"Sakti has been to VX197."
Arthur spoke suddenly, turning his head toward the silver-grey Zerg.
"A massive Xenogeneic Tide suddenly broke out in Kamran. We were trapped in the Golden Crow Ruins during a routine patrol. I tried to send you a distress signal, thinking you would arrive at Kamran around that time, but Sakti was the one who received it."
"He got us out."
The high-ranking Zerg glanced at Sakti and gave a slight nod.
"Thank you."
This was the first time he had lowered his head to offer thanks.
"It was nothing," the Core-type replied, immediately pushing his luck. "In that case, how about you stop trying to twist my head off from now on? Shall we call it even?"
Clark let out a short, amused huff.
"You certainly have a vivid imagination."
Slowly resting his hand on the armrest of his chair, his grey eyes swept coolly over his troublesome collaborator. "One thing has nothing to do with the other."
"Then at least tell me what’s on VX197."
Habitually bargaining, one of Sakti's creeds in life was to never let himself get the short end of the stick. He hadn't just delivered a 'takeout' order; he had saved three of the customers as well. No matter how he looked at it, he had to fleece a little wool off his boss.
"Your... human is certainly tight-lipped."
Then he saw Clark and Arthur exchange a look, those pale grey pupils carrying a hint of seeking an opinion.
After a long moment, the young man conceded, flashing a helpless smile.
"You truly are possessed by an overflowing curiosity."
Arthur turned his body toward the Core-type and shook his head gently.
"Even back in Kamran, you were consumed by a desire to investigate VX197. Several small cycles have passed, yet you still haven't given up on the idea of figuring it out."
"Even if you knew everything, what could you do? Would you want to cross the border and wage war against humanity?"
"Never."
This was the first time Sakti had given such a decisive, unequivocal answer.
There were four members in this room, every one of them an outlier among outliers—a collection of deviant accomplices. They could practically form a 'black sheep' idol group. He didn't mind stating his position clearly.
"I have my reasons, which I won't explain right now. The only thing I can guarantee is that I will not step a single inch across that line to fight humans."
"I will protect my own race, but I will not incite conflict with humanity."
"VX197 holds the wreckage of Fafnir's initial calculation model."
Having received his answer, the human spoke quietly. He dropped a bombshell that practically blew Sakti's mind.
"Huh?" the Core-type uttered, a syllable of pure confusion.
"The reason it's called the initial version is that it was built using the Fafnir from before it fell into Akasha as a blueprint. Its performance is nowhere near as powerful as the true remains left behind later."
The young man's blue eyes watched the black Zerg, who was showing a rare expression of shock, with a calm gaze.
"I'm not sure how much you know about human history, but even the Zerg know at least something of the stories regarding the White Emperor, the Golden Crow Fleet, and Akasha."
"This topic is a bit long. Are you willing to hear it from the very beginning?"
Sakti would never want to miss a secret like this.
In a flash of insight, he suddenly remembered that the young man before him and that group of Federation survivors called themselves the descendants of the Fifth Army. This was a secret history he had never known during his time as a human.
"To be honest, the first time we met, I thought your mimicry looked very familiar."
Arthur’s tail gave a slight flick. In just a few days, the youth had mastered the essence of being a Zerg; that simulated scaled tail was used with vivid expression, swaying appropriately according to his mood.
"Your eyes—perhaps no Zerg has ever told you this—look very much like a certain human from over two hundred years ago."
Sakti knew what he was about to say.
Gera had mentioned the same thing to him before, and at the time, Sakti hadn't offered much of an explanation.
Bloodlines could sometimes become shackles, leaving one with no way to escape. The strange thing was that this body, which belonged to a stranger Zerg, had somehow retained the characteristic of golden-brown pupils. It was a riddle difficult to explain.
It was actually a quite famous story, one that people loved to gossip about because of the identities of the two protagonists.
When the White Emperor first met his partner, he had been treated as a perverted, fraudulent weirdo. Maintaining his human form, he had crouched before his newly purchased 'goods' and smiled, pointing to his own eyes.
*"Did you know? Golden eyes represent a brand-new genetic mutation. It's rare, but not without precedent. Before the fall of the last Empire, the family of Griffin I possessed golden pupils for generations."*
"I imagine the humans remaining in Kamran would all be struck with wonder by your eyes," Arthur spoke again, as if looking through his conversation partner at someone else.
"The commander of the Golden Crow Fleet, the White Emperor's partner, had a pair of eyes very similar to yours. Just like—"
"Just like an annular solar eclipse."
This time, the answer came from the white male Zerg. Gera’s voice was soft as he gazed at his partner.
"I lived in Kamran for a long time."
Pearl-white Zerg wings spread out behind him. The male Zerg leaned quietly against his partner, discussing this topic for the first time with someone other than Sakti.
"When my swarm migrated through the Kamran sector, they abandoned me—burdened with genetic defects—on a strange nearby planet."
"There, I saw some human images."
The Core-type’s pitch-black tail-whip coiled comfortingly around Gera’s slender scaled tail, their tails knotting together in several places.
When the male Zerg lowered his wings due to the weight of the memory, Sakti kissed his forehead. He held him with one arm while the other hand slowly groomed those soft, pure white wings.
"They will never know what they lost," the silver-grey Zerg said in a low voice. "The philosophies of each Core-type swarm are different, and every Zerg treats their partner and swarm members differently."
"Many direct descendants still harbor ridiculous delusions, considering themselves the scions of the King-Zerg, and they do not hesitate to eliminate larvae that fail to meet their expectations."
"I only hope my own larvae can live until adulthood, yet some Core-gene swarms can easily discard a healthy, lovely larva."
This was why, during their first meeting, the high-ranking Zerg had stated without hesitation that his relationship with Gera’s swarm was "average" and that he had "no intention of dealing with them."
Abandoning larvae was a direct violation of his principles.
It was an excellent topic—one that managed to pick at the scars of half the people present.
However, Arthur was quite skilled at controlling the atmosphere. He quickly spoke to steer the conversation back to a safer territory.
"What you saw was likely the former Commander-in-Chief of the Golden Crow Fleet."
The human smiled at Gera, explaining carefully. "I must say, his eyes are remarkably similar to your partner's. If it weren't for the difference in species, I would almost suspect some blood relation between them."
His lake-blue eyes watched the male Zerg, who had snapped out of his memories and turned curious, with a gentle gaze. His voice remained soothing.
"Kamran was once the base of the Golden Crow Fleet. The Fifth Army held the Xenogeneic Tide back from the human border for a hundred years."
"So, it is perfectly normal for images of the former fleet commander to remain there."
"Interestingly, humans gave this sector an extremely ominous name."
The youth sighed. He was well-versed in both human and Zerg culture, acting almost as a bridge between the two different races.
"There is a very famous legend from the Old Earth era about a certain king who fought a betrayer at a place called Camlann and fell there."
"The Hill of Camlann, the Hill of Betrayal. It seems that from the moment it was named, the fate of the Fifth Army was sealed with an unalterable verdict."
"One of the reasons they were purged was that they were guarding Fafnir's initial calculation model, using it to analyze and calculate the Xenogeneic Tides and the Akasha Rifts. This struck a nerve with the Mapuz Academy of Sciences, which controlled the Second and Third Armies. They ruthlessly activated a star-swallowing weapon, pushing the entire border into hell."
"But even so, a small amount of wreckage remained."
"The surviving parts aren't as powerful or indecipherable as the reconstructed Fafnir, but its core still shares the same origin as the White Emperor's vessel."
"Humans study Akasha, and so do we."
The silver-grey Zerg took over the conversation. He patted Arthur’s tail, which had unknowingly pressed against him, and moved the happily swaying thing to the side.
"It is common knowledge among all races that Star-Core energy is produced from Akasha. But Akasha means pollution. Both humans and our kind expend great effort to study this indecipherable object and its byproducts."
"The Data Firmament, the model wreckage in Kamran, and... the Great Information Nest," the high-ranking Zerg skipped over the blurred syllables quickly, as if unwilling to discuss the topic. "No matter how their forms and appearances change, or whether their content is incomplete, they all possess a similar core."
Sakti’s head was ringing.
Fine. It really was a 'one big happy family' situation for the residents of the universe. Humans thought they had inherited the complete legacy, but who knew there were two other half-finished legacies floating around outside?
"This doesn't make sense. Humans wouldn't just leave something like that in Kamran without attempting recovery."
"If we hadn't excavated the wreckage ourselves, we wouldn't have even known such a dangerous item was buried in Kamran."
Arthur gave a bitter smile.
"No one knew that any functional parts remained. Almost the entire Fifth Army died in the line of duty. The only surviving commander was hunted by the Hound Squad for three years before meeting the White Emperor. He never stepped foot in that sector again for the rest of his life, only returning to Kamran just before his death to say a final goodbye to his former comrades."
"As for the White Emperor... I don't think he cared much for humanity."
The youth shook his head.
"He didn't even care much for anything in this universe. He held no subjective likes or dislikes; he was more like a mere traveler who paused for a fleeting moment for the sake of his short-lived partner."
"So, when the surviving model of Fafnir was discovered, you can imagine the shock we felt."
The human smiled at Sakti. "This is not a secret that can be easily shared. Please forgive my caution."
*Brother, how can you still smile?*
It was more than just a secret that couldn't be easily shared. This was a landmine capable of blowing everyone and every Zerg sky-high.
This was why Clark supplied such a massive amount of energy to Kamran. The Core-type had once complained that the amount transported was enough to maintain a starship—and it turned out the other party really *was* maintaining one, and it was the calculation model of the original starship at that.
If it weren't for the fact that it was he and Clark sitting here, Sakti would have seriously considered silencing everyone to keep the secret.
"I assume," Sakti began slowly, staring at Clark, "that the current Sub-King of the Grey-wing swarm does not know about this."
The silver-grey Zerg let out an unceremonious, cold sneer.
"Why do you think we split? Why do you think I was forced to challenge that idiot to a death match at the worst possible time?"
His soft, steady tone carried a hidden mockery.
"Krisha wouldn't have dared to dog my heels just because he discovered I was raising a human."
"He wants to dig out the core remaining in Kamran to complete the Great Information Nest and restart the King-Zerg ruins. I truly haven't seen such a laughably foolish fellow in a long time; he actually thinks that's something good."
"The King-Zerg ruins are dangerous. Currently, no Zerg's mental strength can bear that kind of collective consciousness. I will not agree to such a course of action. Its nature is too similar to Akasha. Humans once risked their lives to reach a conclusion and ended up creating pollution that spread across half the galaxy. We cannot try a second time."
"But most Zerg don't understand this. They don't even understand the nature of the ruins, treating the legends of the Broodmother era as some kind of ideal to pursue."
Gera tasted a long-absent scent of blood from his partner; that metallic tang made him feel uneasy.
Sakti's will was unshakable. The soft parts of him were torn away, revealing the sharp edges beneath.
At the same time, Gera remembered the wreckage he had seen while lost in the internal network of the Great Information Nest—the countless fragments of living consciousness wriggling upon those skulls. If what the Sub-King wanted to restart was that kind of thing, he would rather the ruins of that collective consciousness remain sealed forever.
Good.
Fate had always loved Sakti; it never let him experience the indecision of a difficult choice. It always went straight to the point and provided a single-choice question.
The Core-type closed his eyes briefly. When he looked at his conversation partners again, all traces of warmth had vanished from his golden-brown eyes.
"Krisha must die," Sakti said.
***
