Chapter 607, Node Biology

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 had to do 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, swarms 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 seem to tire.

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 swarms can be guaranteed.

Not to mention, if the final victory is achieved against this world, the meat carpet will be spread to every inch of the world, all the biomass will be absorbed and sent to the digestion pool, and then the living ships will be hatched into 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 new hive fleet will leave with a small number of insects and a large amount of biomass, leaving behind a destroyed dead world.

One of the secrets of the endless swarm of swarms is here.

This set is almost impossible to restrain.

Unless all the swarms are killed in a short period of time, so that they have no time to hatch again. At the same time, quickly destroy most of the meat carpets, hatching pools, digestion pools... In short, it is to make the replenishment of the swarm unable to keep up with the loss, so that the swarm can be defeated and eliminated in the front.

But this method 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 probability of success is extremely low.

But the swarm also has weaknesses - perhaps not just weaknesses, but also advantages.

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

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

With the benefits here, there are naturally 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 creatures.

Node creatures do not necessarily have to be 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 hatching, that is, it has a "brain", it can take on this job.

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

When a node creature is destroyed, the swarm it belongs to is equivalent to having its brain removed, losing all thinking ability and becoming a large group of monsters without organization, only devouring and killing instincts. They will destroy all non-swarm units around them, and then stay where they are, at a loss, until they become more and more hungry, and then start fighting each other, eat and drink enough, and then stay still... In this cycle, they will perish without attacking.

Unless a new node creature is born from the hatching pool and takes over the out-of-control 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 for a considerable number of insects to starve to death, kill themselves, or be wiped out by the human army. If the hatching pool is destroyed again, and there is no hive fleet outside to deliver, cutting off the ability of the Zerg to recreate node creatures, then the crisis of the swarm will be resolved.

Of course, parasites are not among them. They use the brains of the parasites. To eliminate them, another method is needed.

At the moment, Martins led the team. The Phoenix and the Blood Shark jointly launched a company each. What they wanted to do was naturally not to kill the living forces of the Zerg, but to eliminate the most core Zerg nest node creature on this planet called "Tingzhen IV".

It is not far away.

The think tanks of the two war groups spent two weeks before, combined with ground intelligence, to roughly determine its location. Then, it was Martins who made the decision. Two companies fell from the sky, bringing the fire of destruction.

Two hundred elite space warriors almost killed a clearing in the core area of ​​the Zerg.

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 has greatly reduced the interference of the two war group think tanks who fell with them when searching for the precise location of the most important node creature.

Under Martins' command, some of the Space Marines formed a defensive formation to protect the think tank, while the other part spread out to slaughter more Zergs.

The whole process was not that difficult. The huge Zergs came in waves, and the Space Marines killed them in waves. With blood and flesh flying everywhere, the Zerg corpses were everywhere. Even as time went on, more high-level Zerg beasts began to appear in large numbers. The warrior worms in groups rushed forward under the cover of cannon fodder, and more than 20 of them instantly surrounded a squad of blood sharks.

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

Then, another group of sky ghost worms attacked. These flying units with wings on their backs and a torso as big as a calf, their mouthparts were like machine guns, blasting down.

But a few blood sharks took out long-barreled bolters with sniper scopes and shot down the sky ghost insects one by one.

The types of enemies increased and their numbers began to increase. The pressure on the Space Marines also increased, and casualties began to gradually occur.

But in general, they were still far from being unable to bear it.

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

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

With the ability of the Space Marines, it would only take twenty or thirty minutes to rush over the five-kilometer distance, even if there were insect swarms blocking it.

The direction of their attack alerted the node creature.

It finally stopped hesitating and no longer considered destroying these Space Marines, but gave priority to transfer.

At the same time, the flying units that were originally harassing 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 showed his power, and his psychic energy spread. A circle of invisible power waves swept across the air in a semicircle. A large number of insect flying 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, targeted attacks can be used to destroy the wings and flight organs, eliminating the threat in a more labor-saving way.

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 in the formation, sometimes speeding up to rush out and cut off high-threat units, and sometimes hiding inside the formation, using firepower bursts as an auxiliary.

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

Martins's eyes were as sharp as a falcon, and he could feel the panic of the node creature. The chaos of the swarm was not disorderly agitation, but a blindness like a headless fly. The node creature was 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 standing up with a shoulder height of six meters. The huge alien head had several rows of fangs after opening its mouth, and six pairs of predator eyes were everywhere on the head to ensure that it could accurately lock the enemy. Four pairs of eight forelimbs, each with a different type of weapon at the tip, and thick recurved hind limbs that allow it to move quickly. The long tail with barbs dragging behind it is also a deadly weapon.

It looks extremely terrifying!

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 reluctance and rage.

The swarm of insects 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 even more impeccable. Their tactics were perfectly coordinated, as if they had cooperated together for many years and received the same training.

To some extent, it was not wrong to say so. Most of the company sent by the Blood Shark were recruits from the blood tax collected from the Alliance.

Although they had emerged in the war group in just over half a year, they showed an amazing level. But that was on the training ground after all. According to the blood sharks' war group culture, if you don't go through the baptism of life and death on the battlefield, then you can't be considered to have grown up.

Martins didn't have any thoughts in this regard. When the blood sharks wanted to send him such a team in the joint operation, he was not unhappy because the blood sharks only gave him a group of recruits, but was relieved.

These blood sharks... how to say it, they are like a group of phoenixes with different strengths.

Everyone has different bloodlines, and because of the different gene seeds, the fighting styles and skills they show are also different, but they are quite consistent in their spiritual core. 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 if they are a group of "recruits", Martins knows that their strength is no problem, and they are not even worse than the blood sharks' veteran company.

If Martins is really given a team of blood shark veterans, it will not be as useful as these recruits.

Under Martins' command, the space warriors took a posture to meet the enemy. Martins himself stood at the front, ready to take down the enemy leader.

Every step of the Hive Tyrant was accompanied by the vibration 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, with only cold instincts and burning desires for food in their eyes.

The two armies faced each other, and there was only a fight to the death.

When the Space Marines fought against the elite Hive Guards and Warrior Zerg Clusters, 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 everything substantial.

The Hive Tyrant opened its huge mouth and let out a deafening roar, while Martins said nothing. His actions were better than a thousand words. His figure moved quickly on the battlefield, avoiding every attack of the Hive Tyrant, and every evasion was accompanied by a lightning-like blow from his phase sword.

The battle was fierce and cruel. Every attack of the Hive Tyrant contained the power to destroy everything, but Martins could always avoid it at the critical moment. His swordsmanship was sharp, and every swing of the sword took away a piece of the Hive Tyrant's flesh.

Finally, in a precise raid, Martins's phase sword penetrated the Hive Tyrant's shell 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 down completely.

Martins stood in front of the body of the Hive Tyrant, his breathing was a little rapid.

The Hive Tyrant was not easy to deal with. This thing had 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 one that was severely whipped by the tyrant's tail.

But fortunately, Martins not only had the strength of a battle group champion, but also had excellent equipment. In the end, he was the winner.

As the node creatures fell, the swarm suddenly lost its organization and began to run around aimlessly. Fighting purely by instinct, although the number of swarms was still there, the threat level was much worse than when they could cooperate exquisitely just now.

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

Even if there are still hundreds of millions of worm beasts on this planet, the biggest problem has been solved.

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5k

Still owe 107

Try to finish another chapter before dawn!