Now, Kraynnor faced a little inconvenience: with only his stealth exoskeleton suit and the cube stored in the inventory, how did he plan to get to Caelum if it was still a kilometer away...?
He pondered for a moment and, since he couldn't take any equipment with him, he was forced to resort to the most primitive option: swimming.
Without wasting a moment, he stripped off his clothing, leaving only the suit that accentuated the contours of his perfectly sculpted musculature. Undoubtedly, he had done an exceptional job designing his own body.
"I'll be back in a few days, hopefully. If Caelum's warehouse is still intact, I can stay there for a while while working on improved versions of our anti-detection systems using this exoskeleton. If I find nothing in the warehouse, we'll have to resort to traditional methods and search for resources all over the world," Kraynnor said, hoping to avoid this last option, as it would mean a considerable loss of time.
Furthermore, he was aware that, given the chaos he had caused, he couldn't remain hidden indefinitely. He knew it was only a matter of time before they discovered him.
"Unless I'm faster and smarter than them..." Kraynnor didn't hesitate anymore. He made a quick farewell gesture by raising his hand near his forehead, drawing a line in the air. Then, without hesitation, he opened the submarine's hatch, whose upper half was already out of the water, and jumped directly into the sea.
Splash!
[I'll be waiting for your good news.]
The moment his body submerged, with Cognitron X-12's voice resonating from the submarine's external speakers, Kraynnor kept his eyes closed while swimming. He emerged with his head out of the water and, upon opening his eyes, was greeted by a beautiful landscape of blue sky. It was three in the afternoon, and fortunately, the day was clear.
It was unimaginable that bad luck would play a trick on him with the sudden appearance of a storm, right...?
"Huh?"
Suddenly, he felt his exoskeleton starting to move, and when he looked at his body, he was amazed to discover that it extended all over his body, taking on the same color as the water: a dark blue with green hues. It even reflected the sunlight as if it were truly part of the aquatic environment!
Gradually, every inch of his body was covered by the suit. Fins appeared on his feet, and his eyes were hidden behind a crystalline surface that allowed him to see clearly.
To his surprise, when he submerged his head, he found that he could breathe. When he touched his neck, he felt the presence of artificial gills.
This exoskeleton turned out to be truly amazing!
Kraynnor looked at the suit's description once again, reading carefully, and fully understood its potential when he found the phrase 'multi-environment adaptive stealth system.' It turned out that this suit had the astonishing ability to adapt to any environment, ensuring complete camouflage!
"Ha! The heavens are smiling on me! What happened to having a point in luck, huh, System? This doesn't seem like something that would happen to someone with shitty luck," Kraynnor spoke with a mocking tone, though he was sure he would be ignored again.
[For someone from a Type Zero civilization, it's clearly an invaluable treasure. For higher civilizations, it's garbage that no one would even want for free.]
"Now you respond when you know you have the knowledge advantage, you bastard!" with an annoyed expression, Kraynnor began to swim towards Caelum.
...
On the other hand, in Caelum, a towering triangular red building rose, reaching a height of three hundred meters. Inside, at the highest point, stood a sturdy and authoritative Astrylite, frowning. He had recently received reports of a catastrophe in sector M-039, in which hundreds of Fyralithors and a Cordiolethor had lost their lives.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The magnitude of the tragedy was so colossal that it could even endanger his own position, as he was just a Base Captain, the lowest rank among all high-ranking officers.
Although he had no direct connection to the incident, the situation was so serious that it threatened to engulf everyone equally!
Suddenly, in the center of the room, the hologram of an Astrylite soldier in black armor with orange lines appeared. He made a gesture of subordination and announced, "Captain Eldran, we've received an alert that one of the Crimson Guardians has shot a small object a kilometer away from the base. Should we send a couple of soldiers to investigate?"
Eldran, with his imposing golden armor adorned with white lines, his three eyes, and silver hair, tapped his desk slowly and declared, "It's not necessary. It's probably just a native creature that got lost and ended up in that location."
The soldier nodded, responding, "...Alright, I'll continue with my duties," before fading away in a blink.
"Duties? You think I don't know that all you do is waste time?" Eldran grumbled in dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, he allowed them to continue doing as they pleased, aware that they often felt idle, as nothing significant had happened in the five hundred years they had spent on this small planet.
However, after receiving the report, he experienced an unsettling premonition, as if the long peace they had enjoyed for centuries was about to fade away.
"Although perhaps I'm exaggerating..."
...
Meanwhile, Kraynnor continued to swim at great speed. The exoskeleton allowed him to move swiftly through the ocean, gliding with the agility of a fish in the water.
"Nothing here either, how strange," he muttered. He had been swimming for fifteen minutes, and, to his surprise, he hadn't spotted a single marine creature. It seemed as if he was in a dead sea.
He remembered the laser beam that destroyed one of his drones and assumed that all the life that used to populate the area had suffered the same fate.
Kraynnor increased his stroke and swam more quickly. He had covered about five hundred meters and was about to arrive to find out what those fucking aliens had done to his hometown. The only thing repeating in his mind was the need to stay calm. He didn't want to lose control due to unrestrained anger.
Soon, he reached the outskirts of Caelum, to the same place where he had parked his submarine five hundred years ago.
"These detestable scum..." every vein in his body seemed to swell as he gritted his teeth so hard that his gums began to bleed, although the wounds quickly healed.
The reason for his fury was evident: Caelum had been reduced to a wasteland of destruction.
Not a single building remained intact; everything had been razed. In the midst of the devastation stood an imposing red pyramidal structure that Kraynnor recognized as the spaceship that had invaded the city at one point. However, now it remained motionless, like a building.
"I didn't expect these bastards to choose our beloved Caelum as their base. With an entire planet at their disposal, why did they have to defile this place?" with each passing second, his anger grew.
Sigh...
With a deep sigh, he released his frustration and controlled his emotions. Now was not the time to give in to anger. He had an objective to fulfill, and he would save vengeance for when he was strong enough. Kraynnor looked around and noticed some Astrylite soldiers in black armor with orange lines patrolling, but he quickly realized they were distracted, chatting and laughing, not paying attention to their surroundings.
"What a disorderly troop. It's as if they're asking to be killed," Kraynnor muttered coldly as he emerged from the water.
As he set foot on land, the exoskeleton began to move, and within seconds, Kraynnor became completely invisible. He realized that the suit was using advanced optical refraction technology, bending the light around it, creating the illusion that he had disappeared completely into his surroundings.
Furthermore, the fins had disappeared entirely, leaving only his feet covered by the suit, without any particular shape.
"Interesting, if this is what they consider garbage in higher civilizations, maybe I should become a 'garbage' collector. As the saying goes, 'one man's trash is another man's treasure,'" Kraynnor contemplated as he advanced toward one of the locations where there should be an entrance to Caelum's underground facilities.
On his way, he encountered several aliens, but he quickly ignored them as he couldn't understand their language.
"It's closed and apparently intact. Those fools didn't check this city thoroughly?"
Ten minutes later, as he rummaged through a tangle of debris and rusted metal, Kraynnor came upon one of the entrances to Caelum's underground facilities. It was a gray metal hatch with a small screen in the center. To his amazement, it was in good condition, although it lacked power. It seemed that the entire city had lost its electrical supply, and the power generators must have been inoperative due to the damage caused during the invasion.
Or perhaps they activated and eventually shut down due to the deterioration of their mechanisms. Kraynnor hadn't considered the possibility of the generators depleting their power, thanks to their automatic charging system that harnessed tidal energy, a form of energy obtained by harnessing tides.
"Now, the question is how to open this," he pondered, stroking his chin thoughtfully, and eventually settled on a course of action that carried the risk of being discovered. However, with enough speed, he might avoid unwanted consequences.
What was his plan? Utilize the Biomimetic Cube to inject energy into the hatch!