Chapter 348 Preparation for the next time
The Machine Tribe has indeed accomplished a lot.
The appearance of the Destroyer and the ruthless sweep of the Machine Tribe's own planet made Chen Ming quite surprised.
They did indeed make all the Zerg invaders on the planets that had been invaded by Zerg clear out, and the planets where Zerg was not found were completely destroyed.
The Machine Tribe will not bet on the probability that the Zerg Tribe will not successfully parasitize.
But they don't do enough.
After Chen Ming discovered the movements of the mechanical destroyers, in addition to causing the insect nests to immediately start migrating, he also ordered all the insect nests that had just begun to breed to separate some of the insect units and flee.
As long as one seed, one insect egg is left, the entire insect nest can develop again.
Therefore, even if the Destroyer has cleared the insect nests on all planets, not all the insect species on all planets have been killed.
There are still bugs hiding on more than forty planets, and a small number of bug eggs are still alive.
Chen Ming still has a chance, but he needs more time than before.
It can only be said that it was a smart move for the Machine Tribe to take out the Destroyer and destroy several of their own planets very ruthlessly.
After all, if the Destroyer was not around, Chen Ming could guarantee that in just two days, he would be able to get those parasitic Zerg species out of the ground to cause trouble.
The difficulty of invading a planet from space is completely different from that of doing things on the ground.
The logistics of the mechanical race will be completely destroyed in a very short period of time.
But now that the Zerg have been cleansed by the Destroyer, Chen Ming will definitely not dispatch the Zerg before it develops to a large scale, so as not to attract the Destroyer again and stimulate the Zerg again.
There is no large-scale Zerg that can cause damage to the ground facilities of the Machinery Clan, but nothing can be done in front of the Destroyer. Appearing in advance will result in less damage to the Machinery Clan in the end.
Therefore, even if the mechanical race cannot completely solve the problem of the Zerg race, it can at least delay it for a few more days.
Give the Machine Tribe a last chance to mine another wave of supplies, and give them a few more days to research the technology that might eliminate the Zerg Tribe that is still hiding underground.
Chen Ming really has no way to solve the current situation where the Zerg's movement is restricted.
The Destroyer could arrive again at any time, making any action essentially in vain.
But in fact, he doesn't need to solve it.
Because at the same time as the Zerg fleet attacked, Chen Ming also did another thing.
In Chen Ming's understanding, the entire universe is very rich.
Not only are there planets with a large amount of exploitable resources, but there are even more habitable planets than Chen Ming once knew.
However, no matter how rich the place is, there must be barren corners. Near those rich planets, there are also many planets with no development value.
Of course, this development value is for living things or non-living things other than Zerg.
To the Zerg, as long as there is material existence, the planet is valuable.
The mechanical tribe will not deliberately occupy these planets that are worthless to the mechanical tribe, and this gives Chen Ming the opportunity to penetrate.
Therefore, although the targets of the three waves of Zerg fleets sent by Chen Ming were all planets that the machine race found valuable, under development or stationed.
But every time a Zerg fleet passes through a planet that has no development value for the mechanical race, some eggs will be dropped by the Zerg.
Just like what the Black Mist Prosthesis did when it encountered the Destroyer.
And this is another thing Chen Ming did.
Even if every planet in the Mechanical Race's logistics system has been cleared of Zerg, there are still a large number of planets where the Zerg exists, threatening the safety of the Mechanical Race at any time.
Chen Ming didn't know if the mechanical clan had noticed or reacted to this.
He felt that he should have noticed it, but this did not affect the eggs still growing on those "worthless" planets.
The mechanical race has the ability to protect those planets with resource development, but they absolutely do not have the ability to protect every planet.
If we really sweep out every planet where the Zerg exists, especially those barren planets where there is no detection method to confirm the location of the insect eggs.
Even if the Destroyer is used until it smokes, it may not be able to clean it completely.
This is the most disgusting thing about Chen Ming's Zerg.
Even Chen Ming will disgust the mechanical tribe again later.
At this time, Chen Ming was still observing the Destroyer mothership inside the galaxy through some remaining iron atoms in the phase space of the last processed galaxy that the Destroyer arrived at.
This mothership cannot stay in phase space forever. Sooner or later, it will return to the normal universe, and it will always stay somewhere.
Its radiant energy coils can be replaced, but definitely not all facilities can be replaced. It must be overhauled.
Chen Ming just stared at the destroyer mothership silently.
Finally, after the mothership dealt with the last planet without a nest, it started the jump engine.
When the spacecraft in the phase space starts the jump engine, it can also take away the spacecraft in the normal universe.
Therefore, this mothership also took away the mechanical race within the galaxy that chose to move with a large amount of facilities and supplies because the planet was destroyed.
Only the remains of the destroyed planet were left in the galaxy.
Chen Ming immediately activated his psychic energy, allowing Iron Atom, which had originally kept a distance from the mothership, to approach the Destroyer Mothership's jump location.
Immediately, the manufacturing equipment recorded the detailed jump fluctuation data when the mothership left.
And through this data, the destination coordinates of the Destroyer were confirmed.
It's pretty much what he thought, it's the galaxy where the star gate is located in the mechanical tribe's star area.
I have to say that the mechanical race is really wealthy.
The empire can only guarantee that there is at least one star gate in a star field, but the mechanical clan has installed star gates in every star zone in such a small star field.
Although the startup cost of a star gate is calculated based on the distance between the two star gates, the value of the star gate itself lies there, especially the singularity that can only be obtained through natural wormholes.
That's the most important thing.
Chen Ming actually has some or quite a lot of ideas about Star Gate, but it's not the time yet.
Now, Chen Ming chose to directly let the Zerg Queen squeeze out about a thousand Zerg cruisers, and then let each Zerg cruiser lock onto a galaxy within the mechanical star field.
It targets galaxies where it believes that the defensive power of the mechanical race is relatively empty, and it can even be said to be galaxies that have no defensive power.
Because most of these galaxies are barren planets with no development value.
Only a very small number of these thousand Zerg cruisers have targets that are valuable star systems, and these cruisers with different goals are actually just bait to mislead the machine race.
The reason is the same as before.
Chen Ming had not planned to let the fleet jump to the important planets and galaxies of the mechanical race before because there were definitely a large number of heavy soldiers in these places. In the past, even if he was looking for death, the planets would not necessarily be unreachable.
Therefore, what the Zerg have to do is very clear, which is to drop insect eggs on those barren planets.
The mechanical tribe may not necessarily protect the barren planets. Who would be willing to defend those planets that have no development value at all?
Therefore, even a single cruiser has the possibility of reaching the surface of the planet and leaving insect eggs behind under the encirclement and suppression of the mechanical race.
Of course, the premise is that the target of the cruiser cannot be those galaxies developed by the mechanical race.
Although there will be no special protection, it does not mean that there is no protection. Even some planetary mechanical races with no development value will at least build a monitoring system within the galaxy that covers the entire galaxy, which is enough to detect the invasion of Zerg cruisers and send a fleet to deal with it.
The Mechanical Tribe will soon discover Chen Ming's further actions to allow more Zerg to infiltrate into the Mechanical Tribe's star domain.
But the machine race has no ability to stop it.
They can't even deal with the planets in the logistics system that have no development value, let alone the planets in the system that Chen Ming randomly selected.
Of course, these cruisers about to set off can already be said to be dead.
It is worth using a thousand cruisers in exchange for more information in the Mechanical Star Territory being parasitized by the Zerg.
But Chen Ming's actual purpose in doing this was not to target these Zerg cruisers and the planet they were about to inhabit.
The reason why he thought of doing this was not because of the matter itself. He did not even pay full attention to all the cruisers that were about to set off again to confirm whether they could successfully parasitize in the future.
He only focused on one of the Zerg cruisers.
The destination of this cruiser is even a galaxy where the mechanical race is highly developed.
This is the galaxy where the Mechanical Tribe's Stargate is located, which the Mechanical Tribe's Destroyer Mothership just arrived at.
It doesn’t take long to prepare.
After all the Zerg cruisers have determined their targets, the jump begins.
In just ten seconds, thousands of Zerg cruisers appeared in thousands of different galaxies, approaching the nearest non-gas planet.
This time, the number of Zerg fleets affected is far greater than before. Although there is only one cruiser in each system, it is natural. It stimulated the response system of the mechanical clan and attracted the encirclement and suppression of the nearby mechanical clan fleet.
But before the mechanical fleet destroyed Chen Ming's Zerg spacecraft, the Zerg spacecraft had enough time to inject insect eggs into those barren planets.
Of course, those Zerg spacecraft that went to the galaxies developed by the Machine Race were immediately surrounded and suppressed by the Machine Race's fleet.
Only one of them managed to escape the mechanical race temporarily by luck and successfully laid insect eggs on a planet.
As for the ship that jumped to the Mechanical Star Gate, according to the empire's classification of the Mechanical Star Sector, it should be regarded as the Zerg cruiser in the Star Gate 7 galaxy.
At the moment the jump ended, it was attacked by the Destroyer.
The jump fluctuation occurs at the starting point and the end point at the same time when the jump engine is started, so it is not surprising that Chen Ming reacted so quickly to the mechanical family.
Anyway, his goal has been achieved.
Just before the Zerg cruiser that Chen Ming was concerned about was destroyed, he saw that the star gate in the galaxy had not been activated, and there was no sign of it being activated.
And the Destroyer Mothership seems to have left the phase space through the phase facility here. It is currently in the orbit of a planet, looking like it is ready to land at any time. It is only because of the Zerg cruiser that it turns its gun nose and gives it to the Zerg warship. Came a while.
These are proof that the Destroyer will be here to stay in the future.
Although Chen Ming had previously speculated that the Destroyer might stay here due to the Zerg.
But he is not 100% sure. After all, the strategic value of the Destroyer is also quite obvious. Obviously, it has more and better places to realize its value.
However, with the arrival of the Zerg spacecraft, Chen Ming was finally convinced of his idea.
And he also had the opportunity to try to capture this destroyer.
Chen Ming gradually became excited.
But he immediately poured cold water on himself. The number of Zerg fleets left in his hands is also somewhat limited.
There were many large-scale battles in a short period of time, each time causing huge losses.
To be able to fight until now is because the insect queen has developed long enough on the abandoned insect nest planet to be able to sustain it.
But no matter what, the resources that the bugs already had have been exhausted and are not enough to support Chen Ming to continue to cause trouble on the territory of the mechanical tribe.
After the excitement is over, the rest is still done.
At least for now he had to wait until the Zerg developed again.
This time, Chen Ming only had one insect hive planet and a Zerg fleet of about 500,000 cruisers, which gave Chen Ming the confidence to use cruisers to compete with the battleships.
And the next time Chen Ming brings his fleet to the Mechanical Race Star Territory, it will definitely not be just like that.
With the breeding efficiency of the Zerg, it won't be long before Chen Ming can once again build a more terrifying and powerful fleet.
He will have a chance later.
The Destroyer should probably not move again in the future.
Only by ensuring logistics can they have the possibility to persist in the war.
As for Chen Ming, as long as the machine clan is still willing to ensure logistics, then he still has the possibility of capturing the Destroyer.
There is another problem that Chen Ming still hasn't figured out after fighting several high-intensity battles with the mechanical tribe.
Where are the external reinforcements from the Machine Tribe?
Of course Chen Ming's question was not answered.
But when the number of his Zerg fleet increases later, he might try to confirm it with a large number of Zerg spacecraft carpet jump
For now, forget it.
And while he was busy competing with the mechanical tribe, he was busy fighting against the machine clan.
At this time, An Wuping was in the Aodan Star Territory.
Minister Hou also probably finished listening to An Wuping's story about how the black mist prosthesis captured some Zerg units and attacked the Machine Tribe.
Of course, what An Wuping said was definitely different from what Chen Ming actually did, and there was also quite a bit of concealment.
But basically you can hear the key point in An Wuping's words, which is that an unknown existence shrouded in black mist appeared.
In addition to knowing An Wuping, Minister Hou also knew Chen Ming's information.
So when he heard the keyword black mist, he confirmed: "Are you sure it's black mist? When did it appear?"
An Wuping replied: "It's just a very thick black fog. Just now, shortly after I entered this room, a figure suddenly came out of the shadows and was wrapped in black fog... I don't know what it was, but Probably humanoid.”
"After the thing in the black mist popped out, he immediately released more black mist to cover my Zerg races. All those Zerg races were affected by the black mist and escaped the control of the Queen."
"Black mist..."
There was once a black mist psychic known to many people who assassinated Chen Ming and Bai Quan who were with Chen Ming as a member of Zuo Jing.
At that time, it was said that the black mist psychic was killed on the spot by Chen Ming, and no body was left behind.
However, although there was no body at the time, there was evidence from Baiquan, so it was recorded according to this statement.
But now, after hearing An Wuping talk about the black fog that appeared, Minister Hou subconsciously wondered whether this black fog might be related to Chen Ming.
Of course, this was just his subconscious thought, and he quickly dismissed it completely.
Zuo Jing's brainwashing ability is obvious to all.
Even psykers who are recognized as having strong consciousness can be brainwashed. It is impossible for black mist psykers to switch to Chen Ming's side.
Not to mention that the brainwashed psyker was not dead when the Black Mist psyker assassinated him. He didn't think that Chen Ming would specifically spare the life of a psyker who assassinated him and Bai Quan.
Moreover, there is also the psyker Qianmian in Zuojing, who has the ability to imitate other people's psionic effects and convert the psionic effects into Heart Gathering Spirit Beads for others to use.
He was also a troublesome guy, and finally died at the hands of An Wuping.
It is his existence that makes it possible for Black Mist's Heart Gathering Pearl to wander outside and be driven by others.
And now Minister Hou only heard the word "Black Mist" from An Wuping.
There are also psykers whose psychic effects are similar to those of the Black Mist. It does not necessarily mean that they are from Zuojia, and it is even less likely to be the original Black Mist psyker.
Just the sudden appearance of the black fog makes it really difficult not to make people doubt something related to Zuojia.
As far as Minister Hou knows, Zuo Jing has not been completely dealt with in history.
The empire has tried to clean up leftist elements throughout the empire more than once at great cost, and it has not failed.
But as long as a few years or more than ten years pass, the left path will pop up again.
This time, the brainwashed psykers of Zuo Jing were killed, and a large number of Zuo Jing elements surrendered after completing their brainwashing. Therefore, many people believed that the source of Zuo Jing's psychic power was wiped out, and Zuo Jing was finished.
But will Zuo Jing not die?
Minister Hou thought of a lot in an instant, but these were just his personal thoughts. Unless he obtained more evidence later, he would not express any of these thoughts.
Minister Hou continued to ask An Wuping: "Then how were your Zerg controlled? Are they psykers?"
"It should be a psyker or some kind of psychic creature, but it's not my bug controlled by psychic powers."
"There is a kind of pheromone specifically targeted at the Zerg in those black fogs that can interfere with the Zerg's judgment and guide the Zerg."
"My insect queen has obtained the pheromone sample, and I can send it back to the empire as soon as possible."
Minister Hou nodded slightly, and just when he was about to continue saying something, another voice suddenly sounded from him: "Contact Chen Ming directly and ask Chen Ming to deliver it. He has the means."
Minister Hou was stunned for a moment, took out the terminal from the inner pocket of his clothes, and placed it on the table between him and An Wuping.
An Wuping stretched out his hand and pointed slightly at the terminal on the table and asked; "This is..."
A voice immediately rang out from the terminal: "Hello An Wuping, I am the superior of Minister Hou Xianhou and the Minister of the Empire's Psyker Population Management Department, Lu Han."
When he heard this, Chen Ming immediately remembered the website "Psychic Census Network" that he had used several times before. It was a website affiliated with this department.
Although this Lu Han said that he was a minister, there was obviously a big difference in level between him and Minister Hou.
One is a minister at the star level, and the one at the other end of the terminal is an empire-level minister.
"Minister Lu, hello, hello, do you want me to go directly to Chen Ming?"
"Yes, if you don't mind, you can ask us a few more questions."
Although Minister Lu's words were inquiring, there was quite a command element in his tone.
An Wuping frowned subconsciously. Minister Hou noticed this and said quickly: "It's troublesome."
He and An Wuping were chatting happily, but why did the boss suddenly come over to cause trouble?
An Wuping didn't say much when he saw this, and took out the terminal in front of the two of them.
Of course Chen Ming would not be idle at this time.
Before he arranged for An Wuping to do things, he knew that someone would come to contact him and confirm with him what was going on outside.
So before An Wuping finished chatting with Minister Hou, Chen Ming had already decided to contact Bai Quan.
When Bai Quan answered Chen Ming's call again, Bai Quan's tone of voice was a little nervous: "Is there something else?"
Recently, Chen Ming had been calling him about something, and it was not a trivial matter.
Bai Quan's scalp was also a little numb.
Especially since he was about to return to the front line. There were a lot of things going on recently, but he didn't dare not answer Chen Ming's call. What if there was something important?
Chen Ming immediately said: "This time it's not a big deal, it's just that I discovered that the Zerg have made new moves."
"Some insects wrapped in black mist suddenly attacked the mechanical tribe."
“Although it seemed that they were all killed by the Machine Tribe in the end, and there were traces of the Destroyer suspected to be from the Machine Tribe, those black fog bugs still left a lot of eggs on nearby planets, and it seems that the Machine Tribe still can’t clean them away. ”
"I sent a few ships to try to make contact with the black mist, but the things in the black mist didn't seem to want to contact me, so they demolished all my ships."
"But I also took the opportunity to take a picture of the thing inside the black mist."
Chen Ming said, and sent Bai Quan a photo of the ugly appearance of the black mist prosthetic that combined humans, insects, and machines.
"I suspect this is a human experiment done by Zuo Jing or the Machine Clan themselves. Zuo Jing often conducts human experiments. The Machine Clan also has a history of transforming living things into machines, so..."
"Wait a minute."
Before Chen Ming finished speaking, Bai Quan suddenly interrupted: "Don't rush to talk nonsense. I'll talk to you first."
"You said."
"Do you remember that I watched you send the black mist psyker into the dormant chamber before? This man looks very similar to the black mist psyker."
"Ah this..."
Chen Ming was embarrassed for a moment. He hadn't thought of it at first, but when Bai Quan mentioned it, he immediately recalled the assassination by the black mist psyker.
But at that time, Bai Quan had only seen the black mist psychic once at most, and the black mist prosthetic was deliberately made ugly by Chen Ming, leaving only a few identity details that could only be seen if you look closely.
Can Bai Quan remember clearly after such a long time? I'm afraid I'm not deceiving him.
So he looked at the photo he sent several times and said stubbornly: "It doesn't look like it..."
Bai Quan was not disturbed by Chen Ming and said with conviction: "What are you going to do? I don't want to see you doing the same thing as Zuo Jing. A person's bottom line will gradually decrease. Don't cross that point." lines.”
Bai Quan's tone was very serious, and Chen Ming could no longer answer casually.
He said seriously: "I have a clear conscience in everything I do, and I will only use the right means on the right people."
"I will not do anything harmful to the empire and the legion. Even what I am doing is absolutely beneficial to both the empire and the legion."
"I just don't want the empire to find out more about me. That would be of no benefit to anyone."
Bai Quan was silent for a while, sighed, and chose to believe Chen Ming: "So this... thing that is neither human nor ghost..."
"It's just a little experiment between me and An Wuping. It was indeed done with the black mist psychic. Kill it first and then experiment."
"There are two purposes. One is to attract the attention of the Empire and the Machine Tribe, and the other... is to inform the Empire of the existence of Zuo Jing."
When Bai Quan heard this, he immediately understood that he seemed to be in trouble again, and asked: "What do you mean? Isn't the brainwashed psyker in Zuo Jing dead?"
(End of chapter)