The plunder of the heavens begins with the Spirit Cage.

The leader of the demon beasts, Tartarus, relied on the city's strong defenses and the remaining ground troops to put up a stubborn resistance.

However, their plasma turrets and scarab heavy vehicles, which they relied on, were no match for the combined fleet's superior technology and military strength.

Even the UNSC, which joined the battle, gained considerable benefits from this campaign.

It's been so satisfying to follow the alliance and beat up a drowning dog all these years!

When the rebels—no, the revolutionary army—arrived in the City of Love, their numbers far exceeded those of the believers in the holy city.

The rule of religious theocracy is naturally quite consolidated during times of peace and stability.

However, in times of crisis, or when supplies are almost exhausted, the unfair treatment of giving priority to a few people becomes quite significant.

Others might be willing to starve to death, but with a single call from the Kamikaze warriors, even a snowball can't roll as fast as them.

Besides, aliens aren't stupid; they've already figured out which side will win and which side will lose.

They might not dare to fight when things are going against them, but opportunities like this, where they can fight when things are going well and also rob someone along the way, are rare.

The consortium used naval guns to wipe out all the city's defenses and heavy artillery.

The Sanghli warriors took advantage of the warplanes to land inside the holy city, and, riding the wave of the crowd, they joined forces with the Gulu people and hunters who had been oppressed by the Prophet in the past...

They tore through the enemy's formation time and time again, and soon the outer defenses crumbled.

With nowhere else to turn, the three prophets attempted to emulate the original story, taking their remaining confidants on an escape ship to deep space.

They wanted to rush to a halo to forcefully activate the array and make a last-ditch effort to fight back.

Even now, they still don't believe that the function of the halo is to exterminate life in the Milky Way, but rather to elevate and evolve it!

All that is passed down by humankind is rumor!

I just can't stand to see them doing well!

With this belief in mind, the three split into three groups, attempting to break through using the spaceship's superior maneuverability.

However, they clearly underestimated the technological capabilities of the consortium.

They didn't bother with physics at all; after a few psionic nets, the spaceship's speed was instantly frozen.

It has to be extremely slow, not much faster than a snail.

The kamikaze warrior personally boarded the ship with an energy sword and publicly killed the truth prophet who was completely ensnared by religious obsession.

The other two prophets either surrendered on the spot or were killed in the chaos by the fanatical minions of the demon beasts.

The loyalist remnants, having lost their leader, instantly collapsed in morale.

The Ghost-Faced Beast tribe has always revered the strong. Seeing their leader killed in battle and their external support cut off, some of them laid down their weapons and surrendered.

Another group of resisting forces was driven by the coalition to several resource-poor, barren planets, where all their ships were disarmed.

Seeing that the situation was hopeless, the gnoll mercenaries scattered and fled, or sought refuge with Sangheli in exchange for territory to survive.

Thus, the once vast religious theocratic empire that spanned the galaxy completely disintegrated, and the two major factions that had split apart came to an end.

The Sword of Sanhelius of Sanheli officially took over all the navigation maps and military facilities left by the Covenant, and handed over detailed star system troop deployment maps as promised.

As agreed, the Divine Wind Warriors selected three thousand battle-hardened elite warriors to be incorporated into the Halo Expedition Vanguard Team, willingly serving as the vanguard to explore the high-risk Halo Zone.

After several more months of adjustment, Lu Qianwei waved his hand and turned the spearhead of the nearly 10,000-strong fleet towards the four small halos.

There's not much to say. The recovery failed, so they immediately fired a barrage of artillery at it, sending it flying.

They wouldn't even let a single fragment of the destroyed wreckage drift into space.

To eliminate it, of course, is to eliminate it completely, ensuring that the Red Devil Virus cannot leave the galaxy!

After making all the necessary preparations, the Nova Covenant forces and the Alliance forces began their journey toward a relatively safe aura.

After thinking it over, Lu Qianwei felt that fighting all four at once was not very safe. It would be safest to start by practicing against a weaker opponent.

Chapter 258 Halo 10

Which one is the easy target?

After a multi-party alliance assessed the combat capabilities, they finally identified the Beta Halo of Zone 01.

The priority of this mission is to clear out and eliminate the Flood Virus within the ring.

The pioneers provided the conditions for imprisonment and sealing, so they couldn't miss the opportunity to completely annihilate them!

As several beams of light descended, the Sanghli warriors landed in a wasteland.

They were the vanguard personally selected by the Divine Wind Martyrs, and they were among the first to step into the Forbidden Land of the Flood Demon.

At the forefront of the group, Captain Sanhri gripped his particle rifle, his gaze sweeping across the empty wasteland.

With a god-like perspective provided by the monitoring system of the outer space fleet, they had a clear view of the surface conditions here.

The target is inside the entrance to the giant underground tunnel complex in the very center of the wasteland.

Their primary objective for this trip was to resolve the three pioneer air defense outposts located on the outer layer of the tunnel cluster.

These outposts were originally defensive fortifications with ring-shaped surveillance systems to defend against foreign ships, but now the autonomous gun emplacements and patrolling sentries inside are all parasitized by trace amounts of flood spores and are in a semi-out-of-control state.

If the expeditionary fleet remains in orbit for an extended period, these anti-aircraft weapons will lock onto the warships overhead and launch a counterattack, causing unnecessary losses to the rear fleet.

In addition, these three outposts are also the main ventilation hubs of the underground tunnels. As long as they are occupied first and the external ventilation ducts are shut down, the path for the underground flood monster to spread its spores outward by means of airflow can be cut off, and the monster can be completely locked in the closed underground space, thus building a solid safety line for the subsequent layer-by-layer advance and clearing.

Only a dozen or so mutated sentinels, moving stiffly, patrolled the perimeter of the wasteland. Although infected, they still wandered around following their original tactical logic.

The vanguard captain leading the team was named Valos, a veteran Sanghali who had participated in the Covenant Civil War and personally killed elite Spectral Beasts.

His two assistants were Zelos, a sniper skilled in long-range fire suppression, and Karen, an assault soldier responsible for close-range assaults and rearguard reconnaissance.

The three men led a vanguard squad of two hundred Sanhri as the main force for the first wave of ground clearing operations in this area.

Valos raised his hand, making a gesture of silent advance, and the whole team instantly spread out into a fan-shaped tactical formation.

The open wilderness offers unobstructed views, making it the perfect terrain for Sangheli's long-range firepower to overwhelm his targets.

However, there are also many rugged and protruding points, otherwise they would have been spotted by the enemy at a glance after they appeared.

"Start the cleanup, make sure no one is left alive!" Valos's deep voice rang out in the team channel.

Zeros set up his long-range particle sniper rifle, crouched behind a weathered boulder, and locked his eyes onto the three wandering Aberration Sentinels in the far distance.

A beam of blue, high-energy particles pierced through the air in the blink of an eye, striking the sentinel with immense energy.

A deafening explosion rang out!

The pilots, parasitized by spores, burst out with blackish-gray mycelial dust.

Their bulky bodies were completely destroyed by the three energy cannon shots.

On the main battlefield, Karen led twenty assault team members to advance rapidly, clearing out the remaining mechanical units roaming at close range.

Particle rifles fired in rapid succession, and blue light flashed across the wasteland.

Although these aberrant sentinels reacted immediately upon being attacked, the mechanical defects caused by the infection had already led to malfunctions in their mechanical parts over the past 100,000 years.

Sluggish movements, stiff turning, slow reaction...

Having realized this, the Sanghli warriors cleared out all the mutated mechanical entities on the outskirts of the wasteland in just a few minutes.

But just when everyone thought the cleanup of the perimeter was over, the first wave of sneak attacks suddenly broke out.

No one expected that the Flood was not just a mechanical entity patrolling the surface.

Beneath the seemingly flat and cracked rock shell of the wasteland lie countless old maintenance tunnels and underground fissures left by pioneers.

Just as the team crossed a flat rocky area!

The rocks beneath their feet suddenly cracked and collapsed!

Three pitch-black craters exploded open instantly, and dozens of small flood demon parasites, carrying black and gray spores, gushed out and swooped down to attack, taking advantage of the terrain!

They are small in size, extremely fast, and have slippery bodies, specifically designed to attack gaps in armor, weak areas in the neck, and blind spots in the eyepieces.

The two Sanghli warriors at the front had no time to react.

The black mist of spores instantly covered the armor's mask, and tiny, sharp, deformed claws gripped the seams of the armor tightly.

Black mycelium visibly and frantically penetrates the armor!

"Watch your step!" Karen roared, raising her hand to unleash a particle cannon at close range, blasting the cluster of flood demons.

The intense heat and flames instantly incinerated a large number of the onrushing parasites, and the putrid, burnt smell exploded out.

But it was too late.

Many of the front-line Sanhri warriors have already been invaded by spores during this raid.

Their strong bodies instantly stiffened, convulsed, and their bones bulged and deformed, while parasitic hyphae proliferated wildly under their skin.

In just two seconds, the living warrior was about to be completely transformed into a Flood Aberration.

Valos's eyes were cold, without the slightest hesitation.

The ironclad rules of the battlefield state that once infected, even officers must be executed immediately to prevent the spread of the virus.

Dozens of particle beams mercilessly pierced the chest cavity of their comrades at the front, turning them into charred remains and eliminating any possibility of viral resurgence.

Watching dozens of soldiers die under gunfire, everyone's hearts sank. This was far more painful than fighting a civil war.

The virus is too insidious; they must remain vigilant at all times!

After a short rest and readjustment of the formation, Varos suppressed his gloom and ordered the advance to continue!

Two hundred Sanhri warriors, in pairs forming shields and in three staggered groups, steadily charged towards the first Pioneer air defense outpost standing on the barren highlands, treading on the cracked rock.

The outpost's towering, rhomboid tower pierced the dark red sky, its once-smooth metal walls now covered with thick, gray-black fungal carpets.

That is proof that the Flood Demon has taken root and multiplied.

Layer upon layer of wet, sticky, and slippery mycelial carpet adhered tightly to the walls, platforms, steps, and gun barrel bases.

The moment the living arrived on the surface of the Halo, the Flood, which had been dormant for many years, gradually awakened.

The explosions and gunfire were so loud, and given that they were a cluster, it would have been almost impossible not to know that an enemy had invaded.

As life approached, the entire outpost began to twitch slightly, constantly releasing tiny black spores that were visible to the naked eye. The air was filled with a strange, rotten, fishy, ​​and warm odor.

The team arrived at the tower entrance, where the heavy alloy gate was half-open, with mycelium tassels hanging from the gaps along the edge, like a curtain of a monster's lair.