not make a sound.
The black-haired man stood at the cockpit door with his arms crossed, having no intention of leaving.
His tone was as stiff as his expression.
"I just finished its check-up and treatment. The residual stellar-core pollutants have been purged. It’s safe now; you can hold it."
"Is it the only one?"
After a long silence, Klein finally spoke. Sakti had almost thought the man had lost the ability to speak, but clearly, that unpleasant tongue was still perfectly intact in his mouth.
"The only one," Sakti heard his own raspy voice reply.
And so they both fell into silence, sitting in the open cockpit of the mecha, facing each other without a word.
The twenty-year-old Sakti Saliban thought he was standing at the pinnacle of his life. His pride-inducing mental strength had allowed him to become the youngest starship synchronizer ahead of his time.
The displacements and hardships of his early years were suddenly reduced to nothing more than trivial whetstones. At fifteen, he had lied about his age to join the military; the shortage of manpower and his untraceable past allowed him to successfully fool the recruitment office, even using forged identification.
His young soul was like a beast that had just broken free from its shackles. With an easygoing attitude and a "fight if you don't like it" personality, he fit into the army like a fish in water, quickly becoming fast friends with the old veteran rogues.
He had a unique talent for killing insects. When wiping out scattered nests, he would often clear out the entire brood in one go.
While others were still struggling to hold the defensive lines, he was already leading his squad on the offensive like a mad dog, conducting guerrilla warfare across the star sectors.
Flanking, encircling, raiding, ambushing... his methods of using every trick in the book to "steal the bugs' homes" made him the biggest headache for his superiors among his peers.
He was present for every reprimand, but he was also present every time rewards were handed out for merit.
The Federation’s Old Guard and Reformists were at each other's throats, their conflicts growing more intense by the day, nearly splitting the massive political entity that had controlled the entire star sector for nearly three hundred years. But none of that concerned him. The young man’s ascent was like a rocket; he earned the chance to attempt synchronization with a starship through sheer ability.
Then, the Red Tai Sui chose him.
The crimson starship wanted only the best pilot, and he was the best.
Until now.
Those beautiful dreams seemed to be pricked by a needle, letting out a soft *pop* before quickly vanishing into bubbles.
He saw Klein lift the panicked cat out of the cage and pull it into his arms. Tears dripped onto the white cat, making it shake its fur uncomfortably.
Sakti, having just finished the search and rescue mission, was exhausted. His unauthorized deployment of the Red Tai Sui had earned him an unprecedented scolding, nearly resulting in suspension and demotion. This white cat was the sole surviving organism on the entire planet V217.
He had defied orders, bringing the Red Tai Sui down to the completely devastated V217 to conduct a near-desperate post-disaster search.
And he had found nothing.
Every time humanity activated a Star-Swallowing Weapon, it resulted in some form of absurd tragedy.
Three hundred years ago, the first Star-Swallowing class weapon, *Tianzhiqiong*, shot down the stars, pushing the entire Capital Planet into the rift of Akasha. The White Emperor’s starship, the *Fahna*, disintegrated along with the Capital Planet.
Three hundred years later, while fighting the secessionist Reformists, the Old Guard once again wielded the scepter of death, aiming their attack directly at the Reformists' base planet. Thus, the slaughtering tool that should have been used against the insect tide turned around to aim at its own kind.
V217 was merely an accident within the firing range—collateral damage.
"That was a habitable planet," he heard his friend say, his face buried in the cat’s fur, his voice muffled. The cat resisted slightly but was good-natured enough not to scratch him.
"That was a habitable planet without any military force..."
"Yeah, I know," he gave a hollow response.
In that moment, both he and Klein lost their home forever.
They became wandering ghosts in this universe, living tombstones for the victims.
This was not a good dream.
He hadn't dreamed of anything regarding V217 for a long time. Memory was like a layer of frosted glass; when old photos are pressed beneath it, the image becomes distorted.
As he examined the past once more, many of the once-vivid details had already been lost. Consciousness can be deceptive, processing and blurring anything that does not fit its needs.
When he opened his eyes again, the surroundings were dark and quiet.
Something soft and warm was leaning against his chest, and a sweet scent enveloped the entire room.
His body was still weak and exhausted, but he was no longer in a near-death state.
The hardiness of a Core Seed female was so formidable that Sakti had once wondered how humans had ever managed to beat this neighbor into submission.
When he looked down, the first thing he saw was the curled-up white male.
Gera was pressed tightly against him. Even in his weary sleep, he maintained a cautious posture, huddling against Sakti’s chest.
Fine cracks extended along the male’s chest, and several pale red tendrils reached out from the fissures, gently touching the other’s mangled wounds. They wound around and suctioned onto the shattered scales and muscle, adhering intimately until they were indistinguishable from one another.
The scene was somewhat eerie, as if two insects were sharing the same pain.
But Sakti only watched Gera intently. He recognized this as a unique healing method belonging to males.
The bodily fluids and pheromones secreted by certain Core Seed males had an accelerated healing effect on females. However, because males were rare and fragile, they were far more difficult to capture and keep alive than females.
This was the first time Sakti had observed this strange healing process at such close range, and it was also the first time he had seen the white male’s semi-alienated form.
Gera had previously been careful to maintain his mimicry, never revealing his non-human appearance in front of him.
But now, his wounds were entangled with the other’s fleshy tendrils, fused together.
He wasn't sure if this treatment included a pain-killing effect; some areas that looked terrifying didn't actually hurt as much as he imagined.
Tattered white wings spread out, draped over them as if trying to wrap the Core Seed up entirely.
Sakti couldn't help but reach out to stroke the other’s wing. The male immediately let out a drowsy, whimpering buzz.
The healing had drained a massive amount of the male’s physical strength.
The close contact and the absorption of blood rich in pheromones had almost turned the male into mush. His slender white scaled tail twitched unconsciously, curling up as if trying to escape when it was caught by the black whip-like tail.
Before Sakti could indulge in "ruining" the male further due to this amusing reaction, he saw his own tail with its patchy scales.
His powerful, pitch-black tail, which usually possessed a cold metallic luster, was elegant and mysterious whether its barbs were raised or flattened.
Now, his scales were haphazard and messy, looking like a lawn that had been ravaged by a weed whacker—patches of bare, wretched earth exposed here and there.
Sakti: "..."
He instantly withdrew into a shell of self-pity.
***
