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HEL SCANS
[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Thala]
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Chapter 203
The society and institutions of the Cult Empire are quite different from those of MegaCorp or StarUnion. They have developed civilization in entirely different environments, so it’s natural that they would be so different.
For example, the concept of a Knowledge Manager aboard a Cult Empire fleet is non-existent in MegaCorp or StarUnion. To put it metaphorically, they can be seen as a hybrid of information storage systems from other factions and ship engineers combined.
During voyages, Knowledge Managers utilize their extensive knowledge to assist captains and handle ship repairs when necessary. Due to the importance of their duties, Knowledge Managers are respected as much as military commanders on any ship.
However, even their esteemed position did not prove particularly helpful in the current situation.
The intruder who killed the captain began massacring the crew in the Situation Room.
That monster was an entity unknown even to the Knowledge Manager. It had eight large and small arms with blades at their ends, a pale feminine face, and a grotesque tail—a biomechanical organism reminiscent of something out of a nightmare.
Despite the Knowledge Manager’s efforts to understand competing factions against the Empire, identifying this creature proved to be a challenge.
If one were to liken it to any known entity based on its physical characteristics, it would likely be the cursed bio weapon of the StarUnion, known as a Screamer.
However, unlike the Screamer, which supposedly cannot wield a variety of weapons like this abominable hybrid, it fired lethal energy blasts from its tail and mouth.
The Knowledge Manager knew well what kind of energy, glowing with a cold navy blue hue, emanated from the creature. It was the weapon predominantly used by the Temple Guardians, the ‘Demolisher’.
“Take cover!”
“Uh, uhh?”
The creature’s tail swung around. Energy blasts, disintegrating matter according to the tail’s movements, rained down upon the Cultists’ heads.
Some managed to dodge, but others were not so fortunate.
“My, my arm! My leeeegs…!”
“…Ugh.”
A crew member whose arm vanished entirely due to the disintegration effect, and a Cult whose lower body remained after being struck. Their bloodless appearance was truly eerie.
“Aim for that tail!”
“It’s no use! It shoots from its mouth too!”
“Damn it!”
As if to confirm their words, the villain who severed the captain’s neck was the energy blast that came flying from its head.
Even if it’s only means of attack were its tail, the odds of the situation improving were slim. Its movements were too swift; targeting them was nearly impossible for non-combatants.
“Knowledge Manager! Since the captain has fallen, you’re in command!”
“Do something!”
Before examining further, most of the crew had been wiped out. Hiding and observing the enemy, the Knowledge Manager finally issued an order.
“Restraints, anything! Pour out any technology that can limit its movements!”
In a short time, it appeared that the creature had a reduced resistance to psychic powers.
The basis for this was its evident attempt to evade psychic rifles fired by Cultists.
The psychic rifle stationed on the bridge was not particularly potent. It was merely an item prepared for non-combatants to defend themselves in dire situations.
However, the creature had been primarily evading combat with psychic focus. It should have realized the potency of firepower much sooner.
Therefore, it could be inferred that the enemy had a weak resistance to psychic abilities.
Upon the Knowledge Manager’s exclamation, the Cultists with goat-like horns began gathering psychic power. They drew on any knowledge they had learned to hold the enemy in any way possible.
The flow of intense energy that filled the Situation Room entangled the creature. As a result, its frenzied movements dulled.
“Krrk?”
Sensing something wrong with its body, the creature smirked. Its movements slowed and eventually ceased.
The creature’s bright red eyes rolled like blood. It appeared to be investigating the anomaly that had occurred within its own body.
Gradually, its eight arms began to tremble.
“It’s an immense power!”
“We must finish it quickly!”
The creature emitted cracking sounds from its body, while the Cultists attempting to restrain it groaned loudly.
The Situation Room became noisy with the sound of the creature’s victims.
They had to finish it off as quickly as possible. Except for the Cultists using technology, the rest aimed their rifles at the creature’s head.
Just as their muzzles were about to spit fire, the Knowledge Manager doubted their eyes.
Something was standing where there had been nothing just now.
Similar to the Cultists, it had horns on its head. Its height was similar, and it stood on two legs. However, the Knowledge Manager felt no familiarity upon seeing it.
Instinctively, they could tell. That entity was as dangerous as the biomechanical creature they had captured.
The eyes of the entity standing at the door moved. Its vivid pumpkin-colored pupils faced the Knowledge Manager.
Upon meeting its gaze, the Knowledge Manager felt the pupils shine blue. They hurriedly tried to call their comrades.
However, before they could do so, there was a voice calling out to them.
“I’m hungry!”
“?!”
The whisper-like voice in their ear made them startle. They turned their head, but there was no one behind them.
‘Was that just…?’
“I’m starving to death!”
“!”
What had been a whispering sensation until now now thundered into their brain. The Knowledge Manager covered their ears with both hands.
“I’m hungry!”
“Please!”
“I’m starving!”
“Give me meat!”
“I want to tear something apart!”
“There’s plenty of food around here!”
“Hurry!”
“Tear it apart!”
“Give me organs!”
“Drink blood!”
“Eat bones!”
Despite plugging their ears, the curse filled with revenge pierced them. Kill those beside you. Fill your stomach with their flesh.
They struggled to withstand it somehow, but the voices quickly overwhelmed them. Their superior knowledge and reason faded surprisingly fast. In its place grew an overwhelming madness.
“Knowledge Manager! What should we…?”
“Th-that…!”
When their colleagues realized something was wrong, it was already too late. The Knowledge Manager was no longer there.
Only victims enslaved by the icy grip of the demon remained.
“AAAAAHH!”
“AAAHH!”
As the Knowledge Manager turned into a slave of the demon, another monster outside the Situation Room entered. With golden fur and black stripes, horns on its head, the creature attacked those restraining the biomechanical organism.
Every time its sharp claws flashed, Cultists poured blood and fell. As their comrades fell one by one, the restraints on the biomechanical organism did not last long.
Two monsters brutally tore apart the Cultists and a Knowledge Manager who had suddenly gone mad.
When exactly nine Cultists remained, the slaughter ceased. The bipedal monster approached a Cult’s computer and began tampering with it.
Meanwhile, the creature with eight arms absorbed the fallen Cultists.
This was no metaphor. The creature absorbed the life force from the bodies with its hooked claws. Every time its hands touched a body, it quickly withered away and soon dried up like a mummy.
The problem was that among the Cultists lying on the floor, some were still alive. Those who had been subdued with severe injuries also became sacrifices to the creature.
“S-stop it! D-don’t do thaaaaat!”
The creature’s hand reached a Cult whose legs had been severed. In agony, he screamed as he was sucked into the creature while still alive. One could tell how severe his suffering was even without hearing his screams.
When all was said and done, its body had shrunk to a third of its original size. The creature withdrew its hand from the Cult’s body, which was now reduced to a skeleton, and licked its claws.
The moment the dude aimed for fresh prey, the Situation Room floor shook. At that moment, both the dude touching the computer and the dudes devouring the cultists all stopped moving.
The vibrations rattling the Situation Room grew closer. Each time those dudes broke down the door, the vibrations were much larger.
The remaining nine cults quickly realized who was causing the vibrations. A creeping presence to end the nightmare-like time.
“Gr-gr-gr-gr-gr…”
It was a bigger nightmare.
[ZZZZ ZZ ZZZ ZZ (You’ve worked hard)]
[What hard work? It’s not like I’ve done this only once or twice.]
[ZZZ (Well)]
The Situation Room was a literal slaughterhouse. The smell of delicious blood wafted from scattered chunks of flesh and blood flowing on the floor.
They were all traces of the cultists’ spilled blood. In the corners of the Situation Room, nine cultists trembled without their weapons.
[I thought I might need to hide my belly.]
[ZZZZ ZZZZZ ZZ (Thank you. Well done)]
This spaceship will come in handy when we leave the planet. Since there’s no immediate need to decompose, I’m going to hide it somewhere.
“But I’ll need crew members to manage it.”
I activated the ‘morphological organ’ after a long time. One of the five genetic information stored in my body spread throughout.
Located between my mouth and throat, the vocal organ was reconstructed based on the received genetic information, and the tiny holes in the synthetic scales, outer covering, and shell were ready to emit new pheromones.
I slowly opened my mouth.
“Come here.”
When the voice of the same race came out of my mouth, all nine were greatly surprised. Their faces, which had been watching me, gradually turned pale.
Due to the pheromones of the morphological organ, they will see me as a cult. However, they will feel severe discomfort due to my size. They would never want to approach me, as I, who was a monster, had suddenly turned into a tribe that exuded an ominous feeling.
‘But they have no freedom.’
There’s nowhere for cult survivors to escape on the cruiser above the clouds. Like prisoners being dragged to the gallows, they came to me.
As I lay outside the Situation Room in the corridor, I implanted parasites in them. The first victim to become rancid and eat away at the tentacles was followed by others who listened well.
“Land this ship.”
“…Yes.”
I instructed them to land near the location of my nest. Cults with faces ashen as one began the cruiser’s coordination.
I’ve gotten a lot bigger since I became a junior. There was no significant change in length, but the carapace, which thickened due to the characteristics of the bone beast, and the wings, which were folded but still took up a lot of volume.
It was almost full even though I lay in the corridor instead of entering the situation room. I’m going to have to wreck the computer if I try to control it.
So I called PS-111 while lying down.
[ZZZZ ZZ ZZZ ZZZZ ZZ ZZZZ ZZ (I brought demolition because I thought it might be necessary.)]
[TL/N- Ok it is confirmed, that the mc can talk with PS-111 through telepathy, actually sometimes the author made them talk normally and sometimes through telepathy.. So it got a little confusing, from now on the mc will talk to PS-111 through telepathy only, unless it is mentioned that he used the mimic organ.)
[Thank you. More importantly, I need other tools that ‘Amorph’ is carrying.]
[ZZZ (This?)]
PS-111 looked at the loot held by the small arms on my chest. After hunting the members of the Temple Guard, he took their equipment.
Gallagon’s Claw sword, a type of reinforced suit made from gallagon scales, as well as miscellaneous armaments, are in my hands.
After fighting with Muriel before, the important equipment was separately packed in a backpack or something. Blood Raver, or High Priest’s Golden Spear, etc.
I am currently benefiting greatly from the ‘Divine Spectre’ I gained by preying on the brain.
I was thinking about bringing the equipment to the nest, but PS-111 seems interested.
[ZZZZ ZZZ ZZ ZZZ (Do you want something?)]
[I need a silver tool containing psychic power and genetic information of a specific creature.]
It chose Gallagon’s Claw sword. It picked up the weapon with his fingers and swallowed it whole.
Soon, the arms with sickle-shaped claws began to change shape. The black sickle was colored silver rapidly, and the thickness was thicker than before. The newly transformed figure looks very similar to the White Gallagon’s Claw.
It shook its arm once, with a new sickle blade in its part. A transparent blade made of psychic power pierced the wall of the situation room.
[I can now operate psychic power.]
It was satisfied with the traces of psychic power it had created.
‘I said it was a new model.’
Contrary to what it was saying lightly, the abilities it showed were by no means something to be taken lightly. Its identity is a mutant screamer’s intermediate terminal model. It’s like a prototype for combat weapons.
That is, it could be mass-produced.
I had heard that players were participating in the development of mutant screamers. Perhaps I could fight hundreds or thousands of screamers at the level of PS-111 when I fought with them.
‘…It’s unlikely.’
There was no screamer I’ve seen so far that had the same or similar power level as PS-111. If other creatures had similar levels to PS-111, players would have conquered space and stayed.
‘Find its superior model.’
When we found PS-111, his condition was not good. Thanks to it, we were able to reboot it as a friend of the Number 26, but much of the information stored in his memory was damaged.
For example, the operation when I first entered this planet, the strategic goal or so on. It didn’t remember. The top model commanding the intermediate terminal model knows it.
‘It called it Pyra Eleven.’
Commander-in-Chief of the Mutant Screamer. I don’t know whether he is a screamer or an android. While watching PS-111 and thinking about future plans, I approached the mother in the sky.
“I just looked up the computer and found some unusual information.”
[ZZZZ ZZ ZZZ (What information?)]
[I guess a creature presumed to be a Green Gallagon came here and returned.]
[ZZZZ ZZ ZZZ ZZZZ (Returned? Did he come out to scout?)]
[I don’t think so. It seemed like it retreated when it approached the close distance. It must have been trying to hunt.]
Rarely does a Green Gallagon with an aggressive personality back off when it sees its prey. Only when on a reconnaissance or when it meets a formidable opponent that he can’t handle.
‘Because of me?’
With a black carapace with a large build and tentacles, it could be misunderstood if the opponent is an inexperienced Gallagon. In the fine appearance, there is no difference, but seeing the cloud hiding, it will be no different from a black Gallagon.
‘I’m glad I didn’t fight.’
Around here, the White Gallagon faction with Adhai is still running the Odd Grad’s flock that has been there since the beginning. It’s unclear which force the opponent belongs to.
‘If any force gets to know me, it’ll be very guarded.’
And Gallagon doesn’t like having a strong opponent installed in front of him. We’ll have to get ready for a battle with Gallagon faster.
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HEL SCANS
[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Thala]
Join our Discord for release updates!
https://discord.com/invite/dbdMDhzWa2
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