Star Citizen Online: Isekai Edition

Chapter 75: The Battle, the Rise, the Fall (1)

Slave Crests of the Mind Flayers were rather peculiar things because all of them were enforced by the Elder Brain of the Mind Fleet. This was some sort of precaution and certain necessity, as the Mind Flayers experienced Slave Rebellions rather often.

Often than one would be expected from such a strict civilization that was built on slavery and had really a lot of precautions against such things. Unfortunately for the space eldritch squids, they were also very arrogant and loved enslaving Psionics and Psykers.

The more powerful they were, the better.

Such was the motto for many Mind Flayers, something that the elderly Grandmaster of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya didn't really understand, but whatever. In the end, it was their problem, and when he said it, he meant it.

Right now, Grandmaster Arsit Byrmellir could serve a few tens of thousands of Githyanki rising up and slaughtering the Mind Flayers en masse. Because the Worldships of the Mind Fleet Leviathan were enormous, there was a tremendous number of slaves on them.

It was a rather beautiful sight for the old member of the Asuryani, who spent most of his life combating this octopoid menace. Most of the slaves that managed to break free were of the Gith origin, which wasn't that surprising as they were Psionically most gifted among the enslaved species of the Mind Flayers.

The Gith were a race of humanoids who had been enslaved by mind flayers for countless generations. Some scholars and scientists claimed that they were once descended from humans, while others maintained that their original race was, in fact, unknown.

The most common theory was that the Gith were subspecies of Humanity that were changed too much due to the unstable Primordial Psionic Energy eruption on their homeworld, and thus, they drastically changed their species on the DNA level.

However, even now, there are some similarities between the DNA of Humanity as a whole and Gith, to such a degree that Gith is often subsumed as a subspecies of Humanity and one of its countless evolutionary branches.

After breaking free from their enslavement, philosophical differences led to a bitter internal conflict, which divided the gith into two main different races at constant odds with each other: the Githyanki and the Githzerai.

Nowadays, the Mind Flayers were often raiding their worlds and planets or ships to keep them as slaves, and at the same time, even during the slave rebellion, the Mind Fleets managed to preserve a large part of their population enslaved as only a certain part of their species managed to escape and establish their own factions.

Grandmaster Arsit Byrmellir observed the Elder Brain with glee because the Elder Brain must have realized the state of the slaves.

The elderly Asuryani Highborne knew that the Mind Flayers were keeping some really powerful Psionics and Psyker enslaved, and the very moment when the power of the Slave Crest faltered, even during that one millisecond, it was enough for the powerful Professionals to break it apart and attack their captors.

The Asuryani Highborne observed how countless Mind Flayers in the shops were being slaughtered, and a large part of the Mind Fleet Leviathan had been turned into the battlefield, which gave a golden opportunity to the Imperial Defense Fleet.

The moment when the chaos erupted on the starships of the Mind Fleet Leviathan, many of them were technically speaking indisposed and couldn't be used in confrontation as their captain and operators were either killed or were fighting against the rebelling slaves.

This window of opportunity was utilized by the Imperial Defense Forces of the Alaric Star Domain when Bashar-General Varathar Medes gave the order to use the full firepower of the Imperial Fleet and destroy as much of the Mind Fleet as possible.

Nobody in this situation really cared about the lives of the slaves, who were either fighting for their very own lives or just for vengeance. Those things were of absolute inconsequence to the Imperial Admirals and Generals who were tasked with the defense of the Imperial Territories.

In fact, even if the Mind Flayers were subjugated, it would be highly possible that their slaves would be captured by the Imperium and transported into the prison camps to serve as experimental subjects or various laboratories.

The scientist of the Phoenix Imperium always needed Psionically gifted species so they could advance the evolution of the Asuryani further, breaking the limits of their species and perfecting the genetic engineering of the Empire.

So, in the end, they didn't care about some slaves because their lives were no concern to the Imperium. They served their purpose rather well because if not for inciting the potential rebellion of the slaves, then they would not have bothered themselves with taking the Giths into the equation.

Such was the cruel world of weak and strong.

In the end, everything worked as the Imperials predicted, and a furious barrage from the Imperial Starships was targeting hundreds of vessels of the Mind Fleet Leviathan, which were incapable of defense for one reason or another.

In a split of a second, the Mind Flayers were sustaining tremendous losses with each passing second; with each barrage that was fired from the Imperial canon, several vessels of the Mind Fleet Leviathan exploded into violent fireworks, which attracted the attention of the Elder Brain that was stretching at the leading Mind Flayers to quell the situation.

At the same time, seeing what was happening within the ranks of the Mind Fleet, it was clear that the invasion had been compromised and would most probably fail.

Just as the Elder Breain was about to attack the Asuryani Highborne in front of it, which proved to be as much a menace as he was powerful, suddenly, an enormous explosion could be heard and seen from the heart of the Mind Fleet Leviathan.

One of the Worldships has exploded into smitterness and took with it good chunk of the Mind Fleet Leviathan. Seeing the Worldship explode confirmed the silent win for the Imperial Forces, and it was also a signal that the fight would be much higher.

That was due to the significance of the Worldships to the Mindflayers.

Worldships were vast, planetoid-sized spacecraft populated by the Mind Fleets of the Mind Flayers and various groups that were attached to the service to the Mind Flayers.

Each Worldship is a self-sufficient, independent realm with its own distinctive culture, depending on the Elder Brain that was ruling them and each one of them was capable of accommodating miliosn of individuals with ease due to their enormous size.

Every single one of them was built from various exotic materials, mostly from the skeleton of psychoactive, crystalline Voidbones, whose structure extends throughout the gigantic spacecraft.

The real purpose of the Wordlships was to transport the entire industrial prowess of the Mind Fleet from one place to another. As the Mind Flayers were essentially behaving like a locust, there were not many planets that were their permanent home.

According to educated guesses, approximately 95% of their population lived in these Worldships, that were filled with the Mind Flayer civilians, flora, fauna, factories and practically everything that the civilization could or would need to exist.

One could confidently state that every single one of the Worldships repressed the vital lifeblood of the Mind Fleet. If the Worldship was destroyed, not only the Mind Flayers would lose a large part of their industry, production capabilities, and other vital things, but also their population would get huge hits.

In the Worldship, it was the place where their Hatcheries were located, and future generations of the squids were being born. Destroying the Worldships meant end for the Mind Fleet, because slowly, but steadily the entire Mind Fleet would fall into the obscurity without the access to the new Mind Flayers.

With the Destruction of the Worldship, the Mind Fleet Leviathan was essentially crippled for the centuries to come, because they had only two Worldship altogether. The Mind Fleet Leviathan was a relatively young Mind Fleet compared to the rest of the Mind Fleets of the Mind Flayers.

Thus, it only had two Worldships with the complete structure and all the things that it needed to function properly. Unfortunately for the space squids right now, one of them was destroyed by some kind of inner explosion.

As the Grandmaster Arsit Byrmellir dodged several Psionic Energy Blades that were conjured by the Elder Brain and sent towards him with lightning speed, he was observing the happenings on the battlefield while also noticing that the Elder Brain was attempting to salvage the Worldship.

In fact, as long as the main course of the Worldship survived, the ship could be rebuilt under certain circumstances. Although it would come with a tremendous price, it was way better than just letting it be destroyed because then everything would be lost forever.

Obviously, he would not let the Elder Brain succeed and immediately appeared in the path of the Elder Brain, aiming with his sword at one of the tentacles as the sword he was holding burst out with the flames of condensed Destruction Energy from the Destruction Authority.

The Destruction Authority instantly destroyed the Psionic Energy Line that was created by the Elder Brain, as the leader of the Mind Flayers wanted to connect the Worldship together as some parts already started falling apart and stop the Destruction.

The Psionic Powers of the Elder Brain were extremely potent and powerful, so that it wouldn't be that much problematic for the Elder Brain to save the core of the Worldship, but this was now seeming mission impossible as the Grandmaster Byrmellir chose to act.

The Elder Brain had to begrudgingly accept that it wasn't a match for Asuryani Highborne Beyonder in terms of the destructive powers because the Destruction Authority as Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Ability was something that couldn't be matched by many.

Even among the other Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Abilities.

Still, the Elder Brain got enraged when it saw the sneaky Asuryani sending several balls of Destruction toward the Worldship, which was already on its last leg as the Psychic Cry of thousands upon thousands of Mind Flayers was heard by anyone having Psionic Powers.

The Worldship was destroyed when the core imploded from all the damage.

Instantly, all slaves on the Mind Fleet Leviathan that were still controlled by the Mind Flayers were dead as their heads exploded from the sheer pressure as the Elder Brain, in its endless anger and rage, killed every single one of them.

Perhaps as some sort of punishment for the slaves that rebelled... not like the reasons mattered actually.

Grandmaster Byrmellir chuckled at seeing the Elder Brain in a rage, executing the slaves for several reasons. Mostly because it would basically enrage the slaves who were rebelling, and they would fight to no end.

Aside from that, the fate of the slaves of Mind Flayers wasn't his problem, as he focused on the overgrown floating brain in the emptiness of space. With several attacks, he forced the Elder Brain to focus on him solely, as the Elder Brain was increasing the intensity of the attacks more and more.

Due to the series of coincidences, the Mind Fleet Leviathan was in terrible shape, and they could even search for the source of the Psion-Disruption Field that was still enveloping the entire Rylon Star System.

It was rather ironic that due to all of the mess with the slave rebellion erupting due to the very same Psion-Disruption Field that weakened the Slave Crest of the Elder Brain, Grandmaster's disciple was safe as the squads had more pressing matters on hand.

Because they were species that were very, very, very heavily dependent on slavery, they had slaves everywhere. There were basically no ships that didn't have at least a whole bunch of slaves to operate their spaceships and do things.

Grandmaster Byrmellir could count that approximately 5% of the slaves managed to break the Crest in the initial wave, which didn't really seem a lot from a certain point of view, but it was still an enormous number considering the overall number of slaves.

Yet the moment these 5% were free, they immediately used their Psioncis to destroy as much of the Slave Crests on the other slaves as possible before the Elder Brain started enforcing the rule.

That brought the numbers to approximately 20% of the slaves rebelling, and from there on, brutal fighting erupted between freed slaves against the Midn Flayers and Slaves.

'It's getting weaker... it seems that the toll on maintaining the Slave Crest and subsequent... damm, it must have suffered from the Psychic Echoes. It seems that this squid is not the smartest one around...'

Grandmaster Byrmellir thought, as he slashed with his sword once again and clashed again the tentacles of the Elder Brain when he realized the reason for the constant weakening of the Elder Brain.

When the Elder Brain killed all of the slaves in the entire Mind Fleet Leviathan, it created Psychic Echoes of the deceased, the deceased Psionics and Psykers whose resentment and negative emotions were projected to the raw Psionic Energy that was then acting as backslash toward the Elder Brain, as all of them were connected with the Elder Brain through the Slave Crest.

That was one of the main reasons why the Elder Brain never killed their slave on such a scale...

It was...

Plainly stupid.