Ch.111111. The Balbar Empire

Long ago, in a spiral arm of our galaxy—in a habitable zone—there existed an Earth-like planet that would one day be called Balvaren.

Though its atmospheric oxygen concentration was slightly higher and its gravity somewhat lighter than Earth’s, this planet possessed an environment remarkably similar to Earth in almost every other respect.

Uniquely, the star that provided light and heat to this planet had the extremely rare property of naturally emitting psychic energy, which resulted in the various life forms born on this planet having exceptionally high psychic aptitude on average.

This was no exception for the Balvar, the dominant species of this planet.

The Balvar—a species with grayish skin, generally elongated body proportions, and a height of about 2.5 meters, but otherwise not too different in appearance from humans—were born with innate psychic abilities of approximately level 7-8, causing their entire civilization to be structured around psychic powers.

But what made this species even more special was that, thanks to their high psychic aptitude, their emotions that flowed into the psychic dimension gained subtle power. These emotions clustered together with similar ones, eventually forming—powerful psychic entities that the Balvar called “gods.”

These psychic entities could not only interfere with reality through complex rituals or by borrowing the bodies of psychic users, but they could also absorb the souls of deceased Balvar who had crossed into the psychic dimension to increase their own power.

Based on these characteristics, the Balvar gods swore to work together to guide the Balvar in their respective domains and achieve prosperity for their species. With these gods actively serving as leaders, the Balvar achieved rapid growth.

Hundreds of Balvar nations, which had remained at roughly the equivalent of Earth’s 19th century due to the absence of petroleum-like resources on their planet, united under a common leader—the strongest among the Balvar gods. Their civilization, which had stagnated for 500 years, advanced to the level of space exploration in just 50 years.

Day by day, the power of the Balvar Empire grew stronger, and they eventually succeeded in conquering their entire planetary system.

After conquering their system, the Balvar gods decided on the future direction of the Balvar Empire: to dominate the entire galaxy and leave only the Balvar, whose souls they could absorb, effectively turning our entire galaxy into a soul farm for their growth.

The Balvar, enticed by the promise of a paradise after death where all things would be possible (when in reality, their souls were simply absorbed), voluntarily participated in holy wars. In a galaxy where few interstellar civilizations existed, they literally acted as Space-Nazis.

According to their logic, the entire galaxy belonged to them—the Balvar Empire—by “manifest destiny,” and all intelligent life forms except the Balvar were merely something that “should not exist.”

Under this doctrine, the Balvar diligently conquered all nearby aliens with their superior psychic civilization and divine guidance, leaving only Balvar on the conquered planets.

As one of the earliest civilizations to emerge in this galaxy, there were extremely few civilizations developed enough to oppose the Balvar Empire, and even those of comparable technological advancement were completely powerless against the might of their gods.

In no time, about 20% of the habitable planetary systems in our galaxy were occupied by the Balvar Empire, and countless alien species vanished without a trace.

And this immensely powerful Balvar Empire had just sent forces to occupy the Castellan planetary system located at their border.

They deployed four 10-kilometer-long battleships—virtually invincible by the standards of that time—along with at least hundreds of thousands of support vessels, millions of Balvar warriors, and about 200 million robotic war machines.

The Castellan Crusade Force, planning to conquer all nearby planetary systems starting with the Castellan system, invaded with a grand ceremony—

And there, they encountered alien life forms far more powerful than any they had faced before.

This alien species, which seemed as if the Balvar Empire had poured all its technological prowess into bioengineering, had terraformed the entire planetary system into their production factory, producing numerous troops and small vessels.

Judging that leaving them unchecked would undoubtedly pose a great threat to the future of the Balvar Empire, the gods ordered their forces to annihilate them, and as always, the Balvar army fought against the alien species.

Although they suffered heavy casualties due to the cloud-like swarms of medium to small organic spaceships filled with humanoid aliens specialized in close combat, they were an elite army tempered by dozens of battles.

While the Balvar fleet engaged the organic fleet, they deployed avatars of the Balvar gods to the terraformed planets, burning everything on the planetary surface. As a result, they were able to conquer the Castellan planetary system with only about 20% casualties.

And the spoils they gained from this battle were quite abundant.

Various organic materials of unknown composition, plasma weapons thousands of times more advanced, and even life forms at the level of machines that could be somewhat controlled by psychic powers.

Returning with various spoils of war, they held a grand victory ceremony using captured monsters and various alien weapons as they always did—

At that moment, suddenly above their skies—an enormously massive circular life form appeared with powerful psychic waves.

What humans would call a Doomsday-class Hive Ship. This literally moon-sized vessel appeared without warning and fired its main cannon at Balvaren, the mother world of the Balvar Empire, and the result was… devastating.

The laser, easily exceeding several thousand kilometers in thickness, shook the crust upon impact, liquefying most of the planet’s crust. The laser didn’t stop there but moved across the surface like flowing liquid, heating Balvaren’s surface to a glowing red—

With the second high-powered concentrated bombardment, the mother world Balvaren, home to the Balvar Empire’s various administrative and judicial institutions, was shattered into pieces and vanished from existence.

And naturally, the gods who led the Balvar Empire were enraged by this atrocity.

※ ※ ※

The enraged gods soon discovered the culprit who had obliterated their core stronghold—the Hive Mind.

When it was revealed that this massive life form, which had so brazenly destroyed their headquarters in one strike, was being directly controlled, forty-nine Balvar gods, furious, charged directly at the Hive Mind within the psychic dimension.

The gods, taking the form of Balvar wearing colorful armor according to Balvar faith, had temporarily boosted their power by burning the souls of Balvar killed on Balvaren, and there were forty-nine of them.

With such numbers, they charged in thinking that a god (or not) of mere beasts with intelligence barely above animals couldn’t be much of a threat…

—Gulp.

[Mawwwwwww—!!!!!]

They were utterly defeated by the Hive Mind, which was already operating on a galactic scale, and all but five were swallowed whole by the lisping Hive Mind, devoured soul and all.

To use an analogy, it was like swinging a weapon at a purple, highly acidic slime, only to be sucked in along with your weapon and buried within the slime’s body.

In reality, they attacked with psychic powers so high-dimensional that the human brain could barely comprehend, only to be counterattacked and absorbed while stunned.

From the beginning, there was no way these low-grade deities, who couldn’t even properly create a subdimension, could defeat the Hive Mind, which was preparing to evolve from a demigod to the next stage.

And beyond this, the Hive Mind did not prey exclusively on gods.

Across the Balvar territory, dozens of invasion fleets consisting of about 8 trillion monsters moved with the intention of completely annihilating this irritating alien species, leaving not a single Balvar in their wake.

No matter what methods they tried, they were completely crushed by the overwhelming numbers and quality of the enemy. With communication between the Balvar and their gods completely severed, they were essentially preparing for a last stand to buy time for evacuation ships to escape…

For some reason, however, the monsters stopped expanding after occupying about half of the territory and began to consolidate.

Having lost almost all strategic points and prosperous planetary systems, with only five of the forty-nine gods remaining, the Balvar nevertheless refused to give up.

Though much technology was lost, they were still the Balvar Empire, once one of the great powers of our galaxy.

They restored various technologies, monitored the movements of the monsters, and even engaged in trade and exchange with other interstellar civilizations, unlike in the past.

Investing thousands of years solely for revenge, the Balvar dispatched hope for the future (a large-scale migration fleet) to the outskirts of the galaxy in preparation for defeat, then committed to an all-out war with everything at their disposal.

Thousands of capital ship-class vessels, seven Attack Moons created by completely retrofitting moon-like satellites to counter the Doomsday-class Hive Ship, and almost all Balvar mechanized and deployed to the battlefield regardless of personal will, following the dictates of the five gods.

Their primary target was the Hive planets in the Balvaren system, where their former mother world had been located.

And at the same time, within the psychic space—

《Die, you monster!》

《We will avenge our brothers!》

[You invaded us first, what are you talking about?]

A battle was unfolding between five psychic entities with divine status seeking to avenge their kind and a single demigod.