A Giant 'Monster'

"Did they run?"

The New Empire fleet commander was stunned for a moment. This was the first time he had encountered such a situation. Before the Amoeba cluster arrived, in every battle, the mechs of the Holy Worm Empire had charged the fleet like madmen, utterly disregarding life and death.

Yet now, the Holy Worm Empire's enemy forces had rarely broken and fled.

Was it a ploy? Or an opportunity? These questions lingered in the New Empire fleet commander's mind.

After much deliberation, the New Empire fleet commander decided to risk an attack. He submitted a pursuit proposal to the Amoeba Collectors. The Collector cluster was now the New Empire fleet's superior and was chiefly responsible for offensive operations, so he needed to seek its approval.

But to the New Empire fleet commander's surprise, the Amoeba side, which he had assumed would order an attack to expand their gains, rejected his proposal.

"No pursuit."

The Collector responsible for communicating with the New Empire fleet replied. The fleet commander could not understand. He needed a reasonable explanation. This was very likely an opportunity to expand their gains—how could they simply give it up?

"Is it really all right to let those defeated remnants escape? Information about the cluster will be exposed," the fleet commander asked.

"Let it be exposed. It was bound to happen sooner or later."

The Collector answered. They saw things more clearly than the fleet commander did and understood that information about the leap organism cluster could not be kept hidden from the enemy forever.

After all, this was a cosmic battlefield. Simply deploying an observation unit alongside a fleet would make it easy to learn about the enemy fighting that fleet, so keeping it concealed indefinitely was highly unrealistic.

What surprised the Collectors more was that this