Chapter 26: From the shadows (Part 1)
The moment of the preparation has finally come to an end as the day of the counterattack has started. Naiki freely uses his powers without concern; arriving at Theatre Admiral Shultzkov's flagship, giving a shock to the bridge crew as he does that. "Shultz let's spice things up! Send our guarding armadas assaulting their sectors!" Naiki directed to the Theatre Admiral that has been defending the frontline. Shultz immediately stands and gives his emperor a confident smile while opening a channel to the admirals. "All armadas under my command, begin the counteroffensive. Initiate search and destroy protocol! Show them the might of the Imperial Cybran Empire armadas can do!" all that hears him responded in sync.
The massive number of warships begins to move slowly on their target sectors. The three regents' armadas arrived; following Shultz's main armada at its back to their primary target sector. "The Empress?" Standing at the Emperor's side near the command table, Shultz asked him while Naiki is seeing the advancing armadas. "She is onboard ICS Electrosphere; that is with Ilya's armadas." The moment that Naiki answers, he feels the abyss creatures making their moves. The dark portion of space in front of the 2nd armada comes to life as the radar signature is painted with hostiles. A racking fire of dark bolts is fired at the cybran armadas. Shultz braced for the hit as it makes minor vibrations. "They haven't used those types of weapons against us before…" Shultz recovered from the brace as the armada counter fired under Naiki's orders. Naiki directly goes to the front of the bridge to see the abyss hosts, correcting every warship fire trajectory from the first shots using the mainframe link he has. Displaying a pattern fire for the armadas in combat, he marks the start time for the fellow crews.
The pattern fire started almost like the sound of rhythmic clockwork as each of them precisely follows it. Waves of laser salvo followed by precise infinity beams shot hit their mark, and a surefire barrage of pulse with ballistic weapons ended the approaching dark creatures. The abyss changed tactics by spreading its black mist miasma that is corrosive if touched by any materials including the normal metal volley crystal hitting the cybran warship's triple-layered shield systems. "Vexis, it's your turn…" Naiki watched the expanding miasma while psionically giving the green light for the Empress to take action. She immediately does the same with her dark matter mist, channeling directly from the ICS Electrosphere before igniting it into an electro storm, canceling out the miasma. The armadas continue to fight with the fire and advance tactic. "Sadly, we cannot use our big toys…" Naiki says to Shultz with him watching the other admirals perform their side of battle well. "I think they are batter to use as a last resort weapon." Shultz laughed a little at his statement. With the blockading creatures gone, they entered the abyss sectors only to find themselves being waited for.
Focusing his powers directly on the abyss creatures, Naiki hears a repeated voice echo psionically near the planet that the creatures are guarding. "I'll kill you…I'll kill you…I'll kill you!" The psionic voice is heard sweeping through the 2nd armada. None of them were even fazed by the voice. Eisenheart that is on his ship stands stoically with his crew in attendance. "Foolish creature, we have faced death many times. Even nearly fall at the Laylat sector. There is no easy death and there is no greater honor than serving the emperor and the empress!" The words of Eisenheart rile up his crew as they fired the first shot at the creatures. They reacted quickly to the shot and swarmed them hastily. Naiki gives a hand signal to Shultz. "Deploy the timed cluster burst torpedoes," Shultz ordered the armada to prepare the weapons. "Firing in sync with other warships, 2…1…Mark!" the weapons officer notices the bridge crew members. Shultz materializes one of Naiki's straw drinks from his inventory. He drinks the cold water coming out of the straw.
The light burst torpedoes exploded in their proximity fuses, sending a light chain reaction with the rest. The sector finally brightens up, nearly free of the dark creatures. Noticing there are a few scattered surrounding their main hosts randomly scattered in the sector, Shultz suggested his bold plan to Naiki. "We're going to split up and handle the main hosts. Leave this one to me and your regents." Naiki who hears it nods and is teleported to the Electrosphere. He sees Vexis controlling the single warship with multiple projecting consoles by herself; he believes she can do it since he did it before by himself. He only sits at Vexis's side since she knows where they should go; that is the strong reading of psionic energy at one of the barren planets. With their arrival, Naiki immediately teleported down to the planet followed by Vexis warping there. It has zero atmospheres and the gravitational pull is weak. "Vexis, did you sense it?" Naiki asked her. Before she even can reply; Naiki is thrown away by a dark liquid limb hitting him from the underground, it flung him into the sky out of the orbit. He managed to parry a part of it and slammed directly at the idle Electrosphere that is near the planet's orbit. Shaking his head off the impact, he watches Vexis fending it off by herself and loses himself to his wrath.
Returning the favor, Naiki crushes the limb to the ground as it shattered. A humanoid-looking creature comes out of it and strikes both of them using a dark crystalline spear emerging from the ground. Vexis uses her eternal flames and combined them with her dark matter bolts. She uses the same tactics that the creature uses, trying to skewer it from the ground. It managed to hit the creature, only to be split into another one as they both have to fight one each now. The psionic voice sounded off again. "Oh, shut up and die already!" Vexis shouted out of irritation while fighting back using her powers while dodging the projectiles using her warp. The other humanoid circles around Naiki, as if waiting for his response. Detecting Naiki about to use his electrical powers at full force, the humanoid back away quickly. Four hover shock canons materialize and he amasses the dark matter power he has; creating the exact sword that smacked Vexis back at Leviathan before that has an extended blade far longer than before.
He immediately bolted at the humanoid with lightning speed. The impact of his sword on the humanoid that parries it echoed to Vexis as she sees it while dodging the homing crystalline projectiles. She decided to use her phantom claws gauntlet that extended like a scythe blade, striking her foe down while her left-hand shoots out eternal flame barrages. Focusing all of his attack on its limbs, Naiki senses one of the host creatures in space has been defeated. The humanoid screeches in anger but was unmatched by the emperor's wrath. It started attacking him again; before the humanoid even can injure him, he powerfully side-kicked the creature as it flies out of orbit at a straight projection. "Oops, too hard…" he gives a short laugh and assists Vexis. Shultz that is finished killing the host on his side remains on standby. An unknown impact at the triple shielding unit disintegrates the creature.
"What was that?" Shultz monitored the outside of his flagship, seeing there was nothing there. "Probably just a fly…" He sits down at his chair while saying that; changing his focus on seeing the emperor and empress fighting at the planet's surface. "Ngh, they learned way too quickly of our moves," Vexis grunted next to Naiki as the creature try to imitate Naiki's sword with its crystalline. It surprises Vexis when it warped nearly above her trying to do a down-cut slice. She falls back with her acrobatic combination moves and warped near the nearby crater that Naiki has made. Then; it attacks Naiki with full force, spawning liquid spears that harden before impact. He shoots it down with his shock cannons. As the dust covered the front of him with him watching where Vexis is, the abyss humanoid warped at his side and managed to punch him. With a slice from the crystalline sword, Naiki holds it singlehandedly before receiving another punch at his jaw; making him retreat near Vexis. "Oh, finally they put up a good fight!" Naiki makes fun of the situation seeing the creature multiply to hundreds now while ignoring the slight pain on his jaw. "Darling, don't hold back this time!" Vexis grinned at him while letting out her eternal flame engulfing a portion of the top of the planet. Dusting off his clothes, he summoned Veles from his dimension. The flying mechanical dragon quickly swoops the creatures with its mouth and mincemeat them into pieces.
Vexis shouted out of thrill before throwing a heatwave at the creatures, Naiki follows shortly after by cracking the part of the planet they are battling with his electrical powers overcharging the shock cannons. The three regents watch both of them after teleporting at Lenora's flagship since it was the closest one for a good view. "Goodness these two, enjoying the thrill of battle too much…" Ilya says to Lenora and Layla. "Should we go down there and help them?" Lenora asked Ilya. Layla responded for Ilya while watching Naiki cut down the creature left and right. "I don't think so, using our combat suit; we might help them but it is best not to go down there unless master or Vex called us." Layla sits down at one of the floating chairs she activated. Vexis rained down dark matter spears to the ground, Naiki grabbed a few of them and throw them at the still spawning enemy. Veles munches away the creatures like it was his snack and directed them near Naiki and Vexis. "Besides, master and Vexis can fight even without oxygen. We need that since we are the normal ones and they are not." Ilya stated her point.
"Oy! Stop gossiping while we are fighting down here!" Naiki fumed at the open channel to his regents using his gauntlet while directing fire from Electrosphere autonomously to help him. Vexis joined the chat. "Or the three of you want to face off with us after we killed this abyss main host? Maybe letting you some of the fun at the virtual arena that Naiki has made at Seraphim Seven?" Vexis continues to dismember the enemy using her phantom claws. "Oh, they should! Since they cannot join us here." Naiki approves Vexis's suggestion while sparking an electro storm finishing off most of the abyss humanoid. Ilya arched back a little hearing those words with her tail as support. "That's it, we're dead after this!" Layla shouted those words with Lenora's bridge crew watching the two regents panic with the admiral giving a cough. Lenora only gives a worrying smile about the situation.
Naiki and Vexis laughed seeing their reaction using their psionic powers. With it thinned down to one, Naiki asked Vexis for a warp boost. Vexis picks him up and warped near the orbit of the one last humanoid. Veles keeps it busy trying to pin it down while waiting for Naiki to attack from above. Again, he bolted down directly to it like a lightning strike. Vexis warped near it and watches the impact that made another crater with the strong shockwave. With the body shattered, Naiki grabbed the dark sphere of life that the creature has. "Hmm? What's this?" He looked at it with Vexis arriving at his side, it has dark spinning liquid inside of it. Doing what he likes to do before, he cuts it. Vexis reads his mind say her piece while trying to hold one of his arms. "Darling, don't. Don't do it!" Vexis warned him but Naiki chugged the dark liquid down. "Eww, yuck…bwek." She let go of him, looked away, and vomited. Naiki tries to make up the flavor of it with the regents and Shultz that are still watching. "It tastes better than I thought…" He says it without a care. Layla could not hold the content that rise in her throat and ran off to the toilet. Ilya covered Lenora's eyes from Naiki's savage ways while she shudders.
"Master, clean up your mouth," Ilya stated to him with Vexis still recovering from seeing what he has done, Naiki does it and looked at Vexis. "What? you have eaten them before so it is fine by me to do it too; right?" Veles supported Naiki's words with a short gurgle. "N-not physically…I do it with my dark matter…and it is full of souls…" She cleaned off her mouth. She tries to hold the second feeling to barf as Naiki throws the sphere away. His irises did not change back to normal black as Vexis noticed, it remains red. "Darling, did you change your irises back to normal?" She asked him. "Yeah, I did. Why?" Before he receives the answer, Veles comes closer to him and showed his reflection. Naiki only remained silent for a while; trying to figure out how did that happen. "Must be since I can control most of my powers or that liquid…" Veles swoops away and returned to Naiki's dimension.
"At least we have won, right?" Vexis casually say it. Naiki shakes his head before a rumble at the planet starts picking up. "Back to the Electrosphere!" Naiki ordered Vexis. Both returned to the warship and warped the ship far distance from the planet. The planet exploded as the real main host appears before them. The shouting from the abyss creatures starts again. "You have to say that didn't you?" Naiki eyed Vexis who only returns a short low tone chuckle as both of them looked at the real main host.