Not all of itself had agreed on fleeing through the wormhole. Perhaps as a result of the infection it had received, parts of itself had begun to splinter off. These splinters were not substantial in size by any means and were almost completely feral, but seeing as how up till now it had only been using mass assault strategies to take over feeding grounds, the main body that had been cut off was the real odd one out. Oddly enough, theses splinters seemed to have just one overriding goal; to reach a single system at all costs, without stopping to feed and, once there, to attack a single solitary planet and what was around it with a single-minded drive that the old Hive Mind could envy.

Zeyhris would have sent forces to intercept and devour the rebellious splinters, but right now it had to simply flee through the gate and avoid extermination. Whoever or whatever was in the system the splinters had joined together to take down had to fend for itself.

…

The UGN, or what was left of it that hadn’t been taken over by the menace from beyond the wormhole, had even more reasons to view the Arcadians as monsters. The beasts that were quickly taking over entire systems and firmly establishing themselves as the dominant force in the area had come from the other side of the wormhole that the UGN remnants had built, a wormhole that was supposed to lead directly into the soft underbelly of the Arcadian Galactic Commonwealth. Once the monsters began to take over, the UGN and its people began to burn with a hatred for their chosen foe usually reserved for White Supremacists, a decent chunk of modern Tumblr Feminists, Karens and IT workers.

It wasn’t enough that the AGC, those damned devils, crushed their once great alliance and made a decent portion of their former holdings into satellite states, now they had to send these twisted monsters to bother them as well!

“If only we had seen the danger posed by the AGC ahead of time and stomped them out! If only we were not so complacent and sure of our supremacy!”

If you think that they were saying stuff like that, you apparently didn’t read the chapters prior to this one. No, the UGN remnants were still hopelessly optimistic about their chances for success and blissfully ignorant about how royally fucked they were. If there is one thing to take away from this, it is that idiots who know they are idiots are bad enough as it is, but idiots who think they are geniuses are potentially the absolute worst type of leadership to have.

…

Arkhan joined the fleet and the numerous battle stations in laying into the encroaching horde of extragalactic nightmares as they advanced. As he dodged balls of bioplasma and globs of high-strength acid in his powered armor, he began to realize something.

The invaders were seemingly intent on taking him down first, and by ‘first’ I mean they were ignoring everything else in the system, including the fleet, the MSGs and MAGs, the numerous defense platforms and even the smaller space-fighters and space-bombers, just to try and take him down. He had to react fast to avoid the grasping tendrils and maws filled with massive teeth as he bobbed and weaved around, because if they caught him it would be game over for sure.

As soon as Arkhan caught on to the goal of the invading swarm-fleet, he and his creations hatched a plan. The fleet and the MSGs and MAGs began to take on a rather interesting formation, basically forming a kind of curved wall that Arkhan then began to move slightly alongside. The swarm-fleet followed him along the concave part of the wall, all while those that made up the wall laid into them with every weapon they could bring to bear. By the time Arkhan reached the end of the wall of guns, the swarm-fleet had been reduced in numbers by about 35%.

But this was not the end of it. Not by far.

Arkhan, after reaching the end of the wall, kept going until the last bio-ship got out of range of the wall of guns. Then Arkhan, as if to provoke the swarm and give them a reason to follow him, brought out two Nuclear Bazookas and fired them into the mass of bio-ships still following him. The explosions did a decent amount of damage for their size, them being scaled down versions of the ‘Real Mode’ weapon and all, but it seemed to do the trick and the bio-ships picked up the pace and tried to reach the speedy God-King.

To an outside observer with no knowledge of what was planned, what Arkhan did next could been seen as suicidal. He turned back towards the fleet of bio-ships and sped through the gaps between them as fast as he could, sometimes barely missing a tendril or mouth by tens of meters. But, once he had reached the other side, the bio-ships had once again followed him unto their deaths.

Arkhan kept just close enough for the swarm-fleet to not lose interest in him (not that they ever would, seeing as he seemed to be their only real target) and ran the swarms past the wall of guns again and again, with each pass diminishing the numbers of the enemy fleet by that much more until at last the only ship remaining to go after Arkhan was the biggest, slowest and most heavily armored motherfucker the swarm had.

No amount of fire had managed to pierce the beast’s carapace with even nukes barely leaving scorch marks. As the fleet laid into the massive beast with each pass it made, the realization that they would be unable to deal with the monster using their own weapons became all the more apparent. Drastic action would need to be taken, and taken it would be. When something in space was an enemy of Arcadia, when it absolutely needed to be wiped away with the full, unbridled force of Arcadia’s wrath, there was really only one thing to do, now wasn’t there?

With a kind of malicious glee, Arkhan ordered his fleets and strike craft to retreat and open the way for a double whammy of apocalyptic proportions. The countdown started, and Arkhan took his position. The massive leviathan slowly advanced towards him, its mouth open wide and its tendrils reaching for its prize, but once the countdown reached zero it suddenly had bigger things to worry about than devouring/assimilating Arkhan.

Two massive beams of energy slammed into the beast from perpendicular angles, meeting in a brilliant display of raw power as the creature was fried from the blasts. Two of the most modern updates to the Gryps Program had been stationed in and around Gaia, the capital world of Arcadia, and both of them had fired nearly simultaneously at the leviathan. The armored carapace of the creature now was a detriment to its survivability as the sudden rise of intense heat began to transmit through the shell and in through the open mouth of the beast. Almost like a massive and very unlucky lobster, the leviathan was being boiled from within and from without at the same time, and it fared just about as well as you would expect.

When the light faded, the massive monster drifted through space, its internal organs roasted past the point of being called ‘well done’ and to about the same state as a charcoal briquette. With that menace dealt with, Arkhan surveyed the battlefield and basked in his accomplishments.

Now all he had to do was wait for the armada led by his dragon waifu to destroy the last holdout of the invaders and he could proudly proclaim that his nation had once again managed to do the impossible.

He was not prepared for the news he got from said fleet, however.