Warhammer 40: Starting as a Rogue Trader

Chapter 322 Tyrannosaurus and the Zerg

After the Imperial fleet and the retreat of the Gorgon, Leviathan's main force began to split and headed towards different planets within the Hades system.

The largest of these is heading towards Asford, a planet with tens of billions of inhabitants and abundant resources, representing unparalleled biomass.

The second largest fleet headed towards Lesos, a planet home to 300 million nomads who harvest algae to create protein blocks to provide enough life for the Hades system.

Humans and these algae are also rich in biomass.

In addition to the self-organized defense forces of these nomads, there are also 10,000 fighting nuns of the Holy Rose Order.

Gao Yi didn't have enough manpower and resources to defend the planet, and he couldn't evacuate hundreds of millions of people in just a few days.

With just this population and the soldiers on them, it would be impossible to stop the Tyranids' attack.

Although Gao Yi really wanted to save these 300 million people, he realized that if he did, even more people might die, so he temporarily gave up on the idea.

The hundreds of billions of people in Asford are clearly more important than Lesios.
Although the Zerg were located in Ixos, which was right next to Lycios, Gao Yi still did not allow Abathur to send Zerg troops toward Lycios.

The Zerg hatching force also takes time. The vast distance between Char and the Hades system also puts a huge burden on the tunnel worms, and the teleportation force has its limits.

Four or five days is too short; the downside of the farming strategy is that it needs enough time to develop.

To ensure the Zerg gain as many advantages as possible in ground warfare, splitting up forces is definitely not a wise move.

The most rational approach would be to issue an extermination order to Lysios, killing all the humans and creatures there, thus depriving Tyrannoss of the opportunity to feed.

However, the scales of victory have not yet tipped to that point. Whether morally or rationally, Gao Yi has no intention of doing such a thing.

Moreover, issuing an extermination order under these circumstances would be too demoralizing for the troops.

If Gao Yi can abandon everyone on Lesios at will, then he can also abandon Asford at will. The morale that has just been built up will collapse again.

Putting aside the PDFs of those who were drafted into the army, even the people of Cardia couldn't help but have their own thoughts.

Gao Yi knew that Dante's Blood Angels would arrive in a few days, and if the people on Lysios could hold out until then, there might still be a chance to save them.

The civilians of Lysios, who lived a nomadic lifestyle, did not have enough ground firepower to destroy the landing drop pods, and they could only watch helplessly as Tyran landed on the planet's surface.

Tyran began to absorb algae from the ocean and convert them into biomass, while Magda Grace of the Holy Rose Sisters summoned all the civilians of the Empire to prepare for battle.

Originally, she came to the Church of Slaughter, a planet inhabited by commoners with unique beliefs who did not adhere to the Imperial doctrines, but now she has become their protector.

The other part of the fleet headed towards Ixoy.
The mission of this part of the tentacle fleet was originally simple: to drive away or destroy human warships.

The Hive's will also knew that it needed to destroy human warships first in order to better plunder the planet's biomass.

However, when the Zerg fleet heading towards Isox was drawn closer to Isox by the warships, it sensed that the abundance of biomass on this supposedly barren planet was astounding.
The fungal carpet laid by the alien insects is also part of the biomass.

In Tyren's perception, the planet, already mostly covered by the creep, resembled a whole planet of flesh and blood; the temptation was simply too great.
And yet, no other living things have been observed on the planet's surface.

This information was immediately transmitted back to the Hive's will.

The scattered Zerg hive bio-ships that were originally heading to Tartarus and Eros began abandoning their invasion of these planets and heading towards Ixos. These two planets had only a few hundred thousand inhabitants, and the meager biomass was enough for the Zerg hives to selectively abandon them.

Instead of scavenging for worthless biomass on those two planets, why not have a hearty buffet in Ixos?

During the battle between the Hive Will and humanity, the Hive Will never obtained any intelligence about the Zerg, which made the Hive Will have no suspicion or defense against this planet.

If the enemy were the Chaos forces to which the Four Gods belong, they would never have landed so easily the moment they observed the creep; they would have chosen to destroy the planet directly with orbital bombardment.

There are countless planets of all kinds in the Milky Way, and the Hive Will only felt that this planet was somewhat special.

Above Isox, Abathur hides deep within the planet.

Before him lay the corpse of Tiberius.

The cunning chieftain's corpse is slowly decomposing in the incubation pool; Abathur has already extracted the necessary genes from Tiberius's body.

The genes of the gene stealer are being fused into the genes of the Zerg infected by Abathur.

The infected, who originally controlled enemy units through parasites, now possess even greater abilities.

Previously, the creatures parasitized by the infected were often just disposable cannon fodder lacking intelligence and clumsy in movement. Now, however, the creatures parasitized by the infected will have their minds completely changed over time, and will eventually become servants who completely obey Kerrigan's orders.

Abathur was clearly pleased to have collected a new and useful gene, but he temporarily put aside his work in the face of the approaching Tyrannosaurus.

All the Zerg forces were also lying in wait underground.

The biosignals emitted by the fungal carpet on the ground concealed them all.

Abathur shares the vision of those hidden Ohmu.
Knowing that Tyrande was about to arrive, he also awakened all the dormant Zerg units.

"A new enemy. A battle test. The mission the Queen has given the Swarm must be accomplished. Swarm, eternal, will fight, will live forever. Zagara, the battle on the ground is yours. Collect the genetic sequences of those creatures for me. I will bring even greater power to the Swarm."

At this point, Abathur was surrounded by more than just three wild beasts.

In the vast underground space, dozens of wild beasts lay dormant in silence.

Meanwhile, Zagara was also looking at the sky, where even from the ground, she could see the Terran bio-ships getting closer and closer in the void.

Justus and a portion of the Gorgons are still blocking and trying to reduce the number of Terrans, but most of the bio-ships are still heading towards the planet's orbit.

Leviathan was willing to suffer some losses in order to land on Ixos as soon as possible. In the Hive's will, devouring Ixos was second only to Asford in priority.

"I've detected the enemy Abathur, and I'll let them know who's in charge!"

Zagara was eager for the battle to come, surrounded by an endless swarm of Banelings.

The Terran bio-ship has entered Ixoy's orbit, and the massive bio-ship is dropping countless spore drop pods, heading towards all parts of the planet.

(End of this chapter)