In the dark vacuum of space, a massive fleet was moving at seemingly slow but actually incredible speed.
At the very front of the countless spacecraft and starships were a hundred whale-like behemoths whose size rivaled satellites. Their eyes were like abysses, their fins like colossal mountains, and they spewed spatial fluctuations from their mouths. The blowholes on either side were like the muzzles of ship-mounted cannons, inhaling and expelling immeasurable amounts of energy. This immense cosmic energy directly enveloped their bodies, allowing them to remain in light-speed mode for extended periods.
This was the greatest difference between them and other carbon-based life-forms. No matter how powerful a third-tier carbon-based life-form was, it could only enter light-speed mode for a short time. If it traveled at light speed for too long, its body would collapse under the influence of the laws of time.
The special gene pool of these space behemoths, however, was capable of accomplishing this. There were many explanations for it, such as species evolution, cosmic radiation from a particular region, or their bloodline origins tracing back to higher-tier galactic species.
Regardless of which explanation was correct, almost all space-behemoth tribes regarded the gene pool within their bodies as their most important tribal asset.
Their previous cooperation with the Garen Republic, which had allowed Garen scientists to study their shells, had already been the limit of what they would permit.
Almost every space behemoth understood that the gene pool in their bodies was the sole meaning of their existence. Once a level-three civilization excavated it and used it to manufacture light-speed ships—or even faster-than-light ships—then, even if only to prevent the ships' weaknesses from being exposed, that civilization would still exterminate them.
Fortunately, the two nearby level-three civilizations were mechanical civilizations, and they were not particularly covetous of