Psionic Energy and the Soul

The beginning of the memory was a muddled, hazy darkness.

Thud—thud—thud...

The unceasing pounding awakened the owner of the memory.

As it stretched its body, light entered its eyes amid the grating sound of stone cracking.

Its eyes were covered in protective mucus and stone chips, so it paused for two seconds before it could truly see.

A huge, oily green nose came into view.

It belonged to a Goblin that was holding a stone and repeatedly striking the crack in the rock where it had been.

When it saw the stone suddenly open and reveal an incomparably ferocious face inside, the Goblin was clearly stunned for a moment. Then it let out a shrill laugh. "Gahaha..."

Laughing loudly, the Goblin tossed the stone in its hand onto its head with a thud.

The owner of the memory was utterly baffled by the Goblin's reaction, but did not dwell on it. It stretched farther and rose to its feet on straightened legs.

The viewpoint rose upward. The Goblin, barely a meter tall, was swiftly left below, leaving only the top of its head with its few curved strands of hair.

The Goblin raised its head and continued laughing, half shriek and half roar.

That seemed to remind the owner of the memory of something. It extended an arm covered in stone, grabbed the Goblin, stuffed it into its mouth, and bit down with a crunch, sending juice splattering.

This little thing tasted pretty good—crisp and slightly salty.

"Gahha!" Sharp cries came from all around.

Only then did the owner of the memory realize that it seemed to be surrounded by these oily green little monsters.

It exerted force with its hand, tore half of the bitten Goblin corpse free, and tossed it back into its mouth. After only two chews, blood splattered across half its head and face—its unusually luxuriant moss had probably grown because of this.

This seemed to provoke the Goblins. With a shriek, they began charging at the owner of the viewpoint.

Countless wooden clubs, stones, and even bare fists struck its body, but apart from the unceasing thudding by its ears, they had no effect whatsoever.

After swallowing the flesh and bones, it merely swung its arms twice. Its forelimbs, astonishingly heavy due to the stone clinging to them, easily smashed the many Goblins into pulp.

Yet the Goblins still charged at it, screeching and shouting.

Two of them could not squeeze their way to the front, so they simply struck the backs of the Goblins' heads in front of them. Naturally, this displeased those Goblins, who immediately turned around and fought back. The scene instantly became a chaotic mess.

Unfortunately, fearlessness in the face of death was not enough to erase the difference in strength. In fact, because the Goblins did not scatter and flee, they were dealt with even faster.

Just ten minutes later, the owner of the memory was sitting on the ground, picking out large, meaty limbs and stuffing them into its mouth.

Then, with a smack.

A fragment of a wooden club struck its back.

It turned its head. A completely naked Goblin was running toward it.

Boom—the Goblin was smashed flat with a single blow.

It continued tearing at its food.

"Gahya!" A shrill scream came from the other side.

It casually threw a boulder half the size of a man and crushed it to death.

But before it could swallow the meat in its mouth, a healthy, intact Goblin suddenly crawled out of the pile of "delicacies" before it—the pile it had deliberately selected and gathered—and howled as it attacked.

The owner of the memory still did not think. Instead, it eagerly grabbed the Goblin and stuffed it into its mouth.

And so, until it had eaten its fill and left, Goblins kept emerging intermittently nearby. Who knew where they had been hiding before...

Tsk—

Who would have thought Goblins tasted like this in a monster's mouth?

Considering this could barely count as a kind of human flesh, should I dry-heave?

But the Overmind soon abandoned that thought. His digestive system had long been modified into an organ for genetic sequencing; even if he wanted to vomit, he could not bring anything up.

The Rockhide Monster's memories were really only of reference value.

The crisp crunch of it eating Goblins alone showed that its memories were based on its own senses and could contain inaccuracies.

"Agatha, what do you think?" the Overmind asked the Dragon Lion lying beside the sofa.

Since being freed from the task of controlling the Creep, Agatha had become the only unit around the Overmind with independent consciousness and advanced intelligence. Recently, she had been continuously absorbing knowledge from the Hive Mind in order to better fulfill her duties as an advisor and adjutant.

"Their instincts and behavior are disconnected," Agatha analyzed calmly. "Their bodies trembled, and their pupils contracted uncontrollably. Their flesh instinctively feared, yet they kept attacking."

"Perhaps it's due to the influence of culture and the collective," the Overmind speculated. There would always be brave men or lunatics unafraid of sacrifice; humanity had no shortage of similar examples.

"Their behavior does not display the complexity that intelligent life should possess," Agatha continued. "Their attacks had no order, their language was rudimentary, and their interactions with one another were even less sophisticated than those of social beasts."

Unless Goblins could communicate through ultrasound or infrasound beyond the range a Rockhide Monster could distinguish—after all, a magical beast could hear a far wider range of frequencies than a human. And Goblin throats really did not look capable of producing ultrasound...

"Deteriorated intelligence, strange behavior, and their tendency to appear and disappear—they closely resemble intelligent life heavily contaminated by Psionic Energy," Agatha concluded.

In the Koprulu Sector, some creatures that had gone mad from consuming too much Terrazine displayed similar symptoms.

Of course, Goblins most likely did not possess Psionic Energy.

In the days since he had encountered the special power within the Dragon Lion that seemed to be a "soul," the Overmind had conducted extensive research while relocating and remodeling his new home.

From single-celled amoebas to powerful Dragon Lions, nearly all life capable of moving freely possessed an exquisite energy-field structure that seemed to be a "soul." The Overmind had even discovered similar structures in some ancient trees.

Conversely, their compatibility with Psionic Energy was zero.

The situation in the Koprulu Sector was completely the opposite. The Hive Mind contained no record of anything related to "souls." At the same time, almost all life that had evolved independently on every planet possessed some affinity for Psionic Energy—or rather, Void Energy itself was an important catalyst for the birth of life.

Even if something truly had gone wrong with supernatural power, it was most likely that the Goblins' "souls" had undergone some kind of mutation.

Of course, no matter how deeply the Overmind and Agatha discussed it now, it was meaningless. Catch a Goblin for research, and everything would become clear.

Fortunately, the Rockhide Monster still remembered where Goblins appeared. The Overmind had already dispatched Arrow Gulls to search the area.

Come to think of it, the Swarm had now absorbed the territories of the Dragon Lion and the Rockhide Monster. If it could absorb the Goblins' active territory as well, construction of the Hatchery could be put on the agenda...