Robert wasn't sure he could keep everyone safe through the deep void. In two trips, he took his monsters first, then the humans last.

They alighted in the clearing with around two hundred Arch-Taulusians watching them. Freddy was there too, with a sad-looking Poochline next to him.

Biscuit floated ahead to greet them. "Humans, welcome. We are honored by this gesture of cooperation. Please, allow me to introduce you to the troops."

"What did he say?" Caroline asked. Amanda also didn't understand but she was faking it. Robert translated. She thanked him.

Biscuit howled and six Taulusians answered. "These are Max, Rover, Lady, Prince, Timo, and Champ," he introduced.

All of them four-stars. Robert wondered what threat they were facing if seven four stars as powerful as Robert was sensing couldn't deal with it.

"It is a pleasure to be of help," Robert said. He translated the introductions for his side.

Rover approached. He was a lean and smart-looking Taulusian, resembling a Doberman but with strong shoulders and a short snout. "I sense doubt in your voice, allow me to explain why we need you. Our enemy is the Endless Hive. At first glance, you would call them insects but they are in fact air-breathing fish with exoskeletons. Just like your planet's dinosaurs seemed like reptiles but they were leathery birds."

Timo picked up. He was big, round, furry, and easygoing, with striped purple and yellow fur. "The Endless Hive is expansionist and belligerent. They control thousands of realms but are always looking for more. And they set their glassy dead eyes on our beloved Taulusia. For a few years after the pacifist faction departed with the human explorers, we were making good progress retaking Taulusia back, but the Hive's vicious attacks interrupted our crusade. Now, we are at a stalemate."

Next, Prince barked. The black-furred Taulusian had long legs and a thin stomach, but a huge underbite and long fangs. He looked like a mix of a bulldog, sabertooth tiger, and foxhound. "You looked surprised that this many four-stars aren't enough but the Hive has been conquering and fighting for thousands of years. Their upper ranks have six or seven stars. The leaders of this incursion are all four stars. Our combined might created a stalemate because we counter each other. We have highly trained but irreplaceable troops. They have all the reinforcements they want."

Max, Lady, and Champ didn't deign to speak. If Robert read their body language correctly, they voted against letting the humans join the war. They exchanged their gs, at least.

greetings.

“How are we going to fix the language barrier?” Robert asked Noah. “Auto-translators don’t work on Taulusian and I don’t think the girls would like me implanting the language skill directly into their brains.”

“We make it,” Noah replied. “A quick hop to the workshop back on Earth is all it takes.”

Robert explained what they wanted to do to the girls and to the Taulusian leadership. With their combined blessings, he took Noah back to Earth.

Making a translator enchantment was relatively easy if the person doing the enchantment had the Mental affinity and knew both languages. Noah showed Robert the diagrams and he shifted into his fairy form to engrave the runes. The tiny hands were five times more precise for the fine, delicate work than their human counterparts.

The issue of not having the proper tools was fixed weeks ago. They came as part of Yolania’s cube dollhouse mansion. Robert thought it was worth the extra price to have a fairy version of basically every workstation the gym had. The ability to see magic proved invaluable. The work he did back in the Puffbloom Islands workshop was the equivalent of trying to build a house blind.

While Robert engraved the enchantment, Noah sat at the jeweler's station to make the metallic parts. They made enchanted earrings with the translation crystals for Taulusian.

*

*

The Taulusian Resistance camp was in a passage realm three portals away from planet Taulusia. With Biscuit and a group of guerrillas, the humans and their creatures went to the frontlines. The Endless Hive modus operandi was to fully conquer a planet, terraform it, and only then explore the passages leading out of the planet.

They needed a forward base to send hordes of drones and other weaker variants into those passages. Once they started to invade down a passage, they sent an increasing number of invaders, who would devastate everything in their path, find another passage, and keep invading. Only when they find something of interest do they send information back to their base. Places of interest would be a Dungeon, tough enemy resistance, or another planet.

Biscuit explained the importance of planets. While passage realms were contained in size, planets had almost infinite materials the Endless Hive needed. Not to mention they also had enough surface area and energy to support a colony. By the time a planet was fully terraformed, it would either be an Endless Hive colony or a barren rock full of portals. There was no in-between.

Right now, the Endless Hive was fighting off the invasive species that pushed the pacifist Taulusians to become pets on Earth and sent the warrior clans into hiding or exile. The Taulusian needed to attack surgically, doing the most damage to the Endless Hive while keeping the invasive species they loathed so much untouched.

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“What is the endgame? Let’s assume we beat back the Endless Hive and they get off-world. Will they give up?” Robert asked.

“Not really,” Biscuit whimpered. “They have almost infinite resources to throw at us. Our hope is that we can use this endless war to develop our species’ warriors. If we have enough strength, eventually, the Endless Hive will try to come into an armistice. But we need to make it more expensive to kick us off of our planet than it is to swallow their pride and negotiate a deal.”

Robert caught what the SCP corgi didn’t say. Bark. Yip. They didn’t have the firepower to defeat the Endless Hive. Their best-case scenario was an armistice, after bothering the bugs to the point they would cut their losses. And their leadership was six four-stars. From what they said, the Endless Hive had five, six, and bigger star-count Archs. Though these stayed in the core regions.

Finally, that line about developing their species’ warriors. What did they want? To create an army of elites, three and four-stars? How many people did they have? The two hundred in that camp didn’t have any civilians or mortals. Everyone in there was a warrior with at least two-stars.

This didn’t sound like a short campaign. What did they need Freddy for? And what about them? They accepted the humans’ help too fast but honestly? Robert knew he could punch above his weight class, and so did everyone else here. But in the scale they were talking about, they were not reinforcements but almost a liability.

Robert decided to rip the band-aid straight away. “Why do you need Freddy?” He barked at the corgi.

The floating Taulusian stared at him, then answered. “Freddy’s talent is what we call an Ace. Ace talents are absolute."

Robert noticed that"ace" was in English.

If Freddy’s Prime Vestige told him he could hide from magical senses, leave no trace of his passing, and hide from all senses, that’s what it does. Only an Ace talent that specifically contradicts Freddy’s talent has a chance of working, and even then, it’s a coin toss. Freddy can scout enemy positions with absolute impunity. The intelligence he can gather for us can be the difference between victory or losing Taulusia forever.”

“I see. Thank you for being honest.”

“I’ll say one more thing. Your talent, the main one, is also an Ace. I’m sorry but I had to look. What your Prime Vestige said about you and the liminal void are near-absolute truths.”

“Care to do an experiment? Can you come with me to the liminal void? You can do that thing where you stay there without contact with me and survive, right?”

“Sure. We still have a long walk ahead of us, I can spare the essence to survive in that inhospitable place.”

*

*

Robert touched Biscuit and took him to the liminal void. There, he declared to himself that Biscuit was his guest and let go of him.

“How are you feeling?” Robert asked.

“Normal. I don’t feel the void trying to devour me.”

“I marked you as my guest. I’ll try to move away from you, be ready to protect yourself from the effects of the void. When you feel my protection wane, give me a warning.”

“Sure. Let’s run this test. It is of interest to me too.”

Robert moved away. Fifty feet away, Biscuit barked. “There!”

Fifty feet of protection without physical contact was more than the twenty feet with contact from before.

"Next test," Robert said as he approached. "I'll try expelling you from the liminal void."

"Should I resist?"

"Please do."

Robert first revoked Biscuit's guest status. When the floating alien remained floating there, he tried to expel Biscuit. After some struggle, he noticed a small light coming from the Taulusian's soul and then he was gone. Or, at least, the colors. Biscuit was there but frozen in time in the real world.

*

*

They reached the passage leading to Taulusia. Behind the portal, a big fortress made out of an alien metal stood guard, with several Taulusian warriors standing guard. They hailed and saluted Biscuit, the floating corgi with purple tentacles unmistakable even at a distance.

Robert thought that the defensive setup was smart. Enemies wouldn't see the defenses until they were already under fire, but the fast ones could probably run away right after crossing. But the goal here was to prevent a horde from invading, not an absolute lockdown like most passage security checkpoints back on Earth.

And minimize losses on the Taulusian's side.

"Wait here," Biscuit barked.

Noah caught Robert's attention. On top of the floating eye only he could see, he found words. "Did you notice?*

Robert replied via telepathy. "That our four-legged host is a five-star?"

"Shit. Please tell me you are joking. Hells. This changes a lot of things… But no. I was talking about the passage portal. It loses focus from time to time. It's subtle but the image on the other side loses definition when it happens. I think someone in that fortress can control whether the portal allows passage through it or not. I saw a talent like that once."

Robert had to use haste to see the flicker. It did it very frequently, once every two or three seconds. It seemed random

"What happens if the portal flickers when someone is crossing?" Robert asked over their mental link.

The cursed blue eye replied with a distressed, then sad expression. Then it split in two halves and both closed as they drifted apart.

"Ouch," Robert thought.

Biscuit returned. "We are cleared to cross."

"Won't the portal cut us in half?" Robert asked.

"No! Our gatekeeper will leave it open for us. Let's go."

The group crossed the portal without any bisections. On the other side, Biscuit asked them to wait as he scouted the area. Some of his purple energy tentacles detached and slithered away under the jungle foliage.

Robert had finally set foot in Taulusia. Freddy's Homeworld and current assimilation target of the Endless Hive.

The sky was blue but had a planetary ring crossing over the horizon. The band of rocks arching over the sky was a fantastical sight. The planet's sun illuminated the ring and it shone brighter than any moon but the planet cast a shadow over it on one side.

They could tell the time of the day by that shadow. The ring worked also as a sundial clock.

The light reflected by it was strong enough to project shadows in places where the sunlight didn't reach. Even in spots under the sunlight, it dimmed the shadow cast by the star and even created a faint one on the other side.

They were at the bottom of a grassy valley, surrounded by tall trees, with a river nearby. Though they couldn't see it, the sound of running water was unmistakable.

Despite the humans who took a while to gawk at the natural marvels of planet Taulusia, the rest of the expedition was on high alert. Even though Robert now knew they were under the protection of a five-star Arch, he couldn't help but imagine what kind of enemy would cause someone that powerful to act with caution.

Though it wasn't like Biscuit could go all-out. He had to protect his people, make them grow, and avoid massive environmental damage.