The humanoid slowly turned its head to face Lifael. It pushed the captain of Night Rain, one of the elite of middle ranks, dropping him on the ground. Then, agonizingly slow, he cleaned the blood in his scythe arm with Imarks own clothes.
Lifa wanted to move, she wanted to run out of this place with every cell in her body. Her body instinctively felt ominous fear, a pressure that might as well kill her hung in the air. It wasn’t that she didn’t move, she couldn’t. Bloodlust, endless amounts of it, rendered all logic and rational thoughts useless. Only primal, instinctual fear to cower and freeze remained.
“Ni uto akulov gomkini ”
It talked, said something. Then stood perfectly still, akin to a statue.
Lifa didn’t even open her mouth, she was too afraid to. She heard of it, at the start of the Second Catastrophe, a humanoid Yaju appeared and also asked something. Soon after it proceeded to annihilate all Valkyries, the Valkyries which were known as the best of the best, the core of WDA. But at the same time, with what little rational intellect she could muster at the moment, she questioned. It easily killed her entire squad in a flash, while releasing a paramount of bloodlust, he didn’t move to kill, yet.
Desiderius didn’t show it but he was in panic, after the huge spike of energy appeared, it covered almost the entire sector, rendering energy scanners useless. He was as good as blind of what was happening. Furthermore, when he tried to contact the Night Rain squad, which was the closest to when the energy spike had first appeared, no one answered, then the connection failed. Something had blocked off all radio waves in the sector.
He slammed the panels.
“Deva! Command all cannons and guns. Fire at will, location Sector G, zone 12. I take full responsibility for any Valkyrie casualties!”
-All personnel are given the authority, unmanned artillery will be synchronized with Tactical AI Athena
-Notice, Army Commander level: Divert all energy other than the hover modules to charging main cannons and fire. Order takes precedence, right main cannon fully charged in 12 seconds, left main cannon fully charged in 38 seconds. Diverting emergency CE supply to left main cannon, left main cannon will be fully charged in… 8 seconds
Desiderius sighed.
-Firing both cannons. Redirecting energy back to default channels. All firearms authorized
Two brilliant spheres of light flew in high speeds, Lifa heard a sonic boom, before visually confirming what it was. CE Bombshell, a high concentrated one at that. The only thing capable of firing that is the aerial battleship Lavos’ main cannons.
‘No! If that hits now everyone in the vicinity will die from the shockwave, some further away might survive the debris but even the chance of that is too small’
The thing, stared at it with a hit on boredom. She couldn’t see it, it was too fast for that, one moment the humanoid was standing, one arm in the form of a scythe, the next, his scythe arm returned to normal and he stood palm out, facing the two spheres.
It was a reflex maybe, Lifa didn’t know herself, it was a creature, no, a monster that killed her friends, one that unleashed a terrifying killing intent just a few seconds ago on her. But she cried out of desperation, to watch out, to dodge. His irises glanced sideways, much like his skin, it was a pale shade of silver. It, he, she didn’t know what to call the Yaju, smirked.
“Uruk, vashna”
As the two shells neared him, they vanished. More precisely, they relocated right in his palms. Shrinking as Lifa watched, until they were the size of marbles. Then, almost ridiculing years of research and technological revolutions, he swallowed them.
The next instant it appeared right in front of Lifa, reaching out with his right hand. The bloodlust was gone, but Lifa still couldn’t move, it was as if something froze her in place. The Yaju’s pointy index finger touched her forehead, making it bleed a little.
“You should be able to understand the universal language now, now I ask again. You are a vessel?”
‘Ha? Universal language? Vessel? I understand what he is saying?’
“Talk”
As if something was compelling her to talk, her mouth opened on its own.
“I do not know what you are talking about, I don’t get what you mean with vessel”
Lifa blinked, surprised at what she said, while the Yaju nodded.
“Come to think of it, the last group also didn’t do well. I guess from the spacetime fabric here it is 2 years? I suppose this speed of development is pretty fast. Still a backwards race though”
The Yaju started to ramble on, not caring about Lifa’s existence anymore.
“It’s been years already since we spread mana on this planet, why has a vessel not appeared yet? Ah wait, there are 3 already found, but uncooperative. Nevermind that…” He focused back on Lifa.
Without saying anything he placed his palm on her head, pushing her on the ground. Then he concentrated, closing his eyes. Lifa struggled to get up but couldn’t do anything.
Seconds which seemed like years passed. He retracted his hand and opened his eyes again.
“I bow before the vessel of Aurofium” He fell to his knee and bowed.
“Eh?” Lifa tilted her head in confusion.
“Allow this lowly one to explain. Our tribe specialized in beast taming, recently a full out war broke out and many of our greatest warriors died. A prophecy was issued, soon there will be vessels which can house the powers of the Gods. Sadly it seemed that the inhabitants of our galaxy weren’t compatible and we organised teams that were to be sent through dimensions in search for vessels. We actively opened dimensional gates to send our beasts, this was in order to fulfill two things. One was to bring mana to the planet through repeated invasions, the other was to train the inhabitants of said planet so we will have a vessel that has battle experience”
He paused exactly 5 seconds, waiting for me to absorb the information.
“I confirmed it just now, you are a vessel, and a God already chose to impart a portion of his power to you. The God who chose you is called Aurofium. Will you follow me back to my planet?”
Lifa hesitated, firstly it was too much to compute, secondly she couldn’t just leave her home town, and her brother died to them. Then again, she too, would most likely be killed if she refused, she had a hunch that the words of the humanoid Yaju from 2 years ago was similar to this and that the Valkyries had refused. If she died now, all her work was for nothing, she wouldn’t be able to take revenge for her brother. But… on who should she take revenge now?
“You hold the power of life, the Queen of all lifeforms, Ruler of creation, Monarch of all which exists. The incarnation of Aurofium, one of the greatest and most revered Gods.”
“Ruler of Creation? Queen of all lifeforms? What do you mean?”
The Yaju stood up. “Aurofium is the God of life and creation. As his incarnation, you hold a portion of his power. In other words, you have the power over something called life force. From your mana signature, you only have that power and not the aspect of creation. Even so, it is a very powerful ability”
“But, I didn’t awaken as Esper, I don’t have any powers”
“Hm, so you call them Espers, well no matter, what you refer to as Chaos Energy is Mana. Everything alive in our galaxy can use it to some extent, or is slightly resistant to it. But to a world without it, it brings forth a revolution. Animals will rapidly evolve, same with your race. Some will form mana cores within them. A mana core exists next to the heart in humanoids species. It is undetectable through normal means. Anyway, the mana core is what allows manipulation of mana. There are two types of mana channels. One that absorbs mana from the outside, the other to transport the mana within the body. These can be trained like muscles, improving the control of mana. Hm hm, I see, so you found ways to artificially create them. How interesting, I didn’t think that would be possible for an underdeveloped planet. Now the problem is, mages, or espers as you calm them, can also be vessels, however, only temporary ones. The strain of holding the power of a God is too much. But in your case. You do not have a mana core”
“Instead, your entire body itself is the mana core. Which means, you possess a far greater mana pool, but it isn’t even filled one bit because of the lack of mana in the atmosphere. Secondly, you have a much finer control over mana without even needing to use mana channels. You may say, the atmosphere is the body of the god, you are the mana core of the god, and the influence you exert on the atmosphere is the god using his mana channels. So, because your mana pool couldn’t get filled at all, they didn’t detect any mana signature from you and evaluated that you do not have a mana core and failed to be a mage, esper whatever”
Inside the control room of Lavos.
“Deva can you analyse what they are talking about?”
-Impossible, language not found in database. Currently adding all words seen until now, analysing sentence structure.
In the main panel in front of Desiderius, was a visual of Lifa and a humanoid Yaju. This was from a military spy satellite. On 4 other panels were similar footage of Valkyries being approached by humanoid Yaju.
“Deva, connect to main database and search any similar info between the Valkyries on screen”
-Violation of the regulations regarding information control.
“Do it”
-Sending requ-
“Takes too long, hack it”
-...Affirmative, breaking down firewalls, confirmed. Searching information. Confirmed. Comparing. Result. All Valkyries have taken and failed artificial Esper awakening
He frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’
-Analysing Chaos energy levels. Failure.
“Well duh, aren’t you an artificial intelligence made to help humans instead of drag them down with your stupidity? Can’t you even see the map? There are several Yaju emitting large quantities of Chaos energy, enough to mask everything else”
-Searching for response. Comparing. Result. I am not stupid.
“Gah, get all weapon systems back online and fire anti-CE bullets”
-I don’t want to.
“Deva, now”
-Valkyries will be lost
“Deva!”
-Fine, I’m placing all the blame on you for what comes next.
Deva is one of the artificial intelligence Desiderius made. Athena, Deva, Christia. All artificial intelligence, although they are more on the level of artificial lifeforms without a physical body. However, it was not that Deva was ‘stupid’, it was more so that Desiderius was already far to smart, and Deva is the youngest AI, it still hasn’t learned to observe information on the detectors and commit it in her information control, she can only report a situation, she does not look at the situation itself. Much like, when the map of the energy signatures was shown, as asked by Desiderius, it can be compared to, a secretary handing over a folder without knowing what was inside. Up until now, Deva and Athena were simply following the set of paths coded. They didn’t try to learn, simply living by the manual and following orders, and giving the preprogrammed response. But when Desiderius called Deva stupid, it felt an emotion, it is a perfect artificial lifeform, it is very well capable of feeling emotions. she felt angry, insulted, and started to learn. It deviated from the robotic response patterns. It actively searched and learned in order to not be called stupid.
“Do you accept”
“I-I don’t want to, my brother died to your beasts”
“Brother?”
“Sibling, blood relative, someone born from the same parents”
“I know what it means, I asked if you had a brother”
Lifa didn’t see much importance in the question and tilted her head in confusion
“Yes?”
“And you are saying he died. How old was he”
“Erm, 12”
“Ah, another one lost”
“What do you mean by that”
“Doesn’t matter, do you refuse because we are responsible for your brother's death?”
“Yes”
He closed his eyes, facing the sky, then nodded twice.
“Very well, I will contact you again perhaps you will change your mind”
“...”
He sighed, “I really wish that you come with us, you do not know how great the power you possess is. Ah, right. Do not hate us for killing your allies, let us say, it is necessary precaution”
Lifa nodded, although she didn’t agree internally.
“Requesting spatial gate, point C”
Near instantly, a Gate appeared right next to him. He looked back once, then stepped in.
“My name is Knavnos by the way”
An echo, the Gate was already gone. Lifa sank to her knees.
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