Chapter 6 : The Void Invasions

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a ball of blood of human size floating right next to me, consisting of a thick mixture of crimson red and deep black liquids. There was one of such bloody balls above half of the tables present in the room and a few droplets even managed to reach my feet.

By briefly scanning the room where a few minutes ago 17 people were still standing, now only 9 seemed to have survived, me included.

Strangely, at the place where the balls of blood were floating, there was no corpse or gem remaining, like if they all disappeared. I don't know what happened exactly, but my instincts were right when I started to lose consciousness. If I hadn't held on, I'm pretty sure that I would have ended up like them...

Although I succeeded in calming the internal torrent the dark matter and the ghost caused inside of me, I don't think I fully succeeded in passing the third phase either. Optio Carceris told us the dark matter would have to absorb the consciousness on its own so that we could pass the 3rd protocol, but in my case it didn't go as planned, once again.

First, the ghost managed to contact me by somehow speaking directly into my head, then I myself managed to contact the dark matter by spreading thoughts in my sea of consciousness.

And in the end, we came to a ceasefire. We didn't destroy or absorb each other and I'm sure that it is possible to coexist in the same body. Although this solution works for the time being, I will have to find a safer and more stable way to solve this problem in the long term. I don't want to base my safety on a pseudo agreement between a human, an alien and a ghost. It sounds like the start of a bad joke.

If the ghost and the dark matter start to nullify each other again and this time I am unable to mediate them, it will be the end for the three of us.

[Seeing my people disappear without being able to do anything to prevent it makes me feel terribly sad...]

While I was lost in thoughts, Gladia's voice resonated in my head.

'Are you some sort of chief or leader for them ?'

[Not exactly, but still, I was the one supposed to protect them. Who would have known that we would end up trapped in those stones to serve as mere fuel for experimentation]

'If this can make you feel better, I'm in the same situation as you. And even though the Scyllas call the dark matters 'Holy Children' and they seem to venerate them, I'm pretty sure those 'Children' have no desire to be stuck in a foreign dimension and to be fused with an organic life form.

They are trying to force three different kinds of beings to merge and fuse to form a unique body and consciousness. From what I can guess, the specimen, me in this case, is the vessel. The black matter is supposed to reshape this vessel by either fusing with it or absorbing it to make it stronger. And you are supposed to be the consciousness, probably because of some skills that make your mind stronger than ours or your strong link with the Void, I don't know.

What I do know though, is that the Scyllas are crazy.'

Before I could get up to check my body condition, Optio Carceris appeared from nowhere and directly went to check the many balls of blood floating above the tables.

"Hmm... I see…"

Without giving an ounce of attention to the surviving specimens still standing and waiting, Optio just flew from one table to another. He took blood samples in small cylindrical containers, and checked every part of the room to not miss anything that could help him improve the third protocol for the next batch of specimens.

After what felt like a long hour, he finally turned his attention back to the survivors.

"Did you all successfully absorb the Netherite gem and its Consciousness ?"

Before I could answer, Gladia warned me.

[You need to hide the truth. I don't know why they are so eager to give me as a snack for the black matter, but you'll need to conceal me if you don't want us to get into trouble]

'I never planned to tell him the truth anyway, I've already failed the 2 first protocols and I'm not sure what they would do to me if they knew that I failed a third time'

After everyone nodded, Optio started approaching the survivors and covered them with his strange-looking smoke one by one. When he arrived in front of me and the smoke started to touch my skin, I felt scanned and totally naked both inside and outside, as if he knew everything about me.

"Oh ? Isn't it the Deficient One ? It seems that you are lucky today, in addition to surviving you even completed the phase without failing this time.

However your negative absorption rate increased again, hm..."

He scanned me from head to toes one more time before asking me.

"Reassure me, your black matter absorbed the gem right ?"

"I think so."

"You think so ?"

"When I touched it with my hand the gem disappeared, I vaguely felt something invading me until the black matter manifested itself and devoured it. So if it's not absorbed, I don't know what it is."

"Good, good."

Optio seemed happy with the result of this protocol. He didn't seem to care about the casualties at all, and he was probably even happier to have so much blood for his research later.

Without asking any more questions he just passed by and told us to follow him.

"Come."

We walked behind him until we reached the end of the room. We stopped before a circle platform on the ground, surrounded by four pillars of different forms and colors.

In the middle of the platform was a small step in what seemed to be a kind of gray stone, emitting a weak light.

Optio stepped on it, before turning to us.

"From now on, all of you are newly born Void Rifters. You have one day to rest before being evaluated, depending on how you adapted to the whole process you might receive a different rating.

We will evaluate your lethality potential, from low to medium and then high. This potential is the result of the 3 protocols applied to both your body and mind. If you are evaluated as a low lethality vector, your battle capabilities will be of the lowest in our ranks and you won't have a lot of room to improve. If you are evaluated as a high lethality vector, you might be able to become more and more deadly, until killing becomes easier than breathing for you.

Take this."

The step on the ground started to flicker, then nine little pieces of metal appeared out of nowhere. They started circling around our heads until they stabilized above our shoulders and started floating. They were about the size of a human eye, if not a bit larger. On their surface was engraved a strange emblem. The emblem looked like a kind of religious sigil, it was a half circle with both lines pointing up. It had the shape of a teardrop, with strange runes inside. The runes were so small that they were barely visible to the naked eye.

"These small pieces of chunks are your emblems, when the time for you to be deployed is coming, you'll be directly sent into the battlefield thanks to these little objects. They will follow you no matter where you go and they are all linked to your soul, so do not try destroy them to escape us, you would just harm yourself and still be sent to battle already half dead."

After explaining to us what those badges were, Optio added.

"I do not expect to see any of you again, so listen to my last piece of advice.

It does not matter if you die during your first excursion, you are already a part of the Great Singularity. You are now Void Rifters, and only by suffering shall you improve yourself. By surviving, shall you sharpen your senses. By fighting, shall you forge your body and mind.

And by dying, shall you join our Revered Mother.

Your contribution to the protocols will not be forgotten and your successors shall use the path you created to reach further ahead."

Those were the last words I heard from Optio Carceris before a sweet scent made me close my eyes and fall asleep, still standing on the platform.

___

The Scyllas have no humanoid features, they have no eyes nor do they have ears. They have no mouth nor do they have a nose. They have no limbs, and their whole body is looking more like a dense pack of smoke than an actual living being.

Their existence is etheric, and they fear neither kinetic nor energetic weapons. In theory, they should be impossible to kill, as their whole existence is linked to the Singularity and only the means from other dimensions can harm them.

As they themselves originate from another dimension, they do not follow the same rules as the humans, or any other organic lifeforms from this plane. Even if their link to the Singularity isn't as strong as the black matter, it is still strong enough for them to feel what is happening inside. Even if they can't enter the Singularity themselves, they can observe, feel, analyze, and protect it by other means.

And one of those means is the Void Rifters.

The plan is to create an army of loyal soldiers, all being superior lifeforms, from scratch.

An army able to travel to both the Singularity and the Void, able to survive in any other plane or dimension they might end up in, able to win against any enemy they might encounter, be it material or intangible.

Each Rifter is being improved and modified to its fullest, both physiologically and mentally.

If the Scyllas could make an army of those being, their Revered Mother wouldn't fear the Void anymore. And right now, they are very close to achieving their goals.

They have a massive variety of races and genes pools as specimens. During their previous excursions, they found a way to trap and capture a type of consciousness living in the Void. They designed a whole set of complicated runes to fuse the Holy Children with organic life forms from this dimension.

Everything is going well, and still they couldn't produce a single perfectly fused Rifter. Right now, all of their Rifters are only partially fused, and even if some of them were close to being perfect, they are still failures.

The Scyllas were confident that the time when they could finally end their research is close.

Unfortunately for them, fate decided otherwise.

Sitting on a throne made of the hardest metal present in the universe was a gigantic shadow, lightly floating a few millimeters above the surface of its throne. The shadow was not moving and still, its shape was flickering, as if a gentle breeze was blowing lightly and continuously over him.

Suddenly, another shadow appeared, breaking the meditation and calmness of his leader, the Scylla Primus One.

"My lord ! Urgent news ! We detected numerous hostile signatures, our researchers estimate their numbers at 5 legions of over 950 000 individuals"

"Sector ?"

"My lord..."

"What is the problem ? Speak !"

"They do not invade a sector, my Lord… We received the signatures from our Revered Mother system, four Void Legions are invading the Great Singularity borders, and one more, twice the size of a normal legion, is rushing straight to our Revered Mother system."

"WHAT ?!"

"We already sent all the low lethality vectors Rifters we had in stock to suicidal missions on their path to slow down their advance. We estimated that their sacrifice can at least delay the legions for a few months, giving us a bit more time to send support and strengthen our positions in the main system."

"What about the Revered Mother ?"

"Fortunately, she is fine and does not seem to be concerned for now. No enemies reached her system yet, but if our calculations are correct, the fifth Void Legion might be able to reach her in less than five years."

"This is no good, we are already so close to achieving the perfect fusion, to have true Void Rifters subjects. We cannot spread our resources between both research and the defense of yet another void invasion..."

"With all due respect my Lord, this is the biggest invasion we have to face since the ancient ages. If we do not stop it, there will be no need for Void Rifters as the Great Singularity will fall and we will all be gone..."

Primus straightened himself and flew to the big black ball, that looked like a mini black hole, in the middle of his hall. After thinking for a moment, he finally said.

"You are right, Legatus. As much as I want to finish our research to finally create the perfect army that we worked so hard for, we cannot ignore this invasion, nor can we neglect it either.

If we can't finish our research before the war, it is better to stop now and engage all of our forces to stop their invasion as fast as possible. Only by ending the threat, or at least reducing it enough, can we resume our work. Once our first batch of perfect Void Rifters will be born and our own legions will be ready, it will be our turn to invade the Void and definitely erase these heretics beings from the face of the world, once and for all."

Primus turned himself to face his loyal subordinate, Legatus.

"Give my orders, we are to pause the protocols research and stop all new harvest for now. I want you to open all our gates and transfer all of our military might and resources into the Singularity Mother system.

Summons the five best High Lethality Vectors that we have and promote them as field commanders, they may be directly assigned under your orders and command a corps each, Legatus.

I want all of our Rifters, no matter their absorption rate or their lethality vector, to go into the singularity and to be ready for an excursion before the next week. We'll form five assault groups as well, you shall use the last batch of newly formed Rifters to fill the gap between the 5 corps. "

"What about these new Rifters, my Lord ? We do not have time to maturate them, and it would be a waste of resources to invest too much in them during wartime"

"How much survived the third phase ?"

"Out of the 310 specimens, 117 survived the third phase and are still in healthy condition. 41 have been too badly injured during the process to be operational. 52 died, and we could collect blood and genes sample out of all of them. 3 races had no survivors and went extinct.

Those who survived have all been put into a forced sleeping state for a day before their lethality evaluation."

"Good, once they wake up I want all of them to be evaluated as fast as possible, once it is done make them join the rest of the army in the Singularity. Assign the hardest missions to the new batch so we can thin their rank as much as possible before the start of the real battles. As you said, we don't have time to train these new Rifters so let them learn by themselves in the middle of the bloodiest skirmish. Those who survive the first month of combat are to be sent to regular Rifters corps under the commanders of your choice.

As for the injured, send them with the low lethality vectors for the suicidal preemptive strikes to delay the Void Legions."

"Your wish is my will, my Lord"

After Legatus took his leave, Primus slowly approached the black ball and started to lower himself in front of it.

"Do not worry dear Mother, we shall not permit the Void to harm you. We may be at a turning point in our sacred quest but we shall end up victorious. Once the threat that plagued you and your Holy Children for so long is eliminated, we shall complete our own legions for you to finally be able to leave your dimension and step foot outside of your system.

For you to finally be free of those shackles, Revered Mother."