Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

"Where are we at with the investigation?"

A gruff, middle aged voice spoke out.

"We have retrieved the black box from the Pioneer's ship, and our technicians are working at retrieving all of the data right as we speak. Thankfully, it seems Zorath didn't know we kept such technology on each ship when he destroyed it, otherwise he wouldn't have left such important evidence behind."

A female voice responded to the middle aged man sitting at the head of the table.

They were currently in a strategic meeting regarding the future of the federation, and humanity itself.

The middle aged man at the head of the table was actually Admiral Olgierd, the most senior official in charge of the federal Military, and an S+ rank awakened.

His classification was unknown, but he was still among the top 3 strongest humans in the federation.

Unlike other countries in the past, the President was not the commander in chief of the military, instead the military officials held all of the power over them.

Politics and the Military were not interlinked in the federation, for the good of both parties.

Besides, the President was only an A rank awakened anyway, he didn't have the experience nor the capacity to lead a billions strong army of awakened and whole fleets of warships.

Not to mention the fact that most of the officers above the rank of Colonel were stronger than the President. It was a well known fact that awakened didn't like to be bossed around by those weaker than them, especially in this dog eat dog world.

There were many other people in this strategic meeting as well, such as Principal Farnes of Capital Prime academy.

Not many people knew Principal Farnes' name, and only referred to him as 'The Principal' etc. But all of the people present around this table were his old friends from years ago, before all of them became the strongest bunch in the entire federation.

There were 10 people in total, 9 of them being the top 10 strongest awakened in the entire federation.

The one who wasn't was an A+ ranked young woman, the same who had replied to the Admiral at the start. She was his personal assistant, while also a Major general in the Federal Military.

Of course, the one blaring question was obvious.

If 9 of the top 10 strongest humans were sitting around this table, where was the last one?

Well, not even any of the 9 knew. Not even Principal Farnes.

If it wasn't already obvious, the man who occupied first place as the strongest human in the entire federation wasn't present.

Nor was he present for any of these meetings in the past.

It had already become a norm by now to never expect him to show up, as he always did his own thing, never concerning himself with the federation's affairs.

Ding!

Shortly after her reply to Admiral Olgierd, Major General Lyndal received a notification from her communicator.

Considering the importance of this meeting, there was only one reason why her communicator would be going off during it.

"The technicians have finished analysing the data from the Pioneer's ship and have sent the data over!" Major General Lyndal exclaimed.

Principal Farnes and the others ushered her to show the results on the centre console of the table.

She obliged and a hologram popped out of the table, presenting itself before all of the strong figures in the room.

In it was a map.

A map of everywhere the Pioneer's ship had travelled over the last 10 years since they left the Milky Way.

"Show me the last point they reached before they started heading back for the Milky way." Admiral Olgierd asked.

Immediately, the AI in control of the system heeded his command and zoomed in on a specific sector of space.

"So he was telling the truth about this, at least." Principal Farnes commented.

The place the AI had zoomed in on was a star system in the Andromeda galaxy.

Zorath had said that he was from a race in the Andromeda galaxy, but before confirming this fact, the human race had to assume that this was just another spoof, or a trap.

Thankfully, it seemed like the Pioneers had already mapped a few hundred star systems in the Andromeda Galaxy before Zorath barged his way onto the ship and killed everyone.

This made the human race's job much, much easier in determining a defensive strategy.

But it could more importantly help them determine which targets are vulnerable enough for a counter attack!

They could now predict which direction the race Zorath might come from when they launched their attack on the human race, and they could strengthen the defences of those star systems targeted and station fleets of awakened and warships there.

Speaking of Zorath's race, the Pioneers seemed to have done a decent bit of reconnaissance and research during their time in the Andromeda galaxy.

From what the ship's logs say, they had spent over 2 months there before their ship suddenly did a U-turn and set a direct course back to the Milky Way.

During these 2 months, the Pioneer's had done humanity a great service and had gained a good bit of useful information on the race backing Zorath.

Firstly being what the race called themselves.

Just like how humans had self-assigned their race the name 'human', Zorath's race had naturally done the same.

And when translated into the federation's language, it came out as 'Red Demon'.

There were many words and letters that the Red Demon race's language had, that were indecipherable to humans due to the differences in anatomy.

Hence 'Red Demon' wasn't the exact name of the Red Demon race, but it was close, according to Zorath, and that's what he called his race as well when he discovered the Pioneer's ship for the first time and started conversing with Captain Ciril.

"So they're called the Red Demons… It's fitting, considering their appearance and how vicious they were towards us right off the bat." Admiral Olgierd commented.