The Collector boosted its contractile muscle tissues supporting the glands in its bilespitter sac with concentrations of chaotic mana, thus increasing the muscular pressure unleashed and accelerating the acid delivery several times fold.

The main weakness of the Bilespitter was that compared to the Collector's Spine Spitters, the acid projectile was quite slow. However, with the assistance and incorporation of mana, this weakness could be subverted somewhat.

The acid shot forth in a line of bright green which splashed on the draconid's crossed arms. The draconid's magical energy, yellow in color it seemed to represent the mana affinity of Root, flared up, intensifying the [Guard] dramatically, mana particles infusing each and every muscle fiber until it was no longer the consistency of flesh but pure metallic ore.

To double down on a stationary defense was simply foolishness, however.

No metal in the known galaxy could ever hope to fend against the Collective's superacid. In terms of sheer offensive capability, the superacid was perhaps one of, if not the most fiercesome tool in the Collector's arsenal.

The green acid splashed across the draconid's muscular arms and immediately began eating away at them, the sound of scales and flesh melting away in bubbling sizzles filling the air. It did not matter if the draconid's arms possessed the most tensile durability out of any alloy on this planet.

The Superacid broke the draconid's arms down at the molecular level, and the acid was adaptive, constantly changing its structure to find a means to break whatever it struck down with the least path of resistance possible.

The result was that the draconid was left very quickly left without the upper halves of both of its arms, both of them having melted away into bright green goo. Scales, muscles, bone – all of it dissolved equally quickly.

Had the Collector possessed its sub-adaptations, the superacid would also have been self-replicating, expanding its reach the more organic matter it consumed until even a single drop could utterly disintegrate an entire human.

But for now, the damage was localized. At the very least, the acid was capable of halting any regeneration, completely numbing the cells it came into contact with.

The draconid looked down at its lack of arms, surged some magical energy into them, and saw that they did not regenerate. The draconid cocked its head once before it understood it could not heal and simply bared its jaws in battle readiness, its dorsal fin sticking out and charging up electrical energy.

This was not because the draconid was mindless, not recognizing the severity of its wounds. No, it was because it reveled in the fight, caring not of its lethal wounds so long as it could enjoy itself and fall while crashing against overwhelming might.

"Marvelous," said the Collector. "Your species knows the worth of battle."

'You are the one,' said the draconid.

The Collector felt the draconid's language through magnetic and electrical pulses emitting from the draconid's dorsal fin. From fin to fin, the signals were transferred, and the language, the Collector knew.

Not from the Collector's own knowledge, for it had not been able to extract memories from consumption for some time now, but because of the shard of light graced atop its head. It acted as a form of translator that allowed the Collector to connect with primally charged species.

Not that it was actually needed here.

The draconid tongue was akin to psionic communication, transferring pure mental intent via electromagnetic waves to the dorsal fin. This was a vocally unspoken language that made sense in context of the draconid species likely spending great amounts of time in aquatic biomes.

'The one the Exile has claimed,' said the draconid, its thin, beady black eyes peering at the Collector's shard in ever open stare due to a lack of eyelids.

'You are open to communication,' stated the Collector. 'I am here to extract information. Grant this to me and your death shall be merciful.'

The draconid growled. 'That is an insult. I will speak with you, Usurper, but you will never threaten me with a peaceful death lacking pain again.'

The Collector clicked its mandibles in understanding. The draconid species as a whole exhibited an immense battle drive and hunger that manifested in their culture. Likely, they were cultivated from birth to be fighters, beholding battle and all that came with it, things such as pain and injury, to not be things to be feared, but reveled in.

A wondrous mindset. A warrior-strain Collector utilizing the draconid specimen as a base would be quite compatible.

'Then it shall be so. I will grant you a worthy death, for I know well its value,' said the Collector. 'But tell me first.

What is it that your leader desires of me?'

'The Exile is among us most blessed and cursed,' said the draconid. 'Only he among us has been able to pass the Rite of the Fallen One and gain immeasurable power. The shard within his heart. He is blessed with might that makes him untouchable by death.

But only he among us is one accursed to never see a worthy end. The blessing that binds him grants that a peaceful death only shall he succumb to.

But you are the one. The Usurper. The End. This, the White Voice has promised.'

The Collector knew with the circumstantial evidence it had accrued that the nature of the entity known as the 'White Voice' was highly in question. There was the 'White Voice' imbued in the Collector. Then there was the 'White Voice' the Jotnar revered.

Then there was the 'White Voice' the draconids listened to, and the Jotnar believed the draconids beholding a false idol, with the 'White Voice' within the Collector also warning of false voices.

The Collector emitted its intent. 'This White Voice you speak of. Tell me of it. What manner of entity is it?'

The draconid opened its jaws wide for a moment, and then its body shuddered and convulsed. White light blazed out from its eyes, and then, a voice emanated from it. A physical voice that did not belong to it.

"I knew you would be able to gather the Shard," said the voice. "And I am certain you desire more. Answers from my children, you will not have further, but I will tell you this: if it is answers you desire, power you desire, battle you desire, then stay to your course.

Cross the Rift.

Come for the Exile.

Become the End."

With that, the draconid's body enveloped in blinding white light, accumulating a mass surge of magical energy that the Collector recognized as dangerous, forcing it to fly downwards. An explosion rocked from above as a surge of shot out light lit up through the Grain before fading away.

There would be no more traces of the draconid remaining. A pity that the specimen had suffered such an ignoble death, bereft of its own will and capability to choose a worthy end at the Collector's hands.

The Collector flew downwards to the location of its swarm, clicking its mandibles as it processed the sudden interaction. It only took a few seconds for the Collector to land heavily upon the snow, crashing up a surge of snow from all around it as its two pairs of red eyes gleamed red, eyeing the sight before it.

The goblin swarm had been victorious. The three elites Thokk, Goromir, and Kandak were circled over a draconid corpse, or rather, what was left of it. The physical integrity of the draconid specimen had been drastically compromised due to the purifying light blades the entire swarm now yielded.

The shards were highly effective against the draconid, and once its scales were shattered and its bare flesh exposed, the shards could easily impact enough damage to overcome its regeneration and explode it from within, reducing it to a puddle of white flesh, shattered scale shards, and miscellaneous chunks of viscera.

To be certain, the goblin swarm had not escaped unharmed. Far from it.

Kandak was three arms and possessed a gaping hole in his stomach, his one hand held against it to prevent his entrails from spilling out.

Goromir's back was hunched from a shattered vertebrae and he hobbled on one leg, his other one having been torn clean off. The Lurker spikes on his back were completely burnt, likely having faced the electrical wrath of the draconid's storm breath.

Surprisingly, Thokk was the least injured among them, having lost only but a single arm. Yet, the carrier unit seemed to be the most emotionally distraught, looking down and away, averting his gaze from the Collector.

The bleeding had stemmed from the wounds of all three elites due to the regenerative factor the Collector granted them via its Breath of Life.

Notably, the other goblins in the swarm were barely injured. The ones that were exhibited minor wounds mostly consisting of burns on their appendages or, in rare cases, black splotches on their chest from contact with a magically intensified electrical charge.

Likely, then, the Collector analyzed that Goromir, Kandak, and Thokk had defeated the draconid only among themselves, showcasing the vast difference in strength they possessed from before when not even this entire swarm could have hoped to defeat a draconid specimen.