204: Chapter 205 Ancient Battlefield

Dragon Strike pointed toward the dim shadows straight ahead,

"Look over there! That thing... doesn't it look like a massive carcass?"

The other two immediately looked in the direction he was pointing.

On the crystallized rock several hundred meters away,

there lay quietly a terrifying humanoid carcass, over ten meters tall, clad in tattered heavy armor!

The carcass's abdomen was pinned firmly to the ground by a spear-like weapon that emitted a faint, eerie light.

After tens of millions of years, this carcass's body had long since turned completely into a translucent crystallized structure, just like the surrounding rocks.

However, when the three players drew closer and used the searchlights of their Power Armor to clearly make out the outline of the head,

everyone froze.

That iconic thick jaw and protruding fangs were far too familiar to them!

"Holy shit!"

Da Heibi's eyes widened,

"Is... Isn't this an Ork's head?! What the hell, how can there be an Ork that grows over ten meters tall?!"

"Honestly, looking at the skeletal frame and facial features, this thing is basically a scaled-up version of an Ork!"

Dragon Strike walked in a circle around the carcass, clicking his tongue in wonder,

"But look at the armor it's wearing. The design is full of high-tech sci-fi elements, fits seamlessly, and even has complex energy circuits! This is a completely different style compared to those wild Orks we fought on the Northern Wasteland who weld scrap metal into armor!"

"Who cares!"

Nobi Dahniao pulled out a cutting tool,

"No matter what kind of Ork it is, let's collect some tissue samples and armor fragments first to bring back to Big Sister Hong for research. Then we'll keep exploring deeper to see what other good stuff is here."

The few of them nimbly chipped off several crystallized bone samples.

However,

just as they packed the samples into their backpacks and were about to turn around to explore further,

the screen suddenly warped violently!

The three players only felt the surrounding space suddenly contract, like dough being vigorously kneaded!

*Zzzt—*

Clearly, those three unlucky bastards had been instantly killed in the spatial distortion and forcibly kicked offline.

...

A few minutes later, Earth.

Dragon Strike, who had just taken off his helmet, sat in front of his computer completely dazed.

"Crap! We were too careless!"

Dragon Strike slapped his thigh hard,

"Does this crappy legendary dungeon seriously have spatial traps laid right at the entrance?! They didn't even spawn any mobs, just instantly killed us with spatial distortion? That bastard game designer is way too devious!"

Complaints aside,

Dragon Strike immediately opened the Spark Alliance's official forum.

He wrote a lengthy hot post, detailing the results of this first exploration of the Ancient Battlefield.

He especially highlighted the screenshots of that ten-meter-tall sci-fi giant Ork, which instantly sparked heated discussions on the forum.

Inside Shelter's main control room,

Lin Li naturally saw this trending post immediately.

"Old Seven."

"What's the deal with this giant Ork carcass? How could Orks possibly build such sophisticated Power Armor?"

73's electronic eye flashed with a stream of data.

"Creator, based on the image features described by the clones, that carcass is highly unlikely to be an Ork in the modern sense. Instead, it is likely the Orks' lost ancient ancestor—the Krork!"

"Krork?"

Lin Li was stunned for a moment.

Even as a veteran Warhammer fan who had some understanding of the lore, this was his first time hearing this term and seeing a physical specimen.

73 began retrieving databases to conduct a hardcore science lesson:

"Yes, during the ancient War in Heaven, the Old Ones used peak genetic engineering to design and create the Krork as the ultimate biological weapon to fight the undying living metal armies of the C'tan and the Necrons!"

"The core objective of the Old Ones when designing the Krork was to build a perfect army that required absolutely no logistical supply, could self-reproduce and multiply exponentially, and possessed innate, extremely powerful combat instincts and technological blueprint memory!

Adult Krorks were generally over ten meters tall, each clad in high-tech Power Armor, and could even tear apart Necron vehicles with their bare hands."

"However, as the War in Heaven ended with the defeat and demise of the Old Ones, the C'tan were backstabbed, and though the Necrons won, they chose to enter their Tomb Worlds to self-seal and sleep. The entire galaxy lost its adversaries.

"Without the guidance of their Creators, the Old Ones, and with no worthy rivals left, the Krork race's genes began to continuously degenerate over the course of tens of millions of years.

"They forgot their advanced technology, their physical size shrank, and ultimately, they degenerated into the stupid, barbaric, Waaagh-shouting modern Orks that are scattered all over the galaxy today."

Hearing this explanation,

Lin Li suddenly understood.

"So the Orks' ancestors were actually that rich and powerful," Lin Li muttered, stroking his chin.

"Of course, the data also mentions that under extremely brutal war environments, modern Orks can also exhibit atavism. The more fierce the battles they fight, the larger and smarter they grow, drawing closer and closer to their ancient ancestor, the Krork. However, such cases are relatively rare in the current galaxy."

This, however, served as a reminder to Lin Li.

"It seems that the batch of wild Orks being raised on the Northern Wasteland is fine to be used as consumables for players to farm experience normally.

But we absolutely cannot push them too hard, nor can we allow them to wage unlimited civil wars to level up.

If they actually manage to breed an atavistic Krork warlord on the Wasteland, we'll have a massive problem on our hands."

Lin Li secretly decided to control the harvesting frequency of the Ork farm.

"Old Seven, are there any other valuable discoveries on this ancient carcass?" Lin Li asked.

"Reporting to the Creator, due to the shallow depth of exploration, there are no other discoveries for the time being."

Lin Li nodded.

"It seems that place is full of spatial rifts and ancient traps, so we won't be able to send a large force to clear it out in the short term. We can only treat it as a long-term adventure dungeon open to high-level players. Since these players aren't afraid of dying anyway, let them use their lives to trigger the traps and slowly clear the map to blaze a trail."

After handling the matter of the Ancient Battlefield,

Lin Li had nothing else to do, so he crossed his legs in his chair and continued browsing the official forum.

He wanted to see what kind of absurd and hilarious stunts this bunch of Fourth Calamity players, who had just acquired the World Forger, were pulling behind the scenes.

He scrolled down a bit.

He saw a post titled [First Warhammer Beauty Ranking Awards] with soaring popularity, which had been pushed straight to the fourth spot on the homepage!

Lin Li naturally clicked in and began browsing.

To put it simply, this was just a bunch of sexually repressed players rating and ranking all the female NPC characters that had appeared in the Warhammer world so far.

The poster's ID was [Widowmaker].

The moment he saw this name,

the corners of Lin Li's mouth twitched twice. Of course he remembered this old pervert!

This guy was considered one of the relatively early alpha players in the Spark Alliance.

Back when this kid first entered the game, instead of doing the proper work of killing mobs to level up,

he immediately spent points to borrow the Matter Constructor and made a double-ended dildo!

Then, this guy went around the Mobius Capital, hooking up with those neglected, resentful noble women.

And he had a peculiar taste, only targeting those busty, wealthy women!

The most ridiculous part was that after hooking up, not only did he get away scot-free, but he also made those noble women willingly invest a huge sum of pioneering funds in him! He literally carved out a path to fortune by living off wealthy women.

Lin Li scrolled through the very long post, which was filled with text and images.

It listed many peculiar women whom Lin Li didn't recognize at all.

After scrolling down for quite a while,

he finally saw a high-definition screenshot of Hong at the 16th spot;

Continuing down, at the 3rd spot, he saw the hot-bodied Battle Sister Frannie wearing a tight tactical suit.

Lin Li scrolled down further with curiosity.

Since even the white-haired, red-eyed sister could only rank third, he really wanted to see what kind of goddess-tier beauty was ranked first.

He scrolled to the very bottom of the page.

Only to see that the one proudly sitting in the first place, revered by countless players as their eternal white moonlight,

was actually the female governor of the former Abyss Prison Planet who had been killed long ago!

Namely, the Genestealer who had forcibly kissed [Wanna Sleep with Slaanesh]!

A massive crowd of players below were frantically building comment threads and sharing their opinions:

"Now this is a true mature queen! That look, that aura!"

"Sigh! What a pity she died so early! This is a rare thorny rose in the Warhammer world!"

"I sincerely envy that old bastard Slaanesh!"

Looking at these comments, Lin Li rolled his eyes speechlessly.

Although that female governor indeed had a somewhat mature and ruthless feminine charm, she was clearly not Lin Li's cup of tea.

Besides, she had been dead for over half a year, and her corpse had probably turned to ash by now.

The tastes of these players were truly hard to evaluate.

Lin Li quickly gave it a downvote and closed the post.

He returned to the homepage.

After a short while, Lin Li found a new post in the trending section, just published by the scenery-loving player [Nikon Da Niao].

The title of the post was written in bold red letters:

"[Shocking! Late Night Infiltration! The Untold Secrets of the Administrator and the White-Haired Sister 2!]"

The moment he saw this UC-shock-style title and the blurry candid screenshot of the basement on the cover,

Lin Li's heart suddenly skipped a beat, and a strong sense of foreboding welled up inside him.

"Crap! This photographer is literally everywhere!"

Lin Li's expression changed drastically,

"What happened between Frannie and me in the Governors Mansion's backyard confessional that night... don't tell me this guy was camping there and took candid photos and videos?!"

Lin Li flusteredly grabbed his mouse, about to click in to check the specific content of the post to see if any socially embarrassing scenes that shouldn't be seen had been captured.

Just at the instant the left mouse button was about to be pressed!

A piercing alarm suddenly erupted throughout Shelter's main control room!

Iron Man 73's cold electronic voice instantly drowned out the alarm, reporting at an extremely rapid pace:

"Creator! The deep space optical detection array deployed at the edge of the galaxy has just captured a large-scale abnormal shadow occultation phenomenon!"

"Through spectral analysis and comparison, it has been confirmed to be the reflection of the bio-fleet of the Tyranids' main force! Coordinate distance from the Yuanwang Star System: 20 light-years!"

Hearing this news,

Lin Li hurriedly let go of the mouse, closed the computer page directly, and stood up abruptly.

"20 light-years?"

Lin Li furrowed his brows and quickly did some mental math,

"For conventional travel, 20 light-years is still very far, right? We should have at least over a decade of preparation time."

However, 73's next sentence plunged Lin Li straight into an ice cellar.

"Creator, please pay attention to common sense in physics."

73 said coldly,

"Since optical detection relies on the speed of light propagation, what we see on the radar now is actually the residual image emitted by the swarm 20 years ago!

"In deep space, the Hive Fleet can accelerate through gravitational slingshots and special biological warp channels. At the cruising speed of their main force, their actual physical position right now might already be approaching the outer edge of the galaxy!"

73 projected nine giant red arrows on the holographic star map.

"It is estimated that within one week at the earliest, multiple star systems, including the Yuanwang Star System, will simultaneously face a frontal invasion by this sky-blotting main fleet!"

Lin Li stared at that blood-red shadow. He took a deep breath, completely casting out of his mind all distractions regarding the forum and romantic affairs.

"It's finally here."

In Lin Li's dark eyes, a fierce fighting spirit ignited.

"Old Seven! Sound the bell for maximum combat readiness!"

"Begin mobilizing all alliance residents, including the players!"