Gwen's figure stayed just as slender as usual, but a black and red suit covered her entire body from head to toe, raising her height by almost two feet, with the seam of her hood forming white teeth and the red color on the inside. At the same time, she felt her consciousness both blur and get amplified at the same time. Her sense of self grew muddy as she felt Alex's soul far more intimately intertwined with her than usual. As the reds of her suit gained a glowing hue and her eyes turned blue with bolts of lightning streaking through them, she felt herself becoming one with Alex.
At the same time, the moment the two of them appeared from the portal, the commander on the mothership was alerted.
The creature stood tall, at almost three meters high. It had a humanoid figure, but in place of its head was an octopus with eight large tentacles coming out of its head, inserted into eight individual terminals, made uniquely to work with the nature of the tentacles. Its two arms were working on a more traditional terminal, with a screen that it observed with its eyes. The creature was showcasing the limits of parallel processing by handling multiple completely different tasks simultaneously, without even needing a crew to help him command the battlefield. This was Alex's current target. One of the High Evolutionary's Commanders. The Harbinger.
This commander was the one who immediately shot down a laser at Gwen and Alex when they emerged, identifying them as reinforcements emerging from a spatial transportation method. That initial instinct to immediately attack was correct, but unfortunately, such weak firepower couldn't even make Alex flinch, even if it directly struck him.
It didn't show any outward response to the view of Gwen and Alex merging, but a somberness appeared in its beady eyes. At the same time, red words appeared on the terminal screen.
[Predatory Clades: Deploying…]
Back on the surface of the planet, Apex stood tall, looking at the sky as small ships flew all around. The ones on Sovereign's side were all gold, made for remote piloting with a consistent drone-like design throughout the fleet. On the other side, the Harbinger's ships were all varied in design, with all sorts of different creatures piloting them—the only common point between them was the OrgoCopr logo on their hulls. Looking closer, the fleet was being piloted by all sorts of creatures, humanoid or otherwise, all attacking the Sovereign's ships. There was a clear disparity between the two sides, with the fleet of the High Evolutionary constantly pushing back the Sovereign's defensive line.
More lasers shot out from the Mothership, aiming for Apex, but this time, they moved instantly, dodging the beam of red light and leaving a shockwave that cracked the ground. With arcs of electricity illuminating their path, Apex appeared on top of a ship and cleaved it in half with a wave of its arm that transformed into a sword. They also released ten thick bolts of lightning that accurately weaved between the ships of the Sovereign and struck ten other OrgoCorp ships, destroying their thrusters and electrical systems.
Leaping higher, Apex appeared on top of another OrgoCorp ship and released a crimson wave that warped reality itself and started melting the ships around him. Stabbing a spiked tentacle through the cockpit of the ship, Apex jumped off to another higher ship. As they continued their ascent toward the mothership without flying up directly to provide some support to the battlefield, a large hatch opened up on the bottom of the mothership, releasing large warheads that shot toward the surface of the planet. Apex didn't do anything and continued on its ascent as the forces of the sovereign released their defensive measures, shooting the warheads out of the sky with their ground turrets.
The immediate explosions destroyed a massive chunk of both fleets while also releasing a potent green gas that quickly started spreading through the atmosphere of the planet.
Apex noticed it and snarled, immediately calling upon the authority of the Reality Stone to prevent it, but paused before doing any of that and released a potent wave of Chaos Energy that permeated through their surroundings.
Why?
Gwen's consciousness was unhappy. Instead of using the Reality Stone, they went with the slower option that needlessly caused some of the gases to escape into the atmosphere.
Can't use the stones just yet.
The answer didn't particularly satisfy her, but she trusted Alex enough to know that he wouldn't needlessly hold himself back from using his full power without a valid reason.
Apex continued the ascent, and a massive dinosaur-esque machine got in their way. Its maw opened wide, and it released an intense sound wave that distorted the air itself in front of it and struck Apex head-on.
"What? Did you think sound was my weakness?" Apex's demonic voice had a hint of femininity to it, but it seemed to shake the mechanical entity in front of it into intensifying its efforts, directly causing smoke to rise from inside its maw as it overclocked the emitter. Completely unaffected, Apex wrapped a thick tentacle around the creature and crushed it into a pile of debris while using the flying creature's remaining momentum to thrust themselves upward, destroying any OrgoCorp ships that were encountered on the way and using them to propel themselves further higher.
As they drew closer to the mothership, more of those creatures started appearing in their path, releasing the same kind of attack in an attempt to probe. Of course, the sonic attacks did nothing more than mildly annoy them.
Suddenly, barely a few miles from the main ship, exactly a hundred glowing orbs appeared out of nowhere, surrounding Apex's slender figure. Feeling the presence of magic within them, Apex's white eyes under the hood narrowed, and they cast a Chaos Magic spell.
Feeling the drain on their Chaos Energy reserves without anything happening to the giant floating orbs, Apex smiled predatorily as their ascent weakened and, under the effects of gravity, they started falling. There were no other ships around them aside from the orbs.
A pair of black draconic wings emerged from their back, with lightning coursing through them and lighting up the sky as they floated in the center, surrounded by the orbs that were still sucking away their Chaos Energy.
"Our power comes from the Source of Chaos itself; your measly efforts are pulling drops from an ocean."
Their announcement was followed by a hundred tentacles bursting out simultaneously, intent on piercing through the hundred floating orbs. Before the tentacles reached them, the orbs teleported around, dodging every single one of the tentacles and spreading around to surround Apex further.
Gwen's side was once again tempted to pull upon the authority of the stones when the orbs dodged the attack, but Alex once again refused, continuing to shoot tentacles around as the orbs continued teleporting each time—their reaction time faster than even Apex's speed, which was a testament to the complexity and level of technology behind their creation.
Soon, the orbs had formed a sphere surrounding Apex, cutting them off from all directions. Every time they tried to get out of the encirclement, the sphere simply moved around, continuing to siphon their Chaos Energy to sustain the consumption.
Far from being annoyed, Apex crackled with mad laughter, seeming incredibly amused by the situation as they gathered lightning in the clouds.
"Let's try this on for size," they said, only for hundreds of bolts of lightning to strike down from the sky, completely enveloping the orbs in a blinding white glow for a moment. The discharge from the clouds overcharged the red lightning coursing through Apex's suit, intensifying it enough to sear one's eyes if one looked for too long. Unfortunately, the orbs seemed truly resilient to any form of energy-based attacks, going so far as to absorb even the lightning to power themselves.
Feeling mildly annoyed at the drones' resilience, Apex stopped playing around and disappeared. This wasn't Gwen's old camouflage ability that had been enhanced by Chaos Magic, no. It was something far stronger.
‹Intangibility›:: Going beyond just camouflage, manipulate the frequency at which one's molecules operate to become truly invisible and intangible. Requires Level 7 Bond.
This was Susan's ability to manipulate the frequency of her body using ambient cosmic energy, and Alex's undeniably superior biological control and processing power, allowing him to take her invisibility to the extreme. Since Gwen already possessed her own Camouflage ability, he was able to piggyback on it to create something far improved. The only limitation was that he had to be completely bonded with the host's body to use this ability to its full potential, since intangibility required him to have control of every single cell of the host's body. Luckily, he'd recently formed the level seven bond with Gwen.
After disappearing, that wasn't all Apex did; they called upon another of Susan's abilities. ‹Psionics Manifestation›. As the spheres completely lost their source of energy and started looking around, one of them exploded out of nowhere. Starting with the first, a cascading effect emerged as more and more of the floating spheres were destroyed without the slightest resistance. They couldn't detect anything, even until the point of being destroyed completely. Within seconds, the battlefield was clear, and Apex reappeared, looking up at the mothership with a sense of hunger as the wings on their back flapped, drawing them closer to their destination.
***
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