Chapter – 04
The Primordial Mother
[The offspring of the Primordial One still possess consciousness.]
*
Eli followed the direction of the pheromones and found his way there. The two young Zerg followed behind him, conversing secretly, keeping their distance from him.
Unknowingly, he arrived beside a palace hall.
No Zerg stopped him. Eli walked straight in.
The first thing he saw was a massive stone statue, half-humanoid and half-insectoid. The beautiful face of the Mother Queen, frozen in a posture of attack, smiled with unrestrained arrogance. In her hand, she held an unknown energy body that emitted a soft glow. Behind her, densely packed rows of fossilized insect eggs were neatly arranged along the walls.
It was the Primordial Mother and her last batch of primordial Zerg, yet to hatch.
The inheritance records showed that the Primordial Mother was the only Mother Queen to personally incubate Zerg eggs. That meant that the powerful yet unstable primordial Zerg of that era were all her biological offspring. After her, the Mother Queens abandoned physical reproduction. The second generation reproduced extracorporeally, and starting from the fourth generation, they began incubating specific Zerg eggs, a practice that continued thereafter.
The task of racial reproduction shifted from the Mother Queen to ordinary Zerg. Mother Queens who did not give birth then had their mimicry split into female and male forms. The Mother Queen’s duty thus became focused on leading the development of the Zerg race.
From mere insects to a Zerg intelligent species, the Primordial Mother contributed immensely.
Eli performed an ancient ritual toward the Primordial Mother’s statue to show his respect. Only then did he circle around to closely observe those fossilized insect eggs, recalling the information related to them.
After the Primordial Mother fell, the Zerg were left without a Mother Queen and suffered a severe decline in strength. Numerous other races took the opportunity to suppress the Zerg. The primordial Zerg born of the Primordial Mother all perished on the battlefield, and the legacy gifted by their mother was also plundered and divided completely.
This last batch of unhatched primordial eggs had once been the hope of the Zerg race.
However, without the nourishment of the Mother Queen’s pure pheromones, they too gradually turned permanently to stone as the Primordial Mother died.
The Zerg endured several hundred years of humiliation, not regaining everything until the second Mother Queen was born.
These primordial eggs, having become fossils, were spared destruction and were ordered by the second Mother Queen to be returned to the side of the Primordial Mother.
These eggs were symbols of both glorious and humiliating history.
But why could fossilized primordial eggs, which had turned to stone ten thousand years ago, still emit sounds now?
Eli had already realized that the voices he’d heard upon arriving at the O’Laira Palace originated from these fossilized eggs.
No Mother Queen had ever left records of such a phenomenon. Moreover, it seemed no Zerg had ever discovered it either. Eli vaguely guessed that this might be related to his own ability.
Not only did high-ranking Zerg possess abilities, but Mother Queens did as well. In fact, the very first to possess an ability was the Primordial Mother herself. The prerequisite for awakening an ability was reaching adulthood. Before adulthood, everything was but a fleeting illusion.
The juvenile Mother Queen pinned too many hopes on reaching adulthood, and even knowing he had been injected with growth-inhibiting factors, he never thought of giving up.
Eli reached out and touched these eggs.
[Mother, mother, mother!] One voice in his mind became especially jubilant.
Hm? Did the fossilized eggs possess consciousness?
Eli hesitated, then placed his hand on another egg, continuing his test.
[Mother.] He heard a weak call, confirming that the previous one hadn’t been an auditory hallucination.
Wasn’t there supposed to be no signs of life?
Why could they still call out to him?
Eli touched the fossilized eggs one by one. The varying reactions from the voices confirmed his hypothesis from another angle.
They were alive.
They still had life!
These primordial eggs, treated as mere ornaments for ten thousand years, were not truly stones!
Eli turned to look at the Primordial Mother.
That’s right. How could the Primordial Mother, who doted so excessively on her offspring, truly allow her children to face certain death before they even hatched? This was perhaps her final contingency, a puzzle that remained unsolved during that era.
Perhaps they too could become the key to his breaking free from this deadlock.
Hold back. Don’t let them find out.
He struggled to calm his slightly quickening heartbeat, shifting his attention to the glowing energy sphere.
It seemed that every Mother Queen would take over the energy sphere from the Primordial Mother’s hands, symbolizing the transition of power.
But to the current Zerg race, it was merely an heirloom of a bygone era, an ornament of little consequence.
“Sea, can you take that down and give it to me?” Eli ran up to Sea, pointed at the energy sphere, and asked. “I want to take a look.”
A glowing energy body, nothing but a toy for the Mother Queens. Pretty, but otherwise useless. Sea quickly finished his analysis.
“Fine, but why should I help you?” The sea held no reverence for it, yet neither did it wish to simply obey Irai’s orders. At the very least, Irai would have to beg it a bit more.
Irai didn’t want to beg the sea. He turned to Ivan and tentatively made his request.
This young Zerg male was unexpectedly easy to deal with. In just a few moves, he took down the energy sphere and handed it to Irai.
“Thanks!” Irai was pleasantly surprised and decided to forgive Ivan for what he had said earlier. He took the sphere to an open area nearby and played with it himself.
The sea let out an unhappy scoff and sneered at Ivan, “How kind of you.”
“A broodmother who poses no threat—indulging her a little is no harm.” His silver-gray eyes, however, were not as indulgent as his words; they followed the broodmother’s every move intently.
A hypocritical pretender.
The sea was also observing Irai.
The broodmother had suddenly grown without any discernible cause—who knew if it wasn’t some backup measure left by the broodmothers’ heritage. Though they hadn’t interrogated Irai, the higher-ranking Zerg had already begun to secretly stay on guard, waiting for the broodmother to reveal a weakness.
The energy sphere was adjusted to a size suitable for Irai to play with. The young broodmother tossed it about as casually as if it were a bouncy ball. Toss it up, catch it; toss it up again, catch it again. The energy sphere was used like a rubber ball.
The dull amusement quickly bored the restless young broodmother. Before long, Irai aimed and threw it. The energy sphere returned to the Primordial Mother’s palm, resuming its original size and hovering there.
“There’s nothing fun here at all. Sea, let’s go play somewhere else!”
No weakness found.
The black-haired Zerg male looked displeased: “You want to run off to how many more places?” Yet he didn’t refuse. Without bidding Ivan farewell, he scooped up Irai and flew off.
Ivan remained where he was, opening a blue-glowing holographic panel and making several operations on it.
Before long, two teams of soldier Zerg arrived and stood by, awaiting orders.
“Thoroughly search Olera and eliminate any anomalies.” The elegant purple-haired Zerg male issued orders languidly, tapping at the panel as he added, “Conduct a full inspection of the eggs at the locations of all former broodmothers. If any signs of life are found, eliminate them on the spot.”
The Zerg were not prolific in offspring, but neither did they need eggs that leaned toward the broodmother. Clearly, this Second Corps commander had already received the full information about the broodmother’s mental upheaval from the sea and had a direction for his suspicions.
“Yes, sir!” The soldier Zerg scattered.
Ivan took down the energy sphere again, casually squeezed it—it deformed like putty at his touch—and then it returned to its original shape.
The energy sphere was no different from the first time he had taken it down. It seemed the new broodmother hadn’t played any tricks on it.
Was it because she was too weak, her nature suppressed, and thus couldn’t sense anything?
Or had she discovered something and chosen not to show it?
No Zerg could answer the young male’s questions.
*
Irai, who had said he wanted to go play elsewhere, grew drowsy halfway there.
The sea couldn’t stand seeing him so listless and directly had other Zerg send Irai back to his residence. The sea still had to settle the matter of the broodmother’s mental upheaval and couldn’t return to rest anytime soon.
Truly, he was indebted to the broodmother.
The guardian Zerg could only work on dutifully.
No way—when allocating resources this year, he absolutely had to demand several more energy stars! Taking on this troublesome broodmother had been a huge loss for him!
The elegantly dressed young Zerg male flew off, cursing under his breath.
*
[What are you?]
[A god.]
[There are no gods in the interstellar era.]
The response paused, then added an appropriate qualifier: […A fallen god.]
[Does a fallen god not truly die?]
[The body perishes; the soul endures.] The answer was brief and clear.
[So the soul exists in this form? It looks rather useless.] The young broodmother observed the fragment and commented mercilessly.
[…]
Irai had originally wanted to divert the attention of the two high-ranking Zerg by asking to play with the energy sphere.
But as soon as he took it, he discovered something peculiar inside—difficult to describe in words, for they appeared too ethereal and indescribable. Yet the tiny core within the energy sphere was different; it was the only concretely existing thing within. While playing with the sphere, Irai cautiously extended a psychic tendril into the core during the blind spots.
Then, a peculiar fragment appeared in his mental domain. The whole process happened so fast it caught the Zerg off guard. Fortunately, the fragment seemed harmless for now.
The consciousness speaking with him was the entity carried by that special fragment—a vague presence with no offensive power.
Irai kept poking at the fragment with questions: [Why are you inside the Primordial Mother’s energy sphere?]
Before waiting for an answer, he guessed wildly: [Did you make some kind of deal with her?]
[…I don’t remember.]
Irai grew curious: [Then what do you remember? Divine essence, name, your fall… Say whatever comes to mind.]
[My name is Boli. I am the God of Machinery and Delusion. I fell because of loneliness.] This self-proclaimed god had an exceptionally good temper, answering whatever was asked—though who knew whether it was true or false.
Irai thought for a moment: [God of Machinery and Delusion—I’ve never heard of you. Falling because of loneliness—does that mean you had no kindred? Have all the other gods fallen too?]
[When I was born, I was the only god still extant.]
Irai: [Are gods born out of thin air? Is it similar to how Zerg broodmothers come into being?]
[I was born from faith and the power of machinery. As for the broodmother’s birth…] The consciousness paused, then updated its data and answered: [The broodmother relies on divine essence to continue the spark and is born from hope.]
Divine essence? Irai searched through the heritage and found clues in the Primordial Mother’s earliest memories.
An arrogant, nameless species despised the low-intelligence Zerg of the chaotic era. During their campaign to eradicate the Zerg, the Primordial Mother turned the tables and killed them. Having awakened the devouring ability, she unsurprisingly absorbed their power—and perhaps their divine essence as well?
From then on, the Zerg’s rise to dominance officially began.
Truly a role model—the Primordial Mother was an unquestionable overlord of the Zerg.
[…] The consciousness, witnessing this scene, thought better than to speak.
*
[The unbalanced broodmother leaves behind a glimmer of life.]
