It seemed to be confused as it slowly began to approach Deus, its talon-like legs made distinct delicate tapping sounds on the floor as it moved closer to him allowing him to see more of it than what he was able to at first. He could just about see that on the backside of its head there was a tumour-like growth where an assortment of ears and noses grew, they were different shapes and in different stages of developments ranging from simply small holes to fully grown features that you would find on a human face.
'Definitely Human.' He'd still held some reservations on whether or not human DNA had been combined with it, despite his thought processing being logical he'd wanted to believe that Leo hadn't been so unethical as to have combined the DNA of intelligent life with that of wild beasts - although, he truly couldn't be surprised, it was just like him to want to delve into what was considered a 'forbidden' area by the rest of the universe.
The creature tilted its head as it inched closer towards him, it looked at him before looking down at itself and then back at him as if trying to determine if he was the same species as it or not; him imitating its own voice having confused it as it struggled to decide what it should do with him.
As a test Deus took a step towards it, he had to tilt his head upwards to face its head as it stared back down at him, his entire body only came up to the top of its torso; a Labour Drone was six foot tall to begin with, the fact that the creature was still able to look as if it towered over him despite this showed just how monster-like the thing was.
"CLICK!"
"CLICK!"
The two behind them began to act up as they began to violently protest his actions, he turned his head to see the two advancing from behind him with hostile screeches as they grew closer.
"Crrrreeee..." The larger one said, the sound echoed from each of its mouths as it caused the two smaller creatures to come to a stop. They reluctantly backed off as the larger one continued to look him over, despite its disgusting appearance he didn't think it held any malice towards him, it was something he could sense - like a sixth sense, 'I guess I still have a lot to learn.' He said internally, despite his experience and what Coeus had provided him it could be seen that there was still a lot he had to learn about the 'Soul' that Artificial Lifeforms possessed.
Although he was only a 'half-of-the-whole' currently it didn't seem to impact his ability to sense things that would otherwise have been impossible for a normal AI, something that surpassed the concepts of emotions and feelings.
"Click. Click." It let out two short clicks and proceeded to walk past him, its large stature meaning it only took it a short couple of seconds to have already passed him and the other two creatures. Seeing it from the back Deus finally understood why it had no eyes, it wasn't that it didn't but that they lined the back of its torso, hiding them below the fleshy mass growing off of the back of its head - nine beady, human-like eyes stared directly at him but they were unfocused as if they weren't yet developed unlike the rest of its body, their pupils were a milky white and emotionless as they simply remained creepily open.
"Click. Click." It turned its head and emitted another two short clicks as it 'looked' directly at him and started to move deeper into the floor, the two smaller creatures lingered on him for a few seconds longer as if they were still wary of him before following after it. Deus assumed it wanted him to follow as he went to follow after them....
"CRREEEE!" The larger of the creatures let out a horrifying roar as it turned to face him, a sense of danger suddenly bore down on him as he quickly backed up with his hands raised defensively. "Click. Click." He replayed the audio as he stared at it.
It looked at him for a few moments, as if deciding whether it should simply end his life now or not before finally it turned and walked into the darkness, the faint tapping of their legs hitting the steel floor slowly faded into the distance as they retreated who knows how far deeply into the level.
'They can be communicated with at least.' Deus analysed calmly as if he hadn't been facing potential death just mere moments before; it was good that they were intelligent enough for communication at the very least, if it was possible to decipher more of their language he could learn more of their origins as he doubted Leo had left any of his research data, these creatures were probably the only remaining reminder of his experiments here, whatever they may be.
Deus stared into the direction that they had disappeared into the darkness, 'As to why it reacted so strongly... is it territorial?' He pondered, it was the only explanation as to why it'd reacted so strongly to him trying to follow it, if it was going back to its territory then it was only natural for it to become defensive, or maybe there was something it was trying to protect - but then why did it let him leave? Did it think he wasn't a threat?
There were too many questions on his mind and no way for him to find answers, he was still in the caging section of the level - if he wanted to maybe find anything to prove his theories he'd have to go further into the level but that'd put him at risk of angering the creatures, something he didn't want to do when he only had his body to rely on to protect him.
If the Labour Drone was ripped to pieces then this half of his soul would potentially be lost if the data-bank of the Drone was destroyed while fighting.
With no other choice Deus turned back and started to walk back towards the elevator shaft, there was nothing more for him to do here - the only thing that was maybe useful would be one of these cages, the metals used to create them could be re-smelted down and reforged into parts for the future.
So along the way he began to pickup small fragments and begin to store them in chunks, he managed to completely fill the remaining storage of the SSA at the cost of reducing the time he had left before the Drone was out of power.
[2:19:02]
He had just a little over two hours to return to the top floors; it wouldn't be difficult and he would be able to do so with some time to spare but after having come so far... His thoughts drifted to the hole in the ground of the shaft, a hole that shouldn't have been there - a hole that echoed the same sounds he'd heard from those creatures.
'One thing at a time...' He forced himself to push it to the back of his mind, if whatever was down there was just as dangerous as what was up here then going into what he could only assume was its nest that it'd dug out for itself he risked antagonising it; for now he just needed to ensure that the things he'd collected and what he'd discovered was brought back to the throne room so he could reconnect with the other him.
Deus didn't think much further as he forced open the elevator shaft for what would be one of the last times and started his ascent out of the shaft, he took one glance down at the darkness below him with his lights to see if he could make out something, anything at all, that'd tell him what was down there but there was nothing.
It was just a hole that dug straight through stone and dirt and continued to tunnel further and further down towards the core of the planet, whatever was down there had long since gone silent as he waited for a full minute only for nothing to fill the silence other than his own body operating.
...
"Interesting..."
Two hours had passed since then and both halves of Deus had reconnected, their 'soul' had seamlessly merged back into one which caused a wave of weakness to wash over him like mental fatigue, he felt his mind become sluggish for a few minutes before he recovered. As separating himself into two parts was akin to splitting the soul granted to him as an Artificial Lifeform whenever he merged with the other half again he would be subject to a few minutes of weakness to an hour depending on how many times he had split himself.
Each split would also lower his capabilities, a single split still had both halves operating like an Artificial Lifeform however if split into four pieces he would only be akin to an Advanced AI, if he split himself even further into eight then each 'shard' would only be comparable to a Basic AI which was why refrained from doing more than a single split unless necessary.
Deus turned his attention back to what he'd discovered after recovering, looking over the questions he'd noted for himself while down there.
"Mammon, can you analyse what these creatures are composed of from look alone?" He transmitted as he sent over the images that he had taken of the creature from as many angles as he could.
He received a 'thumbs-up' emoji in response, several minutes later a report was sent over with comparisons to various species that they had catalogued over the years of planetary exploration. There were similarities to several species but the ones that shared the greatest common factors were...
Please refresh if you looked at the chapter at the start! I accidentally mixed up something in the chapter and there was something meant to be at the end that ended up at the start because I wasn't paying attention to where I typed!
Dumb author mode has been activated
Shouldn't be a problem for many people, it was fixed as soon as I noticed it but just in case!
@TheWorldTree
lol even the ai bumbed down by only using emoji