I also want to become a Xel'Naga.
For a living Xel'Naga, those words were no different than saying: I want you dead.
Every birth of a new Xel'Naga meant that an elder among them would sacrifice their own life and essence.
"Very well. I agree."
"You agreeing or not makes no difference… hm?"
Selene paused briefly, slightly surprised. She crushed the Subspace Lance forming at her fingertips, raised her delicate hand to rest lightly on her chin, and cast Ouros a curious look.
After a moment, she glanced around at the dense web of Void fissures spread like spider silk across the dark curtain. Her crimson, diamond-shaped pupils fixed on Ouros. "So straightforward?"
Ouros twisted his tendrils in puzzlement and countered: "Why would I not agree?"
"You must know—I will not continue your so-called cycle."
It had been nothing more than an idle remark. Selene had intended to take it by force.
"No matter."
This higher-dimensional being before him had already reached a state of perfect, seamless cycle.
She possessed a body of unfathomable potential, and a spirit that grew purer and denser with every passing moment… In all the countless eons of reincarnations, Ouros had never seen a candidate more suited to ascend as a Xel'Naga.
No—more than that. She had already surpassed them. She needed no inheritance of essence to become godlike.
Indeed, when Ouros first sensed Selene's presence, terror seized him. That suffocating pressure had driven him to batter Amon's seal endlessly. He thought she was a dreadful outer god who would unmake the universe.
A being even more frenzied and bloodthirsty than Amon.
But after meeting her face to face—
Exhale… she was rational. At least, more rational than the maddened Amon. Negotiation was possible.
Beneath the overwhelming will of slaughter and ruin, Selene and her legions still carried elements of knowledge, civilization, progress, evolution, and science.
Yes, she butchered countless, destroyed worlds, thrived on massacres and prisons, devoured wealth with insatiable greed… but still, she was a good god.
What other choice was there? He held only one card, and it was a lonely one.
Selene said: "I thought you would refuse. After so much observation and guidance, your chosen successor shouldn't have been Sarah Louise Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades—or perhaps the Protoss Artanis?"
"As expected, powerful unknown higher-dimensional lifeform, you too watch the real universe. You know everything of the Xel'Naga."
Hearing this higher being with a humanlike form expose his secret—his use of illusions to stir the real universe—Ouros closed his compound eyes and whispered wearily:
"Yes. I took on the illusion of the fallen Protoss hierarch Tassadar, guiding Zeratul and Artanis. The prophecy Zeratul pursued was the result of my psionics extended into the awareness of primitive life."
"Yet Zeratul's pursuit of prophecy led to unexpected outcomes. My chosen successor to the Xel'Naga mantle was Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades. I called her here, but swayed by human impulse… by love… she chose instead to strike down her enemy."
Ouros's tendril-covered, pale-brown face twisted in humanlike distress. His eight compound eyes reflected the fissures that bridged the real universe and the Void, gazing light-years away toward the Korhal system, where the Swarm clashed needlessly with Selene's fleets.
It was utterly unnecessary. Entirely meaningless conflict.
"Kerrigan was not the optimal choice. Powerful higher-dimensional lifeform… for the trouble Kerrigan has brought your legions, I apologize. But I ask you—do not direct your wrath toward her."
Ouros opened his eyes again. A fleeting, indescribable emotion flashed within them.
"You insist on sparing her… Is this guilt? Should I take it as your condition?"
"Guilt… I suppose so. Powerful unknown higher-dimensional lifeform, just as you say, this is my condition…"
Truly a merciful elder.
"Fair enough."
Selene smiled. "...Such a distant title. If you wish, call me Selene. Big bug, I almost feel reluctant to kill you."
Selene knew nothing of courtesy. She extended her pale hand—her meaning clear.
"Selene… the moon goddess. A beautiful name."
Though it seemed like mutual flattery, Selene sensed not a trace of falsehood or pretense from Ouros.
Ouros paid no heed to the sharpness in her words. His calm temperament was entirely natural.
"Then let us begin. I am already near death, sustained only by this decaying body. Amon is dead, the crisis of the universe ended, the bitter fruit of what we sowed has fallen. My obsession ends here."
Imprisoned in the Temple of Ulna by Amon for so many years, though he appeared as a god of the Void, Ouros knew his true state—gravely wounded, lingering on only by a few breaths.
All his schemes and efforts had consumed his strength.
He could have clung to survival, but this cycle was his own. As the eldest of the Xel'Naga, death and reincarnation had always been his destiny.
Ouros did not intend to drag on.
Had Selene not expressed her wish to become Xel'Naga, he would have followed his original plan, completing his cycle regardless. Only the chosen heir would have differed.
Facing Selene's extended hand, Ouros moved his vast, grotesque body and slowly placed his smallest tendril upon her soft palm.
"Then, it is settled. A deal struck. May our cooperation be fruitful."
Grasping Ouros's tendril, Selene curiously squeezed it. There was no clammy slime like an octopus tentacle—soft yet firm, like cotton candy.
Bzzzz—
"...May our cooperation be fruitful."
From where Ouros's tendril touched her palm, light spread like neon flickering to life. His entire form shone with a rippling radiance, reflecting iridescent hues across the Void.
Gentle psionic brilliance blossomed, illuminating the dark, broken Void. Boundless, pure essence, guided by unseen force, surged toward Selene—without the slightest waste or loss.
Bzzzz—!
Selene's body glowed uncontrollably, shimmering pure gold, as though forged entirely of that metal. Countless iridescent lights streamed into her body, merging endlessly.
A gentle golden glow… a color perfectly suited, joyous and warm, as though it lit the soul itself.
Seizing by force, or being freely given—
The difference was vast.
"This is all my knowledge and essence… As you know, Kerrigan's transformation, indirectly, was my doing… I hope you can apologize to her in my place…"
Fragments of thought brimming with sincerity and regret passed to her. Selene blinked, still smiling, but said nothing more.
From sole candidate for ascension to Xel'Naga, reduced to a dispensable backup—that was Kerrigan's fate.
Reflecting on how he had meddled in her destiny, this was Ouros's apology.
Selene understood.
It was well known that in this StarCraft cosmos, the greatest outcome of this cycle, and the most qualified candidates to merge into the next Xel'Naga, were the Zerg and Protoss.
Unfortunately, the Protoss had been ruined by Amon.
This first psionic race, who had once hunted with pure spirit and form, was polluted by Amon.
Amon's direct interference sparked the Protoss civil war—the Aeon of Strife. Millennia of brutal war reduced them nearly to the stone age, turning them into a race of merciless killers, severed from and forgetting the wide psionic link of their ancestors.
Among the Protoss of this era, the philosophy of the Khala spread widely. The "Path of Ascension" and the discovery of the Khala nerve cords were what allowed the Protoss to rise again.
But what they did not know was that the very foundation of the Khala—the Khaydarin Crystals discovered in the ancient underground cities of Aiur—had been left behind by Amon.
The mental link called the Khala was Amon's backdoor.
From that point onward, the Protoss lost the purity of spirit.
As for the Zerg, they too had been defiled. Only a small portion of primal Zerg, lacking psionic links, acted quickly enough to flee and hide.
The vast majority, whose pure essence emphasized adaptability, transformation, and physical might, were forcibly altered to possess a psionic hive-mind signal network.
On the surface, it seemed beneficial—the Zerg were bound into a collective under the Overmind. But in truth, it was draining their future.
Thus, both pure essence and pure spirit were gone!
Amon acted swiftly, anticipating every possibility, cutting off the very roots to prevent the birth of any new Xel'Naga.
Were it not for Selene's intervention—and the sheer unpredictability of humanity—Amon might truly have succeeded.
Who could have foreseen that among such fragile, short-lived creatures as humans, DNA mutation would give rise to someone like Kerrigan, born with an unprecedentedly pure psionic gift?
The chosen child.
When she was first transformed by the Zerg into the Queen of Blades, the essence she inherited from the Overmind was still the polluted type Amon had tainted.
But when Jim Raynor used the Xel'Naga artifact to purge her of that polluted essence, it was a masterstroke.
Ouros seized the opportunity. Through countless prophetic manipulations—visions, revelations, ruins—he finally brought it to fruition.
With Zeratul, the perfect tool, Kerrigan was led to Zerus, the birthplace of the Zerg, where the primal strains that had fled and hidden still remained.
They had never been corrupted by Amon!
By absorbing the essence of these primal Zerg, Kerrigan once more became the Queen of Blades—but this time, the unpolluted, primal version.
Thus Kerrigan gathered all the elements required to become a Xel'Naga.
Her psionic gift was her own mutation as a human. Her pure physical essence came from being chosen by the Xel'Naga and empowered with primal Zerg essence, untainted.
But that was in the past.
In the end, Kerrigan became a discarded piece.
After hearing Ouros recount this, Selene nodded, praising his effort—centuries of preparation, a reversal against the odds. Even without Selene's intervention, Ouros might have eventually triumphed, defeating Amon.
But Ouros himself did not know the outcome. His countermeasures were only desperate measures.
Now he hungrily absorbed the torrent of heavy truths Selene shared.
So this is your path?
Nothing remains immutable. The endless cycle is too rigid. Appropriate interference…
Humanity… truly a miraculous creation…
Selene, without reservation, revealed part of her methods for reshaping the real universe to Ouros.
Perhaps because Selene felt more like a collaborator than a successor, Ouros thought back to his kin, and to memories even more distant.
Memories of his mother civilization before he became a Xel'Naga.
Perhaps the cycle held error… Amon's fall—was it not also the fruit of this endless cycle?
But I am already a forgotten relic of the old era. A new age requires new stewards.
My kin, with our last essence, will give birth to a new eternity.
"…Selene, I hope you will treat all the living beings of the universe as you do your own people… The Zerg, the Protoss… they should have had a bright future…"
Through his fading vision, his compound eyes reflected Selene's graceful form as their light dimmed. His psionic radiance thinned, retracting bit by bit.
"The endless cycle ends here."
The psionic glow faded completely. Ouros, the eldest of the Xel'Naga, completed his mission.
As the golden streams of essence drained away, Ouros's once-vivid eight pairs of eyes gradually dimmed, his tendrils slipping from Selene's fingers. Like a sandcastle collapsing, he dissolved completely into the remnants of fading power.
Essence condensed, swirling light enveloped Selene. She slipped into a strange state, unaware of the outside world. Instinct warned her—if she did not stop, something troublesome might occur.
"Better not take on a Xel'Naga form."
Still clad in her luxurious white-gold regalia, nothing had changed. No purple clouds, no celestial lotuses, no visions of ascension—just a simple glow, like stepping out of a sauna. Selene drew in the radiance, stretching casually.
Seems the Xel'Naga disguise won't do.
She did not mind non-human avatars, even enjoyed role-playing, but at the very least, they had to look stylish. This clumsy bug-squid hybrid of a form? No thanks.
"Claim secured."
Selene extended her hand. Luminous motes drifted away like fine sand on a golden beach, slipping like diamond dust between her fingers. A soft caress from her other hand, and the traces Ouros left were gone completely.
"…Pleasure working with you." With a gentle smile, Selene exhaled.
Ouros—a good one.
That was her impression after such brief contact.
Drip—
Selene raised her hand, touching the Void with her fingertip. Ripples spread outward, circle upon circle. Under the soothing wave, the howling, shrieking fissures of the Void smoothed away.
Good beings… though she herself was a well-hidden villain, Selene still hoped the universe might have more of them.
Toward the spiritually noble, Selene always had more patience.
"To treat all beings of the universe as my own subjects? That depends if they submit, if they pledge loyalty to me. Delay… and they'll miss their chance…"
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