Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!-Chapter 585: Reluun

The figure paused and fully emerged, seeming caught off guard to find company waiting.

Alex, ready for a deadly confrontation, was stunned when the alien lifted both of its hands slowly into the air – universal for "I'm not here to fight." – and took a single step forward, bowing its head slightly.

Then, to Alex's further surprise, it spoke – not in a guttural, indecipherable language, but in a clear, soft tone.

And he could understand it.

"Peace," the figure said. "I come unarmed and without hostile intent."

'It makes sense I guess. We've always been able to understand the native humans in this place, so I guess it's no different with other races too, then.' Alex thought to himself.

However, Alex blinked when he registered the figure's words.

"...What?"

Brontes stopped growling, mimicking an equally confused look on its face, though its posture remained guarded.

The beast's intelligent eyes flickered between Alex and the newcomer.

"I am Reluun, an Expeditionist of the Solari race," the figure continued speaking upon seeing it had the two's attention. He gestured calmly to the spatial distortion behind him. "We detected a new fracture opening up, connecting us to another realm. I was sent to investigate its stability, and see what's on the other side… I did not expect to find residents already waiting for me!"

Alex hesitated.

This wasn't what he had expected at all.

He didn't know whether he should believe what this Reluun was saying or not.

No overwhelming pressure radiating from him. No godlike aura. Just… a researcher?

"Why should we believe you're not here to invade or scout for war?" Alex asked, clearly sceptical.

Reluun gave a soft, nervous chuckle, or what Alex assumed was one. "Invade? Hardly. My designation is scientific observation and inter-realm cartography. I was barely deemed advanced enough to pass the threshold myself."

Alex's mind relaxed just a tiny bit, but his guard still remained up.

He had a few questions of his own.

"Let me ask you something first off. Are you… from the outside universe? The clothes you're wearing don't look like something the natives of the Primordial Expanse would make, or wear."

'Though I don't really know what the realm of the Primordial Expanse on the other side looks like either, or whether it follows the same rules as here…'

In reality, this was the one most important question that Alex had for Reluun.

If he was from the outside universe, then he naturally knew about the friction between races artificially created by the System to cause conflicts between them.

If Reluun was from the outside universe, then Alex was much less inclined to believe that he was simply here for observation and map making.

Reluun seemed surprised by Alex's question.

To him, Alex was the first of his kind that he had ever encountered before. Humans were not something that the Solari had ever had an encounter with both inside and outside of the Primordial Expanse.

In fact, if someone were to do the math and calculate the distance between their civilisations in the outside universe…

The number would be too high to count…

But from the simple fact that Alex was asking this question, his confidence grew and his smile broadened.

"Oh, I take it that you're from the outside universe as well? That makes things much easier for me. Dealing with natives is always tricky, especially when venturing into new realms."

Alex nodded at Reluun's question, which had basically also answered his own.

"So we're both from the outside universe; this makes talking to each other easier. However, that only solves one of our many problems." Alex stated matter of factly. freewёbnoνel.com

"Problems? What problems?" Reluun asked, genuinely confused.

Alex seemed a little surprised by Reluun's confusion, but he didn't take the matter to heart. To him, meeting someone from an entirely new race could be something detrimental.

But he had no idea how Reluun and the Solari viewed such things.

"Well for one, you're from a completely unknown race, and you've technically just intruded into our realm. I don't know how you do things over on your side of the universe, but over here, anything unknown is perceived as a threat. We've already had our fair share of conflicts with other races because of how ignorant we were at first."

Alex started laying out the general background information about both the human race and the Federation for Reluun to listen to. Though he didn't delve into anything too sensitive or such.

However, the reaction he got out of Reluun was something that he wasn't quite expecting.

Surprise, naturally, and for some reason… excitement.

"Wait, you're telling me you're from a newly initiated race, and one that's only been in contact with the Primordial Expanse and the System at that!? Considering the grace period after being initialised is 200 years, your race must have caused an astronomical fuck up for it to end a whole 100 years early…" Reluun excitedly blurted out, half to himself, half to Alex.

After his tirade was over though, his expression started to look a little more serious.

…Or what Alex perceived to be seriousness.

"However, from what you're told me, you guys are in quite the pickle. I've never heard of the Human race before, but I have heard about these Red Demons you unfortunately had an encounter with – their distant cousins of a similar Demon race live in a neighbouring region to my Solari race, and I've heard some stories about their particularly nasty cousins, the Red Demons."

Reluun took a pause to make sure that Alex was still following, before continuing.

"And what I know about the Red Demon race, their territory is situated smack bang in the centre of the Warring Sector."

Alex had no reaction to what Reluun was saying, as neither he, nor the Federation had ever heard about something like a 'Warring Sector' or really anything from outside the few galaxies that neighboured the Milky Way.

Thankfully, his lack of a reaction prompted a follow up response by Reluun.

"The Warring Sector is the most brutal and centralised zone of conflict in the entire known universe. It's said that all of the dominant races there are all bloodthirsty killers, who only have the sole goal of growing stronger by utilising the System's rules of harvesting Soul Cores of other races…"

Alex's face fell into a grimace at this explanation.

'Fucking great. It seems our temporary peace is going to stay temporary then.'

He didn't need Reluun to tell him that another war with another race was inevitable in such a harsh area of the universe.