Published at 27th of July 2026 12:10 pm

Chapter 4347: Keen Macrobes

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The closest entropy anomaly was north-west where it bordered the territories of three macrobes groups. The location they had landed within was a group with the largest territory with the lowest population density, something that they estimated would allow them to navigate the territory properly.

"We go north, as planned." Ria pointed. "We go through the mountains that seemed to have minimal macrobe presence, and we avoid the population centers in the iron forest that they seemed to have created for themselves. Let’s get started. I want to cover as much distance as possible before we rest for a break."

The iron forest was what they had come to refer to as the protruding tree-like structures of refined iron that stuck out from the ground. Although they were relatively confident that the structures were artificially created by the macrobes, they weren’t entirely aware.

They began their journey at a medium pace. As Martial Artists, they had great stamina. Walking would, of course, take forever. They jogged at a high pace, enough that they would reach their destination soon enough, but slow enough that they could maintain it for a sustained period of time.

They were, of course, slower than they would have been on Gaia due to the heavy atmospheric pressure, high drag, and, of course, the high gravity. They also wanted to keep their oxygen consumption to a minimum.

Then there was the fact that they would compromise stealth if they moved too fast, something that they wanted to avoid. While they had yet to detect creatures that were a threat to them, it was worth it to err on the side of caution on an infected world.

*****

Far away from the group of traveling pathwalkers, in the depths of the iron forest, several groups of floating macrobes gathered in a highly isolated location. Their red bodies were shaped like tic-tacs, while complex spikes emerged from the surface of the bodies made up of refined iron, serving as receptors that they could bind to.

These particular specimens were more distinct from the average members of their territory.

Their bodies were much larger, while their cell walls were thicker and denser. They had a more domineering presence compared to the average member of their group. They shuffled closer to the center within giant arching structures that created an isolating dome-like structure.

BZZZT

A current ran through the iron structures, creating powerful isolating electric currents that ran through them, adding to the insulation of their environment.

From a single glance, one could tell that it was a clandestine meeting, one that involved what appeared to be members of great authority within the colony of macrobes that the five pathwalkers had chosen to invade.

One particular macrobe floated forward before generating a distinct, multi-layered ultrasonic pulse of a signal.

VMM

It was produced through the countless pores across their body through which the exchange of gases that sustained their metabolism occurred. It was almost musical, for countless frequencies and notes overlapped, creating an extremely dense form of communication that allowed for a lot to be conveyed in an overlapping manner with the briefest of signals.

"Entry-of-unidentified-foreign-presences-from-the-sky-detected."

It was a singular string that overlapped sonically, rather than chronologically, in the way that humans use sounds to communicate.

It was the kind of signal that required high intelligence to be comprehended.

The macrobes gathered in the isolated chamber stirred at the message as their minds processed it. Their consciousness was fundamentally different from that of humans, who stored and processed information across neuron pathways. At the center of their body was an organ that their micro-cousins didn’t have, an organ that used heated and partially ionized gas as a means of storing and processing information.

It created a kind of information processing system that was not defined by definitiveness, but rather by a probabilistic gradient and probabilities based on the probabilities that certain gas molecules would bump into each other and react, or not. The flow of electrons through currents or even chemical reactions was where the integrated information existed.

The macrobe that made the highly important report continued.

"Photoelectric-scanning-of-atmosphere-has-revealed-five-unidentified-objects entering-planet," the macrobe shared. "However-we-have-not-been-able-to-detect-exact-location. We-have-detected-that-they-have-likely-landed-in-the—"

It made a specific set of sounds representing the name of a region. "—valley. We-suspect-that-they-maybe-moving-towards-the-Fold-Bridges."

This sent a more distinct reaction that could only be described as alarm and panic across the macrobes.

Another macrobe, one that was larger and more domineering than most, made a deeper cacophony of overlapping sounds in response.

VMM MM MMM.

"How-did-these-strange-extraterrestrial-entities-find-us? How-do-they-evade-location? How-do-they-know-how-to-traverse-our-lands?"

It was a question that mind-boggled each of the macrobes, of course. To them, this was perhaps the first true, credible instance of the existence of aliens that seemed to have infiltrated their world. It was an event that completely changed their understanding of the world and the universe.

Then there was the fact that while they seemed to be barely detectable, they weren’t exactly locatable, since the iron forest sensory system of the macrobes was bypassed. Unbeknownst to the five pathwalkers, the iron forest wasn’t merely for the sake of protection. It was also an apparatus that could monitor the environment very well, so that macrobes could calibrate and even exchange information through their receptors and other appendages.

They were a more sophisticated civilization than one might have estimated from merely the surface.

The appearance of extra-terrestrial entities was highly alarming to each of the gathered macrobes. It was not an unreasonable assumption to make that these entities had hostile intentions toward their world.

And they were entirely on the money with that assumption.

The reality was that EsoQuestion Solutions operated by destroying infected worlds that had manifolds. There was no two-way about that. They intended to bring about the complete and utter destruction of the world around them.

"Find-them," the largest macrobe at the gathering instructed with a stronger set of ultrasonic sounds. "Find-them-and-capture-them-if-possible. Destroy-them-if-they-are-too-of-a-threat. We-of-the-Ser-Colony-must-not-allow-outsiders-to-violate-our-lands."

The command swept through the macrobe group from the highest authority, rippling through the colony of macrobes. The entire colony had been informed of the presence of outsiders who were potentially very dangerous.

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