Star Citizen Online: Isekai Edition

Planet Aquamarine, Vlamuin Continent, Verdigris Spine

In the post-apocalyptic world of the planet Aquamarine, nestled between crumbling tectonic scars and shrouded by an ever-churning sky, lay the Verdigris Spine. A vast, serpentine mountain range veiled in toxic mists and teeming with mutated life, which was a result of the Super Evolution Virus and overusage of the Nuclear Weapons during the Apocalypse on the planet Aquamarine.

The nations that existed previously had tons of Nuclear Weapons, and they didn't shy away from using them. On the contrary, when the Apocalypse started, once the Super Evolution Virus broke free, the nations around the world started haphazardly using their Nuclear arsenals.

The range stretched jaggedly for hundreds of kilometers, its peaks warped into unnatural spires by the cataclysms of centuries past. Formerly volcanic, the Verdigris Spine still exhaled heat from fissures that glow faintly green, a ghostly luminescence fueled by chemical reactions and radioactive decay rather than magma.

The air here was heavy, rich with pollen and spores, thick enough in places to distort sound and sight. Most of the landscape of the Verdigris Spine was changed by the war in the Apocalypse, mainly due to some occasional nuclear strikes, even in the mountain range.

Flore dominated the lower slopes of the Verdigris Spine. Gigantic fungi rose like twisted monuments, their caps riddled with bioluminescent patterns that pulse in rhythm with unknown internal processes.

Vines, fat with stored toxins, slither between trees that bleed sap the color of iron. What once may have been recognizable evergreens have evolved into towering, flesh-like trunks whose leaves are sharp as razors and capable of photosynthesis through chemical combustion, igniting in brief, brilliant flashes during overcast days.

The fauna have adapted, evolved and mutated to thrive in this warped ecology. Everything was changed by the combination of the Super Evolution Virus in combination with an overwhelming degree of radiation that was released during the nuclear war.

Even though the weapons used by the nations of this world were not as destructive as Red Queen was able to gather, they ranked it 1st in the list of amount of radiation and hazardous materials.

This all led to various unpredictable mutations in various creatures.

Insectoid swarms with crystalline exoskeletons drifted through the valleys, harvesting spores in coordinated, hive-mind movements. Amphibious predators, scaled and translucent, cling to damp cliffsides, ambushing prey with tendrils that lash out with hydraulic force.

And this was just the mutation of the insects, which became one of the dominant species in the entire area, or rather, on the entire planet. Though all other species and animals have mutated due to the influence of the Super Evolution Virus and nuclear radiation.

Many animals and beasts were evolved into massive behemoths of power. Some behemoths, unknown creatures that resembled both coral and mammal, living mountains in themselves, only stirring when the range itself groans under tectonic strain.

Basically, the flora and fauna of the planet was beyond the definition of the word "dangerous" and only adequately powerful beings could hope to survive in this world.

Arcturus and Jeniael landed down in the depths of the Verdigris Spine, as Jeniael chose a very distant area from any population center of the mutated beasts. The small valley where they were was rather secluded from the rest of the Verdigris Spine, and at the same time, this was an area that was almost untouched by the mutated beast.

The presence of the natives or zombies in the area was zero.

"You see this place? I think that this could comfortably serve our purposes. The only problem is the distance to the rest of the Vlamuin Continent. Still, I think this would be the best course of action, and this area of the Verdigris Spine is probably the safest and most defendable. If we build factories and headquarters here, we could defend against possible invasions."

Jenaiel stated as she showed Arcturus the valley, where they were currently located, and he looked at the flora that was in the place. Suddenly, he found that this place may be more dangerous than he had initially thought, because some of the plants and trees looked rather dangerous.

It seemed that they would need to properly clear out the area if they decided to make their landing zone in that place. Even though he trusted the defensive capabilities of the Obscuurs, Arcturus didn't like any risks.

They would need to properly clear out the area and kill all of the dangerous plants that were in the place. Some of the plants seemed to be pretty dangerous just from a single look; if he were to bet, they would be able to kill some stronger Espers rather easily.

"Well... it seems to be really a good location. The distance could be overcome by the vehicles, and truthfully, we don't really need to place the headquarters of our forces close to the population centers of the natives. As long as we can project our might, it's more than enough."

In the end, due to the really good location that Jenaiel chose, Arcturus relinquished his previous ambitions, which had considered using some other place as their headquarters. Initially, when he was discussing this topic with Zehal, they wanted a place that was close to the local population centers.

But right now...

It wasn't really needed.

First and foremost, what they needed was a very suitable place that could be defended against potential attacks on their headquarters of theirs. Arcturus didn't intend to play nice with the natives as he didn't need subjects, most of them were faulty projects either way...

Basically, Espers, while able to achieve high Grades in a very fast timespan, there was one huge downside of the Super Evolution Virus that was creating the Espers on the planet Aquamarine.

Their powers were highly unstable, and most of them couldn't progress above the Alpha-Grade; even reaching the Alpha-Grade itself was considered a major hurdle for 99% of the Espers, according to the information compiled by the Red Queen.

For this reason, the Espers on the planet Aquamarine that were the result of the Super Evolution Virus were being considered as a failed project and something that was destined not to cross the Sigma-Grade.

At the same time, Zehal thought that they could do some Genetic Recombination on the Espers, which theoretically should remove the flaws of the Super Evolution Virus. However, there was a certain problem with such an approach.

Apparently, it would be very costly.

Unless someone didn't have a very powerful Esper Ability, Arcturus wasn't keen on investing resources into the Espers and doing Genetic Recombination Procedures on them to remedy the Genetic Defects from the Super Evolution Virus.

"Should we start?"

Jeniael asked, seeing that Arcturus was somewhat satisfied with her plan, and it seemed doable for her. It appeared that they would be going for the more direct approach on the matter, and soon enough, both of them started cleaning up the valley.

The process took a few hours, and even then, they didn't manage to clean up the entire area, as there were just too many of the mutated plants. Some were even worse, because it seemed that many of them obtained some sort of rudimentary resistance against the Psionic Energy.

On the next day, after they woke up, both of them resumed cleaning of the landing zone, which was going rather faster when Arcturus started using the Dimension Empyrean. Even though some of the mutated flora had some very basic form of Psionic Energy Resistance, it was nothing against the Dimension Empyrean.

The overwhelming destructive nature of the Super High-Risk Primal Psyker Ability wasn't something that even some of the stronger Psionics and Psykers under the Beyonder Realm could withstand, much less being said about some pieces of mutated flora.

On the second day, Arcturus and Jeniael managed to clear the majority of the mutated flora around the area where they planned for the Obscurus to land. Once they finished their job, Arcturus sent a message to Red Queen to enter the Stealth Mode and start landing on the planet Aquamarine, to the marked location.

Some of the satellites that were orbiting the planet were still working, and even though they had been hijacked by Red Queen a long time ago, they were still very careful about the entire ordeal, and to be safe, Obscurus was landing down in the Stealth Mode.

Only after they were sure of their military power would it be time to reveal themselves and start the subjugation process on the natives of the planet Aquamarine. Once the pyramid-shaped starship landed, the entire ground shook due to the weight of the spaceship, and Red Queen then secured the starship to the ground.

Arcturus and Jeniael looked at the Obscurus, which was opening its gates as hundreds of ABD-Spectre MK II. Battle Droids started swarming out of the starship together with a few Spider Bastion Battle Droids.

The moment the droid army started exiting the spaceships, the first thing that they did was secure the perimeters around the Obscurus in case of a surprise attack, but fortunately, nothing like that happened.

After something between twenty and twenty-five minutes, more and more droids were seen exiting the starships, and through these were primarily the Construction Droids and Mining Droids, whose task was to build a proper fortress around the entire area.

The Droids were tasked with building enormous walls at both ends of the valley, which would be their primary lines of defense. The valley represented the natural defensive positions for their expeditionary forces to the planet Aquamarine.

Zehal soon enough followed after the Droids disembarked from the starship. The first thing she did was to look around the valley where they would be building secondary factories and processing facilities for the metals and ores that would be mined in the valley.

The place was rich in minerals and other things that were needed for manufacturing droids of various types, especially the Construction Droids and Mining Droids. Those ones were not a priority for the facility on the ground, while the facility on one of the moons was tasked with the production of the ABD-Spectre MK II. Battle Droids.

Everything was perfectly divided to achieve maximum efficiency so they could start the subjugation of the planet as soon as possible. Unfortunately, with the small number of Battle Droids that they had, it was impossible, though what was fortunate, aside from the few big civilization centers on the planet, there wasn't much to conquer.

Due to the special efficiency of the Apolypse, most of the human settlements that were created were destroyed within a few days, and not much remained from them. Only the big fortress cities would pose a problem for them, but that could be overcome by the usage of heavy force.

At the same time, they also needed to sort out the approach to the natives, because they were still a rather useful combat force despite the eye-catching defects from the Super Evolution Virus.

Even if they couldn't easily reach the higher Grades and they consumed a lot of resources, they could still be trained into a proper fighting force. Especially if some of the Espers had some stronger abilities, their usage would be big.

For the Voidfuse Company that was lacking manpower, the presence of the natives of the planet Aquamarine was a very good choice. They were a civilization that didn't have any contact with the other factions in the Andromeda Galaxy or, rather, in the wider Cosmos, so that basically eliminated the possibility of infiltration by the enemies of the Empire.

At the same time, even despite the defects, Zehal concluded that their innate talent was still higher than most of the species due to the Super Evolution Virus, and most importantly, it seemed that they were still evolving.

She couldn't pinpoint where, because she wasn't a biologist or geneticist, her knowledge in this area was on the level of the foremost Imperial scientists and researchers, but she could tell that her DNA was still evolving.

There was a certain possibility that their DNA would somehow adapt and eliminate the flaws from the Super Evolution Virus, or at least, adapt to something where the flaws wouldn't be so notable and problematic in the first place.

Even Jeniael, who was most skeptical among them about the natives of the planet Aquamarine, which was primarily stemming from her true mentality of the Highborne Asuryani, and even Zehal wasn't very optimistic about them.

For them, they were just inferior products that were a pale imitation of the real Psykers because anyone could see what the creator of the Super Evolution Virus wanted to achieve.

It wasn't just a simple overall evolution; they wanted to manufacture Pskyres artificially, but it worked only from half the perspective.

Arcturus, meanwhile, looked at the natives of the planet Aquamarine as perfect disposable troops that could be used as their main force. Perhaps with some investment and research, they could be transformed from the label "disposable" to "permanent" and some of the most talented ones could be directly recruited by them to be part of their higher-ups.

He didn't have the inherent xenophobia of the Highborne Asuryani to anything that wasn't of Imperial origin, or rather, it seemed that he had it to a much lesser degree. Asuryani didn't like other species really that much, aside from Votanns.

And only species that they acknowledged as their equals were the ones that possessed similar Psionic Talents and powers as them, so at the end of the Cosmos, it was a very short list.

"When will the second batch of the Battle Droids be finished?"

Arcutrus asked as they were walking across the valley and looked at the Construction Droids and Mining Droids working hard as bees.

"Month and our numbers would be around three thousand, primarily the ABD-Spectre MK II. Battle Droids. The production of the Spider Bastion Battle Droids is only starting, but within three months, we can start producing them in several tens per month as long as we have sufficient materials."

Zehal stated as Arcturus looked a bit troubled, but this was already within his expectations because everything needed time. In the end, they had more than enough time due to their special status within the Academy as the students of the S-Class.

"We also need to handle the topic of natives and what to do with them. Even though two of you are most skeptical about their use in the future, I still think that we should integrate at least those most powerful of them or the ones with the highest potential. In the end, right now, the Voidfuse Company doesn't have a better option."