89: Chapter 89 Decisive Battle Weapon, Ruins! The Retreating Insect Swarm

The Zerg Overmind's Psychic Network

"No. 7, are you seeking death by charging so far forward? The enemy has a ruler-class planet battleship. Have you gone senile after not fighting for centuries?"

"Hurry back into the joint shield and let the biological weapons drain the enemy's energy."

"Strong energy accumulation detected from the opposition. Suspected decisive weapon activation!"

"Well, it's too late. Prepare to die. Remember to return your consciousness to the Hive; go wait in the spawning pool."

The Cerebrates' complaints were endless.

---

"Guixu System, activate."

Major General Zhao Yu's voice rang through the fleet's command network.

The two ruler-class planet battleships—the "buzhou mountain" and the "Kunlun Mound"—fell silent simultaneously at this moment.

The energy patterns flowing on the hull's surface, those ethereal blue light bands that originally flickered like breathing, all extinguished at once.

The entire ship's shields were diverted into the superweapon's anti-radiation shield; otherwise, the ship would be destroyed before the attack was even launched.

The energy supply to all non-core systems of the entire 100,000-kilometer diameter metal planet was instantly cut, converging toward an ultimate weapon unit deep within the hull that was already fully charged, forming a brilliant energy pathway.

"Guixu Spatial Annihilation Wave Cannon," Zhao Yu said, pulling up a weapon diagram on the holographic tactical table to give the nearby students a lesson in a flat tone.

"The principle is to create a short-lived 'pseudo-singularity' at the target point through ultra-high-density energy focusing. This singularity triggers a chain reaction of structural collapse in local space—simply put, it erases that area of space."

Sai Wei: "...I think I just heard something incredible."

"That's right." Zhao Yu withdrew his gaze and looked at No. 7 Leviathan on the hologram, which was covered in severe scars and attempting to retreat. "This is a decisive weapon; the battlefield is not an amusement park. Aim and fire."

The moment the command was given—

Approximately five hundred kilometers above the surface of No. 7 Leviathan, the void "collapsed" without warning.

There was no beam, no explosion, and no conventional energy impact.

The space itself suddenly collapsed inward, twisting into a "depression" about three hundred kilometers in diameter.

At the center of the depression, a pitch blackness so deep that even the light from the surrounding gunfire could not illuminate it quietly emerged.

That was the "pseudo-singularity."

The instant it appeared, all the bio-energy streams still flowing on the surface of No. 7 Leviathan, all the splattering biological blood, and all the granulation tissue attempting self-repair—all froze.

It was as if time had been paused.

But space had not.

With that pitch blackness as the center, visible spatial folds rippled out like waves on a water surface, spreading frantically in all directions. Everywhere the folds passed, all matter began to undergo bizarre twisting phenomena:

The entire process was silent.

No. 7 Leviathan's massive 100,000-kilometer-long body was twisted into the singularity just like that under the influence of the Guixu wave.

Then the singularity vanished, and space restored.

And No. 7 Leviathan "ceased to exist."

It was wiped clean, without even a speck of dust remaining, leaving no trace that it had ever existed.

The entire "spatial excision surgery," from the appearance of the singularity to the complete disappearance of the Leviathan, took: 3.7 seconds.

After 3.7 seconds, there was nothing where No. 7 Leviathan had originally been; not even a trace of the singularity remained, and everything returned to calm.

Major General Zhao Yu stared at that empty void for two seconds before letting out a soft "tsk."

"So this cannon has this kind of effect; it's not spectacular at all," he muttered under his breath.

...

On the Zerg side, the reaction was a bit slow.

Mainly because things happened too fast, and information transmission took time.

The first to notice something was wrong were the sub-Leviathans guarding No. 7 Leviathan. They were busy channeling bio-energy to their boss, repairing shields, and incidentally contemplating philosophical questions like "who should carry the boss and run during the retreat"—

And then the boss was gone.

Literally "gone."

One second they could still sense those majestic life signals and neural waves, and the next, the location of the signal source was empty.

Empty!

The neural nodes of several sub-Leviathans jammed simultaneously.

「...Boss?」

「Can't sense it...」

「Coordinates correct, but signal missing...」

「Visual scan confirmed: no large units in target area.」

「Heat source scan confirmed: no high-energy biological reactions.」

「Spatial scan confirmed: residual slight curvature distortion, suspected... traces of spatial structural reshaping?」

In the Cerebrates' communication channel, pheromones were in a mess.

「Insta-killed just like that? Was the upload successful?!」

「It seems successful. No. 6 Empty Nest received the mission to reconstruct No. 7 Leviathan. But when did the humans get this level of spatial weaponry?!」

「Searching database... Match found: 'Guixu Spatial Annihilation Wave Cannon,' human 'Defense Era' decisive weapon. Theoretical lethality: special attack against super-giant units. Actual combat examples: zero. Data uploaded by Queen No. 45, Severia.」

「Severia? Didn't she defect? Why did she upload the data? Is she still with the humans?」

「She's still marked as a defector. Who knows with those Queens? Everyone except the Empress is weird. Not to mention their human aesthetic preferences, they even talk about feelings!」

「The more talented the Queen, the weirder she is. Isn't little Princess Olivia the same? Maybe even the Empress...」

「Do you want to die? How dare you say that...」

Just as the Cerebrates' chat drifted from No. 7 toward Queen gossip, reports from other areas of the battlefield began to pour in like snowflakes.

First was the biomass recovery team—actually a group of Drones pushing modified transport-type hosts, sneakily picking up corpses at the edge of the battlefield.

The pheromones they sent were full of confusion:

「Report: Abnormal recovery operation in Area A7.」

「Get to the point.」

「Wreckage of some Zerg units... abnormal loss rate of Life Divine Energy.」

「How abnormal?」

「Overall loss rate of 0.0032%. According to the normal energy dissipation model for casualties, this value should be below 0.000001%.」

「Reason?」

「Unknown. Life Divine Energy is missing from some wreckage, but there are no signs of extraction, as if it wasn't there since creation.」

Before the Cerebrates could digest this report, another emergency transmission broke in.

From the monitoring team responsible for tracking Olivia's signal.

This pheromone was simple, but the content was explosive:

「Signal source coordinates updated.」

「Direction: Not the human defense line.」

「Repeat: Her Highness is not in the direction of the human fleet.」

「Current signal points to: edge of the Ruin Starfield, direction of the Holy Alliance, coordinates marked.」

The channel was silent for three seconds.

Then the pheromones exploded.

「Wait, so we charged the human defense line for nothing?!」

「And No. 7 was sacrificed for nothing?!」

「Her Highness isn't even at their place?!」

「That escaping white-feathered chicken—it's playing us?!」

「That's not the point! The point is Her Highness is still alive, but the signal source has changed!」

「So there's no point in continuing to attack the humans?」

「Then what do we do?」

All the Cerebrates' neural tentacles turned simultaneously toward a high-level node that had been silent.

That was the Fourth Hive front-line commander, Cerebrate Gorg.

Gorg quietly received all the information and spent five seconds thinking—for the Zerg, five seconds was already a very long time for strategic decision-making.

Then, it issued a calm, concise, and pragmatically Zerg pheromone command:

「Tactical objective invalidated.」

「All forces: Disengage and retreat.」

「Retreating units, prioritize biomass recovery; salvage as much as possible.」

「Record the coordinates of that white-feathered chicken. We will set out after further confirmation; there seems to be a possibility of a trap currently.」

「Now—withdraw.」

The command spread through the entire Zerg Swarm network.

The next second, all Zerg units still charging forward slammed on the brakes.

Mutalisks made a sudden stop and turned to run, their claws even dragging half a corpse of their own kind;

Devourers swallowed back their half-charged acid—literally "swallowed it back"—and turned to flee, devouring many Mutalisk corpses before leaving.

The Corruptors turned around en masse, tentacles stretching everywhere, picking up whatever they saw;

The retreat was crisp and decisive, without any lingering; they left so thoroughly it was like a group of scavengers had passed through.

...

On the human side, they didn't react for a moment.

"What's the situation?" Chu Xinghe had just dodged an acid bomb in his fighter and was preparing to counterattack.

He saw that acid-spitting Corruptor run away without looking back, leaving him alone in a combat stance. "We're in the middle of a fight! Can't you respect your opponent?"

Luo Lan added from the side: "Maybe they think you're too much of a noob and don't feel like fighting you."

In the bridge, Major General Zhao Yu also received the report from the sensor officer.

"General, the Zerg Swarm has begun a large-scale retreat. Their formation remains intact, suspected organized disengagement."

Zhao Yu stared at the red dots rapidly moving away on the hologram, his fingers tapping lightly on the tactical table.

"Should we pursue?" the adjutant asked for instructions.