Chapter 210 The Grinding Wheel of Flesh

"Boom!"

A bone missile covered in biological mucus slammed precisely into the bunker of the third line of defense.

There was no earth-shattering explosion or flash of fire, only the teeth-gritting sound of strong acid corrosion. Three soldiers who had just been loading ammunition, along with their electromagnetic cannons, instantly melted into a puddle of pus emitting yellow smoke.

This was the evolved "Armored Leaper."

These beasts had not only grown composite armor like a tank, but the vents on their backs, originally used for heat dissipation, had now become rapid-fire anti-aircraft guns. They no longer charged mindlessly; instead, they hid behind ruins, using the long-range firepower they had just devoured and evolved to engage in a firefight with the Human Defense Force.

"We can't hold them! The heavy firepower group is wiped out!"

"Damn it! These bugs even know how to use tactical infiltration! The left flank has been cut off!"

The communication channel was filled with hysterical roars.

Lin Yuan stood on the command platform, watching the line of red tide on the screen seep into the gray urban defense zone like mercury pouring onto the ground, his face as dark as the sea before a storm.

The conventional troops had been crippled.

The "Dragon Fang" division was regrouping, and the drone swarms were exhausted. Now, the only thing standing in front of the hundreds of millions of bugs was the last line of defense—people.

"Issue a 'General Mobilization Order'." Lin Yuan did not turn back, his voice dry.

Chen Weiguo looked up abruptly, his face full of shock: "Boss! Those are civilians! Most of them haven't even touched a gun!"

"That's still better than sitting around waiting to die." Lin Yuan ripped open the buttons at his collar, his eyes fierce. "Open the armory and distribute all the exoskeletons, engineering power arms, and even the damn suicide trucks! As long as they can move, they are soldiers!"

A few minutes later, the gates of the underground city opened with a roar.

There was no orderly marching, only chaotic footsteps and heavy breathing.

Countless workers wearing overalls and simple exoskeletons, merchants, and even retired old men, holding modified nail guns, plasma cutters, or steel pipes strapped with explosives, flooded into the smoke-filled streets.

They looked at the hideous swarm of bugs in the distance, their legs trembling, but no one took a step back.

Behind them was the entrance to the underground city; that was their home, where their wives and children were.

"Kill!!!"

It was unclear who had taken the lead to shout, but this temporarily assembled torrent of militia slammed fiercely into the front line of the swarm.

This was a meat grinder.

A dock worker wearing a heavy engineering exoskeleton swung a massive hydraulic clamp, pinning the neck of a Leaper tightly.

"Snap, damn you!!" The worker's forehead veins bulged, and the hydraulic rod let out an unbearable, groaning sound.

Crack.

The Leaper's neck was snapped. But the next second, three Sickle Bugs lunged at him simultaneously, their sharp forelimbs instantly slicing the heavy exoskeleton and the person inside into pieces.

Such tragic exchange ratios were playing out everywhere on the battlefield.

Humans were too fragile.

Without long-range firepower suppression, in front of these biological weapons born for slaughter, humans were like fragile porcelain dolls. It often took five or six lives, or even a dozen, to trade for one of the lowest-level Leapers.

"For humanity!!"

A veteran who had lost half his body, holding two anti-tank mines in his arms, laughed wildly as he pulled the fuses, blowing himself and a group of bugs around him into pieces of flesh that rained from the sky.

More civilians strapped themselves with grenades, rushing into the pile of bugs like moths to a flame.

The explosions formed a continuous roar.

That was the last wall humans built with their flesh and blood.

Lin Yuan gripped the edge of the command platform so tightly that his knuckles turned white from the excessive force. The casualty numbers constantly jumping on the screen each represented the loss of a living life.

At this rate, within three hours, these tens of millions of people would all be dead.

This wasn't a war at all; it was a one-sided slaughter.

"Boss, the math doesn't add up." Alita's voice rarely carried a hint of agitation. Her small hands tapped on the virtual keyboard, leaving afterimages. "The number of the Zerg is ten thousand times ours, and they are still hatching continuously. This is like trying to put out a forest fire with a spoonful of water."

"I know."

Lin Yuan took a deep breath. The anger that threatened to shatter his teeth did not make him lose his reason; instead, it made his thinking clearer than ever before.

Since we can't defend it, let's stop defending.

"To catch the bandits, you must first catch the ringleader." Lin Yuan turned abruptly, staring at the mother nest Leviathan in the star map that spanned the space like an asteroid. "That Mother Bug is in command. As long as we kill it, the bugs below will be a disorganized rabble."

"I've calculated it too, the success rate is... 0.01%." Alita pointed to the dense red dots on the star map. "From the atmosphere to that Leviathan, there are about three hundred million bugs in between. Even if the great xia dragon sparrow runs at full power, it will be gnawed into scrap metal halfway there."

"That's the conventional way to fly."

The corners of Lin Yuan's mouth suddenly curled into a madman's smile. "What if we overload the engines and use it as a faster-than-light bomb to crash into it?"

Alita was stunned, and then her electronic eye lit up suddenly: "In that case... the ship will disintegrate, but the inertia will be able to break through the swarm's blockade. But how are we going to get there? You don't have a spacesuit that can survive such an impact."

"That's not something you need to worry about."

Lin Yuan strode toward the teleportation platform. When passing by the corner, he casually grabbed A Ji, who was cowering under the table and shivering.

"Boss! Don't! I get seasick! I have severe space claustrophobia!" A Ji clung to the table leg like a dead dog, howling, "I'm just a thief; this kind of high-stakes world-saving match isn't for me!"

"Less nonsense." Lin Yuan dragged A Ji by his collar as he walked out. "We're going to steal something big this time. There must be something good in that Mother Bug's brain, and I won't feel at ease without you."

"Is... is that going to steal something? That's clearly going to deliver takeout! And the kind that delivers to the door!"

Five minutes later.

The flagship "great xia dragon sparrow," which had been parked in near-Earth orbit, suddenly had all its lights turn into a blinding crimson.

This warship, currently the strongest in humanity, let out a roar like a dying beast. All weapon systems were shut down, all life support systems were taken offline, and all energy was forcibly injected into the four fusion engines at the stern.

"Warning! Core temperature exceeded! The reactor will melt down in three minutes!"

"That's what I want!"

Lin Yuan stood on the deck at the top of the warship.

That's right, he was not in the cockpit, but standing directly in the vacuum of space.

The black Void Energy armor clung tightly to his body, with purple streamers circling around him, forming a small force field. A Ji was tied to his waist with a high-strength cable like a dog being walked, and he was already rolling his eyes in the weightless state.

"Alita, ignite!"

Boom—!!!

Sound cannot travel in the vacuum of space, but that terrifying shockwave directly shook the entire atmosphere.

The great xia dragon sparrow was like a maddened bull, with blue exhaust flames hundreds of kilometers long spraying from its stern, pushing against an acceleration that could tear the ship apart, and dived headlong into the endless sea of bugs.

The tens of thousands of bugs in front hadn't even reacted before they were directly crashed into molecules by the warship's massive bow.

The swarm instantly rioted.

Countless Mutalisks and Corruptors, like sharks that had smelled blood, lunged frantically at the burning warship.

"Get out of my way!"

Lin Yuan stood on the bow, the Void Energy longsword in his hand expanding in the wind.

This was no longer a sword aura of a few meters.

Supplied by the massive energy leaking from the reactor overload, Lin Yuan used the ship itself as the hilt of the sword. A purple light blade, over a hundred kilometers long, traced a death fan in space along the direction of the warship's charge.

Everything that stood in the way, whether it was a meteorite, a bug, or even a small biological warship, was sliced in two.

This was a high-stakes gamble.

The warship's outer armor peeled off layer by layer under high-speed impact and acid corrosion. The bridge exploded, the wings broke off, and finally, only a bare-bones keel engine remained, pushing Lin Yuan and carving out a straight path of blood through the sea of bugs.

That was a true path of blood.

Fragments of countless bug corpses floated in the vacuum, forming an eerie green passage.

Closer.

That Leviathan, as huge as a planet, was right before his eyes.

It opened its massive maw, large enough to swallow the moon; inside, it was not darkness, but countless writhing flesh walls and a brewing Psionic storm.

"The brakes are broken!!" Alita's voice screamed in Lin Yuan's mind. "Impact countdown! 3! 2! 1!"

"No need for brakes!"

Lin Yuan's eyes were filled with fervor, his hands gripping the sword, aiming at the darkness in the deepest part of that huge maw. "I was meant to go in anyway!"

Bang!

The massive impact made Lin Yuan feel as if his internal organs had been displaced.

The final wreckage of the great xia dragon sparrow was like a nail, slamming firmly into the Leviathan's mouth.

The violent vibration lasted for more than ten seconds before stopping.

It was pitch black all around, with only the sparks remaining on the warship's wreckage crackling. The air was filled with a thick, nauseating, fishy stench.

"Are we here?"

A Ji poked his head out from behind Lin Yuan, shivering. He had just unfastened his mask to vomit, but he was so scared by the scene before him that he swallowed his breakfast back down.

They were in a huge flesh cavity.

The surrounding walls were all dark red muscle, pulsing rhythmically. Countless tubes like blood vessels hung down, dripping green mucus.

And right behind them, the "big mouth" they had just entered was slowly closing.

The last trace of starlight disappeared.

"Welcome."

That slippery, cold voice of the Queen no longer came from the radio, but echoed directly in this huge cavity, as if it were coming from all directions.

"Since you're here, don't be in a hurry to leave."

"My gastric juices haven't digested such pure energy in a long time."

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—

As soon as the words fell, countless holes on the surrounding flesh walls suddenly opened.

This time, it wasn't acid that sprayed out, but purple-black toxic mist.

Even through the Void Energy armor, Lin Yuan could feel a stinging pain on his skin. The warship wreckage on the ground came into contact with this mist and actually disappeared silently, like a sugar cube in water.

"We're done for, we're done for! This time we really became takeout!" A Ji screamed, holding his head. "And the kind that's cooked in a pot!"

But Lin Yuan didn't move.

He watched the approaching toxic mist, casually performed a sword flourish with his backhand, and revealed his signature devil-may-care smile.

"Want to eat me?"

"Auntie, aren't you afraid of breaking your teeth?"

"Alita, hack into this big bug's central nervous system for me! A Ji, take out your lockpicking tools!"

Lin Yuan stomped his foot violently, Void Energy erupted, and he forcibly held open a patch of pure land in the toxic mist.

"Who ends up eating whom for this meal today is not yet certain!"