Loreine Ptoline, one of the senior security guards, led a team of 2,000 guards through subspace under the direction of Flintlock. The Four-Eyed Devil Lion led everyone through a winding path through landmasses, avoiding any locations with large or particularly dangerous beasts.
They flew past nearly a hundred massive landmasses before they then dived even deeper into subspace between two particular islands. The energy density of subspace began to increase and gave everyone a faint tingling sensation while beasts who were even larger began to appear on deeper landmasses made from heavier and denser four-dimensional matter.
"Is it much further?" Loreine asked monotonously.
Flintlock nodded his head slightly, but it was the mixed emotion in the beast's eyes which caused Loreine to be tense. Flintlock looked down on a particular landmass barren of greenery and covered in towering rocky spires and canyons. His eyes betrayed emotions such as nervousness, nostalgia and bitterness.
The group descended upon the landmass and silently passed under massive stone arches and around wide cliffs as they made their way to the heart of the landmass.
Flintlock suddenly flew up and perched himself on the tip of a cliff overlooking a wide valley shrouded in a mist-like haze.
"ROARRR!" Subspace seemed to vibrate as the devil lion emitted its call through the valley.
The Celestials began to move into defensive positions around the cliff during the brief silence that followed. An eerie silence continued in the valley, but everyone still felt goose bumps, like the calm before the storm.
Shortly afterwards all of subspace seemed to vibrate and tremble as hundreds of devil lions began to appear and roar back.
There was one particular Four-Eyed Devil Lion that was double the size of the rest. It roared the loudest as parts of its red and violet mane began to ignite.
Loreine could understand what this was, it was the two devil lions vying for the position of pack leader. She wasn't about to let such a challenge between the alpha devil lion and Flintlock play out how a challenge for leadership would normally do so as she had her orders to subdue the devil lions.
She raised her hand and passed on the signal for the 2,000 Celestial guards to appear with their energy spears ready to fire.
The devil lion packed saw these people appear and roared in rage even more, some of their manes completely igniting.
"Tell them to surrender," Loreine said to Flintlock without batting an eye at the intimidating presence the pack were emitting. "If they choose to surrender, they will be brought back and integrated into our society and become a part of us, should they choose otherwise, we will completely eliminate them."
Flintlock was slightly nervous as it translated those words into its own language before transmitting it to the pack with a roar.
The words Flintlock said were basically, "Submit and live, don't submit and be turned into food."
The alpha of the pack and responded in a roar, "Old leader defeated and exiled many stars ago, should not have returned. Dishonorable, weak."
Flintlock lowered his head slightly and all the Celestials aimed their energy rifles at the devil lion pack. All of the wild beasts had an extraordinary sense of danger, and they could feel the death looming over them from the Celestials.
However the Four-Eyed Devil Lions were a species with arrogance and pride ingrained deep in their bones and weren't about to surrender. A few of the tool a step back cautiously, but each and every one of them still glared back with eyes blazing with fighting spirit.
"Left and right divisions, target the pack leader! Rear division, prepare to provide suppressive support!" Loreine ordered across the deployment of guards. "Flintlock, come with me."
The current pack leader had a threat of death fall upon him like a bottomless abyss about to swallow his soul. He held the entire packs pride resting on his spine, so he could not bow. When Loreine stepped out with Flintlock, it also stepped forth to accept the challenge.
Loreign and Flintlock continued to walk closer and the pack leader did the same, until they were standing with arms reach of on another.
"Tell him that this will only end in one way. Don't fight us and lose everything."
Flintlock repeated the message in the beast language, causing the pack leader devil lion to glare in rage, but kept quite as the threat of death continued to loom over it.
"Now tell him that I want him and his pack to become a part of our community," Loreine continues passing messages through Flintlock as she stretched out and place a hand on top of the devil lion's head.
In the end the Four-Eyed Devil Lion pack leader chose to fight against the Celestials and tried to mount a sneak attack on Loreine as its mane lit up in an inferno of blue fire and it bit towards her neck viciously.
Loreine and Flintlock hurried back toward safety while hundreds of energy beams fired upon the pack leader.
The pack leader's reaction was to immediately fall back away from the incoming attacks, but the rain of beams followed its retreat closely, several of which even hitting it and blowing it away.
Different from when an energy beam was fired in the surface universe, the matter here wouldn't be eroded and evaporate into pure energy, but the beams from the energy spears themselves packed enough force to blow a hole two meters deep in solid four-dimensional stone.
The pack leader spat blue blood as even more seeped out of the holes in its body, rapidly congealing and sealing the wounds, but they couldn't stop the massive internal injury ā that needed time to heal.
The rest of the pack roared and ignited their manes like a wildfire across the barren plain. The female devil lions were somewhat similar to lionesses but rather than having a mane that combusted, they turned their entire bodies into a firecat, which seemed even more threatening than the males.
While the Devil Lions were intelligent, the Celestials were even more so. They knew when to retreat.
Three devil lions condensed small balls of flame in their mouth with all their energy, damaging their teeth permanently in the process. They spat these balls out at the cliffs where the Celestials were, each bursting into a small sun that shot like a bullet.
The three small blue suns hit the cliffs and exploded into rock fragments and blue flaming will-o'-the-wisps that flew everywhere and ignited anything they came into contact with.
Loreine had already led the Celestials to retreat away from the blast radius of the three massive fireballs, but several guards were still trapped within or touched a blue fiery flame floating in subspace and started combusting though.
Three devil lions had used their strongest attack, consuming nearly all their energy and they had to retreat to the rear lines to recuperate in safety.
The Celestials fired back at the devil lions, killing nearly 50 in just the first skirmish, but even more began to charge up their ultimate attacks, even the pack leader who aimed at Loreine.
"Rear division, prioritize targeting all devil lions condensing fireballs!" Loreine yelled fearlessly as she aimed her energy spear at the pack leader and firing without hesitation, causing the latter to abandon its attack and avoid the lethal attack.
The first round of fireballs had caused the Celestials to abandon the advantageous position of the cliffs, and now the skirmish was happening around the stone spires and massive overhanging arches.
Nearly two thousand energy spears fired repetitively, raining upon the devil lions who did all they could to weave around the attacks but there were simply too many energy beams falling down upon them to avoid.
Alternatively, occasionally a devil lion would manage to fire off a small blue sun which caused the Celestials to break formation and scatter in all directions as they exploded violently and ignited entire regions of subspace and anyone in it.
The skirmish went back and forth over the entire landmass, but eventually the Celestials came out on top.
Flintlock, perhaps due to its former loss toward the current pack leader, didn't take an active part in the battle. It would only fight to protect Loreine or another Celestial nearby if they were in immediate danger, but it didn't do more than that.
"Surrender, don't lose your entire pack," Loreine said emotionlessly as she aimed her energy spear down upon the collapsed pack leader who was on his last breath.
The pack leader looked up at Loreine before resigning and letting out a low growl toward the rest of the pack, telling them the battle was over and they had lost.
During this battle, the Celestials had lost nearly a hundred guards, while only 55 devil lions and 70 devil lionesses survived. The fact that the Celestials lost a hundred guards despite their massive weapon and numerical advantage showed just how fierce the Four-Eyed Devil Lions really were.
The pack leader had submitted to Loreine in its lost and all the devil lions were brought back to CTHQ, those that were seriously injured were carried back before being placed in a field and provided as many nutrients as required to aid their recovery.
This was the most they could do as Ivan was still looking for experienced doctors and biologists from the Federation, but he had recently formed a list of potential candidates so hopefully they would soon be bought over.