Within the hull of an archeship that was still in hiding, a certain striped metallic gem cat phased through the bulkheads like crazy! Whenever the cat could do so, he took a few bites out of the solid pieces of archemetal here and there. Despite having ingested tons of compacted and specially processed materials already, the small intruder showed no signs of reaching satiation! In the face of the yummiest and most delectable metals that Lucky had ever tasted, there was no way that the cat would allow his limitations to get in the way of absorbing large amounts of archemetal. What made the alien metal so special to the gem cat was that it was a substantially different and more ingenious arrangement of matter than anything else he had encountered in the past. The alloys based on the biometal arrangements of the major alien race's distinct archeshells possessed too many advantages to count. Two different machines constructed from the exact same types and quantities of materials could perform in drastically different ways depending on how they were made. A machine made out of conventional parts was fairly easy to produce and offered good performance. Humanity had been working with these kinds of technological components for enough millenia to optimize their design and usage to a high degree! However, it had become clear that humans had already reached the limits of what they could do with the conventional model. Even the use of materializers which enabled people to produce parts that were practically impossible to produce by other means did not alter the physical limitations that restricted the nature of matter in the universe! Unlike many other races in the Red Ocean and the Milky Way, the arche did not set out to develop their tech base according to the conventions of either galaxy. They instead used the complicated and ingenious organic arrangements of their own archeshell as the starting point of their tech base and proceeded to gradually master its rules over a long stretch of time. While the technological progression of the arche was awfully slow due to the inherent complexity of archemetal and the lack of alien rivals that could contribute to this effort, the arche had gradually come into power by depending on their own distinct proprietary tech! No other race was able to imitate or replicate archemetal as of yet, and a lot of that had to do with how well the arche guarded their unique production methods. This had led to a situation where most residents of the Red Ocean never managed to catch sight of archemetal and gain the privilege to learn about its amazing properties. The few native aliens that did manage to encounter an archeship constructed of this special type of metals would usually get blown to pieces after getting ambushed by the sneaky turtle-like aliens! These incidents took place far more frequently than most aliens realized. It was just that the arche were so damn good at ambush tactics that the demise of much of their prey was attributed to other reasons. Throughout the long and bumpy history of the arche race, there had rarely been a case where their adversaries turned the table against them and successfully launched an ambush against one of their own hidden archeships. In the first few minutes after the alarms had started to shock the arche crew members from their routines, the aliens had slowly come around to the fact that the humans had somehow managed to deploy one of their secret weapons onto their own ship without any notice! This completely shocked the arche officers who assumed that they had everything under control! After the arche had managed to develop their stealth technology and turned it into one of their great strengths, they rarely if ever managed to get discovered by others anymore. Even if the puelmers had constantly tried to beat the arche at their own game, the even smaller aliens never managed to succeed due to their scattered research focus and lack of original research ability. Even the humans were not able to detect the arche all of the time! The arche had long learned that as long as their difficult to detect archeships stayed away from anything that belonged to the top forces of the human race, their vessels could stalk the weaker forces of the extragalactic invaders with impunity! To acknowledge that they had failed against one such opponent was a difficult pill to swallow for the arche. Nonetheless, they had no choice but to admit that they had screwed up in the most horrible way. "Reayyyaah!" "Krooaaaaaa!" "Yiyiyiaaaoaiaa!" The arche could not allow the foreign intruder to keep sabotaging their precious archeship. Many crew members began to lock down various parts of the ship while taking control of various internal defensive measures. Every archeship was filled with a lot of flexible and multipurpose archemetal segments. Each of them could be used to produce energy shields or transformed into impromptu weapons. This was why Lucky frequently started to encounter obstacles and traps throughout his exploration of the archeship. In one second, the bulkhead to the side looked completely smooth and empty. In the next second, a small energy turret quietly poked out and tried to sting Lucky with X-ray beams! "Meow!" The only fault with all of these morphing archemetal parts was that there was a significant time delay to switch to different functions and configurations. Lucky was able to outpace most of them by continually taking advantage of his excellent mobility. The fact that he could keep himself hidden by phasing through archemetal most of the time posed a great hindrance to the defenders of the archeship! If not for the fact that the aliens had eventually found out that they could restrain the intruder to an extent by energizing the archemetal at a higher level, Lucky would have been able to phase through the solid decks and bulkheads a lot faster! It wasn't until a hunting squad of five powerful aliens arrived that the gem cat truly started to feel the pressure. "Yuaaha!" The archeshells of the four arche soldiers looked a lot thicker and more developed than that of other aliens. Despite their added bulk, they moved a lot faster even under the 1.7 g environment of the interior of the archeship. Bang! Bang! Organic boosters built into the rear of their shells literally enabled them to charge forward like rockets and collide against anything in their path with great force! If that was not enough, the small amounts of phasewater integrated into their shells sped up their forward movements to a surprising degree by forming small warp bubbles around their forms. Lucky did not want to get smacked by any of these arche warriors! Despite their relatively lackluster heights, the aliens were incredibly dense and heavy. "Meow meow!" As the hunt continued, the arche warriors not only relied on their tyrannical bodies to drive the annoying cat away from the most sensitive portions of the ship, but also made use of the energy guns grown from their archeshells to put further pressure on the intruder. The arche turned out to be quite accurate with the aiming of these miniature biometal cannons! This was especially when they fired wide area plasma blasts or gouts of sticky flames! These attacks inflicted surprisingly little damage against the archeship's resilient interior, but they posed a real threat against Lucky. His Misfortune Harness had been struck by these potent attacks a few times whenever the cat thought that he was in the clear. The main reason why Lucky failed to outpace the deadly arce warriors and couldn't resort to his phasing ability to get away from all four of these persistent pursuers was because of the might of their leader! The arche lord was not only the master of the archeship, but also developed a much greater control over the archemetal in his surroundings! Whenever the arche lord needed to command his archeship, there was no need for the alien with the large, imposing and strangely beautiful archeshell to make physical contact with his vessel. The arche lord had the ability to interface and issue instructions to his own ship by relying on electronic resonance alone! The leader figure's highly developed archeshell glowed with energy as it commanded the archemetal in front of him to separate. The bulkhead parted away like they were building blocks that a large pair of hands had forcefully shifted aside. This immediately exposed the beleaguered gem cat that had been in the process of taking yet another bite out of the delectable archemetal. "Meow!" Lucky tried to phase away yet again, but the arche lord managed to damage the cat's Misfortune Harness a bit further with a rapid spray of lightning bolts! "Yuuuaaaawawwwhaa!" The arche lord roared from his alien throat. The deck below his dense and solid form automatically parted away, enabling the alien leader and his entourage of elite soldiers to immediately drop down to the deck below. The chase continued for many more minutes. Though Lucky managed to take a bite out of a lot of archemetal, the functionality of the archeship barely dropped. The archeship featured a surprising degree of redundancy. A lot of less essential archemetal parts could easily fulfill the responsibilities of more important archemetal parts. Although the overall performance of the archeship was steadily dropping due to the persistent sabotage, many of her core systems still functioned properly more or less. It was only when the cat managed to eat the more specialized parts that couldn't easily be compensated for that Lucky managed to inflict more permanent damage to the vessel! The gem cat tried his best to inflict meaningful damage to the ship, but the arche warriors under the leadership of the arche lord responded increasingly better over time. The aliens had begun to figure out the strengths and possible weaknesses of their fiendish adversary! Lucky had also learned much about the arche and the archeship, but he was slowly losing his advantage. If not for the fact that he was afraid that he would get attacked and blown to pieces if he tried to phase through the outer hull and flee into open space, Lucky would have tucked his metallic tail between his legs and extract from the archeship much sooner! As it was, the only way for Lucky to ensure his survival was to completely cripple the archeship! There was no way out for the gem cat! 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞 Just as Lucky was about to infiltrate a compartment where his senses detected a lot of dangerous matter, the cat briefly paused in shock as he took in the weapons that the arche held in reserve. "Meow meow meow!" A set of three antimatter bombs were currently held in secure storage! Not only that, but the archeship also held numerous potent missiles that contained fusion warheads. Each of these weapons could inflict massive damage onto starships as long as they could get close enough! Hardly any fleet would be able to come out unscathed after getting blown up by all of this ordnance! These were the weapons that the arche relied upon to launch their killer blows upon pulling off a successful ambush. So long as the archeship maintained this deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, the arche could easily cripple the entire expeditionary fleet, especially if they managed to deploy these superbombs without warning! Just as Lucky was about to phase through the nearest antimatter bomb in an attempt to neutralize it, a strong transphasic energy shield suddenly barred his path! Not only that, but many different cages of transphasic energy shields formed throughout the entire compartment! "Meow!" The gem cat was trapped! Given the extreme danger posed by the alien weapons of mass destruction, it made sense that the arche had installed much more extensive defensive arrangements in this critical space. Though Lucky tried to overpower a transphasic energy shield by attacking it with his powerful energy claws, another layer soon appeared in front of the cornered cat. "Yyahwhwauau!" The arche lord and his troops had finally caught up again! As the alien leader moved closer, he began to study the trapped feline with a curious expression. Though the arche lord found Lucky to be rather weak and ugly due to his mechanical shortcomings, he expressed curiosity at the gem cat's ability to phase through solid matter. The arche needed to acquire this technology.