This was the result of their racial supremacy and arrogance over the other species. Most of their race rarely trained or did anything to get more powerful and stronger or more experienced than anything.


    Only a handful number of the Mind yers weremonly trained or anything, though, from what Arcturus heard, the trained Illithids that mastered their powers were far more fearsome than anything, and their mastery over the Psionics was...


    It was something that he couldn''t really match.


    Arcturus quickly outstretched his right hand as he created bluish energy on his hand and sent Psionic st toward the Mind yer that was closest to him, causing the overgrown octopus to crash into the wall.


    Even in a situation like this, the Mind yers were ratherfortable in their situation, and they put their guard down for a bit when Arcturus pretended to be under the effect of the Psionic Screetch.


    Meanwhile, one of the two remaining Mind yers was incapacitated for the time being; Arcturus rushed toward the one that seemed to be okey. This time, though, he was using the Sardau Star Sword Style, and in a split of a moment, his sword was stabbed in the Illithid''s heart.


    Before the Mind yer that crashed into the wall recovered, Arcturus was already looming in front of him with his sword, shing through his throat like a hot knife through butter. With thest Mind yer here dead, there was practically no resistance left.


    Battle Droids cleaned up the ves, finishing them off as they started searching through the area and securing the perimeter. When the entire ce was secured, it was time to systemically clear out the ship, from the Mind yers and their ves alike.


    ''All ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids are already on the Nautiloid. We can start advancing through the ship and clearing out the premises.''


    When he heard Red Queen reporting to him, he nodded and prepared to go to the bridge of the ship.


    "Are are the rest of the Illithids?"


    He asked about the location of the remaining Mind yers on the Nautiloid.


    ''Barricaded themselves at the bridge. It seems that they have attempted to send out the signal for help to the Mind Fleet, but I have blocked them. The moment they realized that nothing was working, they barricaded themselves in the room and prepared to make theirst stand in the room.''


    Arcturus just nodded at this because he knew that nothing remained for the eldritch octopuses to do. From his point of view, it was the most logical thing to do; perhaps they would attempt to take out the enemy through deception and traps.


    Surrendering was not an option for them; such a thing waspletely uneptable because, for the Mind yers, the race that saw themselves as superior to everyone, was the greatest humiliation.


    "Clear out the ship; we will have the bridge as thest one."


    ording to the scans, there were a few hostilities on the ship, though not many of them, but Arcturus wanted to clear out the entire spaceship before they took the bridge.


    "As youmand."


    With the acknowledgment from the Red Queen, she started controlling the ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids, who marched through the Nautiloid, checking one room to another, one hall to another, and cleaning it out.


    In some of them, they found a few lost ves that were not under the direct control of the Mind yers, killing them and saving themselves from potential trouble. Red Queen even went above that, and beamed two of the Spider Bastion Battle Droids onto the Nautiloid so they could have some really heavy firepower against the Illithids.


    Because themunications of the starship were already disabled by the Red Queen, there was no way for them to contact the Mind Fleet for any help or to ry the distress signal somewhere.


    Obviously, that would be catastrophic for Arcturus if he was attacked by a swarm of the Mind yers. Red Queen even locked down the systems of the ship, so the octopuses couldn''t delete the memory of the systems.


    Efen though the Nautiloid was something akin to a bioship, they were still using technology and once someone was using any kind of technology, it could be hacked by the Red Queen.


    Unfortunately, without a direct connection, she couldn''t ess the most confidential and secure information that was on the servers.


    ***


    Bridge of the Nautiloid, around the same time.


    Several Mind yers were standing in the middle of themand center of the Nautiloid, looking at each other with a certain degree of wariness and nervousness.


    ''The monkey is approaching. All of our defenses are being breached, and the ship''s systems are down.''


    One of the Mind yers with purple-colored skin, who appeared to be the leader of the Illitds in this ce, spoke telepathically to his subordinates. He was the captain of the Nautiloid and one of the higher-ranked members of their species.


    ''He has some kind of very advanced Artificial Intelligence that is breaching the systems of our ship. It already managed to lock down the entire interference of the spaceship; we can''t do anything besides fighting.''


    Another one of the Mind yers, who had several technological gadgets on his person, spoke this time, as he was responsible for all things rted to the technology. One could say that the Mind yer was the chief engineer of the spaceship.


    ''He is just alone, with a bunch of Droids, nothing that we can''t handle.''


    The leader of the Illithids sounded pretty arrogant about this, but the other three that were in the room, were not really sharing the optimistic view of their leader.


    ''My Lord, we have lost most of our ves, aside from the few ones that were on the bridge right now... we are severely outnumbered.''


    That was the truth of their situation; perhaps it was a bad piece of luck or whatever, but they didn''t keep the ves together with them, which allowed the intruder to take out their strongest card.


    Illithids were not dangerous just due to their personal power and their physical might, but another reason why they were so dangerous was due to the number of ves they had under theirmand.


    Many of those ves were often pretty powerful, which created a deadlybo of enemies that was personally very powerful and also had many people under hismand. So, one couldn''t use the sheer numbers to overwhelm them.


    ''Nonsense, before the might of the Mind Rulers, the monkeys will kneel and perish as they should!''


    The captain of the spaceship was enraged when he heard doubts from his subordinates because they would never really take the humans and their branches seriously. Humans and their offshoots didn''t really have a "good" reputation among most of the older species.


    Most of the branches of the humanity were weak.


    Many were without any talent in the Psionics or physical strength, special talents, or anything. This caused many species to look down on humans; even the fabled Asuryani species reached their status not through natural evolution but mostly through gic engineering and enhancements.


    That was also the reason why many in the universe were calling humanity and their offshoot branches "monkeys" as a form of degradation denomination for the entire race.


    ''Prepare for the fight! We will fight, and we will win! The glory of the Illithid race cannot be tarnshed by some lowly monk-gheis that barely touched the stars.''


    With that being said, it was clear that there was no room for surrender or anything.


    There was only one option being left.


    War.


    ***


    In front of the bridge


    The doors to the bridge were tightly sealed; Arcturus could see that they were rather massive; it would take some time to get through them, but with the Spider Bastion Battle Droids that Red Queenmanded, it would take much shorter.


    "Can''t you open it?"


    It would be easier if she could open the door normally or at least unlock them. If they were shot apart, it would create an unnecessary mess in this ce. Unfortunately, the bridge was ced rather unfortunately in the spaceship because if this ce was damaged too much, they could breach the hull of the ship.


    And then... everyone would be sucked into the cold and dark void of the space.


    Which was a big no-no.


    Or...


    ''I can, though it would take some time. It probably takes a few minutes, but this method is the m, most advisable one. I have done scans of the ship, and it seems that the hall where we are standing right now is one of the weakest points of the starship. One or two good explosions, there is a very high chance that the hull would be breached.''


    Just as he feared, this was the weak point of the ship, so they could do it through the old way... or...


    "What if I used the Aetherius together with the Empyrean Power to cut through the metal? Should it be sufficient?"


    This would be much faster; with just a few cuts, he could open the door, and the less time they spent here would mean less time for the squids to prepare. For sure, they were already aware that they were standing in front of the bridge and were scheming for something.