Saiyan stowaways on the Ark

"Of course, but what do you want me to see? A bloody battlefield, or a powerful empire?"

The black snake was also quite surprised, because Tomat didn't choose to tell him verbally, but instead generously asked it if it could see its memories.

This gives him the opportunity to enter Tomat's spiritual world.

If possible, Black Serpent might be able to control Tomat in the same way he seized control of Talulah's body.

Isn't this much better than Draco?

"Of course, it's what you want to see."

Thomas deactivated the energy shield he had set up, allowing the black snake to touch his brow with its body.

[Main Text] Chernobog, Above the Ruins: Chapter Thirty-Two: Black Serpent, Look!

The air was so thin it could suffocate ordinary creatures, and the sunlight felt like flames burning on your skin. In this dry and scorching environment, all you could see was scattered vegetation covering the land with greenery; there was only yellow sand and jumbled rocks.

The towering, spired building is built on the precarious edge of a high cliff, and the incredible materials used can support the entire cliff with just a single pillar.

Although the palace-like building was surrounded by high-tech metal objects, further away, most of the so-called houses were just caves carved into the rocks, with traces of smoke rising from them.

In the sky, which was not dusk but still reddish, the creatures flying around were not the feathered beasts commonly seen in Terra, but rather spherical or flat black and white flying objects.

Without any visible sparks of propulsion, it can move at incredible speeds, even flying high into the sky until it disappears from sight.

—And for some reason, the "heaviness" that manifests in the body.

Even though the black snake no longer has a physical body, because the simulation of the mental world is based on the creator's thoughts, it can even directly affect other entrants.

If the pressure could be applied only on a mental level and had no effect on physical training, Tomat wouldn't have needed someone to create an artificial gravity environment—and perhaps his power would have been even greater.

"A mere ten times the gravity should be enough for you to move around normally."

Thomas stood on the land of his memories, looking at the swaying black snake, and asked.

"This isn't Terra... You really are like those things, coming from 'universe'!"

Leaving aside the fact that Black Serpent immediately realized from the surrounding environment and buildings that this was not any corner of Terra, its astonished words also demonstrated its understanding of the concept of the universe on Terra, a planet with almost no space technology.

Furthermore, judging from Black Serpent's words, it seems that there are other outsiders similar to Tomat who have once arrived in Terra.

Or it may still exist now.

However, there shouldn't be any beings with similar or greater strength than him. After all, even setting aside whether he could sense their presence, the fact that his previous berserk state after transformation failed to lure them out meant that Tomat couldn't have any expectations of those people in terms of strength.

It's not because they are "weak".

Perhaps those beings are very strong. To put it another way, even the Black Serpent, with its strange abilities to arbitrarily destroy minds and possess other people's bodies, can indeed be called a powerful figure.

The dragon Talulah, which it previously controlled, was already far stronger than the thousands of elites in Lungmen. The flames that engulfed the entire city-state with a single strike made Tomath, who had stayed in Terra for a while, think that there was probably no one here whose individual abilities could match its.

It's just that the Tomat, or rather, the overall strength of his race, is a bit too high.

Although his legion has thousands of combat-capable members everywhere, on a cosmic scale, whether it's a civilized planet pursuing technological development, a barbarian land that reveres physical strength, or a dangerous place without civilization but teeming with monsters, few places meet the legion's recruitment standards.

In most cases, a race or even a civilization can only find a few mutant individuals worth recruiting. The Saiyans, on the other hand, are practically nonexistent, as an entire race can be brought under their command.

"Our race has essentially abandoned the development of civilization and devoted itself entirely to improving individual combat power."

"If you are defeated by science, then make yourself strong enough to ignore guns and cannons."

"If you are defeated by technology, then strengthen yourself to overcome softness with strength."

"We overcame the backwardness of civilizations with our personal strength. We seized useful technologies and occupied rich planets. When we had free time, we would help others with their tasks and get paid. Sometimes it was to eliminate enemies, and sometimes it was to open up new homes."

"We don't belong to any camp; everything is done spontaneously."

"At our peak, the entire universe trembled in fear of us. Even the Galactic Empire, which maintains cosmic order, dared not stop us. Their artillery could shatter continents, and their poison gas could wipe out any creature that was considered a target. But when faced with the Saiyans, they could only flee in disarray."

Tomat speaks of the Saiyans' "glory" in this place, which cannot be considered truly glorious.

However, it did not arbitrarily change the landscape of the mental world in accordance with the description.

After all, Black Serpent also had some understanding of some terms that were relatively unfamiliar to the Terrans.

The simple words spoken by Tomat, a persuasive man, were enough for Black Serpent to construct in his mind a race that was full of bloodshed yet incredibly powerful.

The black snake was no longer restrained by Tomat's protective shield, and it also seemed that it no longer wanted to communicate with Tomat in its insect-like form.

It transformed into a white-haired Phidia man with a cold expression and a hint of a smile.

"What a captivating violence, yet you don't seem to take pride in this power."

Black Snake pointed out that the Tomat, as a warrior race, described their glorious past in a calm tone.

"Could it be that the glory is gone?"

It was almost certain that Tomat was making that expression.

Because the Black Serpent, too, had once been "calmly agitated" by the decline of a powerful, violent nation that had turned that violence into the only correct path.

Although Ursus may not be as large as the race described by Tomat in terms of scale.

But in a sense, it also evokes some empathy.

Thomas nodded, acknowledging Kosiché's conjecture.

"Was it a battle where the opponent was evenly matched, and the team was severely weakened after the war?"

But when faced with Black Serpent's specific ideas, Tomat simply shook his head.

"Is it an internal war, a conflict between people with different ideas?"

Thomas replied:

“It happened a long, long time ago, but it had almost no impact on my time; people just treated it as a legend.”

The black snake was somewhat puzzled.

This is not because it cares about the Tomat ethnic group.

Even now, it tries to learn about Tomat's past experiences to understand his weaknesses, hoping to exploit these vulnerabilities and gain control of his mind.

However, Tomat pointed to the fiery red sky, gesturing for the black snake to look up.

At this moment, the sky was completely empty.

"Some time before I was born, our clan encountered an invincible tyrant. The tyrant's subordinates were all powerful beings gathered from every corner of the universe. They even possessed strength surpassing that of the strongest in our clan. Although we had the means to become more powerful than his subordinates, we still could not match that tyrant."

Thomas continued calmly to recount what shocked the Black Serpent even more.

One person could wipe out an entire civilization, but they encountered an even more powerful being.

"This is...the reason?"

"No, that tyrant didn't restrict us too much. Instead, he made us the most powerful army in his empire and even gave us convenient technology, which brought me prosperity in another sense."

Thomas denied it, and gradually climbed higher into the sky.

The black snake followed closely behind, waiting for him to reveal the real reason.

"Later, the tyrant's son took over the empire, and we naturally followed the new tyrant. Everything started from here and ended here."

Tomat looked at the palace, which seemed to shrink smaller with increasing altitude, and passed through the clouds to reach near-Earth altitude where the planet's arc could be seen.

"The end? It happened..."

The enormous oval-shaped spaceship that suddenly appeared above the clouds brought Black Serpent's question to an abrupt halt.

[Main Text] Chernobog, Above the Ruins: Chapter Thirty-Three: Supernova

The black snake is not human, so it should not have the five senses like humans. It has its own unique perception ability. However, over thousands of years, through the constant replacement of its body, it has also come to understand, to some extent, the way humans perceive the outside world.

He has experienced all forms of perception, whether it be basic senses like sight, taste, and hearing, or reactions based solely on psychological or spiritual levels.

But now, the black snake seems to be experiencing a feeling it has never had before.

In the spiritual world where one can speak simply by thinking.

The black snake was speechless.

Its gaze, or rather its entire attention, was fixed on the spaceship with the starry sky as its backdrop.

That thing wasn't particularly large; it was roughly the size of a small mobile settlement.

But you can face it—or rather, something that exists within it.

If the black snake had a physical body, it would be willing to let its heart stop beating.

If the black snake could still think, it would be willing to let its consciousness disappear forever.

The pressure Tomat put on him was based on the tangible existence of his behavior.

But the oppressive feeling brought by that unknown thing was like the sunlight shining down or the air surrounding oneself.

There was nowhere to escape, nowhere to hide, everywhere, and no way to resist.

That thing did nothing, said nothing, and didn't even reveal its existence. Yet, merely "existing here" was enough to make a consciousness that had lived for thousands of years instinctively sense danger and death, and react in a way that resembled a stress response—that is, to make itself appear as if it had truly lost something, without making any reaction.

"Even after so many times, I still hate its aura, because I can't even feel my own existence in the presence of it."

If a drop of water falls into the ocean, can it still feel its own existence?

Or rather, what is the meaning of this existence?

A sense of pessimism and despair, akin to a philosophical reflection on life, surged into the black snake's consciousness, much like a carefree person realizing for the first time the vastness of the universe and their own insignificance.

Black Snake seemed to think that everything he had ever thought about, whether it was a conspiracy or a scheme, was just like an innocent child lying on the ground, scribbling and drawing with a twig.

"What exactly is inside that spacecraft!?"

Tomat, who was still speaking, seemed to have poured cold water on the black snake's head, regaining control of its voice.

It questioned hysterically, not even noticing that Tomat, who was also under the same pressure, seemed unaffected.

"Our boss, our supervisor, that's probably what we should call it, except it requires us to call it..."

Thomas's words stirred his own memories.

That scene, which differed slightly from the "original development," gradually replaced what could now be described as a calm sky.

Flames, explosions, and scorching red magma gushing from the cracked earth.

The clouds evaporated, and countless tiny points of light scattered across the sky.