Dehaka woke up and felt himself being dragged along. He tried to look up and move his body, and found himself restrained and surrounded. The sound of metal clicking drew his attention to the two lines of metal creatures around him. They were slightly smaller than the machines that brought so much pain on him, and they were dragging him forward. He, subconsciously, tried to stand up, to resist, but it didn’t take him long to realize his arms and legs were tied together by some metal tool. His primal strength wasn’t enough to break through terran technology. Plus, even if he could, the five machines that attacked him before were around as well. If he couldn’t defeat them before, there was no way for him, now heavily wounded and restrained, to escape.

Agh, technology. Dehaka silently swore he would never underestimate the power of technology ever again. First the invaders with those shiny blades. Now these invaders with metal tools. Is physical strength really this useless?

Spirit lower than ever, Dehaka made another desperate attempt to break free. No result. Almost giving up, he laid back and wondered what was happening. Since when did the primal become so attractive? Who were these metal creatures and why were they after him? How were they related to the first group of intruders? Then again this will no longer matter. His chance of surviving was as low as chances get.

Growls came from beside and attracted Dehaka’s attention. Turning around, he found a several story tall monster. With blades the size of a hydralisk and feet large enough to crush zerglings, it was a primal ultralisk. No. It was a captured primal ultralisk.

The situation was even worse than he had imagined. That ultralisk meant Dehaka wasn’t the only one being targeted. Whoever these forces belong to they were after all the primal on Zerus. More importantly, these forces have the power to back up their plan. If it was Dehaka himself against that ultralisk he would need quite a while to kill it, and there was very little chance for him to take the ultralisk alive without taking severe damage himself. It was harder to capture a primal than to kill it. But the large hole on the ultralisk’s carapace told Dehaka this formidable foe was taken alive. The perfectly healthy metal machines, marching in two straight lines, told him that beast didn’t really put up a fight. Not one of the machines was wounded, and the filled lines meant not one of the machines was lost either.

This was really scary. Primal ultralisks were widely considered the ultimate weapon in primal packs. With heavy carapace and menacing size, they could change the tide of a battle. Even pack leaders needed a while to kill them. But this ultimate killing machine was easily dealt with by these machines. That means...

In reality Dehaka overestimated the Warden forces. The ultralisk was extremely unlucky, or else he might have put up more of a fight. The beast got sneaked upon by a goliath squad who, upon realizing the size and potential danger of the ultralisk, called for reinforcements. When the ultralisk realized something was wrong, it was met with four siege tanks, in siege mode, and four banshees. It really wasn’t a fair fight, and ten minutes later here it was.

Watching the ultralisk struggling and growling, both with no effect, Dehaka wondered what the metal creatures wanted by capturing primal? Why would someone do that? He didn’t think about zerg essence. Why would metal machines with high tech weapons be after zerg essence? It didn’t take knowledge of technology and the rest of the sector for Dehaka to realize the difference between primal zerg and Warden terran.

The two prisoners continued for a while. The situation was mainly silent, and the desperate growls from the ultralisk only made Dehaka more frightened. With higher intelligence came higher chances of being scared. Dehaka’s unusual talent in intelligence only made him more worried about his future. In contrast, the ultralisk, with little thinking, had no fear.

On the way Dehaka came across several groups of metal machines. Some of them were different from those that captured him and some were of the same type. Dehaka roughly counted hundreds of them, and those were just the guards and the scouts. Judging from his experience with these units, these forces were more than enough to take down several primal packs. Dehaka’s heart sank even deeper. There was no way he could escape all these.

The two moved for another several minutes before coming to a halt. The Warden units dropped Dehaka on the ground.

Standing up, Dehaka found himself standing before a seemingly vulnerable creature that he had never met before. Dehaka, a native occupant of Zerus, had never seen a terran before. The primal ultralisk was dropped off beside him as well. As the ground shook, Dehaka’s fear reached a peak. He felt like this was where he would be executed.

However, to Dehaka’s complete surprise, the metal creatures simply turned and left the two with Jean alone. As far as he could see there was little protection around. All the metal machines have left. Looking around, no reinforcements could be seen. This place was empty except for the three.

Dehaka eyed the girl, who had her eyes closed unsuspectingly. If he could kill her, he might be able to escape before guards arrive. In terran form Jean’s psionic and physical power was concealed. To the primal, who scaled strength level via size physical strength, the slant body had no sign of power at all. Even a primal zergling was stronger than the girl was.

But something at the back of his mind told Dehaka not to make a move. There must be some sort of trick. There was no way the girl was as defenseless as she appeared to be. Maybe some of those metal things were hiding. Maybe they were just waiting for him to make a move. Maybe...Looking around carefully, he noticed the ground was slightly more red than usual.

What happened next made Dehaka more than satisfied of his caution.

The primal ultralisk beside him was somewhat stupid. It wasn’t an insult. It was a fact. The ultralisks’ intelligence was inversely proportional to its physical strength. The same could be said for most of the primal zerg.

Standing up, the primal ultralisk charged toward Jean, crushing everything in its path. Silently calling the beast an idiot, Dehaka stood back and watched and got ready. If the ultralisk was successful, which he doubted would be the case, he could just break free and flee. If the ultralisk was unsuccessful, well, he didn’t attack, so there was still ground for negotiation. The result was surprising and not surprising at the same time.

It was unsurprising because Jean, just like he expected, wasn’t as defenseless as she appeared.

It was surprising because Dehaka thought the defenses were those metal guards. He was wrong.

The primal ultralisk came to a screeching halt, as if it smashed into an invisible wall. Confused, the beast tried to continue its charge. Its four legs pushed into the ground, digging open four ditches and pushing its body forward. Every muscle in its giant body tensed up and provided energy to power the ultralisk forward. The combined strength was enough to move a mountain. Dehaka silently calculated and knew if it was him before the ultralisk he would be in some real trouble. He looked toward the figure, wondering what she would do.

Jean didn’t move, and the next second the ultralisk’s head exploded.

The headless primal stood there for a second before collapsing. Unlike their swarm counterparts, primal ultralisk’s didn’t have critical organs grown all over the body. A mixture of red and white stained the already bloodstained ground as the giant form hit the ground.

Under Dehaka’s shocked eyes, the executioner knelt down and started absorbing the essence from the fresh corpse.

Beside, seeing the blue essence entering the female body, Dehaka knew he needed to do something to save himself or he would be next.

“I yield...Spare me.” Dehaka growled, attracting Jean’s attention.

Jean, finishing the absorption, looked at Dehaka and tilted her head in consideration. A primal that could speak and argue logically was an odd sight. He could be of some use. “Why?”

“I locate other packs. Help you. Hunt them. Consume them.”

Jean was able to understand the primal. She considered the deal. For now her forces were searching for and hunting down primal using radars and scans, but scans cost energy and radars were expensive. A guide would be more than helpful.

“You lead me to other primal packs. I let you live. Deal?”

Dehaka was more than happy to say yes.