Chapter 607, Node Creatures
The airdrop pod slammed into the fleshy blanket of the insect swarm, causing juice to splash.
The hatches in four directions opened, and Martins and three other soldiers who were his personal guards stepped out.
Although there was no intention to control the pace to reduce the noise, the sound of the heavy Terminator armor stepping on the ground was still absorbed by the meat carpet, making it smaller and duller, and was then covered up by the roar of the insect beast. .
Martins didn't care that he was stepping on this disgusting structure of the Void Zerg's trinity of energy, digestion, and corruption. The first thing he did was to raise his left hand and shoot the rotating bolt machine gun hanging from it. Aiming at the surroundings, the explosive bombs of destruction were poured out in all directions.
Countless insects suddenly burst out from the cracks in the meat blanket and from a little distance away. Most of them are units such as knife bugs and gun bugs.
Martins's minigun roared, and every bullet was a messenger of death, tearing the insect beasts that rushed towards them into pieces. His personal guards wearing Terminator armor followed the actions of the chapter leader and also showed amazing combat effectiveness. Under the violent sweep of explosive bombs, patches of insect beasts were wiped out.
The intensity of the battle was beyond imagination, and after a while, the corpses of the insect beasts were piled up like a mountain.
However, these Void Zerg have no fear. They still have a clear division of labor. Some drag away and devour the corpses of their fellow creatures, and then retreat far away to prepare to recycle the biomass for reuse. Others continue to pounce on the Space Marines without hesitation.
Martins and his three guards were quickly overwhelmed by the swarm of insects.
Although the firepower in their hands is fierce, the ammunition is limited. The terminator can carry a considerable amount of ammunition, but it is not as large as the huge insect swarm.
In order to save ammunition and not be consumed by these low-level bugs all at once, they deliberately reduced their firepower output and only used heavy explosive bombs to kill some strong individuals among the bugs.
Some warrior bugs, and even assassin bugs, are hiding in the swarm. The latter's carapace has a layer of camouflage color, making them look like multiple ordinary soldier bugs.
These two types of bugs are relatively rare in the insect swarm, but they have the ability to threaten the lives of space warriors.
Especially the assassin bug. Its frontal combat effectiveness may be similar to that of an ordinary samurai bug. However, its elusive ability will cause people a lot of headaches. It is definitely best to detect and eliminate them in advance.
If not... well, right now, both Martins and the other three are the most elite warriors among the Phoenix. If you are really touched, there will be no solution. It is just a matter of using explosive bombs or using power swords or phase swords.
As for the other cannon fodder, which is more numerous, they are really wiped out.
Even if there are a huge number of gunworms, they are not afraid of intensive shooting with symbiotic weapons from a distance.
Those bullets pose an average threat to the Terminator armor, not to mention that Martins and others are not standing still as targets. They move at high speed while fighting, and can often use a large number of knife insects approaching as cover. It is not easy to hit a Space Marine.
Despite the intensity of the battle and the sheer number of enemies, Martins and his warriors did not appear to be tired.
Their fight is to create opportunities for more space warriors to come. They are like an indestructible nail, driving hard into the enemy group.
Under their disturbance, the size and distribution of the enemy group became roughly clear.
Then, airdrop pods fell from the sky one after another.
Among the Space Marines who came out of the airdrop pod, there were phoenixes in red armor and blood sharks in black and gray armor.
This is a joint operation between Phoenix and Blood Shark.
Soon the total number of landed Space Marines reached two hundred.
The strength of two entire companies reduced the number of insect swarms at a faster rate.
Even an insect nest guard who came with an elite warrior bug team was caught off guard and was overwhelmed by several blood sharks. The power ax tore the body of the insect nest guard into pieces.
Even with the number of insect swarms, after large-scale sacrifices occurred in a short period of time, the number in this area has been significantly reduced, and it has become sparse visible to the naked eye.
The Space Marines were still killing enemies with high efficiency, but the work led by Martins himself was obviously not just as simple as wiping out some of the enemy's vital forces.
As far as the insect swarm is concerned, no matter how many insect swarms in the middle and lower levels are wiped out, it actually doesn't mean much.
Dead soldiers, including the corpses of dead enemies, can be eaten directly or dragged away by other Zerg species, returned to the digestion tank, or even returned to the meat carpet, where they will be digested together with the biomass brought back. The system is recycled and will soon hatch into bugs again.
This cycle is quite short. Humans are pregnant for ten months and it takes more than ten or twenty years for them to reach adulthood. They also need training and equipment to go to the battlefield. It only takes about ten days to hatch a knife bug or gun bug whose combat strength is similar to that of an ordinary human militia. It is not necessary to have relatively complete industrial facilities like humans to produce thermal weapons for soldiers to use. As the bugs hatch, the symbiote weapons that appear together can play a role.
Of course, recycling involves losses. The body that was too damaged in the battle and the parts that were too late to be recovered will be lost.
But with such a mechanism, the number of insect swarms can be guaranteed.
Not to mention, if the final victory over this world is achieved, the meat carpet is spread to every inch of the world, and all biomass is absorbed and sent to the digestion tank, then a living ship can eventually be hatched and go up to the sky, and then evolve into a Huge capillary towers are connected to the Hive Fleet in orbit, responsible for transporting resources collected from the surface of the planet to the sky. The finally reborn Hive Fleet will leave with a small amount of bugs and a large amount of biomass, leaving behind a destroyed, dead world.
One of the secrets of the endless swarm of insects is here.
This set is almost impossible to restrain.
Unless all the insect swarms are killed in a short period of time, they will have no time to hatch again. At the same time, they are rapidly destroying most of the meat blankets, hatching tanks, and digestion tanks... in short, so that the replenishment of the insect swarm cannot keep up with the loss, so that the insect swarm can be defeated and eliminated from the front.
But this approach is almost tongue-in-cheek.
In terms of consumption, even the green-skinned orcs cannot defeat the Zerg.
Unless you do this when the insect swarm is still very small, the probability of success is extremely low.
But the Swarm also has weaknesses—perhaps not just weaknesses, but also strengths.
There is no such thing as morale in the insect swarm. When the situation is particularly bad, the green-skinned orcs will suffer morale collapse and collapse, but the insect swarm will not at all. These beasts, which only rely on instinct to act, do not even have the ability to think, they only know how to kill and devour.
The insect beasts are not afraid of death and can fight to the last soldier. When necessary, they can break the rear when they say it is cut off, and they can turn back like the wind if they say they want to retreat.
There are advantages here, but there are also disadvantages.
Low-level insect beasts have no thinking, so they naturally need high-level insect beasts to command and coordinate the actions of all insect swarms in an entire area.
They are called node organisms.
Node creatures do not necessarily have to be a certain type of insect beast. Theoretically, any bug, even the lowest level, can be a node creature. As long as it is given the authority of a node creature during incubation, that is, it has "grown a brain", it can take on this job.
Downward, they can control an insect swarm of uncertain size and are the common brain of the insect swarm; upward, they can contact higher-level node creatures and obey orders and commands.
When the node creature is eliminated, the insect swarm it belongs to is equivalent to having its brain cut off, losing all thinking ability and turning into a large group of unorganized monsters with only the instinct to devour and kill. They will destroy all non-swarm units around them, and then stay in place at a loss, until they become more and more hungry, then start to fight each other, eat and drink enough, and then stay still... This cycle continues without attacking. self-destruction.
Unless, a new node creature is born from the hatching pool and takes over the out-of-control insect swarm.
It is more difficult to grow a brain than a body. It takes a long time to create a node creature, which is enough time for a considerable number of bugs to starve to death, kill themselves, or be exterminated by the human army. If the hatching pool is destroyed again, and there is no Hive Fleet outside to deliver, cutting off the Zerg's ability to recreate node creatures, then the crisis of the swarm will be resolved.
Of course, those infected with parasites are not among this group. They use the brains of the parasites. To eliminate them, another method is needed.
At the moment, Martins led the team, Phoenix and Blood Shark each sent out a company for this joint operation. Naturally, what they wanted to do was not to kill the active force of the insect swarm, but to eliminate the insect swarm in this place called 'Ting Zhen IV' The most core insect hive node creature on the planet. It's not far away.
The think tanks of the two battle groups spent two weeks before roughly determining its location based on ground intelligence. Then, Martins made the decision, and two companies fell from the sky, bringing the fire of destruction.
Two hundred elite space warriors almost wiped out a clearing in the core area of the insect swarm.
Although there are still a steady stream of bugs coming from all directions, for the time being, the number of enemies in this area has been greatly reduced.
The reduction in the number of enemies has greatly reduced the interference experienced by the two fallen think tanks when searching for the precise location of the most important node creature.
As for the Space Marines, under the command of Martins, some formed a defensive formation to protect the think tank; the other part spread out to kill more insect swarms.
The whole process is not very difficult. Huge insect swarms came in waves, and the space warriors killed them one after another. With flesh and blood flying everywhere, insect corpses were everywhere. Even as time passed, more high-level insect beasts began to appear. Appear on a large scale. The warrior bugs formed a group and charged under the cover of cannon fodder. More than twenty of them instantly surrounded a small group of blood sharks.
But after a burst of flesh and blood, many cannon fodder, more than twenty warrior bugs, and one of the large elites were all chopped down. As for the blood sharks, only two were sacrificed.
Then, another group of sky ghost insects attacked. These flying units have two wings on their backs, and their torsos are about the size of calves. Their mouthparts are like machine cannons, shooting downwards.
But a few blood sharks took out bolters with long barrels and sniper scopes, and shot down these ghost bugs one after another.
The types of enemies became more diverse and their numbers began to increase. The pressure on the Space Marines also increased, and casualties began to appear gradually.
But overall, it's still far from being unbearable for them.
At this time, the search by the think tanks came to fruition.
As soon as the report reached Martins' hands, he immediately commanded the entire army to raid the target location.
A distance of five kilometers, with the ability of the Space Marines, even if there is a swarm of insects blocking it, it will only take twenty or thirty minutes to rush over.
The direction of their attack made the node creature alert.
It finally stopped hesitating and no longer considered annihilating these Space Marines, but instead prioritized transfer.
At the same time, the flying units that were mainly harassing people in the sky swooped down fiercely, cooperating with the ground insect swarms to carry out all-round attacks.
The think tank of the Blood Shark suddenly exerted his power, and his spiritual energy spread. An invisible wave of power swept across the air in a semicircle shape. A large number of insect flying units were shot away.
They were not killed, and the Blood Shark Think Tank was obviously quite experienced.
Killing the enemy is troublesome, but for air units, which are much weaker than ground units, the threat can be eliminated in a more labor-saving way through targeted strikes, destroying wings and flying organs.
The Phoenix and the Blood Shark fight side by side. The Phoenix is the main advancement formation, strangling a large number of enemies; the Blood Shark is within the formation, sometimes speeding up and charging out, cutting down high-threat units, sometimes hiding inside the formation, using burst fire as an auxiliary .
Their advancement speed is even faster than the escape speed of the node creature!
Martins' eyes were as sharp as a falcon, and he could feel the panic of the node creatures. The chaos of the insect swarm is not a disorderly restlessness, but a kind of blindness like a headless fly. The node creatures are trying to escape from the shackles of the battlefield and escape to a deeper lair.
But in the end, the monster was intercepted.
It revealed its true appearance in front of the Space Marines: it was a giant creature that stood six meters high at the shoulders. The huge alien head has several rows of fangs behind its open mouth. Six pairs of predatory eyes are located on various parts of the head to ensure that it can accurately lock on the enemy. There are four pairs of eight forelimbs, each with a different type of weapon at the tip. The thick recurved hind limbs allow it to move quickly. The long, barbed tail trailing behind is also a deadly weapon.
It looks absolutely terrifying!
At this moment, the insect nest tyrant finally realized that there was no hope of escape. It turned its huge body, and with a sense of unwillingness and fury, led a group of elite insect beasts to rush towards Martins.
The swarms came like a tidal wave, but under the firepower of the Space Marines, they were nothing more than ants dying. The collaboration between the Phoenix and the Blood Shark was impeccable. Their tactics matched perfectly, as if they had worked together for many years and received the same training.
To a certain extent, this is not wrong. Most of the company sent by the blood sharks are recruits from the blood tax collected from the alliance.
Although they were within the battle group, they had risen to prominence in just over half a year and performed at an astonishing level. But that was on the training ground after all. With the Blood Shark's war group culture, if you don't go through the baptism of life and death on the battlefield, then it doesn't count as growth.
Martins had no idea in this regard. When the Blood Shark sent such a team to him during the joint operation, he not only did not feel unhappy because the Blood Shark only gave him a group of new recruits, but he was relieved.
These blood sharks... how should I put it, they are like a group of phoenixes that specialize in different directions.
Everyone has different bloodlines, and the fighting styles and skills they are good at are also different due to different gene seeds, but they are quite consistent in their spiritual core. Fighting for the Alliance, these silent new blood sharks also have high morale and are quite willing to obey Martins' command.
What's more, even though they are a group of 'new recruits', Martins knows that their strength is no problem, not even worse than the veteran company of Blood Sharks.
If you really want to give Martins a team of blood shark veterans, they won't be as useful as these new recruits.
Under the command of Martins, the Space Marines took a stance to face the enemy. And Martins himself stood at the front, ready to take down the enemy's leader.
The ground shook with every step the Hive Tyrant took, its tentacles waving as if it wanted to tear the sky apart. Behind it is a group of large and ferocious insect beast elites. In their eyes, there is only cold instinct and a burning desire to eat.
The two armies faced each other and could only fight to the death.
When the Space Marines faced off against the elite Hive Guards and warrior insect swarms, Martins also personally approached the Hive Tyrant. In his hand, the phase sword shone with a faint green light. It was a blade made of pure energy that could cut through any substance.
The Hive Tyrant opened its maw and let out a deafening roar, but Martins remained silent. His actions spoke louder than a thousand words. His figure moved quickly across the battlefield, dodging every attack from the Hive Tyrant, each evasion being accompanied by a lightning strike from his phase sword.
The battle is fierce and cruel, and every attack of the Hive Tyrant contains the power to destroy everything, but Martins can always avoid it at the critical moment. His swordsmanship was fierce, and every time he swung his sword, he took away a piece of the Hive Tyrant's flesh.
Finally, in a well-aimed strike, Martins' phase sword penetrated the Hive Tyrant's shell and penetrated its vitals. The body of the Hive Tyrant trembled suddenly, and its huge body began to collapse. It let out a final wail, and then fell completely.
Martins stood in front of the corpse of the Hive Tyrant, his breathing a little rapid.
The Hive Tyrant is not easy to deal with. This thing has a record of killing some Chapter Champions and Chapter Leaders in single combat.
He also had many wounds on his body, the most serious one being the severe blow from the tyrant's tail.
But fortunately, Martins not only has the strength of the group champion, but also has particularly elite equipment. He will be the winner in the end.
As the node creatures fell, the insect swarm suddenly lost its organization, and they began to wander around aimlessly. Fighting purely based on instinct, although the number of insect swarms is still here, the threat level is much worse than when they were able to coordinate exquisitely just now.
Not only the insect swarm here, but also the entire 'Ting Zhen IV' is probably like this.
Even though there are still hundreds of millions of insect beasts on this planet, the biggest problem has been solved.
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5k
Still owe 107
Try to complete another chapter before dawn!
(End of chapter)