TCPUAAV Chapter 148

 

The planet Siyan was heading toward lay far beyond the borders of the Empire’s star domain. Just like the countless other celestial bodies scattered throughout the dark expanse of space, it spun quietly and unremarkably—completely ordinary, utterly inconspicuous.

 

Perhaps it was fear from past defeats that made the Holy Legion so cautious—they had gone so far as to bury their lair in such a remote and hidden location. In recent years, the high-order Zerg had formed a close alliance with the Holy Legion, and they too had concealed themselves on this insignificant planet.

 

If it weren’t for Siyan deliberately luring the Zerg into attacking Sikkim, using the constantly shifting wormholes they carved open and repeatedly analyzing their spatial patterns, it would’ve been impossible to pinpoint their exact coordinates.

 

The distance shown on the star chart was growing shorter and shorter. Siyan stared unblinkingly at the viewport at the front of the cockpit. It wasn’t until a gray-blue planet slowly came into view that he finally stood up.

 

“Adam, prepare for landing.”

 

Leaving only that command, Siyan exited the cockpit and made his way toward the lower deck.

 

In the lower deck, ten thousand cyborg soldiers stood ready for battle.

 

They had all once been on the brink of death. Through semi-mechanical reconstruction, their failing bodies had been restored to vitality. Now, not only did they possess extended lifespans, but they also wielded immense strength and were nigh invincible in combat.

 

The only drawback was that after their transformation, they had lost all sense of self.

 

Every action they took was governed by a chip—an intelligent chip programmed with a full record of their behavior and responses from when they were still alive, allowing them to mimic their former selves, as if they were still living.

 

But in truth, a single command from Siyan would make them obey without hesitation.

 

Just like those corpses found in the Palka Palace.

 

There were no gods in this world. No species could be both powerful and long-lived while also being endlessly fertile.

 

This was a truth Siyan had come to understand over the years—if one sought power or longevity, something else had to be sacrificed.

 

For the cyborgs, it was free will.

 

For him—it was life itself.

 

Siyan gave the order, and the still figures began to move, assembling their weapons with mechanical precision.

 

Meanwhile, he headed toward the storage compartment at the very back of the ship, where a statue was kept.

 

The towering statue, over ten meters tall, lay flat on the floor of the compartment, wrapped carefully in a dust-proof cloth. Only faint, undulating outlines were visible beneath the covering.

 

Siyan stood before it in silence for a long time. It wasn’t until a heavy shudder ran through the ship that he stirred again—that vibration meant the vessel had entered the atmosphere and was preparing for descent.

 

He left the storage room, issued a final command to the robot guarding it, then put on his military cap and strode with purpose toward the operations room.

 

At the center of the operations room, the main display was showing a live feed from the surface of the planet.

 

It was a desolate world, no doubt, but rich in mineral resources. Gray earth stretched beneath them, with fortress after fortress rising from the ground, each positioned to protect the others—clearly territory under the Holy Legion’s control. Around those fortresses, evenly spaced holes broke the surface—these were the entrances to the Zerg’s underground hives.

 

Now, with the invasion underway, several scout aircraft had already launched from the fortresses, and swarms of Zerg were pouring out from the hive openings.

 

In mere moments, the gray terrain was crawling with writhing masses of Zerg.

 

The sight of the lower-order Zerg piling over one another made the skin crawl. But Siyan remained riveted, a cold smirk tugging at his lips.

 

The battleship’s energy shield activated, and it hovered steadily in place.

 

The lower hatch opened, and the fully-armed cyborgs, having received Siyan’s command, surged downward toward the surface without hesitation.

 

Cyborgs matched robots in physical strength, but far outstripped them in agility and adaptability. The materials used in their reconstruction had been extracted from Zerg exoskeletons and refined into a new alloy—Volm. This metal possessed extraordinary hardness, more than double the toughness of the original Zerg shells.

 

Both sides had immense physical resilience and combat prowess. Both were obedient and unafraid of death.

 

The battlefield was a chaotic mess as the lower-order Zerg clashed with the cyborgs in brutal, indistinguishable combat.

 

But with superior weapons and coordinated tactics, the cyborgs quickly began to dominate the fight.

 

It was a massacre—an overwhelming few obliterating a countless many.

 

And the mastermind behind this carefully orchestrated slaughter was now leading a team straight for the central fortress.

 

That particular fortress bore a massive relief sculpture of an eye—the Holy Legion’s insignia: “The Eye of the Creator.”

 

The Holy Legion’s leader, Alfonso, had proclaimed himself the Creator. Under the banners of his lieutenants—the “Black Raven” and the “Messenger”—he had recruited countless followers. But in truth, he was a coward who cherished his life above all else, hiding away in a fortress on this far-off world.

 

Siyan had come here precisely to end him—and to cut off, at the root, the artificial breeding of Zerg.

 

Years of observation had taught him that, ever since the Zerg Queen had been destroyed, the species’ natural reproduction had dwindled. The numbers of the naturally-born Zerg had been gradually declining due to the ongoing war. At first, the abundance of lower-order Zerg masked this trend. But as time passed, the problem became increasingly evident.

 

That was why the high-order Zerg had turned to the Holy Legion—hoping to manufacture a new Zerg Queen and mass-produce the lower-order Zerg.

 

Siyan stood before the heavily fortified bastion and slowly peeled off his white glove—

 

His left hand had been fully mechanized. The mechanical palm folded inward, locking seamlessly with the arm. Where his wrist should have been, a gaping aperture now revealed itself.

 

That black hole-like port aimed directly at the fortress. A blinding light surged from it, and in the blink of an eye, a beam of energy tore through the fortress wall.

 

The “Eye of the Creator” was blasted in half, the remaining fragment barely clinging to the ruined facade.

 

Siyan watched as enemy fighters began pouring out of the breached fortress. He slowly, almost leisurely, curved his lips into a chilling smile.

 

This was a slaughter of the many by the few.

 

Whether it was cyborgs versus Zerg, or Siyan versus the Holy Legion.

 

On that gray-blue planet, the brutal battle raged for one day, two days—three days…

 

On the fifth day, Siyan personally crushed the throat of the so-called Creator.

 

On the twelfth day, he had slaughtered every last one of the high-order Zerg.

 

What followed was endless, monotonous killing.

 

The artificially bred Zerg, born of collaboration between the Holy Legion and the high-order Zerg, were simply too numerous. Even after Siyan had destroyed the breeding hives, the sheer quantity of Zerg on this planet still seemed infinite.

 

He could have bombed the entire planet and ended it all in one fell swoop—but he chose not to.

 

Instead, he led his ten thousand cyborg soldiers like tireless machines, killing without pause.

 

By the twenty-sixth day, the gray surface of the planet was layered thick with Zerg corpses. Only a few of the creatures remained.

 

But Siyan’s forces hadn’t fared much better.

 

Cyborgs, after all, were still human at their core—not true machines. Even machines wear down under prolonged strain, let alone human bodies.

 

Most of the cyborgs had completely broken down, their shattered forms indistinguishable from the heaps of dead lower-order Zerg. The few who remained functional were battered beyond recognition, their bodies barely holding together. Yet they had never once retreated—not as long as Siyan’s command stood.

 

Only when the very last Zerg had been slain, and all cyborgs lay in ruin, did Siyan finally collapse from exhaustion.

 

He fell to one knee, propping himself up with his left hand. The arm was now so warped from overuse that it had lost all semblance of its original shape. Frequent energy discharges had pushed it past its heat tolerance—the silver alloy had melted and buckled. His body was riddled with damage, jagged tears exposing circuitry beneath his synthetic flesh.

 

—Siyan had undergone even more extensive augmentation than his soldiers. Aside from his heart and head, his entire body had been replaced.

 

If not for the stabbing pain radiating from his chest, he would’ve thought himself no different from the mindless cyborgs around him.

 

With a ragged breath, Siyan issued a command to the robots aboard the ship.

 

The lower cargo bay fully opened. A dozen robots descended to the ground and cleared out a clean patch of earth. Then, from the storage bay, they carefully transported the massive statue down and set it upright on the newly cleared ground.

 

The statue, towering over ten meters tall, remained wrapped in a dust-proof cloth, its form indistinct.

 

Siyan dragged his broken body across several hundred meters, inching his way to the statue. At last, he reached it, struggling to take the glove from one of the robots and slide it onto his intact right hand. Then, with painstaking care, he tore away the ties holding the cloth in place.

 

The dust cover fell away, and the statue’s true form was finally revealed—it was a woman, dressed in imperial regalia. Regal and majestic, her gaze lowered, as if watching over all creation.

 

Anyone who saw this statue would recognize it immediately: it was identical to the Queen’s statue standing in the central plaza of the capital.

 

Utterly spent, Siyan slumped down, resting his back against the base of the Queen’s statue. All around him lay nothing but the corpses of Zerg and cyborgs. He lowered his eyes in weariness and pressed a kiss to the hem of the Queen’s stone robes.

 

The cold touch reminded him of the first time he had kissed her lips—frosty on the surface, but burning hot beneath.

 

A pity, he thought, that it had taken him so many years to understand.

 

Pain stabbed again through his chest, sharp and unrelenting. It slowed his movements and shortened his breath. Fighting the dizziness, he roused himself one last time and composed a message to Rong Heng, pouring everything he knew into it.

 

When he was finished, he discarded his smart brain, tilted his head back, and looked to the sky. The atmosphere on this planet was thin, allowing a clear view of the stars above.

 

Only then did he realize—night had fallen.

 

Leaning against the statue of the Queen, Siyan felt an overwhelming fatigue washing over him. He didn’t resist it. With a sense of quiet satisfaction, he closed his eyes.

 

The gray-blue planet fell silent. The warship hovered above, solemn and unmoving, watching over everything.

 

The battlefield was a graveyard of metal and flesh, Zerg and cyborg corpses piled high. In the midst of the bloodstained smoke, only the statue of Queen Farah stood tall—eternal as the stars in the galaxy.

 

Far away, in the capital star, Rong Heng’s terminal gave a soft chime, alerting him to a new message.

 

He opened it, blinked at the sender’s name, then skimmed the contents—his heart skipped a beat and a wave of dread surged through him.

 

He didn’t even have time to digest the complex data and intelligence Siyan had compiled. His eyes flew to the last line.

 

“Scatter my ashes at Queen Farah’s feet. In life or death, I shall forever follow in her footsteps. Let the galaxy and stars bear witness—Siyan.”

 

 

 

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and just like this it’s over… I think it’s sad that after all what happened… Siyan still didn’t change and kind of made the same mistakes again? (I don’t blame him, it’s just a very, very sad observation). He was obsessed with being worthy of Farah that he didn’t realize what he was losing, and now, he was also obsessed with revenge that he didn’t really take in consideration how his actions would affect his son (or perhaps he didn’t think he was worthy of his understanding and love and felt like he had already lost that previlege, so he may as well pay for his “sins”). He didn’t want Rong Heng to be involved, but there was no way he wouldn’t be…

 

At least now Rong Rong has found a loving family, but it sure is all a very, very sad affair, whether from the Empire/human’s side or the Zerg’s side…

 

Thanks for reading!

For every three ko-fis, I will upload a bonus chapter~