215: Chapter 216 Three at Once

The interior of the Tyranid cruiser was a completely enclosed, pitch-black space.

There were no cold metal corridors like those found on steel warships.

It was filled everywhere with the thick, pungent stench of biological entrails and high concentrations of ammonia.

The surrounding flesh walls pulsed and contracted rhythmically, like a giant heart.

The space was stuffy and noisy, with green toxic spores floating in the air.

"Squelch—squelch—"

Lü Bu piloted that five-meter-tall, crocodile-shaped Flesh Mecha, its heavy feet stepping onto the slimy biological floor.

Beneath his feet came that strange, neither soft nor hard sensation, like stepping on a waterbed, and he could even feel the muscles beneath the floor twitching.

This nauseating sensation of being deep inside a monster's intestines made Lü Bu dry-heave inside the mecha's cockpit.

But quickly!

Through the neural link, this Flesh Mecha transmitted a surge of hunger, born from biological instinct, directly into Lü Bu's brain!

This hunger burned like a raging fire.

It instantly washed away the nausea, making Lü Bu clear-headed in an instant!

"Roar—!"

The Flesh Mecha let out a low roar.

Lü Bu, leading the group of strangely shaped player Flesh Mechas behind him, charged fearlessly into the dense swarm of Termagants and Genestealers ahead!

The Tyranids clearly hadn't expected these freaks to board their mothership's belly directly.

Looking at this group of peers in front of them that were even more ferocious and insane than themselves.

Even the swarms, which were absolutely controlled by the Hive Mind and lacked self-emotion, were collectively stunned for a moment, freezing in the corridor for a second.

But the players didn't care about that!

In the dictionary of The Fourth Calamity, there was only slaughter and military merit!

"The loyal subject of the Great Han is here! Die!"

Lü Bu controlled the Flesh Mecha with fluid, effortless movements.

He charged directly into the swarm, wielding four bone blades from left to right!

Blades flashed! Flesh flew!

Those Tyranid Termagants, originally meant for close-quarters butchery, were as fragile as paper toys in front of this five-meter-tall heavy mecha.

Lü Bu frantically harvested the heads of the surrounding Termagants.

When he was in the heat of the slaughter!

Lü Bu even controlled the Flesh Mecha's fang-filled maw, biting off the smooth purple head of a Genestealer that tried to ambush him!

Then, accompanied by a crisp sound of cracking bones, he swallowed it directly into the mecha's stomach!

"Pah! This bug tastes so damn strong! It's like eating a moldy shoe!"

Lü Bu grumbled loudly in the channel, but his killing movements didn't slow down in the slightest.

The other Bear Ridge players who had boarded with him also formed teams of two or three, engaging in a frenzied slaughter within the intestine-like cruiser corridors!

In front of this group of Flesh Mechas, built with heavy investment and far superior in size and strength to ordinary bugs.

Ordinary Termagants and Genestealers were no match at all; it was simply a one-sided massacre.

Even the slightly larger, heavily armored elite Warrior bugs were easily dismantled and dealt with by Lü Bu in a few quick moves.

However.

Just as the players were having a blast killing.

"Hum—!"

A sharp psychic shriek, as if it could pierce straight through the brain, suddenly erupted at the end of the corridor!

"Hiss—!"

Even Lü Bu, who had taken a large dose of anti-psychic sedative before the expedition.

Felt his brain itch and ache as if pierced by thousands of steel needles the moment he heard the shriek!

Lü Bu endured the intense pain and looked up.

He saw that in the air in front of the corridor.

Several strange bugs, resembling brain-like jellyfish and emitting dazzling light, were floating quietly!

"It's the damn Brain Bugs!"

A player who knew their stuff shouted in the channel.

Brain Bugs, as the most basic and disgusting psychic combat units in the Tyranid swarm.

They mainly used Warp-based mental shocks as psychic attacks, capable of directly destroying an enemy's mind.

Moreover, their bodies were always covered with a layer of transparent psychic shields used to protect against physical attacks.

A few players who had used long-range venom cannons earlier aimed their fire, but it was all forcibly deflected by that psychic shield!

"Damn! I hate these shielded mage mobs the most!"

Lü Bu, sitting inside the Flesh Mecha, gritted his teeth at the sight.

He fumbled around in the cockpit's storage compartment with his left hand.

Finally, he found two special vials emitting a faint glow!

Those were berserker stimulants specifically developed by Hong for various types of mutated Beastmen and their Flesh Mechas!

These two stimulants: one was for injection into the mecha to increase flesh output; the other was to be jabbed directly into the player's neck to increase neural reaction speed!

And the only side effect of this drug was—it would exponentially increase the hunger transmitted from the Flesh Mecha to the player's brain!

"Pshhh!"

Lü Bu didn't hesitate, pushing both syringes all the way in!

The drug took effect extremely quickly!

Lü Bu's already scarlet eyes instantly bloodshot, the muscle fibers on the crocodile mecha expanded a full circle, and even the carapace in some areas began to crack!

Under the dual effect of the stimulants, the speed of the Flesh Mecha piloted by Lü Bu soared!

"Bang! Bang!"

With domineering strength, he smashed through two Warrior bugs blocking his path.

The Flesh Mecha, like a derailed train, instantly surged in front of those floating Brain Bugs!

Then.

The five-meter-tall, ten-meter-long Flesh Mecha pushed off with its legs!

"Boom!"

The heavy mecha, like a saltwater crocodile leaping out of the water, jumped high, pushing directly against the psychic storm!

In mid-air, the crocodile mecha opened its massive, blood-red maw, big enough to swallow a small car!

It bit down firmly on the Brain Bug floating at the highest point, the one with the thickest shield, without any hindrance!

Sharp teeth instantly pierced the shield, chewing it to pieces right in its mouth!

"Thud!"

The mecha landed heavily.

Lü Bu didn't pause for a second; four bone blades, like a meat grinder, swept across the surroundings in a shrill arc!

Chopping the remaining Brain Bugs, which hadn't managed to float higher to gain distance, clean away!

However.

Before Lü Bu could shake the blood off his blades or celebrate for too long.

"Boom! Boom!"

Accompanied by heavy footsteps.

From the depths of the corridor not far away, three tall figures, like iron towers, slowly emerged!

It was a Hive Tyrant—the core Commander of the swarm, nearly eight meters tall, wielding a giant bone sword and a long whip!

And standing beside it, two equally startling variants of the Tyrant—the Swarmlords!

Such top-tier butchery units, even if encountered by a squad of Space Marines, would require them to take a detour.

But after seeing these three terrifying monsters, Lü Bu.

In those eyes, bloodshot from the stimulants, not only was there no fear, but a fanatical intensity that had reached its peak!

Under the crazy effect of the stimulants, Lü Bu's battle intent was practically orgasmic right now!

"Hahaha!"

Lü Bu raised his bone blade, pointing at the Hive Tyrant and laughing wantonly,

"All three are here, right! Come on! Even if all three of you come at once, you're no match for me!"

Meanwhile, on the other side, near the bottom docking port of The Guardian fortress, inside the defense line, a boarding defense battle was also underway!

Due to the blind spot in the bottom close-in defense guns' firepower.

Many disguised frigates that broke through the missile defense line slammed a massive, tide-like swarm of boarding bugs directly onto the fortress's massive, thick bottom armor.

These bugs flowed madly into the fortress's interior along the corridors and ventilation ducts corroded by acid.

"Die!"

Lin Li, wearing dark red Power Armor, gripped a phase sword emitting a dim blue light with both hands, moving as if through no-man's-land, and cleaved a lunging Genestealer in two, armor and all!

Behind him, Ironhead and Pointy Ears led the five thousand most elite Central Army troops.

Wielding Bolters and plasma rifles, they formed an airtight steel defense line in the wide corridor!

"Bang, bang, bang!"

Dense Bolter fire instantly tore apart those Termagants attempting to break through the line.

In front of the Central Army, this unit of killing machines.

The bugs' boarding tactics were somewhat ineffective.

After all, these low-level boarding bugs only had this much capability.

Their individual combat power wasn't actually strong, and even with tough carapaces, they couldn't withstand concentrated fire.

Their only advantage was their sheer numbers, making them impossible to defend against completely.

After half an hour of intense corridor fighting.

The bugs that had tried to sneak into the base of the fortress were finally completely cleared away by Lin Li and the Central Army, as if sweeping up trash.

The corridor was paved with green bug corpses.

Lin Li shook the acid off his phase sword and sheathed it.

He turned his head and looked at the blood-drenched Thunder Warrior, Carmen.

"Carmen!"

Lin Li ordered,

"I'll leave the bottom defense line here to you! Don't let a single bug in! I'm going to the core command room to see how the overall battle situation is."

"Yes! My Lord!" Carmen saluted by striking his chest and loudly acknowledged the order.

Lin Li turned and took a high-speed elevator, rushing all the way back to the core combat command room at the top of the pyramid.

As soon as he entered, Lin Li headed straight for the holographic tactical sandbox.

"Old Seven!"

Lin Li stared at the chaotic light points on the sandbox,

"What's the overall situation now? Was the interception successful?"

73 immediately projected the battle data.

"Reporting to the Creator."

73 pulled up the surveillance footage of the left and right wings,

"Even though the swarm cunningly decided to disperse their formation and bypass The Guardian during the recent gap in our firepower, the casualties they paid were still extremely heavy!"

"The clone fleet patrolling the flanks successfully used boarding tactics and firepower nets to intercept most of the Tyranid medium-sized vessels! Especially that living golden armor, it smashed directly into the enemy's cruiser formation head-on."

"But..."

73's blue eye flickered, and its tone became serious,

"There were still quite a few high-speed small drop ships and frigates that slipped through the gaps in the firepower net and successfully crossed our joint fleet's defense line!"

"This is really unavoidable; the base number of the Tyranid fleet in space is just too huge, and we simply cannot be one hundred percent watertight."

Lin Li nodded; this was within his expectations.

"It doesn't matter, as long as the large capital ships are pinned down here by us, that's fine."

Lin Li stared at the huge red dot in the distance of the sandbox,

"What about that enemy hive mothership? Does it have any new moves?"

"This is exactly the strange thing I wanted to report to you."

73 zoomed in on the deep space image,

"The tactical movements on the hive side have changed again. After discovering that the casualty ratio for forced breakthroughs was too high, they didn't continue to recklessly commit follow-up troops to break through to the rear as before."

"On the contrary, the entire swarm's main fleet is rapidly contracting its formation towards the direction of the hive! It seems they are re-gathering their strength."

"Currently, it's unclear what that Norn Queen intends to do, but I speculate that after waiting for the next wave of drop-pods to hatch, they are highly likely planning to disperse their forces again and bypass The Guardian's frontal firepower net from a wider angle!"

Lin Li sneered upon hearing this.

"Want to take a detour? Not that easy!"

Lin Li patted the tactical table,

"Although The Guardian is big and slow, its most fundamental difference from those other sitting-duck platforms fixed in orbit is—it has super-large main engines! It has decent short-range mobility!"

"As long as the bugs can't break in from the reverse direction and want to change course in space to bypass us, The Guardian can use its engines to continuously adjust its orbital position, always keeping the muzzles of those one hundred mass-energy cannons firmly pointed at their faces!"

After stabilizing the main space battlefield.

Lin Li turned to look at the Commander-in-Chief Ushtan, who was contacting the surface.

"Old Wu! What's the situation on the ground for the various planets in the rear now?"

Ushtan's expression was grave as he pointed to the blue planet behind the sandbox:

"My Lord! Judging from the flight trajectories of those scattered Tyranid fleets that just passed through our firepower net, the vast majority of them have chosen to head to the world with the highest population density in our galaxy—Mobius Prime!"

"Currently, outside the atmosphere of Mobius Prime, the orbital defense platforms have already started firing to intercept."

"However, those bugs probably think the anti-aircraft fire from those old platforms is too weak to pose a fatal threat. They are pushing directly against the anti-aircraft fire and have already started approaching the atmosphere, preparing to forcibly enter low orbit!"

Ushtan glanced at the time,

"It is estimated that in a few hours, Tyranid drop-pods will rain down onto the surface of Mobius Prime like raindrops!"

Hearing this news, Lin Li frowned: "How is the defense line on the ground set up?"

"Colonel Andrei has already issued the highest military order."

Ushtan replied,

"Nearly ten million Defense Force troops on the main planet have already set up solid heavy-firepower defense lines on the plains outside each Hive City."

Although Colonel Andrei was a reliable Commander.

Lin Li was still a bit worried.

After all, the individual quality of the Defense Force was what it was.

"Old Seven."

Lin Li turned and asked,

"How many clones do we have left in our hands that didn't participate in the space battle and are remaining in the rear?"

73 quickly retrieved the system's backend data.

"Reporting to the Creator, currently, there are nearly 46,000+ life-style players engaged in commercial manufacturing, logistics, and farming who did not sign up for the space campaign."

"They are mainly concentrated under the life-style legion [Baby Bus], and..."

73's voice revealed a hint of strange data coincidence,

"Very coincidentally, the private territory that the Baby Bus legion bought with points happens to be located in the cities on the outskirts of the major Hive Cities on Mobius Prime!"

Hearing this news.

Lin Li's heart, which had been hanging, finally completely settled down, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help but curl up.

That is to say.

Now, on the surface of Mobius Prime, besides the tens of millions of regular Defense Force troops.

At the very outermost edge of the defense line, there were nearly 50,000 nominal life-style players!

Don't ever underestimate the combat power of these life-style players who usually only know how to farm and forge.

Their equipment was also high-end stuff!

If the bugs ruined their land, just watch if they don't beat the shit out of those bugs!

"Then it's fine."

Lin Li sat back in his command chair and picked up a cup of water,

"Let the bugs go down. If the grunts on the surface can handle it, they handle it; if they can't, the players will definitely teach those bugs what true cruelty is."