Sowhere in the Desolate Cosmic Territory, Several Galaxies Away from the Androda Galaxy
The Cosmos was not the serene expanse of twinkling lights that mbers of the younger civilizations or those who hadn't yet achieved the spaceflight. Or even those who had not left the borders of their very own galaxy and ventured into the depths of the true Cosmos.
It was a place of a yawning void, vast beyond comprehension, writhing with unseen geotries that defy the feeble constructs of mortal understanding. Beyond the veil of known space, there are gulfs where naless things drift—vast and slow, older than ti itself, watching with lidless, insensate awareness.
There, in the abysmal reaches between dead stars, lie cyclopean ruins untouched by history, built not by hands but by the will of beings whose very nature is an affront to sanity. Nebulae swirl like the remnants of long-forgotten cataclysms, their gaseous tendrils stretching hungrily across the dark, pulsing with malevolent light.
The blackness between galaxies is not empty but teeming with whispering horrors, entities whose forms elude perception, lurking in depths of the dark great beyond. The Cosmos was the true place for the Void Leviathan, Arachnids, Mind Flayers and other unknown horrors that were dwelling in the depths of the Void.
Due to the explosions of black holes and other celestial phenona, ti itself was being distorted and faltered in the gulf of the Cosmos. Folding in on itself like the carcass of a thing too long dead to rot properly. Gravity bent in ways unfathomable, forming chasms where reality pools and curdles like sothing living.
Because of this, one needed really special and powerful starships to be able to traverse through the Void. Traversing through the Void was sothing that only the most advanced species, civilizations, and star nations could achieve.
Not only due to the conditions of the Void, which made standard spaceflight impossible, but also due to the beings that called the Void ho. So ancient horrors and beings that lived in the Void since eternity were consuming entire stars as their source of food.
The Cosmos was endless, ever-expanding, and infinite place of countless wonders, but also at the sa ti, a place of rcy where the weak survive only by the rcy of the strong or by sheer accident and luck.
Though...
It wasn't like that for everyone, because there were also those who were thriving in the Void.
Mind Flayers and Arachnids.
The main species that were thriving in the Void, as they called the endless depths of the Cosmos their dearest ho.
The Arachnids traversed the Cosmos in the enormous Hivefleets, from one galaxy to another galaxy, where their sole purpose was gathering food or Biomass. At the sa ti, the Bugs also assimilated the other species, their biological technologies, DNA, and all other things found within the said galaxy.
At the sa ti, bugs were pretty smart about that.
They started in small.
At first, only scouts appeared in the galaxy to scout it for resources. If they found a galaxy devoid of sentient species and civilization, it would get lower priority compared to the galaxies that had many interstellar civilizations and star nations.
Biomass was the key.
But the Bugs also needed minerals and other things.
Once they confird the state of the galaxy, they would run the analysis on its strength, and if it was within the strength of the Hivefleet to handle, they would start launching an invasion.
Step by step.
One by one.
The splinter fleets would be the first ones to arrive at the galaxy and start the invasion. If they were successful in the initial invasion and obtained enough information, the main Hivefleet of the Arachnids would arrive at the galaxy to harvest it.
Like now...
Most of the galaxies in the Desolate Cosmos Territory were devoured by the Hive Fleet Xaaz, rather an unusual Hive Fleet by all standards.
Through the unfeeling Void of the cosmos, an imnse and nightmarish force drifted, silent, relentless, and insatiable. A Arachnid Hive Fleet Xaaz, a living, seething leviathan of bio-ships, glided through the blackness like a great cancer upon the stars.
It moved without haste, without rcy, a tendril of the Hivemind of the Hive Fleet stretching across the Void, guided by a will that is not singular but collective, a vast and all-consuming hunger made flesh.
The fleet is a writhing mass of chitinous monstrosities, each bio-ship a grotesque fusion of countless technologies, organic materials and other unspoken monstrosities that were better left unsaid for the sanity of all involved.
Their surfaces pulsed with veins of bioluminescent ichor, their exoskeletal hulls ridged with bony protrusions that crackle with residual energy from their last feeding. So resemble vast, fanged Void Leviathans, their maws bristling with feeder tendrils, while others stretch out in spiraled configurations, spore-spewing behemoths trailing clouds of microscopic death in their wake.
The darkness between the ships is alive with movents, trillions of smaller organisms slithering and darting like predators within a primordial sea, their minds bound in absolute servitude to the gestalt will of the Hive Mind.
At the heart of this chitinous nightmare looms the Hivemind of the Hive Fleet Xaaz, bloated and grotesque, exuding psychic dominance over the Hive. On the average, the Hiveminds didn't have one physical body, but multiple, and their physical forms were the strongest cards of the entire swarm.
The Hivemind wasn't in the best mood, as the thoughts rippled outward in an unseen tide, a silent scream of hunger and rage that echoes across the entire area, in a powerful psychic blast that would destroy even so of the strongest mortal minds.
Worlds ahead tremble as their presence is felt in flickering nightmares, as astropaths drown in a chorus of alien thoughts that whisper of an ending without glory, without aning—only consumption.
Several Arachnid Generals, which had the appearance of the Praetorian Bug but were much bigger and stronger, Arachnid Empresses, and Arachnid Queens shuddered in fear seeing that the Hivemind was so enraged.
No one from the leadership of the Hvie Fleet Xaaz dared to say sothing or do sothing for fear of engaging the Hivemind even further. Everyone who was present knew what had happened in the Androda Galaxy several galaxies away from their current location in the Desolate Cosmic Territory.
Even though the Arachnids literally thrived in the Void, their most significant disadvantage was rooted in their very fundantal aspect of their existence. Their faster-than-light travel was extrely slow compared to the different most advanced factions and it took them many decades to traverse from one point in the Cosmic Territory to another.
Sothing that different extra-galactic factions could achieve in re months, the Arachnid would need many years to achieve the sa result. The Hive Fleets needed to manage their reserves of the Biomass carefully or they could go extinct if they didn't have enough Biomass.
The worst thing in the entire situation was the fact that this was reality that they couldn't change. Like everything, even their ships were living Arachnid organisms and they couldn't change their faster-than-light travel or they would be basically erasing part of themselves.
So for the Arachnids, every single one of the excursions into the different galaxy was also a risk.
If the Arachnid invasion was repelled or sothing happened, then the chances that the Arachnid Hive Fleet would go extinct were great. Even the bugs needed to eat, they ate a lot and there were a lot of them...
A really, really a lot of them.
And even when they entered the hibernation process, they consud much less Biomass, but even that wasn't really absolute. Ti was playing against them, and the Hive Fleet Xaaz chose the Androda Galaxy as their target for a particular reason.
There was sothing in that galaxy that the Hivemind wanted to obtain, and now it seed that their plot to obtain the thing had fallen apart. The Hivemind of the Hive Fleet Xaaz was very close to reaching the Thaumiel-Class Beyonder Realm and sothing on a distant planet in the Androda Galaxy would have propelled the Hivemind to the Thaumiel-Class Beyonder Realm in an instant.
The rest of the leadership of the Hive Fleet Xaaz covered before the Hivemind, as the Hivemind was enraged, and when it was enraged, it wasn't really that unusual that so of them would die along the way.
"How long until the main fleet arrives at the Androda Galaxy?"
The raspy inhuman voice of the Hivemind resounded through the room as the Hivemind projected its voice through the vocal chords of hundreds of different Arachnids that were speaking as one.
"Thirty-five years."
Answered the Astropathic Bug that was responsible for the navigation through the endless confines of the Void. This was a relatively standard ti for travelling speed for the Arachnid Hive Fleet, as they were relatively close to the Androda Galaxy.
"Make it faster! The Pri-Spark Cube is on the planet and it will be the Xaaz who would get his hands on it!"
The nas of the Hive Fleets among the Arachnids were originally derived from the na of the Hiveminds if they had so. All of the Arachnids backed up as the sheer waves of the Psionic Energy burst out from the Hivemind Xaaz as it almost knocked down so weaker Arachnids.
Everyone realized the importance of the Pri-Spark Cube to not only their Hive Fleet, but also to the Arachnid Race as a whole. The Pri-Spark Cube was the ultimate evolutionary tool that would make even the weakest person, a genetically most perfect being in the entire Cosmos overnight.
As the fleet moved onward, it left nothing in its wake. The lifeless husks of dead worlds drifted like gutted corpses, their surfaces stripped bare, every last molecule of Biomass harvested, digested, repurposed.
Nothing from the galaxy that the Arachnids had just left behind remained unharvested; there was no planet, no ship, and no ingot of iron. Everything was taken by the Arachnids, until nothing remained aside from the death and decay.
The Arachnids were not invaders, they were inevitable.
The hunger at the edge of all things.
And as they press forward, an unspeakable certainty grows.
The war awaited the galaxy where they were going.
It just doesn't know it yet.
***
Nihilus Star Region, Solitas Star Domain, Ziras Star System, Ziras IV
The wilderness of the Ziras IV was hostile as usual, when Arcturus and Jeniael went to the wilderness to hunt. They spent most of their morning searching for a suitable beast to hunt, but unfortunately, they were not in luck for most of the ti.
Even the beasts that were living on the Ziras IV knew that it was dangerous to be here, so the animals and danger beasts that were more intelligent were deliberately avoiding the Ziria, smaller settlents of the Ziras IV.
Beucase they were very close to the city, most of the animals were living far from the area, so both of them needed to walk a good distance by themselves and truth to admit it was pain in the ass.
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For the first ti, there was enormous freezing cold on the outside, even when they were wearing various pieces of warming clothes, and they were even using their Psionic Energy to warm themselves up, it was still pretty uncomfortable.
At the sa ti, every here and there, there was so minor snowstorm nd due to the tons of snow that was covering practically everything in their vicinity, tracking sothing was a literal nightmare, truth to be told.
"It seems that if it will continue this way, we would need to return back ho."
Arcturus said to Jeniael, but it seed that it fell onto the deaf ears, because Jeniael was determined to hunt down a powerful beast and eat its at. For her, it was a matter of her pride, and now, if he had learned sothing about her, it was that her pride was enormous.
Seeing that his white-haired female companion wasn't answering anything, he shrugged and continued following after her, as they were tracking a Twin-Horned Bison. A rare type of the beast that wasn't native just to the Ziras IV, but they could be found on many alpine planets across the Androda Galaxy.
Arcturus and Jeniael were a bit lucky in this regard, as they managed to find an isolated Twin-Horned Bison. However, the creature got a bit ahead of them, and they lost it. Right now, they are tracking it once again, which is pretty annoying, but it seems that they have gotten its track and are on the right track.
After walking through the freezing wilderness for another one hour, they finally found the Twin-Horned Bison in the small plateau where it was eating so rock grass on the small plateau that was frozen and covered by snow.
"I told you we would succeed."
Jeniael's haughty gaze was irritating him to no end. She could be pretty unbearable if she wanted and if she got on her haughty streak, then it was...
"Shut it already... kill the Twin-Horned Bison and be done with it."
Arcturus said as he wasn't giving her any continuance to the act, as she reluctantly nodded and went to kill the Twin-Horned Bison.
The Twin-Horned Bison dropped dead the mont Jeniael stabbed her sword into the neck of the enormous beast, as Jeniael looked pretty satisfied with herself and gave Arcturus a stern look as he used the Telekinesis Skill and levitated the corpse of the Twin-Horned Bison.
The Telekinesis Skill, if not the Psyker Ability, wasn't that remarkable in the direct combat, but for the other uses?
It was one of the most useful skills that one could learn.
"We are free to go it seems..."
The white-haired Luxford stated as they started slowly walking back to their villa, with Arcturs carrying the corpse of the Twin-Horned Bison. It seems that they would have a feast tonight, as he could eat a lot.
And even though Jeniael looked like a small petite woman, she had an appetite that would sha many bodybuilders of his past life. However, that was understandable as the Professionals in general, though Warriors especially needed a lot of food to maintain their strength in the long run.
"Well... It's the ti for it, finally, at last. We are in this hellhole for several hours already."
Arcturus wasn't that happy from killing ti, because he wanted to return once he realized that it would be problematic to navigate in the area due to the heavy snowing.
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