It is quite obvious that the 'solid storages' was the orcs themselves. To each of the ships of the fleet arrived amphibious bot, inside which were several dozen orcs. They immediately began hacking into the ships' computers, simultaneously infecting their organic parts. The invasion fleet was in no hurry, and therefore 'analyzed the information' for almost a week, after which... suddenly went out completely out of the Reaper's control.

Such event finally attracted the attention of the astral entity. He tried to interfere directly with the computers, but found that he could not suppress the resistance of the organic part’s 'revolt'. After all, by that time, most of the organic parts has turned into a 'mushroom' that has its own consciousness.

As I already said, the orcs were one living being in astral level. They possessed a collective consciousness, and the more orcs became, the more powerful this consciousness became. In fact, it was the God of the Orcs. In Warhammer's world, this 'collective conscious' was subordinated to the Khorne God of Chaos, making orcs his loyal followers. But here this creature gained independence, which it was not going to lose.

The orcs fiercely resisted the Reaper's influence, completely sabotaging all his orders. As a result, having failed to regain control over the ships of his fleet, the Reaper decided to urgently start harvest, and then in a calm environment to deal with the 'infectious fungus'.

The first invasion fleet was only a small part of the entire Reaper’s fleet. Therefore, he allocated ten thousand more ships and sent them directly to the Citadel, planning to start clearing the worlds from the heart of civilization this cycle. Because that I had direct access to the Reaper's computer, so this plan didn't surprise me.

As soon as the first Reaper’s ships began preparing to jump, I contacted the Eldars and informed them of the impending attack. They took their duties seriously, so that within a couple of hours the Craftworld Yanden appeared alongside the Citadel, accompanied by the entire fleet. Compared to the Craftworld, the Citadel looked very small, giving an excellent idea of the quality of technology between the two civilizations.

As soon as the Reaper's ships appeared in normal space, the battle of the two armies began. The Reaper was not prepared for such a confrontation, immediately losing almost a tenth of its fleet. But after that, he finally awoke from sleep and personally began to lead his forces.

This time the battle was no longer a one-sided beating. The Reaper's technology was hundred times superior compared to the races of this cycle. Of course, the Eldars were still stronger, but even they didn't have that many spaceships. Just over a thousand heavy cruisers and battleships opposed ten thousand 'cuttlefish’. And the longer the battle lasted, the stronger the soulless machines became. The Reaper was literally concentrating its presence at this point in the galaxy, supplying his technique with an incredible amount of energy.

Meanwhile, on Yanden hundreds of billions of Eldar fell into religious ecstasy, praying to their God Atman. This God was a newborn by the standards of the 'celestials', but at the same time he had a huge psionic power, optimized by mathematical algorithms when it was created. Using the received Bahion, the God of Eldars attacked the Reaper with a crushing blow, burning out his astral body for many light years around.

For the first time since his elevation, the Reaper felt pain. It wasn't a pain tormenting his conscience. It was the real agony of a spiritual being's flesh being torn apart. No material torture could compare with this. For several hours, the Reaper lost consciousness, completely immersed in a world of pain and suffering. During this time, the entire second invasion fleet lost control and power, so that the Eldars were able to completely destroy it, themselves losing no more than one-tenth of their forces. And even then, the losses consisted solely of equipment that could easily be restored.

The souls of the Eldar, encased in the soul stones, remained intact. So, after the battle the stones themselves headed to the Craftworld to get a new body there. And the few Eldars caught in the trap of circumstances banally 'self-killed', in order to get a new artificial container in a few minutes, in which they were called by their brothers. Thus, it could be said that in this battle the Eldars won without suffering any losses at all.

When the Reaper awoke, he realized the depth of the ass in which he found himself. Twenty thousand of his ships were lost. Moreover, he had lost all his memory, which was contained in the cores of these ships, and it irritated him the most. The next battle against the enemy who had come from nowhere was going to be the final one, and he must win it.

The Reaper had awakened his entire remaining fleet of nearly two hundred thousand ships. He never used that power in a billion years. He wasn't going to give in or play with his opponent in any way. He even decided to completely abandon the harvest in this cycle. At the moment, he was only interested in the quick and final destruction of the enemy.

While the fleet was flying towards the galaxy, the Reaper himself was concentrating his astral body in the area of the ships' exit from the hyper-space jump. He was going to maximize the strength of his fleet, turning them into an invulnerable machine of death. Unfortunately, the Reaper didn't realize until the very last moment that I had full access to all of his thoughts and plans. As soon as he 'gathered his brains together', occupying a volume with a diameter of only a thousand light-years, I gave the command to proceed with the next part of my plan.

The zerg and protos hybrids used their own spaceflight technology. Psionic allowed them to travel huge distances in a matter of hours. In this respect, it was no worse than the technologies of the Ancients from the Stargate universe and much better than the technologies of the Reaper.

When the Reaper's astral body reached maximum concentration and merged with his fleet, an army of hybrids came into the business. No, they did not attack the enemy. Moreover, none of the hybrids did not come close to the fleet of Reaper closer than one light year. But in terms of the scale of the galaxy, trillions of hybrids were currently inside the Reaper's astral body.

After I gave the command, all hybrids used the power-absorbing technique they already knew. Only this time they drink from their 'donor' all the available energy, immediately storing it in special psi-crystals. In the future, these crystals were planned to be used for the rapid creation of the army, because they would no longer have a free source of energy.

The wild agony of the Reaper lasted only a few minutes, after which he was destroyed, losing all energy. At least he lost all power he gained using the knowledge of demons. The army of husks was left without control, and hybrids in a couple of days were able to find and destroy all the ships of the Reapers.

I should have been able to celebrate the victory, but I didn’t receive a notification that the game was over. I assumed that I also need to destroy all civilizations in this cycle, but I faced unexpected problems.

My 'employees' scattered across the galaxy, wreaking death and destruction. Only when they found out about each other's existence, they grappled for life and death, completely ignoring the remnants of the indigenous inhabitants of the galaxy. After all, they could not threaten them, while their 'allies' were not shy to snatch a piece from the mouth of an angry lion, and then pinch his tail and knock out his teeth. The heat of passion was growing by the minute. Moreover, the game figures began to make claims to me, arguing that during the conclusion of the contract, I did not inform them about the presence of competitors.

While my 'employees' were fighting with each other, the remnants of the forces of the 'unfinished cycle' united and made a common front. Moreover, within a month they were able to oppose the Eldar and Necrons, demonstrating technologies that exceed even the level of the Reaper. A week later, I learned about the destruction of almost a dozen Blood Moons, who decided to devour another delicious world. It became obvious that if this trend continues, I will risk to lose all results.

I sent shadow clones to investigate the situation and quickly able to find out that behind the unexpected turn of events were stood already known to me game figure John Sheppard. But I don't think he did it all on his own. There was someone else behind him. And it was not the Ghost or Cerberus.

The point was that, Sheppard played the role of a magician, taking rabbits out of his hat. He provided ‘previously unknown mass effect technologies’ to the new Citadel Council. Moreover, out of nowhere there were huge space plants capable of producing up to a hundred heavy battleships per day. Drawings for the production of ships were also provided in the finished form. And most importantly, the performance characteristics of the new created army clearly showed that the fleet of Reapers did not use even ten percent of the opportunities given by the Zero Element.

Unfortunately, I could not get close to Sheppard himself, because he became suddenly paranoid and communicated with the Council exclusively through the remote communication.

Unable to penetrate the enemy's plan, I decided to start tightening the screws of my allies. I contacted each of the game pieces and put them in front of the fact: either they stop fighting with each other and conclude allied contracts, or I declare them the losing side, after which they will automatically be 'thrown out of the game' and I will get their entire army. This threat calmed the irrepressible ambitions, and the game figures began to negotiate with each other.

The first union were the necromorphs and troops of Sarah Kerrigan. To be more precise, the demon contacted to the Kerrigan and suggested that she could use the Blood Moon Obelisks to supply the hybrids with psionic energy. The billions of souls encased in the obelisks produced enough Bahion. So, the psionic power of hybrids reached unprecedented heights.

Moreover, using the flesh of hybrids to create necromorphs, on the way out the demon received an immortal army of Necro-Zergs, each unit in which could at any time change its form to a more suitable. After such symbiosis all hybrids turned into a single organism of a mass of flesh, which could merge together or be divided into parts, forming individual pseudo-living organisms that have developed consciousness. This undead army was controlled by a living Queen of Zergs with good strategic thinking. Thus, although Kerrigan was nominally in command of the army, but all her power was based on the supply of energy from the Markers.

The second unexpected alliance was the peace treaty between the Necrons and the Eldar. Former irreconcilable enemies have found common ground in the form of Vritras and the new religion of Eldar. Immortal bodies, actually working on the technologies of necrons, and the philosophy of Buddhism, postulating the meaning of life in the achievement of Nirvana, made Vritras almost indistinguishable from Necrons.

The goals and ways of achieving these goals in the two camps were quite similar, so that in the negotiations the Eldars were surprised to find out that they now understood the necrons and were ready to accept their existence to some extent. Moreover, this feeling was mutual. As a result, Malikan and Janna Arienal came up with the idea of dividing the galaxy 'in half' and allocating their territory to each side 'for habitation'.

As for the fight against local intelligent life forms, it could be done together, since the positions of the parties on this issue were surprisingly unanimous. And here an interesting point became clear. Necrons have always had problems with a lack of psi energy. In fact, only their Star Gods could generate the necessary amount of energy. Therefore, all technique of necrons was sharpened for the most efficient use of resources.

On the other hand, the Eldars never saved energy because they had unlimited access to Warp's energies. Vritras body could produce a huge amount of psi energy, but could use it only with significant losses. After all, I didn't set goal of teaching Eldars for all those tricks with the new psionic that were available to me. Instead of using spells, the Eldars pressed the reality with bare power.

Thus, it turned out that each side has something that the enemy does not have. Therefore, there was a proposal to combine Vritras and Necrons in the form of one being. In this unnatural symbiotic 'organism', the Eldar was the source of energy, and the Necron was the control module. As a result, such a soldier became a psionic of incredible power, able to destroy the fleet of enemy ships alone or clean up a country or two on the surface of the planet.

Orcs did not have a common ruler, since their very nature forced them to divide into clans and fight for power with each other. But at the same time, the collective consciousness of the orcs almost gained awareness. The demon came to him with an offer that was impossible to refuse.

The Marker of the Blood Moon could give energy to the Orc God by making him a real person with great power. The orcs at the same time gained access to normal psi, which immediately made them serious opponents. Moreover, by partially turning orcs into necromorphs, the Marker gave them enhanced regeneration, allowing them to heal wounds in just a few minutes. It wasn't as impressive as the regeneration of Vritras, but it's still pretty cool. At the same time, although the God of Orcs retained free will, he acted according to the orders of the demon, because, having been deprived of energization, he would return to 'vegetable existence'. Also, the demon received another source of permanent income, because after death, the souls of all orcs went to him. I decided to call the army Necro-Orcs.

But not all orcs became part of this new army. Several of their captured Reaper ships encountered a hybrid army led by Zeratul, who had previously had a conflict with Kerrigan, which led them to decide to act independently. Zeratul initially wanted to use the orcs for experiment, but after receiving inspiration from me, he reconsidered this question and tried to use them in positive way.

The new orcs community gained its own collective consciousness when it began to worship Zeratul personally. In return, he supplied the orcs with the psionic energy produced by subordinate hybrids. Of course, this energy was not so much, but it turned orcs from stupid animals to 'advanced' intellectuals. Suddenly it turned out that the hybrid-enhanced psionic abilities of orcs are great for the production of various equipment. Moreover, the effectiveness of their weapons was much higher than the natural abilities of hybrids.

As a result, the Zeratul’s army took the path of becoming cyborg, embedding implants of incredible power in their bodies. A usual ordinary hybrid after such an operation became equal in power to the strongest psionics of the Eldar. Of course, this power was limited by the functionality of the built-in equipment, but in battle the main thing was the ability to destroy the enemy and stay alive, which was the purpose of the all equipment created by the orcs. The resulting army of Techno-Zergs was able to bring to the knees any enemy simply because of its strength and fighting power. Only vulnerable place was the factory for the production of implants, where the orcs worked hard whole day in the emergency mode.

Necrons and necromorphs, despite of all their similarity of their actions, were irreconcilable enemies. While Necrons destroyed life for the sake of 'world peace', necromorphs did the same for the sake of enslaving souls and milking Bahion from them. The maximum that the political correctness of these two sides was enough to delineate the habitat area and promise not to appear on the enemy's territory until the end of the game. In case of detection of violators, they had to be destroyed without warning.

The Eldars also did not seek to union with the necromorphs, as no one else understood that soul hunters do not have the right to exist in the same universe with them. Zerg and protos hybrids evoked too strong associations with the tyranids, so the Eldars did not dare to contact them, and the Necrons declared them as first target for destruction at the end of the game. As for the orcs, for both 'allies' it was a familiar enemy, and all they could offer them was a temporary cessation of total extermination.

Thus, all my recruits were divided into two camps. Necro-Eldars on the one side, and Necro-Zergs, Necro-Orcs and Techno-Zergs on the other. Anyway, the conflict between them temporarily stopped, and we were able to focus on our true enemy.

The confrontation of my army with the remnants of civilizations of this world lasted almost a year. During this time, I was able to find out that we are still facing the same Reaper. He had lost all his former power, but he was still an ascended being with great knowledge. It was he who helped John Sheppard, giving him knowledge and printing out caches of technology. However, all these could not help the pitiful mortals, only delaying their inevitable end. After all, nothing could compare to the hybrids' ability to reproduce and the Necro-Eldars’ ability to turn entire planets to dust with a single blow.

And so, the day came when the last stronghold of resistance was broken, and the pitiful remnants of the rebels said goodbye to life. I personally appeared on the battlefield and tore off the head of Sheppard and his comrades with my hands. And after only a few minutes my soul was pulled out of my body, and I appeared before the Judge of this Game, with whom I had previously held a small barter.

"Congratulations to you.” - He began with a dissatisfied voice, in which I could not hear a hint of congratulations. - "You destroyed all civilizations in this cycle, thereby preventing the harvest. But in order to become a winner in this game, you need to destroy the Reaper. You can consider this an additional task. Due to the fact that Reaper has lost all his troops, a part of your army will be given to him.”

“What?!!!” – I shouted in response, but the Judge only chuckled viciously.

"Reaper, Sarah Kerrigan, Zeratul, and the Blood Moon demon will be your opponents. While the Necron’s God Malikan and the Seer Janna Arienal will become your equal allies. If you can destroy your opponents' game figures, your reward will be a boost of your ‘Rating’, and your allies will have this galaxy to themselves until I decide to start a new game here. Your ‘Rating Battle’ will begin after exactly one year. Until then, the troops of each side must be located in a designated part of the galaxy and they are forbidden to fight the enemy. Let the Game begin!”

With those words, I was thrown back into my body. All the troops of my former allies immediately began to retreat and regroup. I only caught a glimpse of Zeratul, who quickly disappeared into the crowd. It seems that each game figure received a new task, because the Eldars and Necrons also began to gather in one pile, tensely watching their former allies. Alas, no one attacked us, and within an hour there was no sign of the hybrids, necromorphs and orcs.

After making sure that we didn't have any urgent problems at the moment, I appointed a meeting, which was to be attended by three game figures. I, Janna Arienal and Malikan took our places at the round table, looking at each other and mentally considering the dramatic changes in our status.

“So, I think you are well aware that our former allies have become rivals in the new game.” - I started my speech. – “I think you have a fairly good idea of your own forces and were able to adequately assess the level of enemy forces. I would like to hear your assessment of who is the greatest threat to us.”