Chapter 1614 - There Are Sprites Here Too! (2/2)

“You said that there are many more of you in this place?” Vivian continued her question. “How did you all survived?”

“Tell me who you are first,” The tiny one was surprisingly stubborn, and her memory seemed to be far better than her kind as she actually remembered the earlier topic, “Why did you guys come here? This sprite doesn’t remember your kind existing around here.”

The surviving sprite clearly did not know what went on the world outside, so mentioning the droid swarms or their position as observers would be pointless, so Hao Ren could only drag Salaman’s name out, “We are allies of the Guardian Army’s commander Salaman, and have infiltrated this planet with a mission.”

“Salaman? That biggie?” the sprite yelped in surprise, “He’s alive? Still defending the core?”

“You thought the core had already fallen?” Hao Ren was befuddled for a moment before turning on the communicator, and after confirming the signal was secure he activated the connection with Salaman, “If you don’t believe me, you can speak to him directly,”

The tiny sprite immediately looked at the communicator anxiously. The image on the screen was extremely blurry and even the voice channel suffered intermittent distortion: As to keep their cover on Amantir, the enemy’s base camp, all communication channels were highly encrypted and processed, plus the distortion all across Amantir, trying to establish connection was already difficult in itself, much less a quality one.

But from the blurry image they could still make out Salaman’s distinct bearded look, and the old giant’s voice rang after a two-second delay, “Observer, Lady of the Throne, is everything alright? Why the sudden communication?”

As per their agreement security protocols, they would keep all contact at a minimal to avoid being detected, and to establish contact means there’s a unique situation that demands it, hence Salaman’s question.

“Salaman? Biggieeee?!” the little sprite exclaimed in shock as she saw the commander of the Guardians on the screen. “You’re alive! It’s really you!”

“This…” The Guardian commander too did not expect to see the tiny one on the communicator screen and was dumbfounded himself. “A sprite?! Where are you at? Why are there sprites?!”

“We are in an underground facility beneath the command temple complex, we are close to Amantir’s crystal storage hub.” Hao Ren briefly explained his current situation. “… Then this tiny one appeared, she said that there are more sprites around.”

“The sprites of Amantir actually survived…” The commander’s voice sounded like he was amazed. “Unbelievable… how did you lot survive? And it seems you are not tainted by the powers of the Mad Lord? Did those monsters not attack the crystal prism array in the fortress?”

“We ran away much earlier.” The sprite did a somersault in mid-air, “Those monsters dug out the crystals as fuel, and many sprites did not manage to escape in time, but the remaining ones had sense danger and had cut our connection to the crystal before moving deeper. The goddess had used the crystals as the planet’s core when she made this planet, while they are unrefined and not that powerful, but we can still go into them!”

Salaman was amazed, “You can do that? Hiding in the planet’s core? And those monsters did not pursue you?”

“No, because we are just too weak, they assumed the sprites to be wiped out when they tore the crystals down!” the tiny sprite said with a proud grin (although there was nothing to be proud of), “Even when we pop out now, those monsters won’t pay us much attention…”

Hao Ren looked on, slightly speechless at the seemingly all-over-the-place sprite before finding an opportunity to pull the MDT to a side and whispered at Salaman, “Did you notice that ahoge on her head?”

“Ahoge?”

“…That cowlick on her head. The sprite seemed to have a trace of the Mad Lord’s taint, but…”

“Her mind is perfectly normal, and she is even fighting against the minions of the Mad Lord.” Salaman continued where Hao Ren left off, “You even said it yourself, that sprite actually saved you.”

“Will such a thing actually happen? Being tainted by the powers of the Mad Lord but not being affected at all, with just a hair dye for the trouble?”

“Never seen that before but for the sprites, anything is possible.” Salaman said, slightly whimsically, “Mother had designed many… ‘features’ beyond our comprehension when she created them. I believe that one of the many features was for the fight against the Mad Lord, as once the Creation’s Engine has been activated she can wipe out all of the taints of madness, but before that, she needs to ensure that the Weaves of Destiny can survive, and the sprites are one of their processing units, so they are equipped with the ability to survive and retain their sanity even under the influence of the Mad Lord.”

Hao Ren nodded at Salaman’s assessment before continuing, “Then our plans must be amended. Amantir has a large amount of surviving sprites, so I guess we have an additional mission now.”

“… You plan to move the entire core away?” Salaman looked at Hao Ren, astounded, “Remember, those surviving sprites are inhabiting the core of Amantir!”

“I don’t necessarily need to pull that stunt,” Hao Ren pondered, “I’ll need to speak with the sprite, there gotta be another way.”