Kyle went to Commander Nezeth.
"Black Sin Hammer 37 reporting. I have completed my shift," he transmitted.
"Accepted," Commander Nezeth answered as she inspected Kyle's Emblem. "You have killed 3.8 trillion Demons, and you have been granted 2,500 Military Merits, rounded up. Your deeds have been included in your Emblem. Your next orders are to return to Forward Base 198."
Kyle nodded and left without saying another word.
He left the frontlines behind and made his way to Forward Base 198.
"Kyle Freeman."
Kyle stopped moving as he heard his true name.
"Kyle Freeman. Kyle Freeman. Kyle Freeman."
Kyle's heart rate shot through the roof as he felt one Energy wave after another carrying his true name. He didn't receive any voice transmission, and nobody was physically speaking his name. There were just waves of Energy that carried the meaning of his true name.
In fact, it even felt like nobody was actually trying to speak to him. It was more like the sound of the wind had been replaced with his name.
It was beyond strange and quite intimidating.
He wasn't sure if this was some kind of trap from the Demons.
"I have no idea what's going on, but I refuse to believe that the Demons know my true name."
Kyle clenched his fists and decided to follow the Energy waves.
After a couple of teleportations, Kyle found the source of the Energy waves, and when he saw it, he felt a cold shudder run down his spine.
The source of the Energy waves was a strange Formation Array.
The way the Formation Array was set up was beyond alien and strange. The logic of it seemed broken, unusual, and chaotic. It was filled with inefficiencies and mistakes, which could easily be solved with a couple of tweaks.
There were 20 people sitting around the Formation Array.
These 20 people were all Transcendents, but that was the only normal thing about them.
All of them had glazed-over eyes, and they didn't move at all.
They sat completely still, and the Energy inside and outside their bodies lacked any fluctuations.
They didn't have wills.
They were alive, but they lacked any sort of personality or soul.
However, the thing in the center of the Formation Array was the strangest of all these strange things.
It was a hairless human head with no eyes, nose, or ears.
There was only a large, smiling mouth.
As Kyle saw the head, he felt some kind of instinctual rejection.
Something about it wasn't right.
Naturally, Kyle was immediately reminded of the feeling Death gave someone.
Death also gave off this instinctual feeling of rejection and danger.
Yet, Kyle knew Death. He had even used it several times to comprehend Laws, and the feeling this head gave Kyle was different from the feeling Death gave him.
It felt somewhat similar, but there was still a clear difference.
"I thought Death was supposed to feel unique. This is not Death, but it feels similar to it. What is this strange force?"
The head in the center of the Formation Array exhibited fluctuations that fit the Primal Realm in terms of intensity, but they also felt different.
Kyle could feel some aspects of Energy inside the fluctuations, but the majority just felt strange and wrong.
Kyle remained above the cave for several seconds.
"Nothing has happened yet. It just keeps repeating my name," he thought. "If this is a trap, it's a bad one."
Kyle took a deep breath and decided to enter the cave.
Nothing reacted to his entrance.
The people didn't look at him, and the Formation Array continued operating normally.
The next moment, Kyle lightly tapped the person's head, but they still didn't react.
"Weird," he thought as he tapped the guy a couple more times.
Eventually, Kyle looked at the head in the center of the Formation Array.
He took a deep breath and entered the Formation Array, and as soon as he did, the Formation Array deactivated.
It didn't break or explode.
It simply stopped working.
BANG!
Then, the twenty people around the Formation Array exploded into a cloud of blood, which turned into Neutral Energy before dissipating.
BANG!
Kyle's eyes widened as he saw the Nodes and Connections of the Formation Array exploding into clouds of blood as well.
They had seemed metallic just mere moments ago!
Why were they suddenly organic?
Kyle prepared himself for some kind of fight, but he noticed that he could still teleport.
Additionally, except for startling him, these explosions hadn't done anything else.
They just got rid of all the traces of the Formation Array.
"Kyle," the mouth on the big head said.
This time, it wasn't some kind of Energy wave.
This was simply the mouth speaking.
"What is this?" Kyle asked with furrowed brows.
"This is Manny speaking," the head said. "This is our way of communicating from now on."
Kyle's eyes widened.
All these alien and strange things had been set up by Manny just to contact him?
"That is… original," Kyle transmitted.
Yet, the head didn't answer.
"Kyle, are you there?" Manny asked.
"Yeah, I just said so," Kyle answered.
"Did you use voice transmission?" the head asked.
"Yes."
"The relay can't receive or transmit voice transmissions while outside. You have to talk normally," the head said.
Kyle blinked a couple of times.
This situation was too strange.
"Put the head into your Soul Space," the head said. "Talking will be faster and easier like this."
Kyle looked with discomfort at the head.
Somehow, his instincts really didn't like the head.
They told him that he shouldn't interact with it.
Yet, Kyle decided to trust Manny and put the head into his Soul Space.
As soon as the head entered Kyle's Soul Space, he felt some kind of connection with it.
It was almost like the head had become a part of his body.
"Good," Manny's voice said inside Kyle's mind. "The relay has been set up. From now on, we will communicate over this relay. As long as the relay is within your Soul Space, we can communicate via voice transmission. Just send a voice transmission to it and think of a person you want to contact. If that person also has a relay, they will receive your voice transmission."
"Okay, first question," Kyle transmitted to the head. "What the fuck?!"
"Are you referring to the relay's appearance?" Manny asked.
"In general, what the fuck?!" Kyle repeated. "Weird willless batteries, a fucked-up head, strange fluctuations that are similar to Death, and what even is this communication method?!"
"There's not much I can do about the relay's appearance," Manny transmitted. "I can't tell you all the details since they involve secrets from my Organization. I can only tell you that I am using a special form of Energy that's common in one of the Experimental Worlds. One of us comes from there, and we're using this kind of Energy if we want to converse in secret."
"Powerful Seekers can read and intercept voice transmissions. Advanced technology and Formation Arrays can sense electronic and Energy signals. Physical voices can be perceived by regular Energy Sense. People who relay messages can be traitors. The relay is the only way we can be sure that nobody is listening. Only the God of this Cosmos and a select few people can intercept these messages."
Kyle sighed.
"I'm talking to a fucked head in my Soul Space. This is so weird."
"Fine," Kyle transmitted. "So, what's up? Why this weird setup? Couldn't you have just delivered the head to Major Sovignor?"
The head remained silent for a bit.
"Humanity's core has lost all hope," Manny transmitted.
"They've given up."
"They want to escape and repair the world, but they're too scared. 99% of Humanity wants to desperately fix this world, but the remaining one percent have given up. They can't see any way to succeed. Hopelessness takes hold, and sharing secrets with the enemy doesn't seem so devastating anymore."
"Some of their leaders desperately want us to succeed, but some of them work for the Demons out of fear. They believe that they're exchanging valuable information for the continued existence of Humanity. For every bit of valuable information, the Demons say that they will weaken the assaults for a specific number of years."
"They're essentially apologizing, hoping that their apology would weaken the onslaught of physical abuse."
"We have to assume that all of our prior communication has been shared with Humanity and the Demons."
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