The territory that became the battlefield was only within the sphere of influence of the Goddess of Light Association, and only one civilization—the Goddess of Light Association—was destroyed. However, looking closely, it was a massive campaign that had destroyed dozens of planets and swept up countless people.
The war was over, but the tasks that needed to be handled piled up like mountains.
Elise happily accepted this task, which was also Lin Miao's order.
For the colony's growth and evolution depended on how they utilized and applied the spoils obtained from the war.
Unlike Kerrigan, who focused solely on combat, Elise actually placed greater importance on these post-war processing procedures.
“Gaia, how is the current sleep anesthetic state?”
Elise asked her sister, Gaia, about the current management status.
If the controlled servants became weaker, then the Goddess, who elevated her Divine Status through their loyalty, would also become weaker.
At the same time, if the Goddess weakened, the strength of those who received her divine protection would also diminish accordingly.
This was how the sacred civilization led by the Goddess strengthened and nurtured its members. It was not a one-sided relationship, but rather mutually reinforcing.
Now that the Goddess had been defeated, suppressing everyone was not a difficult task for the Great Devourer, which possessed several times their troop numbers.
“Confirming data.”
Gaia had already extended her massive, sprawling roots across most of the occupied territories without any interference. Through world observation and the hive mind, she was becoming the core administrator of the colony, capable of taking in the full picture of multiple planets at a single glance.
“Ten planets, 1,400 nests, and over ninety percent of the individuals are in a sleep anesthetic state, currently being stored and transported. Among them, about twenty percent of the individuals contain unknown types of power.”
Gaia took only a few seconds to browse and organize all the vast information, her response cold and flat.
Just as she said, at this very moment, worker ants were still carrying countless unconscious people wrapped in layers of spiderwebs.
Hestia's servants, scattered across all occupied areas, had been anesthetized, packaged like cargo, and then evenly distributed among more than 1,400 underground nests constructed across the ten planets selected by Elise.
As the price of defeat, they suffered a terrible punishment: receiving only the bare minimum of nutrient supply in the nests, spending their days in a deep slumber with no knowledge of when they might awaken.
But at least, this punishment would not last forever.
Elise was by no means merciful; she would not waste even a trivial amount of nutrients to feed these useless creatures.
“Begin screening from the individuals with the highest utility value, awaken them in order, and activate the Sacred Brood Nest.”
Elise divided these people into different grades.
Of course, these grades did not follow the old classifications; instead, they were reorganized based on how much help they could bring to the colony.
Useless criteria such as bloodline and social status were not considered at all.
The sole standard of judgment was the strength of the talent and holy power contained within their bodies.
After all, those who were already strong could provide assistance to the colony much faster.
“Order received. Releasing anesthesia in the following order: angels, Apostles, Commander-grade knights, and Bishop-grade priests.”
Gaia gave the order to administer the 'antidote' to those who were anesthetized, from Sealed Nest No. 1 to Sealed Nest No. 200.
...
“Ugh... cough, cough!”
Waking up from the Great Devourer's forced sleep anesthesia felt absolutely dreadful.
Consciousness returned first, followed by the death of the spores that had spread through the body, allowing the forcibly stiffened nerves and muscles to relax once more.
During this process, the dead spores were expelled from the body as waste. Even in a haze, one could feel a tearing, agonizing pain throughout their entire body.
In the silent, dark underground nest, screams rose one after another as people awakened from their anesthesia, struggling inside the sticky cocoons.
‘What is going on?!’
Meliodas, the earliest of his kind to regain consciousness, desperately forced open his blurry eyes and rubbed his face with arms that barely obeyed his commands.
His final memories were too painful to recall.
It had been the final moment where there was no retreat, and they had to fight to the death.
He finally fell to the spear of Yuno, a student he had personally trained.
After becoming a Great Devourer Legion Commander, Yuno's strength had grown by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, Meliodas had been unable to rest properly and was forced to fight continuously; the outcome of their duel had actually been decided from the very beginning.
Even if Meliodas had won, he could not have stopped the countless Great Devourers flooding in from all directions.
“Cough.”
Meliodas gritted his teeth, recalling the scene where Yuno had supported his staggering, falling body before pressing a mask-like object onto his face.
Just as she had said, Yuno personally defeated Meliodas and used the anesthetic to knock him unconscious.
The last words she left him with were that they would meet again soon.
At the time, he thought he was surely dead and did not understand what she meant, but it turned out otherwise.
He had truly woken up once again.
‘My body is barely moving, but... my limbs are still intact. What on earth is going on?’
He touched his jaw, which was stiff from a lack of movement over a long period, and then quietly looked down at his body.
Through a thin membrane, a faint sliver of light was all he could see from inside the cocoon; he was completely naked, without a single stitch of clothing.
With trembling hands, he pulled out the slender tentacles pierced into his skin one by one, enduring the pain as he stood up.
He sat up, gritting his teeth as he struggled to tear open the nauseating membrane.
Finally, as he broke through the membrane, stood up, and felt the fresh air outside—
“Hello.”
He saw a girl with sky-blue hair sitting askew on the cocoon that had trapped him, her legs crossed, smiling.
Yuno's eyes had turned completely red—from deep crimson to a pure, glowing red—as she greeted him.
“Am I dreaming right now?”
Meliodas could only react in this manner.
For everything he saw before him was far too shocking, bizarre, unfamiliar, and terrifying.
This colossal underground nest, large enough to accommodate an entire martial arena, had been excavated through solid rock by tens of thousands of worker ants in just a few days.
The only light came from the faint glow emitted by the tips of tentacles hanging down like stalactites. On the ground, a pool of sticky nutrient solution rippled, reaching up to the calves, with hundreds of cocoons neatly arranged across the water's surface.
Meliodas himself had awakened from one of these very cocoons.
Red tentacles and fleshy tissue covered the walls and cocoons, pulsing as if a heart were beating.
A faint, gurgling sound, like the swallowing of water, echoed from all directions.
“This is the Second Sealed Nest, specifically one of the topmost chambers. Meliodas, just as I expected, you are the first to wake up. After all, you are the strongest among them.”
Yuno, however, merely chuckled dismissively, pointing her finger at the cocoons.
At this moment, Yuno was not wearing her symbiotic carapace ant in its rigid armor form.
Instead, the symbiotic carapace ant clung tightly to her body like a thin, leathery layer, resembling a bodysuit.
“Yuno, why? Why didn't you kill us?”
Meliodas's voice trembled, completely overwhelmed by the atmosphere.
“You must know that this wasn't my decision.”
Yuno looked at his face and smiled bitterly.
Meliodas was already exhausted, his graying hair dry and disheveled, his face etched with deep weariness.
As a result, he looked much older than he had long ago when she had brought him into the Empyrean Star Guard.
“The reason is simple. If we killed you, we would gain nothing. The same goes for the Goddess.”
“Could it be...”
Seeing the upward curve of Yuno's lips, he instinctively checked the divine protection he had received from the Goddess.
The protection he had obtained long ago when he showed his talent and became a paladin should have vanished if the Goddess had perished.
However, the divine protection remained upon him.
“The Goddess was defeated and declared her surrender to us.”
Yuno murmured, looking at the others who were beginning to wake up one by one.
Meliodas stared blankly, seemingly unable to believe it, but Yuno did not even blink as she continued to spin her 'lies.'
Even now, the hive mind, including Elise, was monitoring Yuno's every movement and word.
As the price of becoming a Legion Commander, Yuno had dedicated everything she had to the colony; she had no other choice.
“Although the name of the Goddess of Light Association, which served the Goddess Hestia, will no longer exist, you can still continue to live while serving the Goddess.”
“I don't quite understand... but there cannot be no price. What will happen to us from now on? Are we still expected to go to new battlefields?”
Meliodas was also a high-ranking member and knew what he needed to know.
If a civilization was defeated by other deities, they had to pay the price of surrender.
For instance, their resources would be plundered, or their talented individuals would be conscripted.
The Great Devourer was completely different from the ordinary factions they knew, making it difficult for Meliodas to be certain. However, since they were spared, they would undoubtedly be utilized, so Meliodas's speculation was not entirely off the mark.
“Who knows?”
Yuno merely shrugged, however.
The Great Devourer's way of doing things had always been the same.
A small number of useful talents was one thing, but they would not go out of their way to mobilize a massive number of 'variables' as an army.
“Isn't it enough to just let them live?”
Yuno giggled as she watched the people struggling inside the translucent membranes, as if it were no difficult matter.
“Rebuild the cities, restore the farmlands and factories, reunite with your families, and live a peaceful daily life. Of course, such a life will be completely different from before. You must reside in places designated by us—or more precisely, by the Queen—and you must obey our orders absolutely.”
“And if we refuse?”
“Purge! The colony does not preserve inefficient individuals. Remember, the Goddess is already under her control as well.”
Yuno naturally brought up the fact that the Goddess was being held hostage.
If the servants committed a crime, the Goddess would be implicated.
This was an inescapable shackle for the loyal residents of the sacred civilization.
Of course, she did not mention that the Goddess's actual situation was far worse than merely being held hostage.
In any case, the Goddess had to present a merciful image of voluntary surrender, willing cooperation with the colony, and desperate efforts to save her own servants.
“Isn't this wonderful? Though you will be restricted in many ways, you will never have to march onto battlefields for the sake of Pioneering Zones again. Even if enemies invade from the outside, it won't be a problem.”
Yuno spread her arms, looking at Meliodas, who remained grim-faced and silent, as she continued:
“It is the colony's soldiers who will fight, not you. The Third Queen's tentacles and roots spread across the entire planet, the entire world, with workers and scouts scattered everywhere. The colony can see even the things that the Goddess herself failed to perceive.”
Meliodas replied, “To my ears, that sounds like nothing but tight surveillance.”
“If you view it as surveillance, that is far too negative. What if you view it as care?”
Just as Yuno finished speaking, the sound of something moving in massive numbers echoed.
Looking toward the sound, a group of people riding worker ants began to enter the nest.
Kane, walking at the very front, removed his Great Devourer mask and looked around.
In his eyes, the previous fear and wariness toward the unidentified monsters had vanished.
Instead, as a 'senior' who had successfully knelt to survive before the disaster struck, he only wished to guide these 'juniors.'
“Please cooperate with us, Commander. Although the people here in Nest No. 2 were once figures of importance, that is no longer the case. The Queen has already ordered that at the slightest sign of defiance or resistance, execution is to be carried out immediately.”
Kane recognized Meliodas, sizing him up from head to toe before taking out clothes from a large bundle loaded onto the back of a worker ant and handing them to him.
It was not just Meliodas.
The people who came with Kane walked through the entire cave, explaining the situation to those who were awake. If anyone had not yet fully regained consciousness, they directly tore open the membranes and dragged them out of the cocoons.
This was the moment when these people, who had essentially returned from the dead, woke up to begin a new life on a completely transformed land.
‘It is neither the "care" Yuno speaks of, nor is it "surveillance."’
Lin Miao watched all of this unfold on the screen.
Those who woke up were the servants of the Goddess Hestia, yet the Goddess Hestia herself was currently unable to move, completely under Lin Miao's control.
【Elise has officially begun resource management】
The message popping up before his eyes was correct.
They were to live in designated areas and engage in designated labor.
All energy generated from this would become nutrients for the colony.
Their actions would be strictly monitored, and if they failed to achieve satisfactory results, Elise would personally devise methods to improve their output. All of these processes far exceeded the boundaries of what people could typically imagine.
“Rearing.”
He murmured softly.
This was by no means simple colonial management.
This was a meticulously calculated and strictly controlled, planet-scale rearing.
More resources, greater power.
To this end, using the nutrients obtained from rearing these resources as a foundation, the Great Devourer was once again casting its gaze toward the far reaches of the deep universe.
‘Perhaps this is for the best. In any case, we can no longer change our course.’
At this very moment, the Divine Net forum, where numerous deities clashed, was in an uproar.
News of who had been defeated and who had triumphed rose and fell in an endless, continuous stream.
Even without visiting the Divine Net forum, the Earth had already been in complete chaos long before the arrival of those Outer Gods and deities.
Desire was the most fundamental driving force possessed by all living things, from ordinary humans to transcendent deities.
Since chaos was an absolute law that could never be truly discarded in the end, it was only natural that people would cry out so desperately for order.
Thus, Lin Miao let out a bitter smile, unconsciously imagining the sight of his own servants spread across the entire universe.
In a world ruled entirely by the colony, at the very least, such wars and conflicts would cease to exist.
The process might look like the very incarnation of endless chaos, but it was not.
At the moment of ultimate victory, the universe ruled by the colony would draw closer to order than ever before.
Rate on N.U.
