151: Chapter 151 Chen Jingyi, you dog of heads

Anserwe looked down at her charred and curled left wing—the once magnificent and delicate membrane was now shriveled and carbonized, with wisps of green smoke still rising from the edges. Most of her long hair had been scorched by the high temperature, emitting the foul stench of burnt protein. The biological armor on her body was even more melted and deformed, revealing the severely burned skin beneath.

The Swarm's powerful self-healing ability was already mending these wounds.

"I almost... became the next joke," she murmured to herself, her voice trembling in a way she didn't even notice.

...

On the ground, at the North Star Base.

Li Yuan looked up at the sky, which had been cleared by the main cannon and was now excessively clean. He blinked once, then blinked again.

Where was his Thundercloud Storm? Where was the thunderstorm zone he had stacked over six hundred layers of, which was just about to grind through those Swarm mountains with electrical therapy? Where were the "dominoes" he had spent so long painstakingly setting up?

Gone.

All gone.

Wiped clean by a single shot from the Mega Particle Cannon and fifteen shots of Genesis, like a rag wiping a table.

After being stunned for a full three seconds, a shrill wail echoed across the eastern defense line: "My—battle—results—!!!"

The sound was so tragic, so aggrieved, and so heartbroken that it could make anyone shed a tear. Anyone who didn't know better would have thought his wife had run off with someone, his savings had been stolen, or his house had been torched—when in reality, he had just had his kills stolen.

Although there was no difference in who killed these "mobs" and there were no substantial rewards, anyone would understand that unique sting of "I worked so hard to charge up my ultimate for the harvest, only for a teammate to clear the entire minion wave with a single basic attack."

Especially since this "teammate" had performed the last-hit so cleanly that she hadn't even left him a single minion.

In the public channel, Chen Jingyi slowly sent a message, her tone carrying a hint of suppressed laughter: "This is war. What's this about 'kill-stealing'? How childish."

Li Yuan: "...Chen Jingyi! You're something else! You total kill-stealer!"

Chen Jingyi: "The main cannon was fully charged, the Spore Pod density met the criteria, and the firing window was perfect. Why wouldn't I fire? Should I have waited for you guys to slowly grind them down? What a waste of energy."

Li Yuan: "I was stacking Thundercloud Storm! Give me five more minutes and I could have turned them all into charcoal!"

Chen Jingyi: "And then? Maintain the Thundercloud Storm for a few more hours, consuming your energy and tying up your DPS rotation just to waste time? I used the main cannon to clear the field in a second, saving time and energy, and I even managed to hit those Queens Guard units in the sky. Think about the efficiency."

Li Yuan was rendered speechless by her rebuttal.

From a tactical perspective, there was nothing wrong with Chen Jingyi's approach. It was efficient, direct, and maximized gains. But from a personal emotional perspective... it was frustrating! So frustrating!

As if that wasn't enough, Chen Jingyi added another message: "By the way, the battle stats are out. In that round of main cannon fire, besides clearing the near-ground Spore Pod clusters, we 'incidentally' killed two hundred and thirty-seven members of the Queens Guard and accidentally hit four hundred and four Gene Primordial Bodies. The losses for the Tyranid Warriors are estimated between nine hundred and a thousand. Hmm... although friendly units were hit, the exchange ratio is quite worth it."

Li Yuan's mouth twitched again as he looked at the "four hundred and four Gene Primordial Bodies hit."

While it was debatable whether the Gene Primordial Bodies counted as "allies," they were at least currently helping humans fight the Swarm. That one shot had taken out over four hundred of them...

Everyone else in the channel fell silent as well.

After a few seconds, Chu Xinghe spoke up gloomily: "Sister Chen, that 'incidental' hit of yours... was a bit too incidental."

Luo Lan was more focused on the data: "Two hundred and thirty-seven Queens? Is that confirmed? Are units of that level really so easy to kill?"

Chen Jingyi: "The energy level of the main cannon is what it is. Below Rank 7, a direct hit is an instant kill, with no exceptions. Those Queens were unlucky to be right in the trajectory—or rather, we were lucky they were in the trajectory."

Yimoku chimed in excitedly: "So you're saying we wiped out one percent of the Swarm's high-level combatants in a single volley? That's a huge win! It felt like the Gene Primordial Bodies hadn't managed to kill a single Queen after fighting for so long. If we do a few more rounds—"

Before she could finish, Chen Jingyi interrupted her: "There won't be another chance. Monitoring shows that the remaining Queens Guard are disengaging from the Gene Primordial Bodies and descending collectively toward the surface. They've learned their lesson and won't gather in a fixed area to give us a chance to wipe them all out. Instead, they're coming to wipe us out!!"

Sure enough, on the surveillance footage, those black dots that had been fighting the Gene Primordial Bodies at high altitude were now diving toward the ground like dumplings being dropped into a pot. Although the drone swarms were desperately trying to intercept them with dense barrages and suicide rams to delay them, the individual strength of the Queens was too great. They were pushing through the fire net and continuing their descent at a steady speed.

"Bad news," Chen Jingyi's voice grew serious. "The Queens Guard has abandoned the war of attrition with the Gene Primordial Bodies and shifted their target to the ground. The drone swarm's interception is limited. It's estimated that in seventy minutes, the first batch of Queens will break through the interception circle and enter low-altitude space."

"As for the Gene Primordial Bodies..." She pulled up another screen. "They've been firmly pinned down by the remaining Tyranid Warriors. Those warriors have completely abandoned defense and evasion, using the most frenzied close-quarters combat to hold back the Progenitor cluster. In the short term, the Progenitors won't be able to support the ground."

The situation suddenly became tense.

...

High in the air, Anserwe forcibly suppressed the sharp pain in the left side of her body and the alarm in her heart. Her mental network opened fully, sending cold orders to every surviving Queen's consciousness: "Mission change. Abandon the engagement with the Gene Primordial Bodies. All units descend to the planetary surface. Primary objective: Locate Olivia. Secondary objective: Eliminate all Trialists of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Races."

A hideous killing intent flickered in her compound eyes.

A mere four thousand greenhorns from the Alliance of Ten Thousand Races—in her thousands of years of life, a "trial" of this scale didn't even count as a minor skirmish. She had originally thought that after dealing with those annoying Gene Primordial Bodies, cleaning up the ground would just be a formality. Those young lives, at most Rank 4 and some only Rank 3, were nothing more than lambs to the slaughter before her and the Queens Guard.

"A minor ailment."

That was her previous evaluation.

But now, this group of "minor ailments" had not only used some unknown thundercloud weather to cluster the Spore Pods into mountains, but they had also taken the opportunity to deal a painful "incidental" blow to her and her guard using cannon fire on the level of a Decisive Weapon!

The Queens Guard, which had suffered zero casualties even after nearly fifteen hours of fierce battle with the Gene Primordial Bodies, had actually lost over two hundred members in a single sneak attack!

A total humiliation!