The evolved hobgoblin champion took tentative steps into the darkness, his formidably muscled body tensed and ready to fight of any manner of attack. For the first few seconds, the Collector observed that the unit did not encounter any resistance.

In fact, aside from the ever-increasing aura of heaviness, an atmospheric phenomenon created by a high concentration of a type of magical energy that the Collector had never yet sensed before, the environment seemed normal.

The complete dark of nightfall upon empty winter waste. Pure, solid darkness painting over what should have been reflective white.

From here, the attacks came.

The entire process lasted 0.77 seconds, but in that time, the Collector perceived many stimuli upon the goblin champion unit.

No less than twenty-five appendages grasping the unit from every single direction. Each appendage fashioned entirely out of darkness, jutting out seamlessly from the body of natural dark and shadow surrounding the unit.

The appendages were like those of a tinkerers, but different. The hands upon these appendages possessed three large fingers. The fingers were sharp, tapered to points like claws, but completely featureless due to being blocks of darkness.

The hands did not seem to possess any three-dimensional space. They traveled only upon planes of dimension corresponding with shadows and darkness, and thus it was more accurate to describe that they wrapped around the goblin champion unit more so than they grabbed it.

Yet, the sensation was no different from a three-dimensional hand's grip.

Tight, vice-like grips that easily overpowered the champion unit.

After 0.77 seconds, the champion unit was utterly torn apart, and the hands drew the shorn chunks of the unit down into the darkness where they sank as if drawn underwater.

The Collector could not put an accurate estimate of strength upon these appendages. Their strength was entirely of magical phenomena, but even in terms of magic, it was extremely difficult to gauge anything about them.

The type of energy they emitted had some similarities with the wavelengths of mana, but at the same time, they were noticeably different.

Whatever this entity was, it originated from magic, but it had become something detached from it now.

No normal methods of sensing magical flow or composition would yield any results. Only direct data via visuals and other sensory input.

The Collector continued to perceive as much as it could through the champion unit's still in-tact head, utilizing regeneration to constantly maintain neural functions within the decapitated body part so as to see where exactly this darkness led into.

The Collector did not perceive much of anything.

Pure, utter darkness.

Yet, a much familiar sensation. The feeling of water. Of being submerged.

In some fashion, similar to how the Collector 'floated' in its 'sea' of collected psionic profiles.

And in this depth of darkness, the Collector perceived now its connection with the champion unit's brain becoming hazy, filled with static. This was not a degradation of physical functioning on the champion unit's part, but instead degradation of the very psionic link that chained the Collector to the champion unit.

No, this was more than degradation.

This was infiltration.

The Collector's link severed with the champion unit, indicating that whatever force was initiating this infiltration possessed psionic power eclipsing that which could be outputted from Higher Calling.

And now, by jumping through the link with the champion, it had entered the Collector's psionic profile.

The Collector could choose to immediately sever the link and limit the degree of infiltration it experienced, but it assessed its situation and allowed it to happen.

Whispers.

The Collector understood now what the elder meant when he heard whispers from the darkness.

These whispers, the Collector felt reaching into the core of its being as they attempted to overrun the Collector's psionic profile.

The whispers themselves, the Collector noted were not entirely what the elder had stated. They did not promise death. No, their tone was more of a beckoning.

Come.

Come to us.

This was what the Collector determined the whispers attempted to convey. As these whispers grew in intensity, so too did the infiltration as they attempted to hijack the Collector's psionic profile.

The Collector clicked the mandibles on its main skull. This time, not in understanding or inconvenience, but in anticipation.

>>>

[PSIONIC INFILTRATION DETECTED. FOREIGN PSIONIC PROFILE DETECTED.]

[INITIATING ASSIMILATION PROTOCOL…]

>>>

The Collector felt the evolutionary system shard within it activate and engage its anti-infiltration procedures.

Among tinkering species that traveled the stars, there existed a few among their populaces that were incredible psions. Those capable of manifesting their mind's will upon matter itself or, if they so desired, upon the minds of others.

Yet, not even the highest grade of psion would ever be capable of dominating the psionic profile of a Collector-class unit, for the shard of the Hivemind within, even when detached from the main body, easily possessed the processing power to effortlessly overpower any individual psion.

Those psions foolish enough to try, particularly in the early stages of the United Front-Collective Conflict, found their minds shattered and assimilated into the Collective instead.

This would be no different.

>>>

[ASSIMILATION PROCEEDING…]

>>>

There was no psionic force throughout entire star systems capable of dominating the mind of a Collector unit.

Already, the Collector could feel as the whispers lost their beckoning tone and became shrieks of desperation.

Then, as suddenly as the whispers had come, they faded.

>>>

[ASSIMILATION HALTED AT 10% COMPLETION]

[FOREIGN INFILTRATION WITHDRAWN]

[CONVERTING PSIONIC DATA TO SHARD HOST…]

>>>

Audible shrieks echoed from outside.

Shrill shrieks that sounded like drawn out, mournful sirens. The Collector parsed that potentially such shrieks would be effectively utilized in aquatic biomes for communication, but as of yet could not extrapolate that information to anything directly useful.

The shrieks ended within a few seconds, leaving an empty silence. The heavy atmosphere generated from the shadow entities faded away as they fled the Collector.

The Collector clicked the mandibles of its main skull in understanding as information flowed into its being. Information that the shard had processed from the foreign infiltration.

The infiltrating force was not a single psion. It was a group of multiple minds meshed together to create a single processing unit.

In essence, a miniaturized Collective in terms of psionic functioning.

However, the scale of this unit was infinitesimal compared to the breadth of the Collective. Yet, still far greater than what any one psion could output.

The assimilation procedure also gleaned to the Collector the physical coordinates of where this infiltration had occurred, and it could extrapolate them on this planet utilizing the rough map of the world it possessed from interfacing with the goblin lord's dungeon.

The coordinates lead to an area approximately 10,000 kilometers roughly west of this current location.

Still easily within the same frozen biome, for in terms of sheer scale, this planet was vast, almost nearing the threshold for a gas giant while maintaining the orbital and structural mechanics of a conventionally life-bearing, terrestrial planet.

Attempting any investigation of such an area would take approximately two to three days. Such an investment of time was difficult to consider when such a distance could be littered with any manner of threat or tinkerer.

This was not to mention that the Collector first desired to see if it could optimize its Higher Calling ability to a maximum threshold before attempting movement, and to do so, it would require this Snowmound to constantly replenish its magical energy.

"They have left. The Shadows have left," said the elder in notable disbelief. His hands were in the air, sensing how lighter the atmosphere had become. "My king, you have conquered the Shadows themselves."

The Collector looked at the elder. All of the Collector's plans depended upon what the elder could tell the Collector about this biome, the threats within it, the nature of tinkerers within it, and so on and so forth.

Before the Collector could continue its line of questioning, its system shard inputted one final, but important message into the Collector.

>>>

*Blessing extracted*

-Blessing of the Deep [INCOMPLETE]

>>>

From assimilating a small portion of the hivemind entity, the system shard had managed to take from it a Blessing – a power that was etched not merely into genetic expression but the psionic profile itself, the 'soul' as the female daemon would have called it.

This Blessing, the Collector noted would be extraordinarily useful. It allowed for the Collector to access in small measure the shadow traversing abilities of the entities the elder called the 'Shadows'.

With this, the Collector could enter its form, regardless of the size, into a shadow. However, the Blessing was highly incomplete, and its functions significantly compromised.

The Collector could only enter into shadows anchored to living beings, and even there, it could not freely traverse the darkness. It could only stay in one shadow at a time, thus, it could not freely travel through areas of dark as the entities did.

Curiously, this ability did cost magical energy. A flat 10% expenditure despite the fact that the power did not seem detectable or interactable by normal magical means.

This would act to the Collector's great benefit, however, for so long as it stayed within a shadow, it could never be detected by anyone, not even those with extremely high magic sensitivity.

The only telling of the Collector's presence would be the quality of heaviness in the atmosphere, but this would not nearly be as noticeable as it had been with the hivemind of 'Shadows' itself.