Intergalactic conquest with an AI

"Oh my～, what a clever little detective you are," Yssera's voice purred in their minds. It was teasing, mocking, and dripping with amusement as though she were playing a harmless game. Yet despite her tone, not a single one of Valxir's men dared to strike down the small insectoid drone hovering before them.

The reason was simple. These were no ordinary mercenaries; they were elite Tier Six powerhouses, warriors who had fought and bled in hundreds of thousands of battles across the galaxy. Their instincts were honed sharper than any blade, and those instincts screamed at them now.

It wasn't the insect itself that made them hesitate. It was the presence behind it.

Each of them could feel it... the immense weight pressing from somewhere beyond, the will that was using the drone as a mouthpiece. Presence alone would not have been enough, since many races had tools that could mask or amplify their aura, disguising their true strength. But this was different.

They knew because all of them had fortified minds. At Tier Six, mastery of stellar energy granted them not only physical power but also the ability to shield their thoughts.

They could shrug off most telepathy, block intrusions, and repel foreign influences. Yet this voice slipped past their defenses effortlessly, as though their mental barriers weren't even there.

The conclusion was obvious. Whoever controlled the drone was no equal, no peer. This was the hand of a being at least Tier Seven, perhaps even higher.

"No need to be so tense～," Yssera cooed. "I'm not here to fight. I came to make a deal. I can take you all away from this dreadful place. In exchange, you'll help me find someone. That's all. What do you say～?"

The drone fluttered awkwardly in the air, its chubby body wobbling, tiny wings buzzing just enough to keep it aloft. It should have looked ridiculous, even pitiful. Yet with that alien presence flowing through it, the absurd little creature carried the weight of a primordial beast.

Valxir's eyes narrowed. He weighed the offer swiftly, his mind running through every possibility. Refusal was foolish; anyone who could bend their thoughts so easily could snuff them out just as quickly. Acceptance carried risk, but risk was preferable to certain death.

"Very well," Valxir said at last, his voice calm but edged with determination. "We accept your job. I trust you will pay us properly for our cooperation."

He stared into the drone's cluster of eyes, searching for a glimpse of the will behind it. But there was nothing... only the hollow reflection of his own face staring back.

"Good decision～!" Yssera sang, her tone being totally gleeful. "Now then, follow me. I more or less know where he is～."

The drone turned and floated into the mist, its body glowing faintly with greenish light. Like a firefly in the darkness, it illuminated only a sliver of the suffocating fog ahead.

Valxir glanced at his men. One by one, they nodded in agreement, silently affirming their trust in his choice. His eyes shifted toward the lizardman nearby, but the warrior did not move, did not speak. He simply turned away, making his stance clear; he would not follow.

Valxir did not press him. Instead, he motioned to his own warriors, and together they advanced into the mist after the glowing insect.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the battlefield, Little Red fought on.

For what felt like an eternity, she had been locked in a ceaseless struggle against the swarms. Her dragon battle armor soared above the chaos, its massive frame gleaming with living metal that pulsed like the veins of a creature rather than the hull of a machine. The black mist clung to it, but unlike flesh or ordinary steel, the corrosive fog found no purchase.

The dragon's maw opened, releasing a torrent of plasma fire that tore through the night. The beam lanced across the battlefield, annihilating a Tier Five mutant in a single blast.

From the armored body, countless laser arrays activated, their beams sweeping across the swarms in controlled arcs. Dozens of hundreds of lesser creatures were cut down in an instant, their bodies falling like burning ash from the sky.

Yet even with such overwhelming firepower, it was not enough. For every abomination incinerated, ten more emerged from the mist.

All around the dragon's colossal body, winged horrors descended in waves, clawing and biting, seeking to pierce the armor. Their talons screeched against the metallic hide, sparks raining down.

But the living metal was far too resilient for such trash. Their claws left nothing more than shallow scratches that faded as the armor regenerated, knitting itself whole in seconds.

Still, their sheer numbers threatened to bury her. Like ants swarming a titan, they crawled and clung, their weight pressing down, their screams filling the sky. And above it all, the black mist thickened, as though the world itself wanted to smother her.

But while the swarms of mutated creatures could throw themselves recklessly at the colossal dragon that floated in the skies above, the same fate did not befall Little Red herself.

The reason was terrifyingly simple. The stellar energy flowing out from her body was as hot and unforgiving as a solar flare. Any creature below Tier Five that dared approach her was reduced to nothing more than drifting ash in a matter of seconds, their screams ending before they had even begun.

The stronger ones, those rare mutants with bodies tough enough to endure the heat of her aura, fared no better. She met them head-on. Her armored fists struck with the weight of meteors, crushing their skulls and carapaces in single blows.

Her claws tore through sinew and hide as if they were made of paper. Each kill drained her reserves, but she pressed on relentlessly, her movements fueled by the will to endure. Fighting like this consumed her internal batteries far too quickly, yet she held back just enough stellar energy in case of a sudden emergency.

Again and again, she tried to break free of this cursed place, only to find herself buried under endless waves the moment she attempted to take flight. The black mist seemed to close around her like the jaws of a beast, preventing escape.

So she chose another path. She stood her ground, her dragon armor holding firm, while carefully concealing Rex's unconscious body beneath her protection. Her mission had narrowed to one purpose... endure until rescue came.

Far above, beyond the shrouded sky, the planet's orbit burned with distant light. Carlos commanded the allied fleet of one hundred vessels, his dreadnought looming like a leviathan among them. Below, the guns of the fleet roared, raining fire upon the planet's surface in an endless barrage.

"Fleet Admiral," came the voice of the musician general, carried through the holo-call. The man's image flickered, a glass of alcohol in his hand as though the battle was nothing more than an evening's distraction.

"We cannot pierce the black mist. The scouts we sent were swallowed whole, torn apart before they could even report. Whatever lies inside cannot be reached. What do you command?"

Carlos's expression hardened as Sharon adjusted the final clamps of his power armor, preparing him to pilot the Argos battle suit at a moment's notice.

"We keep the bombardment steady," he ordered, his voice ironclad. "Fire on the areas closest to the Cleopatra. Once every ten minutes. No more, no less. It is dangerous, yes, but it's the only way to apply pressure until we know more. Better to risk striking too close than to sit idle."

Meanwhile, on the surface, the Cleopatra fortress stood against the giant.

The great citadel trembled under the ceaseless blows of the black giant. Each strike shook the earth, each impact a drumbeat of destruction against the shimmering barrier of light that protected it.

The fortress's mighty shield, once thought unbreakable, had already been whittled down to forty percent.

Yet Cleo had planned for this. With the engines straining against the weight of the assault, there was no hope of lifting the fortress back into the skies. To force them now would invite malfunction or, worse, catastrophic explosion.

She refused to take that chance. Instead, she had diverted all power from the engines to feed the shield, locking the fortress into the earth like a turtle retreating into its shell.

The walls of Cleopatra thundered with gunfire, every turret blazing, every weapon unleashed in a merciless hail against the black colossus. The smaller weapons had no effect, just sparks of light against an ocean of darkness.

Only the rail cannon could reach it, its mighty shot tearing through the air, scratching and scoring the giant's hide. The damage was shallow, almost insignificant, but it was enough to draw the creature's wrath, enough to prove it could be hurt.

For those trapped within the suffocating black mist, the truth was undeniable: things were going from bad to worse. Each step drained them little by little, as if the very air around them was stealing their strength.

Their energies slipped away in steady trickles, too slow to notice at first, but relentless and inevitable. And as their bodies weakened, their senses dulled.

The world around them had turned into a choking abyss. It was like walking through the deepest trench of the ocean, where the pressure alone threatened to crush the spirit, and the only thing visible was the faint outline of your own hand, but only if you brought it close enough to brush against your eye.

In such darkness, the survivors struggled onward while their hearts beat with quiet desperation. They longed for something... anything that could guide them. A light to follow. A promise that they were not lost forever in this endless night....

And then, as if answering their unspoken prayers, that light finally came.