Chapter 164: Great Chaos and Great Invasion (9)
“…Now that I think about it, isn’t it a bit dangerous to proceed like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Isn’t it possible to have doubts? About the source of the information.”
I asked Eve while glancing around to gauge the atmosphere. The people from the Alliance dispatched to Earth seemed oblivious to the situation where their forces were being attacked and were instead preoccupied with other matters.
“I don’t think so.”
Eve shook her head firmly in response to my question. It was based on sufficient reasoning rather than just the confidence of being able to handle both forces alone.
“We’ve only been in contact with the Coalition forces and fought only them. As Richard could tell us, the Alliance didn’t consider us very important until just before. They probably thought of us as mere parasites gnawing at their internal structure.”
Eve subtly smiled while looking at Colonel Romel, who was conversing with Chris.
“When judged from the perspective of human common sense, the Alliance probably doesn’t think we’ve independently acquired information about them. Do they even know anything beyond our appearance?”
“I don’t know.”
Eve’s words pierced sharply into reality. They know nothing about us. Those countless legionnaires, big and small, are actually a single entity sharing a collective consciousness, and that hive mind is rapidly growing while siphoning their technology.
“I guarantee that for the Alliance and the Coalition, which means humanity in the universe, to properly collaborate, more time will be needed. In the meantime, we can simultaneously gnaw at both sides and grow stronger.”
Eve was confident her plan would succeed. In fact, it was already in progress. The rebel coalition was only now reorganizing after taking a significant hit, and the Alliance still did not know about us.
“I’m doing so well. How about your side?”
This time, Eve asked me. I turned my attention to the demonic realm, where my ‘soldiers’ were fighting.
“Don’t get too cocky. We’re also proceeding according to plan. Steadily.”
“Good. Then that’s enough.”
With a grin, Eve did not elaborate further.
The fleet dispatched by Eve was now assaulting a colonized area that was already on the brink of falling.
*
“Holes…”
“We’re done for.”
In this vast universe where it seemed unlikely that an end existed, all that could be seen were monsters with dark red bodies.
The crew members, who had been fiercely resisting using weapons from their ship, sank into despair. They were prepared to sacrifice their lives to protect the allies that would emerge from the hole.
“Captain… what do we do now?!”
The first officer asked the captain with a trembling voice. In their line of sight, the hull of the ship was visibly breaking apart under bombardment and crashing into the defense shields that had finally given way.
Since the warp hole had closed, if reinforcements were coming, they would have been torn apart and killed, and if they were not, the path was now completely blocked.
“Reinforcements can still make it. Keep fighting! If we break, millions down on the surface will die!”
The captain, defying his own fears, vowed to resist till the end. In truth, there was almost nothing they could do in such a situation. They could continue fighting, surrender, or flee into outer space with dwindling supplies of food and weapons.
But the enemies were monsters with whom no communication was possible, so surrender was out of the question.
“Uh…”
Just then, the captain, peering ahead from the command bridge, saw something crash down through space with a loud bang right in front of him.
A flicker of red light in the gaps, four arms, and a long, whip-like tail.
A being that experienced soldiers alike trembled in fear of had broken through the ship’s defenses and was causing chaos within the command bridge.
‘The Alliance is no different. As expected, the uniqueness fades as we move closer to the end?’
Eve moved the body of the superior species that had infiltrated the shields inside, wreaking havoc within the command bridge.
However, even while controlling her troops, she could not hide her disappointment.
‘Whether they’re the Coalition or the Alliance, they’re too similar to be worth eating.’
As Shin Woo pointed out, this was a problem Eve was well aware of.
After creating a warship to venture into space and rapidly strengthening her legion, the endless speed of evolution had slowed, and they now found themselves in a state of stagnation. They could not create a breed larger than the warship, nor could they change the established combat methods.
Thus, while attacking the Alliance this time, she wanted to see the true strength of humanity that was much stronger than the rebel coalition.
But the rebel coalition was fundamentally a splinter group from the Alliance. Disappointed in this fundamentally similar duality of humanity, Eve became interested in other forces that employed formancy transcending humanity, even if they wouldn’t quite qualify as a galactic power.
‘There’s nothing worth seeing in the universe anymore. Let’s conquer the surface.’
Five escort-class warships were tightly clustered, pouring troops inside the flagship that had its maw down and tentacles wrapped around it.
Thinking she had completely conquered space, Eve moved the massive warship filled with ground troops to pierce through the atmosphere and charge toward the surface.
Judging that there was nothing to gain, she was hastily thinking of initiating a “nestification.”
‘…Could that be?’
But at that moment, a powerful energy reaction was detected in a section of space that had previously been empty. Even the humans were taken aback by the shockwave.
Eve, who had lost interest and had been dealing with enemies mechanically, smiled broadly at the massive warp reaction.
In fact, according to the knowledge collected using spies, the Alliance had no weapon capable of producing such a massive warp reaction.
However, such details no longer mattered. The enormous warship that manifest with a distortion in space was a dream weapon conceptualized in the Alliance and could easily bring the war to an end if calculated simply.
‘That’s it. That is the next target I need to reach.’
Eve admired the appearance of the colossal fortress-class warship, even as her own ships fell like moths to the flame before its overwhelming firepower.
She didn’t consider whether reaching it was feasible. Now that a reference point had appeared in her previously empty field of vision, she charged toward it, disregarding all means and methods.
“Commander! The enemy is retreating into outer space. Should we pursue?!”
“…No. Our goal is to rescue the colonized area. Immediately deploy reinforcements to the surface.”
The commander of the fortress-class warship, leading an entire fleet, stopped the pursuit, citing the need to save the ground while watching the retreating remnants of the monsters.
“I can’t believe it. This colossal warship, which seemed impossible to develop due to energy efficiency issues.”
“I feel the same. How on earth did they succeed in making it?”
The commander, who had just transferred to this ship, agreed with his amazed first officer.
In truth, it was almost complete. And since it was deemed an urgent situation, he decided to commit his entire unit. That was all he had been ordered to do.
“No matter how many there are, we can annihilate the nest on a continental scale.”
“Nonetheless, the higher-ups seem to be mindful of the rebel coalition.”
The commander frowned at this, clearly dissatisfied. If they had truly succeeded in implementing and creating this dream weapon, there should be no opponents left to stop them.
They could effortlessly crush the rebel coalition’s fleet, so why were they being cautious?
“Commander! The captain of the surviving defense forces has a report. It seems the monsters are aware of our information.”
“Connect me.”
He temporarily set aside his thoughts and focused on the incoming report.
“Commander! Right now on the surface…”
However, he could not leisurely manage the aftermath.
The war was still not over.
“I definitely killed them all!”
“Uh, where are they crawling out from?!”
Despite the fortress-class warship staunchly guarding space, and even having shot down all ships penetrating the atmosphere, humans still could not bring the war to an end.
“What the…”
A soldier, sweating profusely, dropped their plasma gun that had been overloaded and could no longer fire. An open mouth quickly ripped his throat apart in an instant.
Before him lay a river, yet from that river, monsters of varying sizes continued to emerge.
‘The fortress-class warship is indeed a warship, but the nest must be obtained. For now, we need to drive all the humans out.’
Eve, madly pouring a massive ground force into all corners of the colonized area, proceeded with nestification. She aimed to execute this tactic knowing full well that the firepower of that colossal warship would not turn against their own foundational lands.
Having already learned the warp coordinates, she instructed the ground troops she had deployed to obtain the gate coordinates and planned to open the gates there, pouring in medium to large legionnaires indefinitely.
Gates opened in treacherous and remote areas like underwater or underground caverns, unreachable from the sky, and since urban areas in the midst of war could not be bombed, Eve’s ploy to empty the entire land fell squarely on the humans.
