The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

Chapter 2643 The Rise of the Black Nest (Part 2)

2643. The Rise of the Black Nest (Part 2)
However, the battle on Ye Chuan's side seemed to have awakened those sleeping monsters. A large number of ferocious and terrifying monsters surged out of the darkness and rushed towards Ye Chuan's team.

Countless monsters may be lurking within the wreckage of this Victory-class Star Destroyer.

"They're hiding inside the reactor!" a soldier exclaimed.

Sure enough, the monsters emerged from the supermatter reactor that had been blasted open. However, the damaged reactor still maintained extremely high temperatures, estimated by instruments to be at least tens of thousands of degrees! Coupled with the terrifying radiation, even those wearing CMC-300 power armor dared not approach, yet the Kilik bugs were hiding right inside.

“These monsters… they might even be absorbing the reactor’s energy…” the engineer beside him said in a deep voice.

"Never mind that! Kill all these monsters! Open fire!" Ye Chuan roared.

He has received a reply from General Tann: reinforcements are on their way, and they need to find a suitable position to hold their ground and then kill all the monsters.

Ye Chuan immediately ordered the team to retreat slowly. He remembered that when they arrived at the reactor location, there was a narrow passage that they could use to defend themselves.

[Team Leader Ye! We're under attack! There's a monster here!] The third team's exclamation came through the comms; they were tasked with investigating another section of the wreckage.

"You guys get out of the wreckage as soon as possible! Use air support to destroy them!" Ye Chuan decisively issued the order.

The other two teams are in a much better situation. After all, they went directly in through the gap in the broken wreckage, so there should be no obstacles in going in or out. As long as they can get out, with the fire support of their own air force and warships, they should be able to easily eliminate those monsters.

The situation is much more complicated for them. They descended through the breach in the reactor using ropes, and it's completely impossible for them to climb back up the ropes while enduring attacks from the Kilik swarm.

"Second Team! Report your position!" Ye Chuan began calling out to another team that was in the rear half of the wreckage with his squad. He hoped that the Second Team could cross the wreckage and come to join them.

[Team Leader Ye, we're lost! Many passages here have been blown up and are twisted and deformed; the passages are completely unrecognizable! We're using a laser cutter to clear a path!] Team Two replied.

"Then be careful! There are monsters of the Kilik swarm here!" Ye Chuan frowned.

At this point, more and more monsters appeared in the darkness, and some even began to fire high-concentration plasma clusters at them!

Boom! Boom! Explosions erupted all around them, with astonishing power!
"They're absorbing the reactor's energy to spray us!" a soldier exclaimed.

"Stay calm! Don't panic!" As soon as Ye Chuan finished speaking, a ball of plasma hit a soldier next to him. A large hole was immediately blasted in the chest of the CMC-300 power armor, and the molten metal burned the soldier, causing him to scream in agony.

"Aaaaah!! Help! Help!" the soldier screamed in agony. The power armor's automatic fire suppression system activated, spraying out cooling mist to extinguish the flames and cool the molten outer armor. He quickly activated the emergency escape device and pulled himself out of the power armor.

Looking out, it seemed as if countless scarlet eyes were staring intently at them from the darkness. Amidst the pitch-black wreckage, it seemed as if countless things were crawling.

Inside the passage, the corpses of the Kilik swarm were piled up like mountains. These swarms were quite intelligent, and they even began pushing the pile of corpses toward Ye Chuan and his group.

Even from other directions, some small, agile insects were quickly crawling up the ceiling!

Moreover, some of these insects are capable of long-range attacks, with some spraying bone spikes and acid. Although they do not pose a significant threat to the CMC-300 power armor, their continuous attacks have left their armor riddled with holes.

A soldier's mask was hit by a glob of acid. The green, viscous acid blocked his vision. He quickly turned on the cleaning device, but at that moment, he did not notice that a tentacle covered with barbs and carapaces suddenly emerged from the darkness and pierced the armored joint of his knee!
"Ah!!!" the soldier screamed, and was immediately entangled by the tentacle and dragged into the darkness.

Ye Chuan and his group were too slow to provide assistance; all they could hear were piercing screams coming from the darkness!
Finally, their reinforcements arrived. The 200 soldiers stationed outside split into two groups: one group took engineering equipment to help the second team clear the road, while the other group jumped down from the large hole in the engine and joined the battle.

Not only that, the sound of engines came from the sky, and two APOD-33 transport ships descended, airdropping more than 100 B-1 combat robots and 10 Destroyer combat robots!

"Clear up the wreckage! Push the front line forward!" Ye Chuan said to the commander of a B-1 combat robot with yellow paint.

"Roger Roger!"

Several combat robots immediately moved forward, unleashing a barrage of plasma flamethrowers at the insect corpses. Although the insects' exoskeletons could withstand the high temperatures, once torn apart, their interiors were quickly ignited, forming a wall of fire in front of them.

However, the monsters ignored the wall of fire and continued charging forward, instantly smashing the B-1 combat robots equipped with flamethrowers into pieces.

Having cannon fodder was better than nothing, and the pressure on Ye Chuan and his team was immediately reduced considerably. Moreover, the addition of the 10 Destroyer robots was even more crucial. They rolled to the front of the formation, deployed their shields, and then unleashed a furious barrage of fire from their two twin-mounted blaster cannons. Any insects that dared to approach were torn to shreds by this overwhelming firepower!

It appears that the situation has been stabilized.

Ye Chuan finally breathed a sigh of relief.

However, at this moment, something strange happened!

The communications suddenly became chaotic!

There's something underground! There's a huge biological reaction!

[Butterfly! Descend immediately and enter the satellite atmosphere!] General Severance Tann's angry voice could even be heard in the communications.

Earthquake! Earthquake!

[Are you guys in the sensor department eating shit?! How could you not detect something this big?!]

[Wait! We're sinking! Quick! Get out of here!]

[Fire on that thing! Now!!] [General Tann! There are friendly forces over there...]

[If we don't open fire, none of them will be left! Open fire!]

[Second team requests reinforcements! This place is full of quicksand and monsters!]

Boom! A violent explosion, accompanied by a violent ground tremor... Without a doubt, this was a warship in space firing and bombarding!
"What happened! Answer me now!" Ye Chuan roared into the communicator.

[There's something under another piece of wreckage! That section of wreckage is sinking underground! You should also retreat as soon as possible. We will send more combat robots to cover your retreat!] The voice of the communications officer in the command center came through the communication. It was unclear what they had seen, but the officer's voice was trembling.

"Retreat! Get the wounded up there first!" Ye Chuan made a decisive decision and gave the order.

The transport ship, which had just delivered the combat robots, hovered above the large hole, lowering its lifting ropes to hoist the Marines up one by one.

To save time, the transport ship did not return directly to the spaceship, but instead hoisted the soldiers out and placed them outside.

Inside, Ye Chuan and his group, under the cover of the Destroyer robots, were fending off the attack of the Kilik bugs.

But at that moment, the ground suddenly shook violently! Then, the world spun around them, and the section of the warship wreckage they were in began to tilt to one side!

The Destroyer robots immediately lost their footing and crashed to the ground in a heap. But the Kilik swarm was completely unaffected. Their sharp claws moved swiftly, scaling walls and rooftops as if walking on flat ground, and they quickly rushed over, tearing the Destroyer robots to shreds!

An alarmed voice came through the communicator: "Monsters here too! It's a trap! We've fallen for it!"

"My God! What is this?!" The pilot of the transport ship looked down and saw that the ground around the wreckage of the warship had suddenly become incredibly soft, and the gray sand had even formed a vortex that gradually swallowed the warship.

The wreckage of the warship was sinking at a visible speed, and inside the wreckage were hundreds of Marines!

The team that entered through the opening at the bottom is probably all buried under sand now! And inside this huge pit, there seems to be a giant monster looming in and out!

On the other side, three-quarters of the bow section of the ship's wreckage has now sunk underground, and several enormous tentacles, each at least a hundred meters long, have wrapped around the wreckage and are constantly dragging it underground.

You can still see flashes of fire coming from the wreckage from time to time; that's the second team firing.

In the sky, a Victory II-class Star Destroyer had entered the satellite's atmosphere, its turbo-laser cannons firing at the roots of the enormous tentacles. However, to avoid harming friendly forces, the turbo-laser cannons' power was reduced.

Boom! Boom! Boom!! Dust billowed everywhere, making it impossible to determine the effectiveness of the attack. However, the screams of agony from the soldiers of the second team could be heard continuously over the communications!
"Retreat! Retreat!" Ye Chuan shouted.

Several more transport ships descended from the sky, airdropping even more combat robots. One transport ship even dropped a state-of-the-art Scorpion Annihilator robot!

Clearly, the command was sparing no expense to rescue these Marines.

Boom! Boom! Boom!! As soon as the Scorpion Annihilator landed, it immediately raised its shield, and its two twin-mounted turbo laser cannons unleashed a barrage of fire, instantly blasting all the approaching Kilik swarms to smithereens.

But the situation has not improved at all!
Quicksand was already forming beneath Ye Chuan and the others' feet, reaching up to their ankles. It was only a matter of time before they were dragged underground along with the wreckage!
Moreover, what appeared before them now was no longer a deep passage and countless monsters, but an ever-spreading quicksand!
Several soldiers opened fire wildly on the quicksand, sending up clouds of dust. A roar came from beneath the dust, and a green liquid seeped out, but its effectiveness was unknown.

Suddenly, two terrifying insects covered in barbs jumped out of the quicksand, grabbed the two soldiers, and dragged them into the quicksand!
There wasn't even a scream; a mixture of blood and engine oil seeped out from the dust, and then gradually subsided.

Even though Ye Chuan and his men were in dire straits, they still retreated in an orderly manner, demonstrating their extremely high military skills.

However, the situation was even worse on the transport ship.

Because the wreckage was being swallowed by quicksand, many of the soldiers who had just been transported out by the transport ship were also swallowed by the quicksand again. The transport ship had to send the soldiers to a more distant place to settle them before returning to rescue Ye Chuan, which greatly reduced its efficiency.

Just then, a tentacle shot out from the quicksand and wrapped itself around a transport plane! The transport plane swayed, then was immediately strangled in two by the tentacle and dragged away!
Boom! The transport plane exploded beneath the sand, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Two more Hellsangel-class battlecruisers descended into the satellite's atmosphere, unleashing a barrage of bombardments on the colossal monster beneath. Dozens of Ghost and Viking fighters also joined the fray, precisely targeting the massive tentacles entangled in the wreckage with missiles and pulsed lasers.

Finally, the sand near the bow wreckage seemed to boil, as if something was churning beneath, sending sand and dust flying hundreds of meters high. Then it gradually calmed down, and the wreckage stopped sinking.

However, at this moment, the wreckage had almost completely sunk into the ground, leaving only a small section of the tip still outside.

On Ye Chuan's side, the powerful firepower of the Poison Scorpion Annihilator Robot finally came into play. It fired wildly at the quicksand, and the powerful force even melted the quicksand! The explosions didn't just send up sand and soil, but lava!

After a frenzied attack, the boiling quicksand finally calmed down. The enormous monster that had been entangled with the rear section of the wreckage seemed to have stopped moving and was no longer dragging the debris down.

But Ye Chuan and his men still dared not be careless in the slightest. They remained on guard at all times, fearing that a monster might suddenly emerge from under their feet.

However, this did not happen; the transport ship arrived again and rescued them all.

……

Thump!! A monster was thrown onto the dissection table. This monster was about 2.5 meters long and its body was covered with hard carapace. It had a pair of compound eyes like a fly, a pair of antennae on its head, very sharp and pointed mouthparts, four lower limbs and four hands.

Surprisingly, although this monster has sharp claws on its four hands, its hands seem to be better suited for using tools than claws as weapons. It just doesn't have any suitable weapons, so it uses claws to attack!

"You mean, these insects evolved like this to use tools? Just like humans?" Severance Tann, dressed in full protective gear, stood to the side.

Abathur's image was projected onto the hologram, and he slowly said: "Use tools, reduce efficiency, increase versatility, reduce gene types. Destroy human civilization, use their tools, and evolve in a targeted manner. The goal is clear."