From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 622: Give Up Escape
boom!
A deafening explosion ripped through the silence of the shelter.

The young rebel soldier pulled the trigger in extreme fear, and the pistol bullet exploded in the enclosed space with a sharp sound.

The orange-yellow bullet spun and hit the back of the hand covered with dark green armor, but it twisted and deformed at the moment of collision. A cluster of fleeting sparks flashed on the surface of the armor made of fine gold, like the phosphorescent fire of a nightshade.

The armored fist did not move at all.

The giant palm continued to move forward, and its five titanium-plated fingers opened, easily crushing the barrier wall made of temporary debris.

Along with the sound of metal twisting, the entire wall of debris fell apart like a fragile biscuit, and in the rising dust, there was a loud bang of metal brackets falling to the ground.

boom--!
As the smoke gradually dissipated, two "war machines" at least 2.7 meters tall revealed their hideous outlines.

Their dark green titanium power armor was covered with yellow-green acid corrosion marks, and the imperial dragon emblem on the breastplate glowed a dull bronze color under the cold light of the headlights.

There were still fragments of the alien insect shell between the teeth of the stopped chainsaw, and sticky blood was slowly dripping from the teeth, corroding hissing charred holes on the floor.

From the corner of the shelter came the crisp sounds of various objects falling and breaking.

Civilians huddled together like a frightened herd of animals, women held their children behind them with trembling arms, and men raised steel pipes, sticks and kitchen knives in vain.

In the holographic images promoted by the Terran Empire, those horrific scenes were flashing back in their minds——

These "giants" are demons in human skin, butchers wearing armor decorated with skulls, and monsters that eat people alive.
"The alien debris outside has been cleared out."

At this moment, a giant suddenly spoke, and his deep voice came through the speakers of his helmet, emitting the unique metallic texture of the Astartes.

Then, the giant hung the chainsaw sword back on the magnetic lock on his waist, and this simple action caused the crowd to shudder again.

The power armor servo system made a slight sound of hydraulic operation, and the giant knelt on one knee to lower his altitude. His shoulder armor, which was corroded by acid, dropped a few pieces of oxidized debris during the movement, and he continued:

"For your own safety, please follow us and move to a safer area."

After saying that, the giant took off his helmet, revealing a human-like appearance with short hair, healthy wheat-colored skin, and strong facial features.

The civilians and rebels who saw the giant's appearance clearly were no longer as frightened as they were at the beginning. After hearing the other party's words, the civilians huddled in the corner were the first to stop trembling.

The young rebel who had accidentally fired earlier swallowed hard, his sweat-soaked clothes sticking to his back. He mustered up the courage to look up, only to see calmness and "relief" in the giant's eyes.

Could it be that the other party is happy for our survival?
The young rebels were confused.

“Are they protecting us?”

The rebels' companions murmured quietly, and the barrels of their shotguns unknowingly dropped to the ground.

With the flickering emergency lights, people noticed the tiny logo on the giants' power backpacks, which had a line of Chinese characters they couldn't understand:

"Life is the Emperor's currency. Use it well."

At this moment--

Click——!
A block of concrete suddenly collapsed and fell from above, directly "hitting" the young volunteer who had accidentally fired the gun and was in a daze.

! !
Just as everyone was holding their breath, the giant took off his helmet, knelt on one knee, stretched out his armored hand, and accurately caught the concrete block falling from the ceiling.

boom--!
And under the astonished gaze of the crowd, the piece of building material that was big enough to smash the skull was easily caught by the giant, the force was relieved, and then thrown far away.

"Watch out for falling rocks, kid."

The giant stood up as he spoke, then put on his helmet again, looking down at the young rebels whose eyes had changed from fear to surprise and admiration, and reminded them:

"Always be vigilant and remember that you only have one life to live and you can't waste it."

After that, the giant's voice turned back to metallic texture, and said to all the civilians and the rebels:

"The structural integrity here has deteriorated to a dangerous level. Please follow us."

Hearing this, everyone nodded woodenly, as if driven by some invisible force, and followed the giant out of the crumbling apartment building.

However, when they actually stepped out of the ruins, the scene before them made everyone freeze in place -

The streets no longer exist, replaced by "hills of flesh and blood" made of the corpses of alien insects.

The yellow-green worm blood was as viscous as melted asphalt, gathering into fetid streams between craters and cracks, occasionally emitting morbid bubbles and a pungent sour smell.

Several particularly large Zerg corpses lay across the intersection, their exoskeletons torn apart by some brutal force, the edges of their shells curled up in a jagged shape, exposing their internal organs that had been minced into minced meat.

The air was filled with the ozone smell of burning plasma weapons, the sulfur smell of zerg blood, and something more primitive, the smell of burning flesh.

The young rebel's Adam's apple rolled and his hands trembled uncontrollably:

"Did the six of you do all this?"

The giant did not answer, but turned his head slightly, and his eyepieces emitting scarlet light swept across the ruins on both sides of the street, as if assessing the threat that had not yet appeared.

Without words, everyone understood that these heavily armored warriors were not the demons portrayed in the Terran Empire's propaganda, but giants who fulfilled their oath of protection in the most violent way.

As the team moved forward, more shocking traces of battle appeared before everyone's eyes——

An administrative building that was hit directly by a plasma cannon collapsed like a melted candle, its steel skeleton twisted into a weird abstract sculpture. Under the rubble were the remains of hundreds of Zerglings, their sickle-like forelimbs still twitching under neural reflexes.

At the street corner, the half bodies of three Hydralisks were radially "embedded" in the reinforced concrete wall, and the penetrating wounds from the explosive shells left spider-web-like cracks with a diameter of two meters on the wall.

The most frightening thing was a collapsed shallow pit where nearly a hundred insect corpses torn apart by bombs were piled up, and purple-black shell fragments covered the road.

"Dad, look at the sky!"

At this moment, the child's voice broke the silence.

People looked up and saw a group of burning meteors tearing through the night sky.

Some were zerg spore sacs that burst like rotten fruit, spilling sticky hatching fluid.

Others were drop pods carrying Flame Lizards' Hell Troopers, biological and mechanical weapons, smashing into the ground with plasma tails.

Farther away, the entire city was immersed in orange-red flames, with giant pillars of thick smoke connecting the sky and the earth. Occasionally, a lightning-like orbital strike would pass by, illuminating the surging tide of insects.

The young rebels suddenly rushed to the front of the team.

"Sir!" He caught up with the giant who had taken off his helmet, his voice hoarse from overbreathing, "Mar Sara City can't be defended, right?"

The giant, or rather the fire lizard, stopped and slowly turned around, locking his red-glowing eyepiece on the young man.

The five seconds of silence seemed like a century. Finally, the soldier nodded and said in a metallic voice:

"The swarm is 437% higher than expected. Orbital scans show that there are still many spore sac clusters falling in the Gobi Desert."

As he spoke, he raised his acid-corroded arm armor and pointed at the dark clouds that were expanding on the horizon. "Each wave can hatch thousands of Zerg, so the evacuation protocol has been activated."

These words pierced everyone's heart like an ice pick.

Only then did they notice that although there were piles of insect corpses everywhere as far as they could see, they could still hear the rustling sound of shells rubbing against each other in the shadows of tall buildings in the distance.

What's even more terrifying is that in the direction of the Gobi Desert, every newly fallen spore sac will cause the ground to tremble, and the mucus in the hatching pool will emit a strange fluorescence under the moonlight.

"Stay in formation."

The Flame Lizard gave a reminder and then returned to silence. He and his brothers escorted civilians and rebels to the starport that had been occupied by other brothers.

The team started moving again.

The rebels supported the wounded, parents still protected their children behind them, and everyone walked closely on the giant's power armor, as if the scarred metal was the only barrier between them and death.

Six steel bodies over two and a half meters tall formed a mobile fortress. When they passed a fork in the road, the leading flame lizard suddenly raised its left hand, and the entire team instantly froze and stopped moving forward.

Swish—shua—!
Boom-boom! !

Not long after, several missiles whizzed in from the distant sky and penetrated directly into the subway entrance a hundred meters away, blasting the Zerg vanguard that had just poked its head out into splattered organic fragments.

It seems that the Flame Lizard used communications to contact the carrier-based aircraft squadron that broke through the atmosphere, and then called on the other side for artillery assistance.

But no one cheered. The civilians and rebels just followed closer, stumbling forward amid the increasingly frequent explosions.

The outline of the city of Ma Sara was gradually "collapsing" behind them, and the lighting of the star port seemed to be the only starlight in this hell.

When they finally passed through the last street that was flattened by artillery fire, the full view of the starport finally appeared before their eyes.

It was an "isolated island" built of steel and blood.

Outside the towering defense wall, the corpses of the Zerg were piled up like a mountain, and the acidic blood corroded the alloy armor, making a teeth-grinding "sizzling" sound.

Inside the starport, on dozens of helipads, Luna transport boats were taking off and landing at a nearly extreme frequency, and the roar of the engines almost drowned out the artillery fire.

As soon as the hatch of each transport boat was opened, survivors were escorted and guided onto the ship by auxiliary troops. Then the hatch was closed, the engine spewed out blazing blue flames, and rushed into the sky under the cover of anti-aircraft fire.

Every corner of the starport was packed with people—ragged civilians, wounded rebels, and Terran Empire soldiers who had run out of ammunition.

The fully armed Hell Troopers and the Flame Lizards clad in dark green heavy armor stood like steel sculptures at key points of the defense line, with the muzzles of their hardlight, gauss and bolter rifles always pointing in the direction of the Zerg's attack.

The heavy armored units belonging to the Flame Lizards, such as main battle tanks and combat mechas, are all stationed on the outskirts of the star port. Their gun barrels are roaring, blasting large swarms of insects into pieces of flesh and blood.

Looking down from the sky, the area where the star port is located is an isolated island.

On the nearby streets, auxiliary troops, Hell Paratroopers, and Flame Lizards relied on temporary fortifications to hold their ground, and the flashes of their guns formed a glittering galaxy in the darkness.

And further away, the swarm of insects surged like a tide, and the sound of their shells rubbing against each other gathered into an eerie buzz, as if the whole city was trembling under their feet.

Suddenly, a piercing alarm sounded throughout the starport—

"The flying insect swarm is approaching! Anti-aircraft array is in place!"

The sky suddenly darkened.

Thousands of flying insects pressed towards the star port like a dark cloud, their wings vibrating with high-frequency screams, and acid sacs swelled in their abdomens, ready to spray deadly corrosive fluid at any time.

The star port's anti-aircraft turrets immediately opened fire, and the dense barrage of bullets weaved into a web of death in the air, tearing the flying insects into pieces.

But there were too many of them, and groups of flying insects still broke through the firepower net and swooped down -

Ri~buzz————! !

At this moment, a fire net composed of Gauss barrages suddenly fell diagonally from above the clouds, accurately penetrating the core of the flying insect swarm.

Then, two Flame Lizard frigates broke through the atmosphere and hovered above the starport, while their close-in defense gun arrays poured out fire at a rate of tens of thousands of rounds per second, and the wreckage of the flying insects fell like raindrops.

"Fleet support has arrived!" A calm metallic voice came from the communication channel, "All transport formations, take off immediately!"

Transport boats loaded with survivors rushed into the sky under the cover of the frigates' firepower.

The Terran Empire's only remaining air force, consisting of more than a dozen Viking fighters, also took off from the ruined hangar and joined the Flame Lizard's carrier-based aircraft squadron.

The engines of the fighter planes roared, and the fire from missiles and machine guns drew deadly tracks in the night sky, blasting the swarms of flying insects that tried to intercept the transport boats into burning wreckage.

In the desert outside the city, more than 300 Flame Lizard warriors built a defense line of flesh, blood and steel.

Their heavy titanium armor was covered with dents from acid corrosion, and the surface layer of the armor was peeling off in the continuous exchange of fire. The power backpacks spewed out hot gases, as if these war machines, more than two and a half meters tall, were some kind of living, angry creatures.

They deployed in a perfect wedge formation, the roar of their bolters weaving a dense web of fire on the battlefield.

Each explosive bullet could accurately penetrate the shells of several Zerg, creating a foul-smelling blood mist in the swarm.

When the insect swarm broke through the long-range firepower and approached, the buzzing sound of the chainsaw swords suddenly sounded. The high-speed rotating saw teeth tore through the air and cut the oncoming insects in half. The splashing acidic blood corroded the armor that lacked shields, producing wisps of green smoke.

As soon as the ammunition-exhaustion warning lighted up on the soldiers' helmet screens, a sharp whistling sound came from the sky.

Dozens of airdrop pods pierced through the clouds like hammers of divine punishment, their fairings burning red from friction with the atmosphere. They smashed into the battlefield at a nearly vertical angle, and the shock waves knocked over the front row of alien insects.

The moment the hydraulic lock of the hatch was released, a brand new ammunition box was ejected under the push of compressed gas.

The chrome-plated explosive shell chains flickered in the firelight, the energy readings of the plasma batteries glowed a reassuring emerald green, and the safety pins of the melta bombs still had the seal of the armory.

The soldiers completed the reloading with mechanical efficiency, and the bolt guns' bolts engaged again, making the same reassuring metallic clash sound.

The flame lizards fought in silence.

Their breath circulated and filtered inside the helmet, tactical data flowed on the helmet screen, every volley tore a gap in the insect tide, and every round of chain sword swings caused shell fragments to fly like a rainstorm.

There are no grand words here, only the mechanical sound of gears meshing, the roar of boiling coolant, and the never-ending roar of death.

However, the arrival of more Zerg "elite units" began to put pressure on the Flame Lizards.
(End of this chapter)