Aftermath

At that moment, the Tunneler was battling the black mecha Aleph-1 had sent against it.

Equipped with a Furnace Core modified and enhanced by Star Torch Academy, the Tunneler had awakened to consciousness in the heat of battle through a core shaped by human hands.

And with the help of Rover and Aemeath, two pilots whose compatibility with it was exceptionally high,

they had driven Aleph-1's mecha onto the defensive.

Once the Tunneler's self-awareness and voice system had fully awakened, it spoke at length with Aleph-1.

Both had once been mindless beings that acted on instinct alone, yet they had taken utterly different paths.

The Tunneler did not know whether Threnodians could ever fully awaken to self-awareness.

From the data it had gathered in its homeland and on Solaris, every Threnodian instinctively destroyed civilizations.

They were civilization's Dark Side. Most were less like individuals than natural disasters.

For beings like them, awakening to self-awareness was one thing. Even being able to speak and communicate put them beyond some Threnodians, which could do nothing but destroy.

Through their conversation, the Tunneler came to understand Aleph-1.

Aleph-1 had viewed life as nothing more than nourishment from the very beginning. Its beliefs were nothing like the Tunneler's.

So, with Rover and Aemeath's help, and the power of the modified Furnace Core within it,

the Tunneler utterly destroyed the mecha Aleph-1 had sent.

Then it pointed its sword toward Aleph-1 itself above.

As the Tunneler, the pinnacle of another civilization's creations, it now had the power to drive Aleph-1 away.

It could not kill Aleph-1, but it could keep Aleph-1 from threatening Solaris for a time.

"Driver, Resonator, requesting additional Resonance as the energy required to expel Aleph-1."

"But..."

"Wait a little longer."

When the Tunneler requested authorization from its pilots, however, Aemeath and