The Foreigner on the Periphery

Dimensional Center.

The high-level Committee meeting, suspended due to the “emergency” among the Endelions, resumed.

The members connected to the virtual conference room one by one to project their avatars. To prevent intentional disruption or espionage, the system was designed to mirror their physical bodies exactly.

Thus, when the king who ruled the Endelions and served as their Grand Committeeman appeared in the room, the attendees were quite surprised.

‘Is that the aging Endelion we’ve only heard about?’

Only a day had passed, but there was a visible change in the king's appearance.

Thanks to proactive body renewal, her skin had always looked vibrant, but now her epidermis seemed dry and brittle, and the area around her single eye was heavily wrinkled.

Considering what her planet had just gone through, the cause of this rapid aging was obvious: an extreme level of stress unimaginable to other races.

‘She must have been heavily harassed both internally and externally.’

It was a stark example of just how sensitive the Endelion mind was, and how significantly their mental state affected their physical bodies.

If the supply of Talents had been stable, she would have undergone body renewal for cosmetic purposes alone. But given the circumstances, she was stuck with her current body.

“I have one request,” the king said.

The attendees were surprised once more by her subsequent words.

The Kavite at the head of the table replied in a strange tone.

“You want to move your planet near our territory?”

The Kavite asking this question had officially become a Grand Committeeman, replacing his kidnapped kin.

Since video footage confirmed that his predecessor had been turned into a meat bonsai, there was no longer any need to keep the “Acting” title. Not that they had any plans to mount a rescue anyway.

The Tentacle King gave the new Grand Committeeman a weary nod of affirmation. Looking at her, the Kavite thought to himself.

‘The damage those tentacle monsters suffered might be greater than we expected.’

The Kavites and Todds did not know the exact scale of the terrorist attack. The tentacles had avoided discussing the specifics.

From what they had belatedly gathered, the main thing driving the Tentacle King into a crisis wasn't material damage, but the psychological harm inflicted on her citizens—the trauma.

The residents of the tentacle kingdom were currently in a state of half-madness. They looked ready to drag down the king—the first in history to allow an invasion of their homeland—at a moment's notice.

There was only one reason a rebellion hadn't succeeded yet. It wasn't because they were at war. It was because no one was willing to step up and become the founder of a new royal family in this situation.

In many ways, the king was utterly exhausted.

‘This is a headache.’

The situation was tightening a noose around her neck.

Rumors about her dead daughter were threatening her authority, while an anti-war sentiment was quietly sprouting among some of the traumatized tentacles.

It was a public sentiment arguing that if the chance of getting hurt wasn't absolutely zero, they simply shouldn't fight at all.

The king was dumbfounded by these arguments, which were rooted in their uniquely self-centered idealism.

‘What absolute idiocy! Do they really think Asif-666 would even pretend to listen if we proposed a ceasefire now?!’

And now, as a result, she was forced to move their planet just to reassure them.

The king felt anxious.

‘Asif-666 must have predicted this outcome too. If gathering us all in one place was truly his intention... this is incredibly dangerous.’

This anxiety stemmed from the fact that she couldn't gauge the limits of what Asif-666 was capable of doing.

On the other hand, from the perspective of the Kavites and the Todds, keeping the Endelions close was not a bad thing at all.

‘Those tentacles will desperately defend the encampment for their own sakes anyway. There's no reason for us to object.’

The agenda was resolved quickly, and the planet, which had already changed its orbit to approach them, increased its travel speed.

After that, the topic they had been discussing previously was brought back to the table.

“The biggest issue is that the damage we've inflicted on the enemy so far is negligible.”

By now, all three races had taken turns suffering casualties. And this was before they had even engaged in a full-scale clash with the enemy's main force.

In contrast, the enemy's combat losses, as determined by the Committee, were absurdly low.

“We don't have many chances left. We must whittle down their forces somehow before they reach us.”

The enemy's bizarre tactic of moving their entire military force at once because they had nothing to lose was a massive headache.

After some discussion, the Todd acting as the Tax Collection Commander pulled up data on the screen.

“Then, as agreed, we will use ‘them’.”

The Kavite Grand Committeeman expressed his concern.

“They're essentially meat shields... if we burn through them all at once, won't it cause problems for us after the war?”

The Tentacle King sneered at his words. That idiot still didn't realize how dire the situation truly was.

“If we lose this war, there won't be an ‘after’ to worry about. We have no choice but to mobilize every available resource.”

Ultimately, the motion passed unanimously.

   *

“Has Father still not come out?”

“Yes, that's correct.”

Yumtus bowed his head as he answered Asiph-1's question.

They were nearing the fleet's final destination.

Just one more jump and they would arrive. To the Committee's headquarters, designated Dimension #00-001.

But at this point, their previous methods no longer worked. With the enemy's stronghold right in front of them, Minjun's fleet had run into a problem.

“This is the kind of problem we face crossing into territory where dragons don't live.”

It was an issue caused by the dragon population thinning out as they approached their destination, finally hitting absolute zero here.

Yumtus agreed with him.

“Truth be told, a major reason we made it this far is because the dragons acting as the rulers of our transit points tolerated our passage.”

A small number of them, like those in the Mining Guild, had tried to interfere, but most had simply left them alone and let them pass. Thanks to that, Asiph-1 had been able to capture a Terminal and use its facilities freely.

However, they couldn't use the same method here.

“Completely destroying the Terminal was a response within our expected parameters, though.”

In terms of ground warfare, it was a tactic equivalent to destroying a bridge located directly in the enemy's path.

Yet Asiph-1 didn't panic. They still held over a hundred and sixty children in their custody. He figured that his creator would finally deploy them this time.

However, contrary to his expectations, Minjun had said this:

“There's a better way.”

He had then ordered:

“Gather all the dragons on board and bring them to me.”

Following that command, the dragons had transformed into smaller shapes and marched in a line toward his room.

Their numbers had increased since leaving the planet where the Mining Guild was located. Even after Minjun's warning—or rather, non-warning—there were still dragons who had attempted similar tricks along the way. And the fate they met was practically identical.

Now, people were waiting for him to finish his business with the dragons. Meanwhile, the 158 Motherships were stationed on a planet in the transit dimension.

The Committee's attack came during that very opening.

   *

The enemy fleet approached from outside the planet's atmosphere.

At no point in the development of civilization had the range of weapons ever caught up to the range of detection. Minjun's fleet spotted the enemy long before they arrived.

When the radar picked up the fleet of eighty-five ships hiding in a distant corner of space, extreme tension gripped the command center. Energy readings indicated that each of the 85 light sources on the radar was emitting power on the level of a Space Mothership.

When the radio waves crossing the vastness of space succeeded in visualizing their shapes, Dell put on a bewildered expression.

“Aren't those old-model Motherships from before I was even born?”

As the Endelions had further researched and decoded the technology passed down by the primordial race, these models had become obsolete.

“They still haven't scrapped those and just kept them around?”

To be precise, they were the models the Committee had used during the last all-out war they fought—the war against the dragons.

After confirming this fact, Asiph-1 ordered the entire fleet to increase their altitude. And so, the two fleets faced off just outside the atmosphere.

His creator still hadn't emerged from his room. He didn't even respond to Asiph-1's telepathy, leaving it a mystery what he was doing in there.

The Pope, officially acting as the leader of the “people,” decided to just focus on his job for now. Nominally, he was the commander of this fleet. You couldn't exactly slap a mortal's title on a god.

Even as they closed the distance, the Motherships kept their gun ports wide open, aiming at each other and waiting for the right moment.

That was when it happened.

“What?!”

The number of light sources on the radar multiplied exponentially.

The launch bays on the enemy Motherships opened up, and countless small fighter jets poured out of them.

Leaving the relatively slower-moving Motherships behind, the fighters densely covered the void of space as they closed the distance.

A voice filled with tension rang out across the bridge.

“Enemy forces, thirty seconds until they reach artillery range.”

Dell clenched her fists.

The light sources on the radar inched closer. The visual representations of the fighters on the video screens grew sharper as well.

=“Prepare for artillery combat!”=

Asiph-1 glared at the screen with sharp eyes.

Finally, the bishop serving as the artillery officer shouted out.

“Enemy forces have entered range!”

As if he had been waiting for this, Asiph-1 commanded.

“Fire!”

Their own attack, which had a longer range, launched first.

A shower of light, like falling stars, cut across the darkness.

Buds of light burst open and bloomed wildly across the pitch-black veil. It looked as if a cluster of stars were collectively oxidizing. Indeed, every time an enemy fighter was struck, a miniature artificial sun was born, swallowing the darkness.

But then.

“What... are they doing?”

Someone muttered, unable to comprehend the sight.

Piercing through the flashing blasts of light, the small fighters focused their bombardment on just a single ship. They swarmed like flies trying to tear into a predator's corpse.

Their movements showed absolutely no regard for their own defense. They didn't even maintain a basic formation.

Rather than trying to build a curtain of fire to suppress their enemy and gain the upper hand, there was a palpable, obsessive drive to take down at least one enemy Mothership and drag it down to hell with them.

Of course, Minjun's fleet didn't just sit back and watch. The Photon Cannons they unleashed swept through the small fighters. Amidst the silent storm, light and shockwaves expanded violently.

And yet, the tidal wave of fighters never stopped. It was an assault that seemed willing to accept any amount of casualties.

Even watching their comrades get incinerated in the fierce crossfire, they continuously charged forward.

“My god.”

Dell muttered as she watched the spectacle. She had already figured something out.

“There's no way the Ancient Race would use a strategy like this.”

Missiles fired by the Committee's bombers relentlessly hammered one of the order's frontline Motherships. White light and heat engulfed the vessel as shockwaves exploded over and over again.

The targeted ship rapidly began to lose power. It was the result of the mounting impacts on the shield wrapping around its armor.

Naturally, all the while, the enemy forces were being shot down and erased at a rapid pace.

Amidst the chaos, Dell thought to herself.

It was a strategy where you gave up your own neck and all your limbs just to snap a single one of the enemy's fingers.

But what if the things you were giving up didn't truly “belong” to you?

“...!”

Dell voiced her suspicion to Asiph-1. It just so happened that the command ship they were on had closed the distance quite a bit toward the frontline clash.

Which meant they were now close enough for Asiph-1 to scan the minds of the enemy forces.

=“Obey!”=

The telepathic wave spread through the black void.

After a brief grimace, Asiph-1 clicked his tongue.

As expected, brainwashing didn't work. Once they learned that Asiph-1 had resurrected, they had reinforced the weapons meant to protect their minds.

But he didn't give up immediately.

“Even if brainwashing is impossible.”

Even if he couldn't completely hijack their minds, he pushed forward to extract any meaningful intel. He sifted through the fragments of thought leaking out from beyond the veil shielded by Magic suggestion.

As he observed them, Asiph-1's expression suddenly hardened.

“Damn it.”

He exchanged a frown with Dell, then...

Asiph-1 spoke.

“Just as you said, there isn't a single member of the Ancient Race among the ones boarding those ships.”

There were absolutely no Endelions, nor any Todds or Kavites.

“Then who?!”

Asiph-1 revealed the identities he had grasped through their minds.

“The ones on board... they're all prisoners!”

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