From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 636 Combat "Experience" - Evacuation
Outside the ruins, the Taldarim Protoss's defenses have been shattered.

The zealots' mangled bodies lay on the creep, their armor riddled with holes from the acid corrosion. The remaining high-ranking Templars built a final psionic barrier against the fortifications, but the shield flickered under the onslaught of the swarm, like a candle in the wind.

The swarm of Hydralisks suddenly stopped firing and uniformly made way for them.

Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, slowly landed at the front of the battle. Her toes lightly touched the ground, and the surrounding creep immediately surged as if alive.

“Foolish Taldarim.” Her voice rang directly in the Protoss’s mind, carrying the buzzing characteristic of the Zerg swarm, “The ‘god’ you worship is nothing but a pathetic fraud.”

A high-ranking Templar raised his psionic blade, but Kerrigan simply raised her hand, and an invisible psionic shockwave sent the Templar flying.

Just as the swarm was about to engulf all of Tal'darim—

"Fire!"

Jim Reynolds' roar ripped through the battlefield.

More than 400 Marines charged out from the flank, the roar of Gauss rifles instantly drowning out the screech of the insect swarm.

Four Viking fighters, transformed into mechs, unleashed a salvo from their shoulder-mounted missile pods, sending dozens of high-explosive warheads blasting into towering pillars of fire amidst the swarm of insects.

Tychus Finley charged ahead, his rotary machine gun spitting out dazzling tongues of fire.

Armor-piercing bullets tore the Zerglings to pieces, snapped the Hydralisks in half, and a Zergling that tried to ambush was smashed in the head by Tychus' elbow strike.

"Hahaha! That's more like it! A man should do what a man should do!"

He laughed as he changed the ammunition belt, and after the change, the roar of his machine gun sounded like the death knell of the Grim Reaper.

On the distant creep platform, Kerrigan's pupils contracted slightly as she recognized the familiar figure—Jim Raynor.

The ranger commander was directing his troops in an attack against both the Zerg and the Taldarim.

"Jim Raynor," the Queen of Blades' voice transmitted directly into Raynor's mind through psionic energy, "Are you here to die too?"

Renault's charge faltered.

He looked up at the purple figure hovering in the distance, his Adam's apple bobbing: "Sarah, I know you can still hear me. You still have a chance to return to the human side. Don't let Amon succeed!"

Kerrigan's face contorted for a moment, but was quickly overwhelmed by the will of the swarm.

boom----! ! !
Her psionic energy surged forth like a tidal wave, blasting away the Marines charging at the front lines. She roared, "Foolish! The Zerg swarm is the ultimate evolutionary stage!"

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield;
Lyon gave a tactical hand signal, and dozens of special forces members from Group B silently circled around to the back of the ruins.

Their nanosuits blend perfectly into the environment, and even their breathing is filtered by a silencer.

"High concentration of psionic energy detected," Mike muttered, staring at the scanner on his wrist. "The artifact is just around the corner, but..."

Chris also noticed something was wrong, and suddenly raised his fist to signal to stop.

Because on the creep ahead, six lurking creatures were slowly crawling, while the alien insects that could launch earth-piercing spikes were the perfect guardians.

“There’s no way around it.” Leon checked the energy readings of the hard light rifle. “Prepare to force our way through.”

Chris took two plasma grenades from his waist: "We'll clear the way, you guys grab the artifact."

The wolf-hunting squad behind him immediately dispersed, their nano-combat suits' optical camouflage perfectly concealed within the fungal carpet.

Twenty special forces soldiers advanced like ghosts, their feet silencing the sound as they stepped on the sticky fungal carpet without making a sound.

The ground ahead rose slightly, marking the traces of the lurking creatures crawling underground.

"Twenty meters away," Chris whispered over the comms, holding a plasma grenade that gleamed faintly with blue light in each hand. "Prepare stun grenades."

The squad members immediately switched their hard-light firearms to the frequency of sonic stun grenades.

When the lurking figures were only ten meters away from them, Chris suddenly sprang into action!
His leg muscles, enhanced by nanofibers, unleashed astonishing power, propelling him like a cannonball towards the infiltrators while slamming his alloy-armored fists into the ground.

Bang——! Bang——!
The fungal carpet and the underlying stone slab were directly chiseled through.

Chris shoved two plasma grenades into the breach and quickly retreated with a tactical roll.

Boom! Boom!

In an instant, a muffled sound came from underground, and blue plasma flames shot out from the crack.

One of the lurkers was blown to pieces, its limbs flying out of the ground with the shockwave.

! !
The remaining five lurking creatures were immediately alerted, the ground shook violently, and sharp bone spikes burst forth from the soil.

But the wolf-hunting squad had already anticipated the attack trajectory—

"Dodge to the left!"

The team members rolled sideways in unison to avoid the first wave of bone spikes, and immediately opened fire in retaliation. The powerful beams of the hard-light rifles accurately hit the sensory organs of the lurkers that had surfaced.

Roar--!
A lurker writhes painfully as it emerges from the ground, only to be riddled with bullets by concentrated fire.

"Keep moving!" Chris ordered as he changed the battery and magazine. "Don't let them lock onto the position!"

The squad quickly changed formation on the creep, with new Zerglings constantly swarming in from all directions. Just as a mutated Hydralisk raised its acid sprayer, Chris shot it in the head.

And at this moment, deep within the ruins;

Another special operations team led by Leon and Mike has arrived at the altar square.

Around the plaza, several twelve-meter-tall star spirit statues are arranged in a circle, each carved into the appearance of a sword-wielding warrior.

The divine artifact floating in the center emitted an eerie blue light, illuminating the entire plaza as if it were a dream.

"Something's wrong."

Leon suddenly raised his hand and clenched his fist, and the entire special operations team froze instantly.

His helmet visor glowed with a pale blue light, and multi-layered scanning rays moved back and forth over several astral stone statues.

Although all readings on the helmet interface were normal—no thermal signals, no energy fluctuations, no signs of mechanical operation—the subtle distribution of the stone statues and the overly detailed carvings still sent constant alarms through his nerve endings.

Mike brought up the holographic scanning panel, and the data stream scrolled rapidly on the helmet screen: "Everything is normal here, the energy readings are all at background radiation levels."

Then he turned to look at Leon, "What did you find?"

Lyon did not answer immediately.

He approached the nearest stone statue and gently ran his nanoglove across its surface.

The stone statue is a Templar warrior holding a sword, with such exquisite detail that every scale on his armor is clearly visible. But what really caught his attention were the inscriptions on the base that had been worn away by time. "These statues are definitely problematic."

He then continued, "Install plasma bombs on each statue and set up remote detonation."

"."

Mike had no objection to this.

Although the dozen or so special forces members were unaware of what was going on, their long-term training had instilled in them a conditioned reflex that made them immediately carry out the order.

The nanosuit's adsorption device activated, and microscopic gripping fibers extended from its fingertips and boot soles, allowing it to cling vertically to the stone statue's surface like a gecko. The entire installation process resembled a delicate surgical procedure.

Each plasma bomb was placed in a specific area on the back of the statue's neck, where there was a barely visible slit, which appeared to be the location of the energy node commonly found on Protoss constructs.

Mike personally planted the bomb on the last stone statue. As he nimbly flipped and landed, the bomb's red indicator light lit up, signifying that it was ready to explode.

“All bombs in position.” Mike dusted off his hands. “But I still don’t see any threat in these boulders.”

Lyon offered no explanation.

His attention was now completely focused on the divine artifact suspended in the center of the altar.

The surface, which looks like a "stone," is covered with purple veins that pulsate like blood vessels. As he approaches, the brightness of those veins suddenly increases, as if in response to his arrival.

The altar floor was forged from some kind of celestial alloy, and each step triggered a subtle psychic resonance.

When Lyon's boot soles touched the ancient runes, ripples, almost invisible to the naked eye, appeared in the air.

When he was three steps away from the artifact, he suddenly stopped, and his helmet screen detected an energy flow on the ground.

Immediately, he drew a vibrating dagger from his leg armor and carefully extended it toward the artifact.

The instant the tip of the dagger touched the surface of the artifact, a blue arc of electricity suddenly shot out, flowing through the entire body along the dagger.

! !
Lyon's muscles tensed instantly, his jaw muscles bulged, and it felt like someone was plunging an ice pick at minus 100 degrees Celsius into his bone marrow, yet it also had a strange burning sensation.

Despite the excruciating pain, he suddenly stretched out his right hand and yanked the artifact away from the levitation field.

Surprisingly, this artifact that could cause two races to fight each other weighs less than an ordinary rifle.

"Sealed box! Immediately!"

He turned and roared, his voice distorted by pain.

Two special forces soldiers immediately stepped forward. One of them unfolded a lead alloy box engraved with Chinese characters, while the other prepared to help Lyon place the artifact.

In that split second—

click
A barely audible mechanical clicking sound came from inside the nearest stone statue.

The stone statue's eyes, inlaid with red crystals, suddenly shone with a blinding light, and as its sword-wielding arm rose, spiritual energy "steam" accumulated over thousands of years spewed from its joints.

Its turning motion was initially slow and awkward, but it quickly became smooth, and dense energy patterns appeared on the stone surface.

Even more frighteningly, the other stone statues also began to shake at the same time, and the stone skin on their surfaces was cracking and peeling off.

"Detonate!"

Upon seeing this, the instant Mike's roar blared through the communication channel, several bursts of blue plasma light simultaneously erupted.

The bombs, pre-placed on the energy nodes of the stone statue, detonated precisely, and the ultra-high temperature plasma cut into the core hub of the structure like a scalpel.

Boom—! Boom—!

The moment the first statue to awaken raised its giant sword, its red crystal eyes suddenly dimmed.

Its chest was blasted open, creating a hole several meters in diameter, from which the flowing energy liquid inside sprayed out like blood.

Other statues fared even worse—some had their heads blown off, some were blasted in two, and some were even flipped over by the shockwave and crashed heavily onto the altar base, shattering into a pile of debris.

"Whoosh!" Mike let out a long whistle as the nano-mask automatically filtered out the flying dust. "Old man, your prediction was absolutely amazing."

Leon stuffed the artifact into the sealed box, the click of the lock closing slightly easing his tense nerves: "Seven times. I had encountered similar incidents seven times before I started working with you, so I never dared to trust anything that looked like an ornament again."

"Wolfhunter Squad calling." At that moment, Chris's voice, mingled with the hum of a hard-light rifle, came through the comms:
"We have broken through the encirclement and are meeting up with you at your 2 o'clock position."

"Received." Lyon replied, and immediately notified everyone, "All units, take note: execute the evacuation plan. Repeat: evacuate immediately."

Not long after he finished speaking, the roar of engines could be heard from the distant sky.

The transport formation, carrying garrison personnel and siege tanks, quickly took off to provide support, while the airborne defensive firepower continuously cleared away the Zerg flying mantises attempting to take off.

However, when the special operations team used the shared vision to look towards the main battlefield, their hearts sank—

Jim Reynolds' troops were compressed into a ring-shaped position with a diameter of less than a kilometer.

Half of the CMC armor of more than 300 Marines showed signs of acid corrosion, and only two of the four Viking armors remained operational.

Tychus stood atop the destroyed Viking mech, his hands gripping the rotating machine guns that relentlessly unleashed a hail of bullets upon the swarm of insects.

Worse still, a purple figure hovered above the battlefield—the Queen of Blades, Sarah Kerrigan—and every time she raised her hand, new Zerg emerged from the creep.

The remaining Taldarim Protoss seized the opportunity to launch a suicidal charge, completely disregarding everything else, but they couldn't even get close to the Queen of Blades.

“Change the plan.” Leon tossed the sealed box to Mike. “You take the artifact and get out first. The rest of you come with Chris and me to tear open the opening.”

There was no hesitation, no argument.

Leon and Chris led dozens of special forces soldiers to rush towards the main battlefield, while Mike and two other soldiers protected the artifact and rushed towards the rendezvous point.

soon--

The special operations team's nano-combat suits flickered across the battlefield, their optical camouflage allowing them to disappear like ghosts at times and suddenly reappear at the weakest points in the swarm.

Chris's Wolf Hunter squad specializes in sniping Hydralisks, and each concentrated attack with Hard Beams can eliminate a large number of swarms.

Leon led his assault team straight into the swarm of insects, using plasma grenades to blast open gaps in the dense insect horde.

"Oh my god"

A medic stared in disbelief at the scene. She had just given the wounded a painkiller, the needle still dangling in mid-air, and exclaimed, "How did they do that?"

"Break through on the left wing!" Tychus's roar jolted her awake.

The special operations team tore a path through the swarm of insects, and the two remaining Viking mechs immediately reinforced the battle line with crossfire.

The transport formation seized this fleeting opportunity and swooped down.

The medical ship's tractor beam swept up the wounded, and the Hercules transport plane even disregarded the danger and glided directly close to the ground, its hatch opening almost brushing against the bacterial carpet.

"Everyone board! Now!"

Jim's voice was hoarse, and he was the last to retreat towards the transport plane, his large-caliber gun firing at the approaching Zerg.

As the last medical ship took off, the two remaining Viking fighters immediately switched modes. Their mechanical joints clicked, their legs folded, and their wings unfolded, instantly transforming them from mechs back into fighter jets.

Their final wave of missiles blasted the pursuing Flying Mantis swarm into a bloody mist, then they climbed up and rejoined the formation.

Standing beside the side hatch of the medical ship, Jim saw Kerrigan hovering over the battlefield, which was getting further and further away.

Her psychic telepathic message pierced everyone's minds like an ice pick: "Run, Jim. But the swarm will eventually devour everything."

Jim Reynolds did not answer, but silently closed the hatch.

Beside his feet, the sealed box containing the divine artifact was trembling slightly, the runes on its surface flickering as if a life was struggling within.
(End of this chapter)