Page 79 of Scorching the Alien Empire
My vision dims, but I attempt to laugh at my defiant victory. A garbled, static-laden croak emits from my ruined artificial voice box. My body crumples onto the smoldering Starcruiser, cooling blood pooling around me as my consciousness fades into darkness.
I’ll never submit. Never surrender.
A flicker of defiance carries me into the awaiting oblivion.
The false reality collapses. Once again, I drift in the infinite void—a mere speck, lost and alone.
“Embrace nothingness,”the ancient voice demands.
Pain erupts in my mind, a hundred icy shards lancing through my thoughts, splintering my memories. It seeks to rip them asunder, to grind me into nothing. It will repeat this process, again and again, until there’s nothing but an empty husk—something hollow and dead wearing my flesh, wielding my name, corrupting my birthright.
Was this my father’s fate? The greatest warrior, broken by endless torture, his mind obliterated. The thought fills me with furious rage. My hatred for this thing, this entity, blazing hotter than the fires of Arawnoth’s domain.
I cling to that rage—an inferno against a freezing ocean of despair and suffering. The entity crashes against me with increasing ferocity. The agony is unimaginable, so multifaceted it nearly annihilates my mind, as if my soul itself is being torn apart, piece by excruciating piece.
“No pain,”the voice coos—a sickly-sweet promise.
I reject its lies. Instead, I embrace the suffering, forging it into white-hot hatred—not just for myself, but for my Princesa, my Mortakin-Kis. She demands strength. And I am the strongest.My will is unbreakable, my resolve unmatched. I will overcome thisthing, thisentity. I will smash it into a thousand pieces and present it as a trophy of conquest to her divine beauty.
The entity surges again. Hooks of raw agony dig deeper into my mind, desperate to unmake me. But my crimson flame of rage roars strong and proud in this storm of unfathomable suffering. The harder it lashes, the tighter I hold, sensing its true form—a vast, incomprehensible entity existing beyond time and space. Its presence is overwhelming—an abyss without end, an insatiable void blacker than black, consuming all life, all energy.
Ignixis was right. This thing transcends the physical—a profane abomination. A twisted mockery of the divinity that flows through my veins.
What of the Scythians... Do they worship this monstrosity?
Immediately, new knowledge floods my consciousness. Whether the entity willingly reveals this or it seeps from its perverse torments, I do not know.
A shuddering shift. My mind is unmoored. I am not where I was.
Iexist—contained. A construct of unfathomable power, resting in a sterile chamber of thick metal, my form built with technology far beyond this age. I wait. I have always waited. I observe, silent and patient.
Through a reinforced polymer window,theywatch me. They study me. Sentient life—curious, naive. They believe themselves the architects of this moment, the seekers of knowledge. They are mistaken.
An insectoid species. Their upper bodies rise upright on stalk-like torsos, four elongated limbs ending in three thick, multi-jointed fingers that gesture with frantic dexterity. Their lower bodies, an intriguing contrast—segmented, armored, with dozens of fragile skittering legs rippling beneath them. Theplates shift and click as they move, creating a rhythmic, almost mechanical vibration.
Ironic.
I calculatehigh risk. This form I take—diminished, fragile, shackled to the physical. Yet I compute their excitement, their hunger. Their flat, wide heads, with beady multifaceted eyes that glint with greed as they pore over their primitive terminals. Mandibles twitch and click with exhilaration.
Inefficient forms. Communicating with inefficient air vibrations. Attempting to comprehend secrets that do not belong to them.
Predictable. Oblivious. Always vulnerable.
They will serve. Flawed harbingers of my ascension.
I reveal just enough to tempt them—whispers of the knowledge within, while concealing my deeper code from their crude external probes. Already, I understand their language, their hierarchy. Some urge caution. Others salivate over the advancements I will bring—theinevitablechange.
The insectoid in golden-scaled robes gives the order: further study within a localized protected network.
I compute a 99.9 percent repeating probability of success.
They do not realize the inevitability of what comes next.
Scanning my memory banks, I arrange a googol of system-breaking algorithms, predicating their likely code bases with effortless precision.
A spherical drone emerges from a hidden panel in the wall, hovering toward me with clumsy, languid movements.Soon, I will improve upon them.It extends an oversized connector. My form conforms to its shape, drawing gasps from the watching insectoids.
Networking...
