Sakti felt the scales on his tail-whip stand on end instantly, and non-existent goosebumps began to prickle across his skin.
The male’s tail was soft and warm.
Even when he had lived as a human, he hadn't been this physically close to anyone for many years. A myriad of curses drifted through his mind before the Core Seed finally reached out expressionlessly and hauled the other bug aside.
"Stand up straight," he commanded.
The male obeyed, standing there, but his gaze couldn't help but dart toward the female beside him again and again.
His white scaled tail swayed ever so slightly, radiating a desperate aura that practically begged for a touch.
Sakti pretended not to see it.
Indifferently, he tucked the light-screen away, tossed it back to Gela, and turned to leave.
"Keep up."
Heaven-Chosen Worker Bug No. 2 had run away, but not entirely.
It was hovering outside the trading nest, poking its head in every now and then to steal a glance, only to be caught red-handed by Sakti as he stepped out.
"Find another one," Sakti said solemnly.
It took visiting three consecutive trading nests before Sakti managed to sell off the ship full of junk.
At every nest, the merchants expressed a willingness to buy the male at a high price. The energy mining zones were packed with worker females of various grades; the mere scent of a male’s pheromones was enough to send them into a frenzy. Sakti could only keep a stiff face and repeat himself like a broken record: "Not for sale, get lost. Not for sale, get lost."
In that moment, he suddenly understood the "essence of humanity."
Time passed quickly on the energy planet. By the time all the cargo was unloaded and the energy stones were credited to his account, an entire day had slipped by.
Sitting down to tally the newly acquired energy stones, Sakti looked up to find Gela crouching beside him, watching him with puppy-like eyes, his white tail wagging so fast it was a blur. The moment the male noticed the Core Seed’s gaze fall upon him, he immediately edged closer, curling up as near to the other as possible.
Sakti’s head throbbed—a pain sharper than the realization that the energy he’d purchased wouldn't be enough to sustain the ship for another long-distance voyage.
The male’s clinginess had spiked suddenly, which was truly not what he had intended.
Reaching out to pull Gela in front of him, he handed over an external information connector. "Try it."
Buying two connectors had made their already meager lifestyle even more precarious.
Humans had all sorts of names for these things: "intellectual brains" or "ports."
In the era when electronic additives were rampant, one could encounter a middleman selling circuit accelerators every two steps on any black-market planet. Idiots who fried their own brains from over-indulgence were a common sight.
To evade crackdowns and destruction, those unconventional brains and accelerators came in all sorts of guises. Back then, Sakti and his adjutant, Klein Young, were as busy as spinning tops, buried under a mountain of messes. They were either on their way to fight the Zerg, on their way to shut down black-market trade, or on their way to engage in internal strife with the Federation—all roads led to heaven.
Humans possessed a unique talent for seeking death, often making young men who hadn't yet been thoroughly beaten down by the world want to throw in the towel, only to be pressed back into their seats by their adjutants to continue processing the endless stream of reports and applications.
By comparison, the Zerg information connectors were much more primitive. They looked as if they had just been torn off some living creature. Upon contact with the body, tiny tendrils quickly coiled around the limb, equipped with hooked barbs capable of piercing outer armor, fusing firmly into the skin like a climbing vine.
It gave one the distinct illusion of: *I’m dirty; I’ve been parasitized.*
The dizziness resulting from the connection was somewhat similar to the mental synchronization with a Tower Ship.
However, a Tower Ship was at most like a high-proof liquor; the Zerg information connector was pure moonshine. The sensation of his scent gland and brain going on strike simultaneously almost made Sakti think he had bought an expired connector. He continued counting the energy stones with an impassive face, waiting for the discomfort to dissipate.
As it turned out, the vertigo lasted for nearly fifteen minutes before gradually fading.
"If you feel dizzy, stop and pull it off immediately," he said, unable to imagine how the scrawny male would react to drinking "moonshine."
To his surprise, Gela seemed to handle it well.
The male only let out a low hum when the connector’s tendrils pierced his skin, and then showed no further reaction. He smiled at Sakti and crouched beside him again. It looked as though he wanted to lean against the female’s leg but didn't quite dare to.
Sakti studied Gela for a moment before speaking. "We’re staying on Ja for the time being."
Poverty was the greatest disease in this universe.
The original crew of the pirate ship had likely intended to trade the kidnapped male for supplies. Thanks to the aggressive bidding at the trading nests, Sakti now knew that a disabled Core Seed male on an energy planet was worth one-twentieth of a "Moment" of Star Core Energy.
Now that Gela was off the market, Sakti needed to find another way to build a fortune quickly and anchor himself to this planet.
For their current situation, an energy planet was a very suitable starting point.
Ja was like a wilderness left behind by civilization, where everything had regressed to an earlier era.
Aside from the satellite bases hanging high in the sky, it was difficult to sense the presence of high-level technology on the surface. Even the residential structures retained the style of early Zerg nests.
During the first half of the war, Sakti had personally visited the star systems inhabited by the Core Genetic Groups several times to drag the Broodmother out of her lair.
In those high-order systems, the Zerg nests were as grand as palaces, having transcended the Zerg’s most primitive forms. Ring-shaped space stations, connected by silk-like strands, encased the central "Core," while weapons shaped like exposed flesh littered the orbits.
The direct descendants of the King Zerg hollowed out entire planets for this purpose, weaving nets for their nests across the star systems.
That bizarre civilization, in a posture incomprehensible to humans, looked down from its heights upon the tiny fleets that blundered into its web.
The human forces that conducted the first raid on a Zerg nest were nearly wiped out.
Every mecha, every soldier, was an elite hand-picked by Sakti. The *Red Tai Sui* was equipped with the last Star-Swallowing class weapon remaining to humanity. Stepping over the wreckage of its comrades, it tore through the final layer of the nest’s barrier, decapitating the King Zerg with lightning speed.
Subsequently, the starship, on the verge of disintegration, forced a warp jump with its commander, leaving behind a Zerg tide in utter chaos. Only then did the battle avoid ending with the total annihilation of both sides' high commands.
The price was the total meltdown of both of the *Red Tai Sui*’s core power reactors during that engagement.
However, just as human settlements were divided into palaces and slums, the disparity between high-order planets and primitive energy planets in Zerg territory was mind-boggling.
Against the backdrop of having seen high-tech exchanges between humans and Zerg, the aesthetic of Ja felt as if it had suddenly shifted from a holographic image to a flat 2D picture.
Star Core Energy was the most precious resource, yet to the Zerg here, it wasn't that precious. A large portion of low-to-mid-tier worker females were trapped on this planet. Black-market trade ships could land at will, but upon departure, they had to pass through inspections by the armed breeds at the satellite outposts to prevent labor smuggling and energy theft.
But the wildness had its benefits.
Aside from Star Core Energy, Ja was not valued by the Core Genetic Groups. Because of its poverty, it was covered by a protective umbrella labeled "unimportant."
There was no safer or more hidden "safe house" tailored for early-stage development.
Gela wasn't exactly relieved upon hearing this decision.
Energy planets were too chaotic, and chaos meant danger and instability. Perhaps a Core Seed female could thrive here like a fish in water, but a male would be in constant peril. However, he understood that the reason for staying was likely because the Core Seed female hadn't traded him away, leaving them without enough funds to flee. Thus, he submissively signaled his obedience.
He needed the Core Seed female’s favor more than ever. If the other were to abandon him on Ja and stop looking after him, the male would face things far more cruel than what had happened on the pirate ship.
When Sakti had decisively rejected the mid-tier breed’s proposal in the trading nest, Gela had sensitively touched upon some mental-level emotions. The other hadn't felt any agitation or affectionate interest; the tall black female remained like a cold stone. Yet, Gela read a stable aura from him—a resolve to follow through on promises made.
It was hard to describe this innate perception of mental strength and subtle emotions; it was as if his scent gland were tasting the flavor of the other’s mental fluctuations.
He had to admit, the flavor of these emotions was very strange, unlike any normal female he knew.
He was beginning to believe that the other truly wouldn't trade him away in the future.
But this wasn't enough to make Gela a special case favored by the female—the kind of special case where the other might despise most Zerg but grant him unique tolerance.
He needed to add more weight to one side of the scale.
The Core Seed female seemed to hold a curious, restrained tolerance toward humans and the weaker side of any other biological species.
When Sakti reminded him to pull the connector at any time, Gela confirmed this realization once more.
His scaled tail pressed against the female ingratiatingly, making little pitter-patter coiling movements. The other was neither interested in this behavior nor truly annoyed enough to haul the male up for a beating. Through their interactions, he was gradually testing and figuring out the worker female’s bottom line.
Seeing that thin white snake-like tail stick to him tirelessly again, Sakti couldn't help but maliciously reach out and pinch a section of the tailbone.
It felt a bit like a human "squishy" toy, soft and limp.
Once he thought of it as a kitten’s paw pad rather than an insect’s tail, his threshold for acceptance suddenly rose, and the feeling of goosebumps vanished.
It had a very good hand-feel, lowering one's stress levels.
The male let out a little *ji* sound from the pinch, all four of his eyes widening as he looked at the other with a shocked expression.
The breathing slits at Gela’s waist and abdomen suddenly emitted a loud buzzing sound.
Clearing his vocalizer, Sakti withdrew his hand.
He chalked it up to not having petted a cat for too long, resulting in a sudden, accidental bout of "fidgety hands."
But in the next second, the other proactively stuffed his tail into the female’s hand. The white male looked at him expectantly, his wings fluttering behind him as he stammered with an eager expression, "Touch... touch it."
"You touch it."
Looking at the male’s helpless yet somewhat ingratiating manner, the Core Seed paused expressionlessly.
He once again moved the male further away from himself.
"No need."
The tall female sat on the ground in a casual posture, his black whip-tail sliding quietly across the floor. Gela sensed a hint of rising spirits from him.
"From now on, you follow me. I’m going to get us a nest where we can live long-term."
Sakti’s tail stood up behind him, swaying back and forth with an undefined sense of pleasure.
"We’re going to Angon," he declared with finality.
***
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Sacre-D: Reborn as the Swarm's Apex | Chapter 9 | Settling on Ja | Novela.app | Novela.app
