"The coordinates Kleiman provided are troublesome; we’ll have to pass through two minor conflict zones."
The Core Seed rolled up the light screen and tapped it against the table.
The white Male sat bolt upright, wearing an expression of rapt attention. In truth, this was Gera’s first time being brought onto a battlefield; he looked both excited and nervous, so much so that even while sleeping, he had been anxiously clinging to his partner.
"We have to avoid the territory of the current Sub-King, Krisha, which means taking a detour through the regions bordering other ethnic groups."
And borders were always hotbeds of conflict.
A short distance away, the human was stripping a gun, though his gaze indicated he was listening. The strangely shaped weapons spun lightly between the young man’s fingers, clicking into place with crisp, mechanical precision.
"So, I plan to just punch straight through."
Sakti’s methods were wild; he didn't care for cosmic traffic control or border lines, and he certainly didn't mind treading on the territory of other core genetic groups.
"Four consecutive jump points with no downtime. This battleship can handle that intensity—it’s currently burning star cores."
In other words, it was burning his assets, his money.
"No problem," the Male said. His wings were pulled taut, and his tail stood straight up. "I can divert some of the operations and information processing to myself."
"I’m fine with it too." Arthur nodded, swiftly reassembling the weapon. "I’ll finish inventorying all equipment and set the battleship’s outer armor parameters to prevent any sudden conflicts during transit. You can leave the defense and armament to me."
Sakti felt quite at ease with that promise.
The day before, after hanging up on Kleiman, he and the human had entered the training grounds. A battlefield was no playground; he had to gauge the man’s limits to the greatest extent possible, lest he bring someone along only for them to die on the road.
He then discovered that Clark had indeed raised the human well. Not only could the youth assist Gera with data processing, but he was also proficient with various weapons.
In a simulated battle, Arthur—with his human body—had actually managed to keep up with Sakti’s reaction speed, and his tactics were just as ruthless.
Sakti suddenly understood what the Armed Seed meant when he said, *“He is powerful, perhaps the best user of thermal weapons among all the humans I’ve seen.”* If this were wartime, Sakti would have promoted him to a suitable position without hesitation.
The High-ranker was truly cultivating this human, teaching him nearly everything about self-preservation.
"I can also pilot mechs, and I can do basic disassembly and repairs," the youth said with a gentle smile, looking nothing like the person who had been taking cheap shots a moment ago. "If only the Zerg had mechs too."
Actually, they did. To give Gera an extra layer of protection, Sakti had moved the *Qiming* onto the Alpha battleship.
But the human couldn't use it.
The things Sakti tinkered with were designed entirely to interface with a Male’s mental power; the connection bolts were of a non-human specification.
Once the arrangements were made, the crew began their respective tasks. The Core Seed set the new course, while the youth and Gera dived into their work.
En and Enna’s sole mission was to guard Gera.
When the two sub-adult cubs hovered around the Male, they still seemed very clingy, fond of being held and hugged. In reality, however, the Zerg were a species that could grow just by breathing; the recent gorging on the energy planet had caused their bodies to rapidly reach a size capable of hunting.
Sub-adults who could not quickly switch to a combat state would eventually be eliminated at this stage; their bodies and minds were developing at an extraordinary rate.
Enna clearly displayed the aggression typical of a middle-tier Female, but her Male brother kept a firm lid on her.
The good news was that the sub-adults had grown fiercer; the bad news was that on this ship, there was only one undefeated Core Seed, one human who would smile, apologize, and then put a bullet through someone's head, and one fragrant, kin-like Male. None of them could be bitten.
The first two couldn't be bitten through, and the last one had to be protected.
"Tuck those fangs away." Sakti chuckled, ruffling the heads of the two screeching sub-adults. "There will be plenty of fights for you later."
He chose a time when neither the Male nor the human was present to crouch down, looking the brothers—who bared their teeth at the sight of him—level in the eye. "For the time being, I need you to protect Gera. Understand?"
"You requested to join the training rotation, and I’ve granted it as an exception. Now, your duty is to guard Gera’s safety and, as much as possible, protect your own."
En stared at him for a moment before finally nodding. "Understand."
The twins could actually use the Common Tongue now, but they preferred to pop out words one by one, favoring emotional language for daily communication.
However, when Sakti solemnly assigned the task, the older Male still answered the question clearly.
"I can't be by his side every second. Depending on the situation, I may have to go to different areas of the battlefield, so you must stay alert."
Sakti’s golden-brown eyes watched the two insects, who were shorter than him. "I didn't keep you here to pick wild fights all day. I know you like Gera, and you like Xiao. So, learn to control your instincts and protect your fellow swarm members."
"We... will." Enna’s voice was also muddled. When they spoke more than a few words of the Common Tongue, their word order sounded like they’d been drinking bootleg liquor.
The twin-like insects stood there, watching Sakti.
It wasn't until Sakti gave a slight nod and prepared to leave that En suddenly lunged forward. With aggressive force, he grabbed Sakti’s hand and pressed it onto his own head.
Before the Core Seed could figure out what the little Male was doing, the boy let out a fierce hiss.
"You... don't... die either," En said.
Having been sold as cargo since they were small, the two insects had no concept of "swarm" before arriving at Ja. They had experienced too much war and instinctively linked battlefields and strife with death.
But the insects at Ja were very good. The Short-wing tribe and the Males had said that all insects living on the energy planet now had a new swarm.
The white Male would hug them, and they received the care of kin.
With an expression of grim resolve, En fiercely pressed the Female’s hand against his forehead, proactively rubbing his head against it for the first time.
Swarm members had to be close.
Sakti laughed and patted the boy's head.
The brat was fierce as hell; even asking for a head pat was done with the intensity of a brawl.
"I’m very hard to kill."
And then the stubborn, hard-to-kill Core Seed drove the battleship like a getaway car, tearing through the conflict zones of two other high-rank genetic groups and jumping four warp points in one breath.
Even inside the sturdy Alpha battleship, Gera and En nearly vomited from the turbulence. Fortunately, the Zerg digestive system didn't really support reflux.
The human’s complexion wasn't much better, yet Arthur still had the strength to crack a smile, his hands remaining on the control panel to stack continuous defensive buffs on the ship’s outer hull, preventing damage during their reckless sprint.
"You certainly are... wild."
Sakti suspected the youth had originally intended to use a less polite word but swallowed it due to his upbringing.
It was a bit like a delayed flight; since the transport ship had taken off late, the captain had to make up for the time on the road.
The Core Seed was thick-skinned enough to take the comment as a compliment. "Can't be helped. If we didn't run fast enough, we’d have a whole swarm of howling insects chasing our tails right now."
Currently, the core genetic groups were in chaos, everyone fighting everyone else. The closer they got to the Grey Wing habitat, the more chaotic it became.
At a juncture like this, no fool would allow a battleship from another group to pass through their territory. Rather than wasting time finding a path, it was better to just charge through with sheer stubbornness.
He had never lost at guerrilla warfare.
"I must say, my judgment of you was incorrect."
Frequent jumps placed an immense physical burden on a human body. The youth sat in his chair, adjusting his breathing to let his heart rate slowly subside.
A soft smile touched his blue eyes. "I thought you were the very steady type."
"Likewise."
They were just "wild" in different directions.
The Core Seed knelt before Gera, looking up at the Male. "Are you okay?" he asked softly. "When we passed the conflict zones earlier, I had to go at full speed."
"The road ahead will be much steadier."
They had entered the core controlled sector of the Grey Wing tribe—the half belonging to Clark. He had just sent a transit request to Kleiman.
Gera nodded.
He felt very nauseous. A Male was not much different from an untrained human; even though his physical condition was much better than a normal Male's after his second pupation, his head was still swimming.
En, being a low-tier Seed, looked like he was about to keel over.
Sakti suddenly remembered the "cat hacking up a hairball" motion the Male had made when they were fighting at the starport upon landing on the energy planet.
This left him caught between worrying for his partner and wanting to laugh.
He knelt on one knee and brought his head close to his partner’s, forehead to forehead, their tails entwining. "Sorry. Rest for a bit; we’re almost there."
Gera reached out to hug him, leaning his entire weight against Sakti, taking a deep breath to inhale the scent of his pheromones.
"I’m fine."
By the time he let go, the Male looked much better. He even stumbled over to En and Arthur, using his mental power to soothe them one by one.
"Thank you." The human, whose face quickly returned to normal from its pale state, thanked him softly, his blue eyes crinkling. "You really are amazing."
Meanwhile, En hung off Gera’s chest, buzzing while glaring at Sakti.
The physical strength of a low-tier Male was indeed an issue, but En’s willpower was strong, and he forced himself to endure.
The black Female had already strode back to his seat, his hand idly flicking the floating star maps.
He didn't actually want to expand the star sector panorama; it would awaken some rather unpleasant psychological shadows.
When he looked back on the past, he couldn't remember a single good thing—for instance, he couldn't even recall the scene of his first decoration—yet these things were etched into his mind with crystalline clarity.
The habitats of the high-rank core genetic groups were truly... sanity-draining.
But Gera swayed over to his side and reached out to hug him.
"Do you want to see the outside?" Sakti asked.
The other first nodded, then quickly shook his head upon sensing his partner’s subtle, suppressed emotions.
This made the black Female laugh. "Look if you want to. I don't know what your former tribe's habitat looked like, but the Grey Wing dwelling will be... spectacular."
He was right.
As the images slowly unfurled across the entire bridge, Gera’s eyes widened.
It was indeed a spectacular scene.
And sufficiently terrifying.
Completely different from human-habitable sectors, silk-like orbital tracks stretched between planets and moons, encircling the massive "Nest" at the center.
Every track was docked with countless battleships, hanging like heavy eggs, or perhaps like countless eyes, silently watching the intruders who had stumbled in, ready at any moment to swarm out and devour their prey.
A single Alpha battleship appeared exceptionally tiny in such a scene, like a leaf fallen into the ocean.
They were now in a realm that was entirely non-human.
***
**Glossary**
