[Huh? A Male Zerg? A battlefield? The Tianga Fleet?!]
[What is the military even doing?! They actually sent a Male Zerg on such a dangerous mission? And let him break through in the middle of a battlefield?!]
[Has the Federation run out of military Female Zergs? Why does a Male Zerg have to carry out missions?]
When they read that Lord Xi'an had once participated in a patrol mission and had even encountered the Tianga Fleet, the Female Zergs reacted fiercely.
That was a Male Zerg.
A precious A+ Male Zerg.
There were only a handful of them in the entire Federation. Every one of them was incomparably precious. Losing even one would be enough to plunge the entire Zerg race into grief.
Yet such a precious Male Zerg had fallen into the encirclement of the Tianga Fleet and faced a life-and-death crisis.
That was the failure of every Female Zerg.
Not to mention that Lord Xi'an had been facing a rank advancement at the time!
Male Zerg advancement required a safe and stable environment.
Most Male Zergs would choose to do it in the familiar surroundings of their own bedroom.
Whenever a Male Zerg was about to break through, his Female Lord, attendant females, parents, elders, and even siblings stationed elsewhere would all take leave and return home to accompany him.
Even if they could only stand outside the Male Zerg's room, they would still do so to provide him with a sense of security.
But Lord Xi'an's breakthrough had happened on a dangerous battlefield.
There was no familiar room filled with his own scent.
No family by his side.
Only Claire.
What could Claire possibly do?
Could he give Lord Male Zerg a sense of security? Could he protect him?
At the same time, the Female Zergs remembered another important matter.
During a breakthrough, a Male Zerg's hormones underwent tremendous changes. His pheromone release became uncontrollable and would naturally spread outward.
The vacuum of space could block the spread of pheromones.
But inside that mecha cockpit, there was still another Zerg.
An adult Female Zerg.
A fully developed Female Zerg with a strong libido.
[Holy shit! Claire! How dare he?!]
[So that's what happened! He took advantage of Lord Male Zerg's awakening and violated him. No wonder he didn't dare face Lord Xi'an afterward!]
[He actually got to have Lord Xi'an right there. I hate him so much.]
A group of furious Female Zergs had already been blinded by jealousy.
Those with more reason felt speechless.
[Get a grip. This is a battlefield. The Tianga Fleet is right behind them. This isn't exactly the place for mating. If he slept with a Male Zerg at a time like this, he'd practically be throwing away his life.]
Ordinary Zergs really wouldn't be able to remain rational in such circumstances.
Who could resist the pheromones of an A+ Male Zerg?
Inside the enclosed cockpit, once a Female Zerg smelled that scent, his whole body would go weak, with only one part left hard.
He would wish to be filled immediately and marked by the Male Zerg.
Reason.
Rules.
Everything would be forgotten.
Only the primitive instinct to mate would remain.
At that point, even if someone stabbed the Female Zerg several times, he wouldn't feel any pain.
Let alone pay attention to the Tianga warships beyond the sea of stars.
No one believed Claire could take the Male Zerg away under such conditions.
They could only assume that rescue forces had arrived by sheer luck.
【"Claire..."
Xi'an heard "himself" calling his name.
Within the mecha cockpit manifested inside the spiritual landscape, the red-haired Male Zerg was curled up on the floating chair. His eyes were shut, his cheeks deeply flushed, and his slightly parted lips softly uttered a name.
Even though Xi'an was only in spiritual form at the moment, he could clearly sense the sweet Male Zerg pheromones in the air.
The pheromones filled the entire cockpit.
Their ambiguous, seductive sweetness was almost tangible.
Claire, seated before the control console, had a flushed face and rapid breathing. The seat beneath him seemed to have already been soaked, and beneath his military trousers an exaggerated bulge had risen.
Yet he still managed to answer,
"I'm here."
His voice was deep and magnetic, carrying suppressed heaviness, along with restrained gasps and rough breaths.
Even though Xi'an was merely a spiritual body here, he felt his ears burning.
He had never seen Claire like this before.
It made him afraid to look.
Yet he couldn't help looking again.
He had even forgotten the purpose of entering Claire's psychic domain.
The "pheromones" within the spiritual landscape seemed to have affected him as well.
He couldn't help wondering—
Had Claire hugged him?
Had he eaten him? Or had he ridden him?
Xi'an's bright eyes flickered.
He felt nervous and apprehensive.
On one hand, he thought he might have lost his virginity while unconscious.
He didn't really feel any negative emotions about it. More than anything, he felt shy and regretful.
Regretful that he had no memory of it whatsoever.
On the other hand, he felt this place was simply too dangerous.
The Tianga forces were still biting at their heels. If Claire had really slept with him here, there was no way they could have escaped the pursuit of the Tianga Fleet.
He worried about Claire's safety.
But according to the past he knew, Claire had successfully brought him back.
That was an established fact.
Both of them had returned safely. Neither had died.
That put Xi'an's mind at ease.
Yet he couldn't help wondering—
How exactly had Claire brought him back?
The pursuing Tianga Fleet behind them.
A Male Zerg in the cockpit, burning with fever and releasing pheromones...
No matter how he looked at it, it was a hopeless situation.
Had reinforcements arrived?
No.
The report had never mentioned any.
Just as he was making guesses, Xi'an suddenly heard Claire let out a moan so alluring that it made a Zerg's ears go weak.
Subconsciously, Xi'an raised a hand to touch his ears, only to see Claire pull out an injector from his spatial button and viciously stab it into his arm, his expression twisted in agony.
Xi'an's face turned pale with fright.
That was a military-grade pheromone suppressant.
It could rapidly pull a Female Zerg out of heat and restore his composure.
But the experience was anything but pleasant.
The hand holding the syringe was still trembling, yet the Female Zerg showed no hesitation in injecting himself. In an instant, he emptied the entire tube.
Claire let out a heavy breath. The pain caused by the suppressant immediately drained all color from his face, cold sweat pouring from him.
He clenched his teeth tightly and endured it without making a sound. Pulling out the empty syringe, he tossed it aside.
He didn't even spare it a glance.
His eyes remained fixed on the data displayed on the light screen as he continued operating the mecha.
On the floor beside the seat lay three identical syringes.
Xi'an stared blankly at the scattered syringes and covered his mouth in shock.
Claire had been maintaining his sanity by continuously injecting suppressants.
He couldn't imagine how Claire had repeatedly forced himself to inject those drugs under the influence of an A+ Male Zerg's pheromones, relying only on reason and willpower. Nor could he imagine how Claire had endured the agony caused by the suppressants while continuing to pilot the mecha and battle against the Tianga forces.
Their compatibility was so high.
His pheromones would affect Claire even more strongly.
And this wasn't even the first injection.
Injecting so many suppressants in such a short period of time...
The suffering was unimaginable.
It was no different from being slowly flayed at the genetic level.
Xi'an's vision blurred.
These were parts of the past he had never known.
No one had ever told him.
Not the doctors.
Not the military Female Zergs of the Ninth Legion.
Not even Claire.
When Claire raised another syringe and stabbed it into himself again, Xi'an instinctively rushed forward and reached out to stop him.
The syringe passed straight through his hand, as though through empty air.
Seeing that, Xi'an felt unbearable pain.
He was only an intruding spiritual body.
He couldn't stop anything.
Nor could he change what had already happened.
Xi'an didn't see the sweat-soaked eyelashes trembling slightly, nor the momentary focus of Claire's gaze upon his face.
Ever since the Male Zerg had appeared inside the mecha, Claire had noticed him.
This "illusion" that looked exactly like Xi'an made him feel that his consciousness and reason were hanging by a thread.
This was already the last suppressant.
He might not last long enough to bring Xi'an home.
But he absolutely could not hurt Xi'an.
And he absolutely could not let Xi'an fall into Tianga hands.
He knew the fate of Tianga males.
And for a male seized from an enemy nation, Tianga would cherish him even less.
With Xi'an's pride, he would never choose to live in humiliation.
Claire shut his eyes tightly and pushed in the injection.
He no longer looked at the "illusion" beside him.
His lips pressed into a thin line, he said nothing and continued piloting the mecha.
Through sheer skill, he dodged the Tianga barrage.
And while maneuvering, he counterattacked and destroyed two Tianga pursuit vessels.
The operation was so beautiful it could have been included in the military's instructional highlights.
Claire had no mind to think about such things.
For him, this was a genuine struggle between life and death.
One moment of carelessness, and both he and the Male Zerg would vanish into the sea of stars.
He could die.
But Xi'an could not.
Claire didn't dare relax for even an instant.
Nor did he dare indulge in the illusion beside him that tempted a Zerg into ruin.
But the "illusion" beside him was crying.
Staring at the needle marks on his arm, tears dripped down one after another.
When Claire saw those crystal-clear tears sliding down a face identical to Xi'an's, he felt as if he heard the string called reason inside his mind snap completely.
Claire was on the verge of going mad.
His hands nearly slipped during the operation.
The mecha made a ridiculous one-hundred-thirty-five-degree drift through space, coincidentally avoiding a Tianga missile.
Claire forced himself to calm down.
But he couldn't.
He could struggle to remain clear-headed under Xi'an's pheromones.
He could endure the pain of injecting suppressants.
But he couldn't bear Xi'an's tears.
"Don't cry. I'll bring you home safely."
Claire comforted him softly, his voice quiet but unwavering.
Even if it cost him his life, he would bring Xi'an back.
Through tear-filled eyes, Xi'an stared at him for a long while before realizing Claire was speaking to him.
"You can see me?"
Of course Claire could see him.
This was Claire's spiritual landscape, derived from his past memories, yet not the past itself. It carried Claire's own consciousness.
It wasn't the Claire of the past, the one fighting the Tianga forces and fleeing with him, who had seen him.
It was the consciousness hidden deep within Claire's psychic domain that had discovered him.
Xi'an's nose stung with bitterness.
He knew those events had already happened.
No matter what he did, he couldn't change the past.
The only thing he could do now was perform psychic soothing for Claire and repair his damaged psychic domain, making him feel a little better.
Wiping away his tears, he said,
"I'm going to do psychic soothing for you."
Claire had just been about to say there was no need when he saw the "illusion" run out of the cockpit and go repair the mecha.
Claire: "?"
Wasn't he supposed to be doing psychic soothing?
Regardless, seeing that the other had stopped crying and was no longer standing beside him made him secretly breathe a sigh of relief.
He was genuinely afraid that he wouldn't be able to hold back.
Afraid he would succumb to temptation and lose control, taking Xi'an right there.
The suppressant's effectiveness grew shorter and shorter. Soon, Claire felt his body heating up again.
Hot and unbearably empty, damp and sticky, yearning to be penetrated and filled by the Male Zerg.
The cockpit was saturated with pheromones.
He could hear Xi'an's soft breathing.
Every breath brought with it even sweeter, more intense pheromones.
Xi'an's sleep was restless. His brows were tightly furrowed, and he occasionally shifted and changed positions. The sound of his body rubbing against his clothes was magnified many times over in Claire's ears.
Claire forced himself not to look in that direction, but he still unconsciously swallowed.
He wanted to be pinned down in the pilot's seat and entered, to be roughly taken apart by the Male Zerg, to have Xi'an's pheromones stain both his body and his deepest places.
Biting hard on the tip of his tongue, the metallic taste spreading through his mouth briefly restored his reason.
"Claire..."
The unconscious Male Zerg called his name uneasily.
Advancement required a sense of security.
A stable environment.
And the protection of family.
Claire could provide him with none of those things.
All he could do, whenever Xi'an called his name, was answer over and over—
"I'm here."
Each time he heard the reply, the Male Zerg's breathing would gradually steady, and the tight furrow in his brows would loosen.
He was wrapped in Claire's military coat.
Burying half of his fair face in the coat carrying Claire's scent, he fell asleep once more.
Meanwhile, Claire's condition had reached its worst.
The drug's effect had completely faded. The emptiness and longing inside his body had reached their peak. Under the influence of the pheromones, his mind grew hazy while heat boiled throughout his body.
If this continued, he would do something irreversible to the Male Zerg.
In an instant, silver-white insect armor covered Claire's right hand.
A cold gleam flashed.
His military trousers were sliced open, and several wounds deep enough to expose bone appeared across his thigh.
Blood burst forth instantly, soaking his trousers, running down his calves and dripping onto the floor, gathering beneath his feet into a pool of blood.
The intense pain restored Claire's reason.
His expression remained taut, his eyes fixed ahead.
As though he couldn't feel the injuries on his body, he continued controlling the mecha with bloodstained hands.
The self-healing ability of Female Zergs was too powerful.
The wounds would heal before long.
Then he would have to create new wounds.
New pain.
That brutal agony made Claire feel exhilarated.
Blood and pain awakened the bloodthirsty and murderous instincts buried in Female Zerg genes. Crimson spread through Claire's ice-blue eyes. Staring at the Tianga warships in the holographic display, the way he controlled the mecha became increasingly extreme and ruthless.
Yet whenever the Male Zerg curled up beneath his military coat called his name, he would still soften his voice and answer again and again,
"I'm here."
He didn't know how many times he cut open his own flesh.
Unending blood gathered across the cockpit floor, forming a scarlet lake.
When Xi'an repaired his way through the psychic domain and finally returned to the cockpit, what greeted him was a scene that looked like hell itself.
......】