151: Chapter 151 Civil War

As Lin Li's bolded red war announcement scrolled across the server-wide lobby...

The entire Fire Seed Shelter instantly fell into a state of fanatical fervor!

For some time now, the Shelter's primary enemies had been those mindless Orks.

Under the relentless grinding and group ganking of the The Fourth Calamity day and night, the original population of millions of Orks was dwindling at a rate visible to the naked eye.

Just two days ago, it had become difficult to find wild Ork Boyz spawning at the Wasteland Pass to the northwest.

Players who wanted to kill Orks for points had to travel all the way to the depths of the scrap yard north of Coastal City to "restock."

Chopping Orks every day had given everyone a bit of aesthetic fatigue.

Now, a new map was open, and a new enemy was online!

And it was the famous Tyranids from the Warhammer setting!

The players were all as excited as if they’d been injected with chicken blood, going wild in the public channel.

"666! The bugs are finally here! New mobs, new drops!"

"I've been wanting to see what a bug leg roasted with a plasma gun tastes like!"

That player with the weird train of thought, [Void Terror], jumped out again:

"My favorite Tyranids are here! Hehe, I really want to date a Genestealer. I wonder if the Tyranids have an NPC like the Queen of Blades?"

The players below responded with a row of Sweating Soybean emojis:

"I feel like the mental state of these recent batches of new players is really twisted."

"I suggest immediate execution to eliminate future troubles."

Roasting aside...

The curve for the number of people signing up for the war shot up in a straight line!

In just half an hour, the number of players volunteering for the expedition to the Prison Planet broke the fifty thousand mark!

However, a very realistic logistical problem appeared before everyone: insufficient transport capacity.

Most solo players and small-to-medium sized legions simply didn't have space vehicles capable of interstellar travel.

To avoid staring blankly and missing out on this dividend, the players began to get creative.

Some thick-skinned ones went to the transport ship bases of the large legions to hang banners and beg for a ride;

Others simply formed groups and went to Coastal City to find the native merchant caravans, pestering them to rent old cargo ships.

But even so, the transport capacity cobbled together by the public was still very limited.

Lin Li naturally noticed this bottleneck.

Sitting on the bridge of the spacious yacht, Lin Li gave an order to Iron Man 73:

"First, warp to the low-Earth orbit of Outpost 544, deploy high-altitude communication satellites covertly, and establish a battlefield local area network."

"Then, remotely control those giant space transports that just came off the assembly line at the Shelter, and start twenty-four-hour continuous cross-galaxy transport for the participating players and ammunition!"

"As you command, Creator. The logistics dispatch network has been established."

With official transport support, the players moved very quickly.

Especially the powerful Scourge Legion, which completed its war mobilization almost immediately.

But considering the limited single-trip capacity of the giant spaceplanes...

The high-level management of the Scourge Legion decided that the first wave to drop onto the Prison Planet battlefield would be three thousand heavy infantry of the highest rank, all wearing Ranger Power Armor!"

Their mission was to withstand the vanguard's attacks and carve out a stable landing zone.

Once the position was secured, the heavy firepower units from the rear would be deployed gradually.

It was worth mentioning...

For this expedition, the Scourge Legion put a large number of newly developed and mass-produced equipment into actual combat.

This included Hover Tanks and Hover Assault Vehicles with anti-gravity engine chassis, as well as Hover Self-Propelled Artillery with terrifying calibers.

The entire legion's heavy firepower had achieved comprehensive hover mobility.

Secondly.

The Galactic Empire Stormtroopers led by ikun didn't send many physical participants because their current strategic focus was on developing that liquid methane planet.

But as the second wealthiest legion...

They used an entire transport ship to carry a massive swarm of tactical drones and sent professional drone operators to provide air support on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Steel warband, made up entirely of muscular men, shamelessly hitched a ride on their ship.

A grand cross-stellar expedition had officially begun!

...

Meanwhile.

On the distant Prison Planet, Outpost 544.

Wanna Sleep with Slaanesh snapped his eyes open amidst a daze of intense pain.

He found himself lying in a dark, narrow stone room.

As he struggled to get up from the ground and tried to move his stiff limbs...

He discovered with horror that this clone body of his had undergone a terrifying, earth-shattering transformation!

His originally human body had now ballooned into a nearly three-meter-tall, half-human, half-insect aberration covered in thick purple carapace!

"Holy crap!"

Looking at the two extra scythe-like mutated insect arms on his chest, Slaanesh wanted to cry but had no tears.

"How the hell was I modified into this damn shape! This model is too ugly. I'd rather be killed and respawn in the city!"

He even raised his sharp claws, hesitating whether to just pierce his own head.

However...

The moment Slaanesh raised his arms, he suddenly realized that the power contained within this aberrant body seemed terrifying.

Slaanesh was originally a level 22 high-level melee player.

Among all the players in the Shelter, his pure strength stats were second only to that leveling fanatic Liver Emperor.

But now.

After being mutated by the Genestealer's egg, Slaanesh felt that his base strength attribute had actually more than doubled!

To verify his guess...

Slaanesh turned around and looked at the thick concrete load-bearing wall of the room.

He took a deep breath, suddenly lowered his center of gravity, and slammed his shoulder, covered in hard carapace, into it!

"Boom!"

A deafening roar!

That concrete wall, which was half a meter thick, actually shattered and collapsed instantly as if hit directly by high explosives!

Rebar snapped, and rubble flew everywhere!

The massive commotion immediately alerted the guards outside.

The alarms in the corridor flashed frantically.

And those prison guards who were originally on patrol all turned their heads at the same time, staring fixedly at Slaanesh, who had burst through the wall, with emotionless, dilated pupils.

Slaanesh understood instantly.

These people were all monsters already assimilated and infected by the Genestealers; they were no longer human.

At the same time.

A dense, eerie buzzing sound, like ten thousand hornets flapping their wings, suddenly echoed in Slaanesh's mind.

Those monsters were trying to establish mental communication with him, the newborn, through the Hive's genetic network.

His head was buzzing and stinging with pain.

"Communicate with your granddaddy! Shut the hell up!"

Slaanesh let out an inhuman, irritable roar!

His massive aberrant body kicked off the ground, stomping two deep pits into the concrete, and charged into the crowd of guards at a terrifying speed that was almost impossible for the naked eye to catch!

"Fire! Kill the deviant!"

The guards pulled out their weapons and fired frantically at Slaanesh.

However, whether it was the natives' laser rifles or the large-caliber Bolters...

Those red-hot projectiles hit Slaanesh's purple mutated carapace only to produce a series of sparks, leaving a few shallow scratches without even breaking his defense!

"Hahaha! No damage! I'm fine!"

Slaanesh was overjoyed.

Although this look was a bit ugly, these stats were just too damn good!

He swung those two giant mantis-like claws on his chest in a sweep.

"Slash—!"

Several guards wearing bulletproof armor didn't even have time to scream before they were instantly sliced into pieces by the sharp insect blades! Blood splattered across the walls.

A one-sided bloody massacre unfolded in the corridor.

Slaanesh went on a rampage.

He already knew that the brothers from the Scourge Legion had completed their drop deployment and were currently building positions outside the city, and the frontline vanguard had already engaged the prison's defense forces.

"The brothers are fighting a siege outside, and I'm right here in the enemy's headquarters."

Slaanesh swung his claws and split a guard's head open.

"Since I'm already here... I might as well do something big for them and cause a scene from the inside!"

Slaanesh completely let himself go.

He didn't care where he was.

As long as he encountered those expressionless guards who started shooting on sight, he would charge up and hack them into pieces.

However, if he encountered logistics personnel in the corridors who screamed and ran in fear, or even broke down crying upon seeing his monstrous form...

Slaanesh would simply ignore them.

Because in the players' simple logic...

Those who can feel fear and scream are generally normal NPCs who haven't been brainwashed by the bugs.

As long as their health bar isn't red, don't kill them.

Slaanesh carved a blood-soaked path as if no one could stop him.

Not long after...

He burst out of a heavy building and reached the streets of the Inner City.

Many human guards who hadn't been fully assimilated were scared out of their wits when they saw a three-meter-tall Tyranid monster suddenly dash onto the street. They hurriedly grabbed their radios to call for reinforcements while setting up heavy machine guns to fire wildly at Slaanesh.

"The firepower is a bit heavy."

Slaanesh was pushed back repeatedly by the bullets.

He didn't care about much else and directly smashed through a sturdy tin house nearby to hide.

Inside the house was a heavy iron gate leading downward.

Slaanesh tore open the iron gate in a few strokes and dove straight into the underground passage.

The underground space was very dark, and the air was thick and foul.

But Slaanesh found that his mutated eyes had gained excellent thermal imaging night vision.

Standing at the edge of the passage, he looked down.

This was a vertically structured underground prison!

It reached a depth of hundreds of meters, with no end in sight at a glance.

On the surrounding circular walls, tens of thousands of rusty cells were densely distributed.

Suspended chain bridges connected the various areas.

Slaanesh's appearance immediately caught the attention of the patrolling jailers on the platforms below.

When they saw a massive creature with four arms appearing above their heads...

Many jailers were so scared they nearly wet themselves, unable to even hold their guns steady.

Slaanesh leaped down, his massive body slamming onto a chain bridge, easily dealing with the jailers who tried to resist.

Then...

He walked to a row of cells and swung his claws, slicing through the thick adamantium locks one by one like cutting tofu.

The cell doors swung open.

Standing in the corridor, Slaanesh cleared his throat and shouted at the prisoners in his now abnormally raspy and barely intelligible Low gothic:

"Reinforcements from outside have fought their way in! I'm here to let you out!"

"Rescue the others! Kill those prison guards above! Grab their guns and go save your fellow countrymen!"

Those who could be imprisoned in this Abyss Prison were all the most ruthless felons and gang leaders from Mobius Prime.

Because in this star system...

High-and-mighty nobles wouldn't be imprisoned even if they broke the law, and lower-class commoners who made mistakes were shot on the spot—they weren't worth wasting food to lock up.

These people didn't care if the one saving them was a bug or a monster.

For this bunch of outlaws, regaining their freedom and getting revenge on the guards who tortured them was enough!

"Kill those sons of bitches!"

"Grab the guns! Rush out!"

For a moment, the Abyss Prison was filled with righteous indignation.

Hunger and hatred turned into fanatical motivation.

Slaanesh followed the same pattern, killing his way down level by level along the chain bridges, breaking open hundreds of high-security cells in succession.

Prisoners poured out like a tide, picking up the weapons of the fallen jailers and beginning to charge frantically toward the upper levels.

Not long after...

The entire massive underground prison was in complete chaos!

The riot spread uncontrollably like a prairie fire.

Because the Scourge Legion's offensive outside the city was exceptionally fierce, most of the elite guards and heavy weapons inside the prison had been urgently redeployed to the defensive lines on the outer walls.

This caused the internal resistance to become very weak.

Although a few cannons on the distant Inner City towers occasionally tried to fire at the rioting areas...

The buildings in the city were too dense, and the cannons' firing angles were severely restricted, making it impossible to cause effective large-scale suppression.

The instigator, Slaanesh, stood at a chaotic intersection.

Watching the prisoners around him frantically charging the defensive lines with guns and listening to the explosions echoing everywhere in the city...

A terrifying, rasping laugh escaped his hideous insect face.

"Hehe."

Slaanesh turned his head, his crimson compound eyes locking onto the luxurious skyscraper at the very center of the city.

That was the Warden's office.

"Mission 'Central Bloom' complete."

"Next... it's time to settle the score for that forced kiss, Madam Mary!"