Chapter 607, Node Creatures

The airdrop pod slammed hard into the insect swarm's flesh carpet, and juice splashed everywhere.

The hatches on four directions opened, and Martins and three other soldiers who were his personal guards stepped out.

Although he did not intentionally control his pace to reduce the noise, the sound of the heavy Terminator armor stepping on the ground was still absorbed by the meat carpet, becoming smaller and duller, and was then covered by the roar of the insect beast.

Martins didn't care that he was standing on the disgusting structure of the Void Zerg that was a trinity of energy, digestion, and corruption. The first thing he had to do was to raise his left hand and aim the revolver machine gun hanging below at the surroundings, pouring destructive bombs all around.

Countless bugs suddenly rushed out from the gaps in the meat blanket and from a distance. Most of them were knife bugs and gun bugs.

Martins's revolver bolter roared, and every bullet was a messenger of death, tearing the insect beasts that pounced on them into pieces. His guards wearing Terminator armor followed the actions of the chapter leader and also showed amazing combat effectiveness. Under the crazy sweep of the bolter, large groups of insect beasts were destroyed.

The intensity of the battle was beyond imagination. After a while, the corpses of the insect beasts piled up like a mountain.

However, these Void Zergs had no fear. They still had a clear division of labor, some dragged away the corpses of their own kind, devoured them, retreated to a distance, and prepared to recycle the biomass for later use, while more of them continued to pounce on the Space Marines without hesitation.

Martins and his three guards were quickly overwhelmed by the swarm of insects.

Although they have great firepower, their ammunition is limited. The Terminator can carry a lot of ammunition, but it is not as much as the huge swarm of insects.

In order to save ammunition and avoid being consumed by these low-level Zergs at once, they deliberately reduced their firepower output and only used heavy explosive bombs to kill some strong individuals mixed in with the Zerg swarm.

Some warrior bugs and even assassin bugs are hiding in the swarm. The latter have a layer of camouflage on their shells, making them look like a number of ordinary soldier bugs.

These two types of insects are relatively rare in the Zerg swarm, but they have the ability to threaten the lives of Space Marines.

Especially the assassin bug, its frontal combat power may be similar to that of an ordinary warrior bug, but its ability to appear and disappear at will can be very troublesome. It is definitely best to be able to detect and eliminate it in advance.

If not... well, at the moment, whether it's Martins or the other three, they are all the most elite warriors in the Phoenix. If they are really approached, they will have a way out. It's nothing more than using explosive bombs or power swords or phase swords to solve the problem.

As for the other cannon fodders who were more numerous, they were wiped out in one swoop.

They are not afraid even if there are huge numbers of gun bugs aiming and shooting at them intensively with symbiotic weapons from a distance.

Those bullets were not a big threat to the Terminator armor, not to mention that Martins and the others were not standing still as targets. They moved at high speed while fighting, and could often use the large number of knife bugs approaching as cover. It was not easy to hit the Space Marines.

Despite the intensity of the battle and the sheer numbers of the enemy, Martins and his warriors did not seem to tire.

Their battle was to create opportunities for more Space Marines to descend. They were like an indestructible nail, firmly piercing the enemy group.

As a result of their disturbance, the size and distribution of the enemy group became roughly clear.

Then, one airdrop capsule after another fell from the sky.

The Space Marines that walked out of the airdrop pod included Phoenixes in red armor and Blood Sharks in black and gray armor.

This is a joint operation between the Phoenix and the Blood Shark.

Soon, the total number of Space Marines that landed reached two hundred.

With the strength of two entire companies, the number of insects was reduced at a faster rate.

Even a hive guard who came with a team of elite warrior insects was caught off guard and his line of defense was broken by several blood sharks. The power axe tore the body of the hive guard apart.

Even in terms of the number of insects, after a large-scale sacrifice in a short period of time, the number in this area has been significantly reduced, and it has become visibly sparse.

The Space Marines were still slaughtering the enemy with great efficiency, but the work that Martins himself was leading was obviously not as simple as just destroying some of the enemy's manpower.

For the Zerg, no matter how many miscellaneous soldiers in the middle and lower levels are eliminated, it actually doesn't mean much.

Dead soldiers, including the corpses of dead enemies, can be eaten directly or dragged away by other Zerg and returned to the digestion pool or even to the meat carpet. They will be recycled by the digestive system along with the biomass they brought back and will soon be hatched into bugs again.

This cycle is quite short. It takes a human gestation period of ten months and a growth period of ten to twenty years. They also need training and equipment to go to the battlefield. However, it only takes ten days to hatch a knife worm or a gun worm with combat strength similar to that of an ordinary human militia. It does not need relatively complete industrial facilities like humans to produce thermal weapons for soldiers. With the hatching of the worm, the symbiotic weapons that appear together can take effect.

Of course, recycling involves loss. The body that is too damaged in battle, or the parts that cannot be recycled in time, will be lost.

But with such a mechanism, the number of insect swarms can be guaranteed.

Not to mention, if the final victory is achieved against this world, the meat carpet will be spread over every inch of the world, all the biomass will be absorbed and sent to the digestion pool, and then living ships will be hatched and sent to the sky, and then evolve into huge capillary towers, connected to the hive fleet in orbit, responsible for transporting the resources collected from the surface of the planet to the sky. Finally, the newly born hive fleet will leave with a small number of insects and a large amount of biomass, leaving behind a destroyed and dead world.

This is one of the secrets to the endless swarm of insects.

This set is almost impossible to control.

Unless all the insects are killed in a short period of time, so that they don't have time to hatch again. At the same time, quickly destroy most of the meat blankets, hatching pools, digestion pools... In short, the replenishment of the insects can't keep up with the loss, so that the insects can be defeated and eliminated head-on.

But this approach is almost a joke.

In terms of consumption, even the green-skinned orcs cannot beat the Zerg.

Unless you do this when the swarm is still very small, the chances of success are extremely low.

But the Zerg also has weaknesses - perhaps they are not just weaknesses, but also advantages.

There is no such thing as morale in the Zerg. When the situation is particularly bad, the morale of the green-skinned orcs will also collapse, but the Zerg will not have any of that. These beasts that only act on instinct do not even have the ability to think, they only know how to kill and devour.

The insect beasts are fearless and will fight to the last soldier. When necessary, they can cover the rear and retreat as fast as the wind.

With these benefits, we will naturally have to bear the disadvantages.

Low-level insect beasts have no thoughts, so naturally they 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 are not necessarily a certain type of insect beast. In theory, any insect, even the lowest level, can be a node creature. As long as it is given the authority of a node creature when it is hatched, that is, it has a "brain", it can take on this job.

They can command a swarm of indefinite size and serve as the swarm's common brain; upward, they can contact higher-level node organisms and obey orders and commands.

When a node creature is destroyed, the swarm it belongs to is like having its brain removed, losing all ability to think and becoming a large group of monsters with no organization and only the instinct to devour and kill. They will destroy all non-swarm units around them, then stay where they are, at a loss, until they become increasingly hungry, then start to fight each other, eat and drink their fill, then stay still again... and so on, and they perish without attacking.

Unless a new node creature is born from the hatchery and takes over the out-of-control swarm.

It is harder 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 insects to starve to death, kill themselves, or be killed by human armies. If the hatching pool is destroyed and there is no hive fleet outside to send, the Zerg's ability to create node creatures will be cut off, and the crisis of the Zerg will be resolved.

Of course, parasites are not included in this list. They use the brains of the people they infect. To eliminate them, another method is needed.

At the moment, Martins led the Phoenix and Blood Shark in this joint operation, each sending out a company. What they wanted to do was naturally not to kill the living force of the Zerg, but to destroy the most core Zerg nest node creature on this planet called "Tingzhen IV".

It's not far away.

The think tanks of the two regiments spent two weeks beforehand, combining ground intelligence to roughly determine its location. Then, it was Martins who made the final decision, and two companies descended from the sky, bringing the fire of destruction.

Two hundred elite Space Marines almost cleared a space in the core area of ​​the Zerg swarm.

Although there are still a steady stream of insects 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 meant that the two chapter think tanks that followed were much less disturbed when they were searching for the exact location of the most important node creature.

Under the command of Martins, some of the Space Marines formed a defensive formation to protect the think tank, while others dispersed to slaughter more Zerg.

The whole process was not that difficult. Huge swarms of insects came in waves, and the Space Marines killed them wave after wave. Blood and flesh flew everywhere, and insect corpses were everywhere. As time went by, more and more high-level insect beasts began to appear in large numbers. Groups of warrior insects rushed forward under the cover of cannon fodder. More than 20 of them surrounded a team of blood sharks in an instant.

But after a burst of blood and flesh flying everywhere, many cannon fodder, more than 20 warrior bugs, including one of the large elites, were all chopped down. And the blood sharks only sacrificed two.

Then, another group of Sky Demon Insects attacked. These flying units had wings on their backs, and their trunks were the size of calves. Their mouthparts were like machine guns, shooting downwards.

But a few blood sharks took out long-barreled grenade launchers with sniper scopes and shot down these sky ghost insects one after another.

As the types of enemies increased and their numbers began to grow, the pressure on the Space Marines also increased, and casualties began to occur.

But generally speaking, it is still far from being unbearable for them.

At this time, the think tanks' search yielded results.

As soon as the report reached Martins, he immediately commanded the entire army to raid the target location.

The distance is five kilometers. With the ability of the Space Marines, it would only take twenty to thirty minutes to rush over even if there is an obstacle from the Zerg.

The direction of their attack made the node creature alert.

He finally stopped hesitating and no longer considered destroying these Space Marines, but instead prioritized transfer.

At the same time, the flying units that were originally mainly engaged in harassment in the sky swooped down fiercely and cooperated with the insect swarms on the ground to launch an all-round attack.

The think tank of Blood Shark suddenly showed his power, and his psychic energy spread out. An invisible wave of power swept across the air in a semicircle. A large number of flying insect units were knocked away.

They were not killed; 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 by targeted strikes to destroy their wings and flight organs.

The Phoenix and the Blood Shark fought side by side, with the Phoenix as the main advancing formation, strangling a large number of enemies; the Blood Shark was within the formation, sometimes speeding up to charge out and kill high-threat units, and sometimes hiding inside the formation, using firepower bursts as an aid.

Their advancing speed is even faster than the escape speed of that node creature!

Martins's eyes were as sharp as a falcon's. He could sense the panic of the node creatures. The chaos of the swarm was not disorderly agitation, but a blindness like a headless fly. The node creatures were trying to break free from the constraints of the battlefield and escape to a deeper nest.

But in the end, the monster was intercepted.

It revealed its true appearance in front of the Space Marines: it was a giant beast standing up, six meters tall at the shoulder. It had a huge alien head, with several rows of sharp teeth after opening its mouth, and six pairs of predator eyes on its head to ensure that it could accurately lock onto the enemy. It had four pairs of eight forelimbs, each with a different type of weapon at the tip, and thick recurved hind limbs that allowed it to move quickly. The long tail with barbs that trailed behind it was also a deadly weapon.

It looks horrific!

At this time, the Hive Tyrant finally realized that there was no hope of escape. It turned its huge body and led a group of elite insect beasts to rush towards Martins with a sense of unwillingness and rage.

The Zerg swarms came like a tide, but under the firepower of the Space Marines, they were just ants sent to die. The cooperation between the Phoenix and the Blood Shark was impeccable, and their tactics were perfectly coordinated, as if they had worked together for many years and received the same training.

To some extent, this is not wrong. Most of the soldiers sent by Blood Shark are new recruits collected from the Alliance through blood taxes.

Although they had emerged in the regiment in just over half a year and had demonstrated amazing performance, that was only on the training ground after all. According to the Blood Shark regiment culture, if they had not experienced the baptism of life and death on the battlefield, they would not be considered to have grown.

Martins didn't have any such thoughts. When Blood Shark wanted to send such a team to him in the joint operation, he was not unhappy because Blood Shark only gave him a group of recruits. Instead, he felt relieved.

These blood sharks...how to put it, they are like a group of phoenixes that are good at different directions.

Everyone has different bloodlines, and because of the different gene seeds, they show different fighting styles and skills, but their spiritual core is quite consistent. Fighting for the alliance, these silent new blood sharks are also in high spirits and are quite willing to obey Martins' command.

What's more, even though they were a group of 'new recruits', Martins knew that their strength was beyond doubt and was even not inferior to the Blood Shark's veteran company.

If Martins were really given a team of Blood Shark veterans, they would not be as useful as these new recruits.

Under Martins' command, the Space Marines took a stance to meet the enemy, and Martins himself stood at the front, ready to take down the enemy leader.

Every step of the Hive Tyrant was accompanied by the shaking of the ground, and its tentacles waved as if it wanted to tear the sky apart. Behind it was a group of large and ferocious elite insect beasts, and in their eyes, there was only cold instinct and burning desire to eat.

The two armies faced each other and could only fight to the death.

When the Space Marines were fighting against the elite Hive Guards and Warrior Swarms, Martins also personally went to the Hive Tyrant. In his hand, the Phase Sword flashed with a dark green light. It was a blade made of pure energy that could cut through anything substantial.

The Hive Tyrant opened its huge mouth and let out a deafening roar, but Martins said nothing. His actions spoke louder than a thousand words. His figure moved quickly on the battlefield, dodging every attack of the Hive Tyrant, and every evasion was accompanied by a lightning strike of his phase sword.

The battle was fierce and brutal, and every attack of the Hive Tyrant contained the power to destroy everything, but Martins was always able to dodge at the critical moment. His swordsmanship was sharp, and every swing of the sword took away a piece of flesh from the Hive Tyrant.

Finally, in a precise attack, Martins's phase sword penetrated the shell of the Hive Tyrant and pierced deeply into its vitals. The Hive Tyrant's body trembled violently, 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. It 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 of which was the severe whipping from the tyrant's tail.

But fortunately, Martins not only has the strength of a regiment champion, but also has particularly elite equipment. He is still the final winner.

As the node creatures fell, the swarm suddenly lost its organization and began to run around aimlessly. Fighting purely on instinct, the swarm's numbers were still there, but the threat level was much lower than when they were able to coordinate exquisitely just now.

Not only the insect swarm here, but the entire 'Tingzhen IV' is probably like this.

Even though there are still hundreds of millions of insects and beasts on this planet, the biggest problem has been solved.

————

5k

Still owe 107

Try to finish one more chapter before dawn!

(End of this chapter)