The transformed living nest of the Alliance Star Sector, like the origin of cosmic cancer, began its greedy expansion along the path of destruction paved with solidified flesh and twisted starlight.
Taviel's gates opened silently, Ysogtha's maw devoured matter, and the biological starships and war beasts, converted from the corrupted Alliance, became Their most loyal and terrifying pawns.
Closest to the Alliance Star Sector was the prosperous trade hub, the Lyra Beta-IV star system.
The Star Speakers of this civilization were renowned for their beautiful art and exquisite starship technology. They had just received some fragmented, static-filled distress signals. The council was still debating their authenticity, and analysts frowned, trying to decipher the unsettling words.
"The Old Ones," "devour," "flee quickly."
The alarm shrieked only when the planetary defense ring was instantly torn to shreds.
No declaration of war, no warning.
Twisted purple shadows obscured the light of the star, and massive biological starships, like dripping meteors of slime, directly smashed through the orbital defense platforms!
Their gaping maws spewed out viscous, highly corrosive, and mentally polluting clouds of flesh spores, instantly engulfing the bustling capital starport!
The Star Speakers' proud, streamlined, elegant silver warships, upon contact with the spore cloud, saw their shields burst like soap bubbles, and their hull armor hissed as if corroded by strong acid.
Even more terrifying, the spores infiltrated the ship's interior, and the crew mutated in extreme pain and madness, becoming new, twisted Old Ones' servants, firing upon their former comrades!
On the surface, Old Ones' ground forces, even more grotesque in form and led by Trigg's clones, poured out of landing craft like a tide.
They ignored energy weapon fire, tearing through the Star Speakers' fragile defenses with sharp bone blades and acidic saliva.
Cities burned, and beautiful crystal structures were pulverized under the trampling of giant beasts.
Cries, explosions, and the inhuman roars of the Old Ones' servants intertwined into a symphony of hell.
Resistance was futile.
In just a few days, the entire Lyra Beta-IV star system was reduced to a desolate ruin, covered in writhing flesh and purple fungal mats.
All life, whether resistors or civilians, was transformed into a part of The Old Ones' Tide, becoming nourishment for the Old Ones' will.
The fall of Lyra was like the first giant stone thrown into a dark pond. Panic began to spread to surrounding star sectors at light-year speeds.
Kairon Star Ring.
A civilization known for its resilient miners and powerful ground forces, they immediately entered maximum combat readiness after receiving the vague warnings.
They deployed heavy troops in the asteroid belt, constructing defenses with massive kinetic cannon emplacements and energy landmines.
However, when The Old Ones' Tide surged, the defenses were like paper. The biological starships ignored kinetic impacts, and energy weapons were deflected and absorbed by the writhing biological force fields on their surfaces.
Giant burrowing beasts directly drilled through asteroids, dismantling defenses from within. The bravery of the Kairon warriors was like a praying mantis trying to stop a chariot in the face of absolute power and terrifying corruption.
Vega Relic Zone.
This was the place Trigg and others had used to fob off Mark Grayson, and now it had become a true graveyard.
Several lower-tech civilization fleets that were conducting archaeology here were swallowed by the spore cloud before they even saw the enemy, unable to send out even a distress signal.
Powerful civilizations like the Light-Forged Council of the Andromeda Nebula and the Mechanicus of the Perseus Arm, though they received clearer warnings, were far away, and information was chaotic.
They were still fiercely debating the authenticity of the threat and how to respond, filled with arrogance, suspicion, and appeasement.
The shadow of the Old Ones had not yet enveloped them, but the seeds of distrust and chaos had already been sown.
The Old Ones' expansion was not merely destruction.
Each successful harvest, each thoroughly corrupted star system, its vast condensed life energy, desperate emotions, and twisted planetary essence, all converged along an invisible flesh-and-blood pathway, ultimately pouring into the core depths of Taviel and Ysogtha's will.
Deep within the core of the massive nest in the corrupted Alliance Star Sector, a point that could not be described by space was forming.
It was not a material existence, but a condensation of pure concept and power.
Taviel's gates provided an anchor for its existence, Ysogtha's maw instilled the essence of devouring, and the fear, pain, and forcibly twisted life force of billions of sacrificed beings became the fertile ground for its birth.
Finally, in an instant that could not be measured by mortal time, when yet another fertile agricultural star system, the Abundant Star, was completely transformed into a writhing farm of flesh, that core point erupted!
There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a silent, yet instantly seared, terrifying tremor in the deep consciousness of all advanced cosmic life!
It was as if the universe itself skipped a heartbeat, or as if cold tentacles brushed the spines of all souls!
A vast, bloated, ethereal figure, composed of countless writhing uteri and sacs dripping with black, viscous amniotic fluid, appeared in this part of the universe.
This was a Great Old One, Shub-Niggurath.
She exuded a nauseating, intense scent of both gestation and putrefaction.
Her appearance was not a physical manifestation, but rather the formal embedding of her conceptual existence and power dimension into the rules of this universe!
If the existence of the previous two Old Ones was like throwing giant stones into a calm lake, then the birth of the third Great Old One, Shub-Niggurath, was like instantly replacing the entire lake with a viscous, malevolent swamp!
The fundamental rules of the universe were brutally twisted and defiled.
The balance of life was utterly broken, and the shadow of death had never been so dense.
Solar System, Earth GDA Headquarters.
Boom—!!!
Without warning, the entire base shook violently!
As if struck by an invisible giant hammer, dust showered from the ceiling, and lights flickered wildly.
Piercing alarms blared instantly, but this time not from deep-space probes!
"Global scale, magnitude 9.8 earthquake!"
"Epicenter depth… cannot be determined! Affecting all continents!"
The communicator's voice was filled with unbelievable panic.
"Pacific Ocean tsunami warning! Waves over a hundred meters high!"
"Atmospheric circulation anomaly! Super hurricane spontaneously generated in the North Atlantic! Wind speed breaking records!"
"Geomagnetic storm! Global communications cut off! Satellites malfunctioning!"
Director Cecil's face was ashen. He rapidly issued commands in front of the holographic Earth projection, his voice hoarse but unequivocal.
"Activate global disaster response plan! All GDA branches, abandon non-essential missions, devote all efforts to disaster relief!"
"Mark Grayson! Lieutenant Allen! I need you!"
Mark Grayson instantly vanished from his spot, reappearing the next second above the North American West Coast.
Below, a hundred-meter-high giant wave, like a moving mountain, surged towards the coastline with a force that threatened to destroy everything!
Mark Grayson's molten-gold eyes burst with astonishing light. He dove down, fists clenched, muscles strained to their limit, and slammed them fiercely into the core of the giant wave!
Boom—!!!!
A pure force shockwave ripped through the air, forming a visible conical vacuum zone, and the violent kinetic energy forcibly tore apart and shattered the incoming giant wave!
Seawater splashed like an explosion, but this was only the beginning; even larger wave crests followed!
Eve hovered above the GDA headquarters, her golden psionic energy spreading like wings of light, attempting to communicate with Earth's pained and chaotic planetary consciousness, guiding the violent telluric energy to mitigate the earthquake's destruction.
Lieutenant Allen's figure appeared at the center of the hurricane's eye, attempting to dissipate the anomalous storm with his own power.
The Robot, meanwhile, transformed into a blue light, traversing the most severely damaged areas, using precise energy control to cut through collapsed buildings and rescue survivors.
The entire Earth was plunged into sudden, extreme, and violent natural disasters!
This was by no means a natural phenomenon, but a terrifying ripple stirred on the cradle of life after the cosmic rules were twisted by the birth of the Third Old One!
Just as the global GDA was overwhelmed.
The base's deep-space alert radar detected a faint, non-standard distress signal.
A battered, lifeboat-sized spacecraft, shaped like a twisted conch, spewing black smoke, forcefully broke into Earth's atmosphere in an extremely unstable manner, ultimately losing control and crashing at the edge of a remote desert.
Nearby GDA rapid response units arrived immediately.
As they cautiously approached the still-smoking wreckage, the hatch was violently kicked open from the inside.
A figure stumbled out.
This was a humanoid creature, but its skin was a deep indigo blue, covered with fine silver patterns. Its head had no hair, only a few soft, antenna-like tentacles.
He or she wore a damaged silver uniform, one arm unnaturally twisted, and indigo blue blood seeped from a wound on his or her forehead.
His or her eyes were unfocused, filled with extreme fear and despair, muttering incomprehensible syllables repeatedly, but one word was laboriously caught by the translator.
"Korta… Korta…"
"Alien refugee!"
"Medical team! Prepare for isolation and emergency treatment!"
The on-site commander immediately ordered.
When this survivor, identified as a Kortan, was urgently transported to the GDA's highest-level medical isolation zone and stabilized after initial treatment, Lieutenant Allen was invited to communicate as an alien civilization expert.
Lieutenant Allen looked at the weak blue figure on the medical bed and the unique, spiral nebula-like insignia on his uniform, and his pupils suddenly contracted!
"Kortan? Are you… a member of the Korta Nebula Confederacy?"
The Kortan, hearing a familiar language, suddenly opened his eyes, his tentacles trembling violently.
When he saw Lieutenant Allen's face, his indigo blue pupils instantly widened, filled with incredible shock and… ecstasy!
He struggled to sit up, shouting with all his might, his voice choked with tears, clearly transmitted through the translator.
"Lieutenant Allen?! Is that you?!"
"By the universe! Mark Grayson… Mark Grayson, is he here too?!"
"Please! Tell him! The universe… the universe is being eaten! They… three of them!…"
"They have come! My home… Korta… is gone! All gone!"
Tears mixed with blue blood streamed down his cheeks as he poured out the horrors of The Old Ones' Tide he had experienced, the fall of planets, the extinction of his race, like a collapsing dam.
Every word carried the stench of blood and despair, confirming the cosmic upheaval Earth had just felt, and bringing the GDA the most brutal intelligence from the front lines of the cosmic abyss.
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