Chapter 426: Battle to the death, bloody combat!
Translator: Editor:
In lieu of such circumstances, the momentum of the beast tide soared rampantly! Due to the sudden vacuum of firepower resistance against the viperwolves, the berserking viperwolves were on the verge of infiltrating the arachnid base. Yet right at this moment, ten over gigantuous creatures shockingly emerged from the Nydus Worm. These creatures were exceedingly familiar to them. Indeed, the spawns made possible by Sheyan and Mogensha’s previous offering of genetic coding, the Flame Beetles of the Blackthorn tribe!
These humongous beetles were hastily transported to various crucial intersections by overlords, before assisting the groups of resisting zerglings. Instantaneously, they acted like a sluice gate, once again locking down the viperwolf tide, locking them to death!!!
The viperwolves’ claws posed no threat to the Flame Beetles, whose carapace were as thick as 30 cm. Instead, the sheer leaning weight of the humongous Flame Beetles was sufficient to squish them! Once the viperwolves gathered excessively, or any aerial Mountain Banshee swooped down in assault, the Flame Beetles would spray out a horrifying spread of burning acid, incinerating all into charcoal.
As for those crafty zerglings, they merely spied the situation by the side. Once they witnessed any viperwolf lagging alone, several zerglings would immediately pounce forth; relying on their superior quantity to engage in brazen chomping and slashing! According to theory, the viperwolf was indeed stronger than the zerglings; however, such an advantage shrank in the face of innumerable population of foes.
In the viperwolf’s perspective, their strength resided in their intelligent usage of collaborative assaults, and not the current state of reckless charging; viewing death as their return to home. Their most suitable battlefield should be within the dense forest during the night, where they could stalk and silently creep up to their preys. Once their prey revealed any flaw, they would then ferociously lunge in. It definitely wasn’t such a rigid carnage of flesh and blood!
On the contrary, the zerglings were creatures coincidentally honed through countless thousands of years of the evolution of the arachnid race; troops that had been refined by the vicissitudes of life, through innumerable head on clashes. When comparing the two, the shortcomings of both parties were evidently illustrated.
As for the Mountain Banshees that weren’t impressive in numbers; after they finished spearing assaults against several lurkers, the dozens of Mutalisks in the sky fixated their attention towards them. The single combative prowess of the Mountain Banshees squared off against the overwhelming superiority of multitudes of Mutalisks. Even in the face of bullying flocks, the muscular dominant and swifter Mountain Banshees held not a tinge of fear against the Mutalisks…...
Yet to sustain this, one premise had to be fulfilled – the absence of a massive disparity of quantities between both sides, where the battlefield retained a neutral state without any aiding reinforcements.
But the reality of the matter was……..beneath the aerial battlefield, there were wholly 23 aerial defensive Spore Colonies that had been promptly incubated out! Just in time, continuous and concentrated jets of flourishing corrosive green spores catapulted out. Ever since the Blackthorn Overmind had evolved to a Silver lord class, the entire tribe naturally evolved with the overall trend; the incubation rates of organ structures had accelerated by several folds.
Due to the surprisingly rapid fire of the Spore Colonies, the propelling green spores carved out streaks of criss-crossing green in mid air; as though they were weaved into a densely knitted net!
This was the details of the second assault: The beast tide was utterly annihilated.
Arachnid Tribe casualties: 17 Mutalisks, 9 lurkers, 167 zerglings, 2 flame beetles, 4 overlords, an organ structure and 12 Spore Colonies.
Shockingly following that, the intelligence transmitted by reconnaissance overlords about the third offensive wave completely surpassed Sheyan’s expectation. It was probably because Mother Nature Eywa had identified the defensive capabilities of the arachnid base as being reliant on favourable topography; but in terms of military prowess, they were actually somewhat strained and lacking in manpower. Eywa astoundly dispatched a fleet that comprised majority of long range slingers, blended with a smaller amount of viperwolves…...
Such a proposed response was absolutely not wrong. If one already possessed overwhelming superiority in in terms of numbers, then the combat efficiency of a purely long range squad would indeed be greater than a close combat one. This pertained to the sullen fact of the rear close combatants being stalled at the back, while the frontlines received injuries but were unable to scatter in retreat.
Once the long range assaults of the slingers focused their fire output, then what could a Flame Beetle do about it? They similarly couldn’t withstand that. This move inevitably altered the initial state; a state described as ‘with a lone ranger guarding a narrow and treacherous terrain pass, even ten thousands cannot pass through’.
Nevertheless, why hadn’t Eywa commanded a skirmish that combined the mobilization strength of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd beast waves? That only signified one fact – Eywa’s mental prowess wasn’t sufficient to command such a raid of undaunted creatures even in the face of peril! Or perhaps, the price needed to assemble such an exaggerated amount of creatures was too extravagant for Eywa.
Besides, the creatures she mustered were different from the arachnids. They weren’t tools of warfare by nature, but possessed their personal sentience; understanding pain, the desire for life, and fear. To suppress such innate instincts would place an astounding strain on one’s mental prowess. Even in the realms of legends, even the strength of divinities were bounded by limits!
“This is a golden opportunity, my friend!” Sheyan suddenly smirked as he muttered to himself.
At this moment, the Blackthorn Overmind begun fluttering its wings, trying its utmost to separate its plumpy body from the ground. Finally, it managed to sweep a glance towards the distant, and finally floated back down while heaving and puffing. Sheyan then casually transferred various information about the Slingers to him. Reacting to that, the fatty bug immediately issued a string of orders.
Following that, 18 worker drones anxiously rushed over and inaugurated the incubation of Sunken Colonies at several vital offensive directions. Finally, the base adopted an appearance of inadequate military force, retreating into a defensive stance.
Very quickly, the third battle officially commenced.
Though slingers were wild beasts possessing long range assault capabilities, they ultimately differed from the machine guns of the humans, and could only unleash unceasing bouts of venomous stings. Hence, their single projectile contained higher damage, but their offensive intervals would be slightly longer. They definitely required time for rest as well. Moreover, every since the Blackthorn tribe had been upgraded to a lvl 3 base, coupled with the bestowed strength by the Blade Empress onto the Blackthorn Overmind, the Sunken Colonies had similarly received outstanding boost in terms of both life points and regenerative ability.
Therefore, when the third tide of beasts flooded in, they first consecutively destroyed 7-8 Sunken Colonies like a hot knife passing through butter. Following that, they directly sank into a quagmire of to-and-fro tussle. Such a battle lasted for an entire hour. On the side of the Blackthorn tribe, several superficial and painless organ structures crumbled and demolished, along with over 10 Sunken Colonies. Of course, heaps of dead cannon fodder zerglings scattered about in disarray. Only, the propagation rate of the arachnids were too formidable; one egg could spawn out 2 zerglings. As long as they retained adequate pandora crystals, their breeding speed of troop replenishment remained relatively fast.
The battle was crescendoing to its climax. Clearly, the invading tempo had sunk into a stalemate situation. Every time a Sunken Colony exploded, the Blackthorn Overmind would replenish with another near the area. It was as though breaking through the defense line remained far in the indefinite future. As for the organ structures within the arachnid base core, they had already reached its basic form. The harvesting drones had already multiplied no less than a hundred heads, and were densely shuttling continuously; truly portraying a scene of using war to nurture war!
Not only that, this originally class ‘II’ base had already been upgraded to a class ‘III’ base, where organ structures had thoroughly matured to its grandest form. Now, they were simply awaiting the consciousness of the Mother of the Blackthorn, Shengong, to descend.
At present, Mother Nature Eywa had obviously realised something wasn’t right, and begun controlling the remaining Slingers to make gradual retreats. But by this point, the Blackthorn tribe had already acquired ample time! They obviously wouldn’t allow their opponents to retreat entirely! From the breathtaking depths of the Nydus Worm….burst forth a dazzling fantasy of shadows, multitudes of epic proportions of zerglings came pouring out wildly like a tsunami!
The Nydus Worm was at least as wide as 30 over metres. Moreover, the zerglings conducted themselves in an exceedingly nimble fashion, with two to three zerglings boring through from each metre radius of the Nydus Worm. That indicated that the sheer quantity of zerglings scuttling through the Nydus Worm at every second, at least amounted to nearly a hundred! Instantly, they formed into an insanely ravenous black arachnid sea that was as broad as 30 metres, colliding straight into the welcoming sight of the gradually retreating beast tide.
Obviously, the slingers were not carcasses, and clearly understood these incoming charge of crazed creatures were not here to shake their hands and become acquaintances. When these slightly thinner and slender arachnids sprinted in, they emitted not a single howl! Only the ‘shuashing’ sounds of their 4 legs rapidly dashing could be heard. When a thousand plus heads congregated together, it metamorphosed into an earth-shaking wave of fearsome resonance. Trudging forward while keeping silent; piercing in while keeping silent; slaughtering in while keeping silent!!
Upon entering the shooting range of the slingers, every single slinger immediately retaliated fully, propelling out their venomous stings! Thousands of venomous stings congregated, covering the sun rays as they casted shadows over the ground; as though a black cloud had enshrouded over.
At this moment, if one were to look down from a bird’s eye view, one would see a boundless sea of arachnid darkness; resembling a black belt as the sea flooded towards the circular mass of the beast tide. Following rainfall of venomous needles, as the black belt encroached into the ‘gallbladder’ looking beast tide, an abrupt chunk of it was carved away!
Yet such a scenario to the Blackthorn Overmind, was already commonplace. When arachnid races engaged in warfare, the zerglings would always act as vanguards; piling up as heaps of mutilated flesh and blood in the faces of their enemies, as they slowly grinded towards eventual victory!!!
The slingers incessantly propelled their venomous stings, as the arachnid ‘belt’ was repeatedly chiseled away distinctively. Instead from afar, Sheyan could observe exceedingly clear……..the gap between the arachnid sea and the beast tide, was evidently and slowly shortening!
Time seemed to slow down at this instant. It felt fairly long, but in reality, only 10 plus seconds had elapsed! The black belt constitution of the arachnid sea….
Clashed head on against the squarish formation of the beast horde!!!
Clearly seen at the moment of impact, the arachnid sea then flowed towards both sides like streaming water; appearing as if they actually treated the beast horde as dumpling wrapping practice.
At this moment, piercing screams of sorrows echoed through the skies. Zerglings, experts of close range battling, collided against the slingers, experts of far range battling. Yet with no gap between the two, the close combat troops evidently monopolized supremacy!!