“So why shouldn’t I join combat myself?” Nyon asked. Before him, the vanguards he brought unleashed upon the core of the Daeleen dragoons. The scatter cannons did massive damage to the armored dragoons. One single wave destroyed two dragoons and broke the shields of three more. The dragoons obviously tried to fire at the vanguards, but the vanguards were behind the zeolets and slayers in front so that they couldn’t be hit but their scatter cannons could go over the head of the friends and smash into the foes.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Assistant replied vaguely. “For now, trust me.”

Nyon smirked. Trust was something that didn’t exist in the tal’darim society. There was only order and obedience. Nonetheless he kept quiet. From what he saw Assistant was doing what was best for him. His only choice was to trust her.

“I never noticed vanguards are so powerful.” Nyon suddenly said as the vanguards unleashed another wave of cannons and took down a dozen more dragoons.

Assistant made a smirking gesture. “That is because you tal’darim have no tactics. Only fools put artillery units in front as vanguards.” She was right. Vanguards were usually armed with scatter cannons, which were incredibly powerful in general but especially against armored units, and were then put to the front of the combat to literally die. This was because vanguard pilots came from defeated ascendants, but nonetheless it was stupid. If vanguards were protected, as they were now, then their powerful weapons could fire more and do much more damage than if they were targeted and killed as soon as the battle started. Somehow none of the tal’darim lords thought about that.

Nyon growled. Suddenly he sense psi energy condensing, and one second later a destructive psionic storm landed in the center of the tal’darim forces. Plasma shields were torn apart instantly. The wounded stalkers and zeolets immediately retreated, but even so a dozen units were killed before they could get back. That was almost the number of total tal’darim forces lost in this battle. This was the terrifying power of a protoss high templar.

Nyon took a breath of relief. High templar and ascendants could kill each other in one shot. High templer’s feedback could ignite the ascendant’s psi energy and use it against him. He didn’t have any ascendant that could save his life. Ascendant’s mindblast could kill the high templar as well. If he participated in previous combats then the high templar would have the element of surprise and therefore an upper hand. Now he has the element of surprise. “Impressive. How did you know there will be a high templar?” He asked curiously.

“It’s in the information your received.” Assistant replied with no pride. She was literally a machine, and pride or ‘I told you so’ wasn’t part of her programming. “Now, kill the high templar. If she lives, we’ll have to deal with a carrier.” Nyon nodded and focused his energy toward the high templar…

Zeldi frowned as the psionic storm she used did less damage than she imagined. According to her thoughts, her attack should’ve either killed or severely weakened all of the units underneath, and her zeolets could follow up and wipe out the weakened intruders. Instead, the vanguards rained on the zeolets that tried to engage and pushed them back. Fresh zeolets charged forward to cover the vanguards and slayers blinked into positions. Everything was as if she never used the storm at all. The bruised units were recovering their shields.

Well, let’s see how many times you can do this. Zeldi formed another storm and was about to use it when she sense foreign psi energy converging around her as if it wanted to rip her open. Ascendant. She cursed. She had dealt with ascendants before, and she knew threatening they could be if they had the upper hand. She assumed there weren’t any ascendant because if there were any than they would be in combat right now. She had no idea this ascendant had a certain AI as adviser.

Zeldi knew she was in trouble, but her experience saved her. The high templar let go of the storm and used the energy on strengthening her shields. The mindblast collided with her plasma shield, and Zeldi was pushed back into a crowd of zeolets.

“Order the vanguards to target the high templar.” Assistant suddenly ordered. Nyon passed on the order, and all the vanguards turned and faced Zeldi, who was struggling to recover. They fired without hesitation.

Zeldi knew she had lost. Even if she was alive she knew the facility was lost. She was too injured to pilot the carrier. Now she realized the ascendant had this planned out all along. She fell into a trap the second she came here from the carrier. But it was too late. The scatter cannons hit her body and melted her skin. Her emergency wrapping system didn’t work because Nyon blocked her signal. Previously he had to hide himself and allowed hundreds of Daeleem to escape. Not anymore.

The rest of the battle went on quite one sided, despite the fact that the Daeleem still outnumbered the tal’darim. The Daeleem were leaderless and without reinforcements. Nyon was able to unleash upon the enemies. Dragoons were mind blasted. Zeolets were shattered by psionic orbs. His melee skill also proved useful as he skillfully dismantled zeolet after zeolet. In the end all the Daeleem were dead, and most of the tal’darim were roaming the land.

Nyon stabbed the last zeolet in the chest until his body disappeared and walked through the field of broken armors and destroyed dragoons. On the device in his hand, Assistant showed no pride or accomplishment as she gave orders to Nyon, who then carried them out. Her tone was usual as if she didn’t accomplish something that seemed impossible. “Execute all Daeleem survivors onsite. Control and reprogram all mechanical units to your side. Go to the warp site, locate the carrier, and warp onto the ship via the internal Daeleem warping system. I can hack it. Once onboard control the carrier and wrap all units onboard. Speed up. The reinforcements will be here quickly.”

Nyon nodded and did exactly what he was told, an odd site for a tal’darim.

Minutes later, Nyon was walking onto the well decorated bridge of the carrier. The carrier could hold an army, but for now it was empty. The capital ship could launch thousands of interceptors at the enemies and had plasma shield that could deflect most attacks. The tal’darim forces Nyon had didn’t stand a chance if the carrier was able to freely unleash its firepower. That was exactly why Assistant suggested sneaking into the facility. First the carrier couldn’t attack the facility. Second the high templar piloting the ship would likely join battle herself, which allowed Nyon to kill her. Since only one single protoss was needed to pilot the giant ship because most of the work could be controlled by computers and the one protoss was dead, the carrier was left defenseless.

Nyon walked to the pilot seat. The computer rejected his psi energy, but the ascendant didn’t allow that to be a problem as he connected Assistant AI to the ship’s computer. A few minutes later the ship was radiating with red psi energy. Assistant altered the warping coordinates, and all of the tal’darim forces inside the facility, along with their prizes, were warped onto the carrier.

As soon as everyone was aboard Nyon wasted no time to bring the carrier into warp space. As soon as they were safe, Nyon assessed his prize.

The protoss facility was designed to build mechanical units, including dragoons, sentries, and immortals. The tal’darim took all the storages, including 500 dragoon shells with no driver, 250 disabled sentries, and 60 immortal shells. They weren’t much in general, but they were enough to boost Nyon’s forces. A carrier was also added to the arsenal.

Nyon examined his forces left. All 2 vanguards survived. The havocs were well protected as well and 4 of them lived. 307 zeolets and 65 slayers were left. Overall the losses were insanely small for the prize.

Nyon sat back, amazed. A while ago he was still a loser with couple hundred followers and no ship. The ship he came to the planet on belonged to someone else. Now he could easily arm a thousand units that were mostly powerful mechanical units. He also had a carrier that could wipe out armies. Carriers were rare among the tal’darim. Even the death fleet was majorly made up of destroyers and only had two dozen carriers because the tal’darim had no production and had to rely on looting to gain weapons. Among those carriers Ma’lash held half of them, which secured his position as Highlord. Nyon knew his carrier could make him a powerful member on the chain, but he also knew none of this was possible without the help of Assistant.

Speaking of Assistant, Nyon’s mind flew back to the woman who programmed the AI that helped him become who he is today. The efficiency Assistant showed when she controlled his forces opened a new door to him. Previous all he knew was attack or retreat. Battles were worn by the numbers and the personal skills of the warriors. Never before had he being exposed to the concept of microing his units. If he took a few more engagements like this his way to Highlord would no longer be a dream.

But then again if Assistant was this powerful then how powerful would Jean Turner be? Nyon imagined what would happen if Jean really wanted him dead. Could he fight her or even escape? The answer was no. If he betrayed her then he was sure what happened today would happen on himself, the only difference was he would be the side being slaughtered.

Nyon silently made up his mind not to betray Jean...Even if he did, he would make sure Jean was truly doomed first before acting.