From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 644 "Are you alright?"

In near-Earth orbit in New Canaan, a space station lies like a forgotten metal coffin, its functions to sustain life gradually failing.

Inside the observation cabin on the sunny side, hundreds of stranded personnel huddled under the arched dome. Their breath condensed into white mist in the low temperature, intertwining with the flashing red alarm lights to create an eerie halo.

Through the six-meter-high composite portholes and panoramic dome, the entire process of the colony's demise unfolds with breathtaking clarity.

The purplish-black swarm of fungal blankets spread "slowly" in a radial pattern across the planet's surface, like a deadly toxin injected into New Canaan by the universe.

What the stranded people couldn't see was that translucent vesicles were constantly churning at the edge of the fungal carpet, and whenever these biological structures ruptured, swarms of springtails would surge out like a black tide.

Furthermore, the Zerg swarms form a three-dimensional "spider web"—

Countless queen insects and expanding bio-ships spewing acidic mist, flying insects tracing slimy trails in the vacuum, and a large number of Leviathan behemoths anchored at key orbital nodes like living asteroids, their bioluminescence seeping from the gaps in their shells refracting a morbid iridescence under the starlight.

Inside the space station, an alarm "tears" through the air every thirty seconds.

"The bulkhead of Section C has lost its integrity; immediate evacuation is recommended."

"Warning! Hostile biological invasion detected on this site!"

The electronic female voice and the piercing sound of metal deformation created a terrifying "duet".

Suddenly, the ventilation system spewed out smoke with a corrosive odor. Everyone could also see that the air vent filters above the cabin were being corroded into rust-colored foam by some kind of acidic secretion at a visible speed.

Then, a chilling scraping sound came from the ventilation duct, and the metal pipe walls seemed to vibrate slightly as the alien insect moved.

An officer in a Terran Empire uniform stared intently out the window as the last Imperial battlecruiser activated its warp drive, its stern nozzles emitting blinding blue light as the entire warship was instantly engulfed by an energy vortex.

"We have truly been abandoned."

The officer muttered to himself as the data tablet slipped from his hand and fell to the ground with a crisp clinking sound.

Just as despair was about to engulf the space station in its final moments—

The void thousands of kilometers away suddenly "shattered".

More than thirty vortexes emitting blinding blue light cleaved through the darkness like swords of judgment, and violent warp energy raged in the vacuum, dragging nearby Zerg ships into deadly spacetime turbulence.

Before a large number of queen insects could even emit bio-electrical alarms, they were shredded into mincemeat in the distorted gravitational field, their shell fragments and acid exploding silently in the vacuum.

The first thing to tear apart the real universe and descend into near-Earth orbit of New Canaan was a colossal ship powerful enough to make any enemy tremble—

This is the Imperial-class battleship of the Human Empire, and this Imperial-class is clearly an "enhanced" version. It is a steel temple that is twelve kilometers long, with its hull covered in scarlet armor and its surface flowing with holy blood patterns like molten gold, as if it has been bathed in the glory of countless battles.

The towering angel statue on the bow spreads its enormous metal wings, each feather etched with intricate Chinese scripture, shimmering with a sacred glow under the starlight.

The array of cannons on both sides stood imposingly like the spires of a cathedral, with low frequencies of energy charging faintly emanating from the dark barrels, and the battle prayers engraved on the cannons bursting out with a ghostly blue runic light when charging.

Following closely behind was a complete legion-level fleet—

Four new cruisers were deployed in a wedge formation, their dark red armor adorned with golden teardrop insignia. The electromagnetic gun arrays on the bows were preheated, their muzzles flashing with dangerous blue-white arcs of electricity.

Twelve frigates and six destroyers formed a ring defense network. The Gauss gun arrays on both sides of the hull were already loaded. In addition, inside the missile launch bays, the safety devices of the strategic metallic hydrogen warheads were lighting up with scarlet locking indicator lights one by one.

Further away, the hangar gates of four heavy support ships burst open, and tens of thousands, even millions, of drones poured out like swarms of bees, weaving a deadly interception net in the vacuum.

Meanwhile, more than ten "small" assault ships and frigates, each about one kilometer long, patrolled the flanks like hounds, their close-in weapon arrays constantly adjusting their angles, ready to annihilate any approaching Zerg flying units.

Furthermore, the space station's communication system was suddenly forcibly accessed, and that metallic voice sounded again:
"Attention all civilians on the space station. This is the 9th Company of the Holy Blood Angels Legion, the 'Weeping Ones,' arriving to provide support. For your safety, please proceed to the central compartment immediately. Repeat, this is not a suggestion, this is an order."

The voice contained an unquestionable ironclad rule, as if every syllable was imprinted with the will of the empire.

However, before anyone could recover from the shock—

Boom—boom—!
A deafening crash came from one of the explosion-proof doors of the observation cabin. The heavy alloy door frame twisted and deformed under the enormous impact, and the hydraulic system of the door lock groaned under the strain.

Through the small observation window of the blast door, one could clearly see the wriggling purple fungal carpet at the end of the corridor, as well as the springtails and hydralisks crowding the passageway—

Their sharp bone blades scraped against the metal walls, making a teeth-grinding noise, and their eerie yellow eyes gleamed with a hungry, cold light in the darkness.

"The blast door can't hold up! They're coming in!"

A technician in engineering uniform stumbled backward, knocking over the instrument rack behind him, scattering metal parts and data boards all over the floor.

The hydralisk's bony thorns had already pierced the door crack, reflecting a deadly glint in the cabin lights.

Just as the blast door let out its final, mournful cry, the space station's external surveillance captured a breathtakingly magnificent sight—

Tens of thousands of airdrop pods poured out from the belly of the Weeping Fleet. These metal "coffins" in the style of the Holy Blood Angels were engraved with the emblem of dripping blood wings, and the plasma thrusters on top spewed out ghostly blue holy fire.

They traced dense ballistic trajectories in the vacuum, swooping down towards the surface of New Canaan like a rain of divine punishment. Each drop pod was adorned with scripture codes on its side, shimmering with golden light under the starlight, ready to lend a helping hand to their innocent compatriots stranded on the surface.

At the same time, tens of thousands of transport ships emerged from the hangars of various ships, their streamlined armor covered with scars from battles throughout the ages.

The escorting carrier-based aircraft formed a death squadron, and the twin-laser turrets rotated continuously for self-checks, leaving long streaks of light trailing behind the muzzles in the vacuum.

Amidst this torrent of rescue efforts, a menacing-looking Thunder Strike craft is accelerating towards the space station—

This killing vehicle, designed specifically for boarding operations, is equipped with a molecular-level cutting drill in addition to the thermobaric cannon on top, and the hatch in the nose also facilitates boarding.

Furthermore, the Crimson Fleet has now deployed into a perfect battle formation.

The space in front of the Emperor-class battleship began to distort and collapse, and the energy accumulated in the main gun array caused the light in the surrounding star field to have a gravitational lensing effect.

The electromagnetic macro guns of the six cruisers fired simultaneously, their azure, straight trajectories piercing the battlefield like the spears of judgment, followed by thousands of strategic-grade metallic hydrogen warheads.

These "seeds of destruction" burst into tiny, star-like spheres of incandescent light within the Zerg fleet, and the electromagnetic pulses generated by the explosions instantly turned the space station's monitoring screens white.

"hold onto."

That metallic voice rang out one last time, its sound waves mixed with the static noise of the encrypted channel: "The Lamenter is about to arrive at the space station."

Upon hearing this, an engineer immediately looked at the monitoring screen and discovered that the Thunder Raid Boat had completed its final trajectory correction, and the thermal cannon on its top had also completed its energy storage, creating strange spatial ripples in the vacuum.

This scene elicited choked sobs of relief from those inside the observation module. Simultaneously, people reacted instantly, scrambling towards another blast door, preparing to heed the metallic voice's warning to proceed to the central compartment. Suddenly, the entire space station trembled ominously.

The gravity system appeared to overload and collapse, causing instruments and debris to lose weight and scatter in all directions.

A bolt securing a medical module broke, and the heavy metal cabinet slammed against the module wall with a deafening crash.

The crack in the center of the explosion-proof door had expanded to the width of a palm, and the purple fungal carpet was wriggling and invading like a living organism, its secreted acidic mucus corroding the alloy floor and producing hissing foam.

"Run!"

A navigator in a blood-stained uniform screamed hysterically, his pupils reflecting the cold glint of countless bone blades outside the blast door.

The crowd instantly turned into a terrified torrent, grabbing onto anything they could use and drifting toward another blast door. However, some people got their legs tangled in the floating pipes, and their panic made it even harder for them to escape in a short time.

Although the scene was chaotic, the people who worked on the space station were generally more civilized than ordinary people, and more than half of them managed to escape before the arrival of the alien insects.

But the other half weren't so lucky.

A young female maintenance worker was left dangling from the observation module's porthole dome due to the space station's gravity system malfunction and the lack of anything she could grab onto. She watched helplessly as the blast door finally collapsed completely.

roar----!!

With a piercing roar, dozens of springtails tore through the last barrier with their sickle-shaped forelimbs, their carapaces still adorned with fragments of the space station guards' tattered uniforms.

Inside the weightless observation cabin, time seemed to be stretched into a painful slow motion.

Purple fungal carpets spread in through the damaged blast door, climbing out menacing veins on the bulkhead.

The springtails' sickle-shaped forelimbs hooked onto the bulkhead protrusions, their shells rubbing against the metal with a screeching sound. However, they were much clumsy in the weightless environment and had to rely on constantly kicking the bulkhead to adjust their direction.

but
Instead, it turned the massacre into an even more brutal performance.

An engineer's abdomen was pierced by a bone blade, and the depressurized blood formed a floating red sphere in the vacuum.

His screams echoed inside his helmet visor as he futilely clawed at the insect limbs piercing his body. Three leaping insects were tearing at his legs with their mouthparts, each pull causing the blood cells to split into smaller droplets.

!!!

The female maintenance worker under the dome futilely kicked at the air, her tears freezing into glistening spheres in the weightless environment, hovering on either side of her cheeks.

She saw six meters below, another technician being "eaten up" by two springtails. They tore the man in half like dismantling a toy, and his intestines and bone fragments slowly drifted out of the cabin.

Even more terrifying, the person was still alive, and the severed vocal cords emitted a silent scream.

The female maintenance worker closed her eyes as the swarm of hydralisks rushed into the hatch.

Those slender monsters were actually more agile in the weightless environment. They used their tail hooks to hold onto the bulkhead, their bone needle launchers began to charge, and fluorescent green bioluminescence seeped from the gaps in their shells.

She could almost hear the sharp whistling of the bone needles slicing through the air—

Boom! Boom!

Suddenly, the entire space station trembled violently, and sparks flew from the rivets on the bulkhead.

The female repairman was thrown over by a gust of air and her back slammed heavily against the observation window.

? !
She opened her eyes in horror and found that all the alien insects had stopped moving as if frozen. It seemed that some kind of "accident" had forced the alien insects to change their state.

Thump, thump—!
Soon, heavy footsteps came from the depths of the passage, and each tremor seemed to make the floating blood droplets tremble slightly.

Bang-!
Immediately afterwards, a piece of blast door debris was blasted away by some enormous force, and the two-ton alloy door panel spun and sliced ​​off the bodies of three Hydralisks, their purple blood exploding into a mist in the vacuum.

Roar--!
The springtails collectively turned towards the entrance to the passage behind another blast door, their muscle fibers beneath their carapaces taut.

But before they could leap up, the entire observation cabin was suddenly engulfed in blinding flames—

Bang—bang bang—!
The unique roar of the bolt-action firearm is like the sound of a sacred bell.

Each bullet traced a straight trajectory in the air, precisely hitting the zebra's neural nodes.

Pfft—Pfft—!
The struck insect burst like an inflatable doll, its shell fragments and internal organs scattering radially from the impact.

The female repairman stared blankly at everything—

The head of the first Hydralisk was blasted into pieces by a .75 caliber explosive round. The Zergling swarm was turned into a storm of flesh and blood in a series of weak explosions. A floating limb crashed into the observation window, leaving behind a sticky bloodstain.

At the entrance to the passage, a huge shadow gradually appeared under the illumination of the emergency lights.

A giant clad in scarlet power armor stepped into the cabin. The golden teardrop insignia on his shoulder armor gleamed under the alarm lights, and the white mist expelled from the breathing grille of his visor condensed into ice crystals in the air.

Buzz. Boom. Boom.
The slow rotation of the chainsaw's blade teeth produced a chilling hum.

The next second, the crimson giant suddenly sprang up, his movements faster than the limits of human vision, leaving only a blurry afterimage in the female repairman's eyes—

The magnetic locks on the soles of his power armor boots activated, making him immune to weightlessness and launching him like a cannonball.

The chainsaw sword swept across, instantly slicing three hydras in half at the waist, their severed bodies continuing to float due to inertia.

The bolter in his right hand fired simultaneously, each bullet hitting a zebra bug precisely. The flashes from the bolter formed brief fireballs, and the serrated edges of the chainsword trailed a purple mist of blood that spread throughout the cabin like an ink painting.

The whole process takes no more than five seconds.

As the giant stopped in front of her, the last remaining limb of a jumping insect was slowly crashing into the ceiling.

Immediately, the giant freed his left hand, the power armor's servo system hummed softly, and the armored fingers gently tugged at the female mechanic's seatbelt, pulling her toward the deck.

"Are you alright, ma'am?"

Even though the giant's tone had a somewhat harsh, metallic quality, one could still detect a hint of concern.

Furthermore, the female repairman then noticed that the giant's power armor was covered in tiny scratches, and the entire observation pod was filled with the remains of Zerg and drops of blood, resembling an eerie galaxy under the alarm lights.
(End of this chapter)