Chapter 98: Results
Malsteron was internally celebrating the addition of another member to his personal colony. He was among the last of his species, though he wasn’t an individual. His were a species of tubular worms that formed colonies that unified into an autonomous cooperative. Once, there were nearly a million of his ‘people,’ forming grand collectives that built a city on their home planet, but after their assimilation failed, only a handful of colonies remain in eternal exile.
It was a dire situation, but it was better than most other eradication protocol survivors. At least each of his people represented hundreds of individuals. Other species weren’t so lucky and were left with numbers too low to ever recover, and that was only if they avoided complete annihilation, a feat too rare to properly quantify.
He continued his inner celebration, welcoming his new member when his team leader returned from her greetings protocol. The transfer room slowly stopped spinning as she reformed from the pocket of deactivated mana trapped within the cylinder. The clunking would need to be investigated and he assigned another member to make a note. It was yet another maintenance task on a list that always seemed to grow. Keeping the scraps together was a perpetual challenge.
“Welcome back, Lyriel.” One of his voices hailed while one of his other individuals saluted properly. “How did it go?”
“Awful. Just awful.” Lyriel raised one of her fingers to display a minor injury to Malsteron, waving away a bit of excess steam that shouldn’t have been in the ship with her other hand. He wasn’t entirely sure if she needed medical attention, as he wasn’t completely familiar with her biology, but he sincerely doubted it. Lyriel was at an extremely high level, among the pinnacle of the exiled and far beyond what Malsteron would ever achieve. As the lone survivor of her species she had to be exceptional to live at all.
“Did you break a nail? Does it not regrow?” Malsteron wondered, her mood was far worse than he expected and a negligible injury wouldn’t be enough to explain her state. Based on the initial readings they had taken, Earth showed significant promise in aiding their cause, so he had expected her to be feeling hopeful.
“One of them attacked me! He even managed to deal damage!” Lyriel spluttered, obviously venting after forcing herself to maintain her dignity as was befitting the greetings protocol. However, dealing damage to her should have been far beyond the realm of possibilities from a new species in the midst of their assimilation. His people would say, ‘an individual tooga couldn’t hope to scratch the stars,’ and that was especially true when the star was Lyriel.
Malsteron’s internal celebration was halted as several of his individuals double checked their preliminary data, gathered during the bidding process for new planets. “It shouldn’t be possible.” Multiple of his voices echoed simultaneously before he decided which should speak. “The assimilation has barely begun. In fact, we’ve never initiated the greetings protocol so early, so we should expect them to be far below the norm.”
“Look!” She held her pointer finger closer, showing a carefully manicured nail was indeed cracked along the edge with a slight bruise forming underneath.
Another of Malsteron’s individuals repeated themselves in shock, “It shouldn’t be possible…”
“How did this happen?” Malsteron wanted her to explain.
“As soon as I arrived on the planet, one of them assaulted me. Perhaps he hadn’t let his bloodlust fade and mistook me for another Siege Boss. I used minimal contact to defend myself and avoid further misunderstandings, but the force of the blow exceeded three or four times the maximum expectations of even a hyper-Strength stacker at their stage.”