ONE: Epilogue of Hermesh

34. Those Who Were Once Us

Commodore Reemon Erra could not remember for how long he stared blankly at Onkar. Despite the mystery and unanswered questions that shrouded the Manwatus, a revelation of such meticulously planned and executed genocide by the oldest species of the galaxy, sounded largely implausible. But then, if Sheel was to be believed, the current conflict that the whole of Hermesh was embroiled in,  was in many ways, not too dissimilar.

As the implications of Onkar's confessions set in, a shiver ran down Erra's spine. He asked, "But the Xacreths; are they, as you said before, a new species, or are they…"

Erra trailed off. Onkar knew what the old Amarthian was implying and replied, "They're very new. The Xacreths are indeed the youngest of the sentient species to have evolved in this galaxy."

"But then, how do they know about the Asurs?”

“That answer is the epilogue of the Asur saga.” replied Onkar after a tired pause, "Xacreths are the mutated descendents of the Asur.”

“What?! I don't-”

“For millions of years, after the Asurs perished as a species, our automated sensors kept detecting the presence of live Asur genes in the galaxy. That is why Andhorh's automated system kept us dormant for so long.

"After finally waking up, when we went looking, we discovered that the Asurs did not completely lose their battle against extinction. At the very last stage of their history, when there were less than a million of them left, the Asurs finally found a way to reverse the effects of the bio-weapon. They devised a method to make themselves devolve.

"The original bio-weapon created by our rogue scientists was made to mutate and attack the Asur genetic system aggressively. Over time, their bodies stopped evolving, instead started mutating. The weapon was not programmed to eliminate the Asur but to rewrite their fundamental genetic structure to such an extent that nobody could ever try to resurrect them.

"However, as is the case with all such weapons, it was not entirely effective on every single Asur. A few were able to resist the mutations. These rare few simply kept evolving at an incredibly rapid rate and became the last hope for the Asurs in this war of survival.

"After a while, I guess the Asurs were convinced that the Manwatus had all been eliminated. So they focused all their efforts into saving their own kind. To that effect, the Asurs had built gigantic laboratories, some of which spanned entire planets. Research and experiments were conducted on a mass scale there, using as many test subjects as they could bring in to experiment on.

"Following the end of our hibernation, we went through the years of medical research and data the Asur scientists had left behind. There we witnessed the kind of technological leaps that desperation can force a species to take. Scientific breakthroughs that the Asurs made in the span of their last three generations, far superseded anything that we had accomplished in a thousand years! All in the hope to salvage whatever was left of the race and stop them from facing extinction.

"The chronology of Asur records indicated that with every passing generation, the bio weapon integrated itself into the very genome of the Asurs. Newborns had such advanced levels of mutation that they could not be recognised as Asurs anymore. Towards the end, the rewriting of the genome became so extreme that they started to turn Asurs into something else- a completely different species. These newborns were called 'Xacreth'. In the Asurs' language, it meant, 'Those who were once us."

"It was this final stage of mutation that killed off the few remaining Asurs who were still able to conceive. Many died while trying to give birth naturally. But, by then, Asurs were also being created in the laboratories, to try and counter this aggressive mutation and dwindling population. Those who were unfortunate enough to live with this mutation, found themselves being slowly eaten from the inside out. They were turning into these Xacreths. One of their scientists described them as 'grotesque abomination that should be killed instantly, to put them out of their misery.'