Warhammer: Empire Reboot

The bear's decapitation was too swift; the synaptic nodes didn't have time to relocate, and the swarm's local command chain was cut in pieces.

The executioner came precisely to disrupt this rhythm.

In the northern hemisphere of Karian-17, on a grain plain that had just been cleared by the XV8 sequence, the ground suddenly began to shake.

Amidst countless knife-like and gun-like insects, hundreds of executioners ran wildly with their heads bowed.

Their heavily armored skulls pushed aside the lower-level Zerg in front of them, like a row of armored siege engines, and crashed directly into the decapitation passage where Xiong Wei was located.

"boom!"

The ground cracked beneath their feet, and mud, insect carcasses, and metal debris were trampled into a pulp. The foremost executioner crashed into an abandoned Leman Rustank, overturning the vehicle like an empty can and sending its turret rolling dozens of meters away.

The Astral Army's defensive line tightened in an instant.

These things don't require much tactical maneuvering; just let them charge into the enemy lines, and a bloody hole will be torn in the human defenses.

The bear guards also detected the threat of the executioners, but the swarm network first marked the synaptic nodes further away, not the charging behemoths.

Behind the horde of executioners, a dozen or so synaptic beasts were hiding among the heavily armored guard insects, using neural signals to pull these biological battering rams.

They constantly adjusted their charge direction, directing the executioners to bypass the burning trenches and rush towards the flanks of the attacking formation.

The next instant, the psionic bear guards assigned to the Flying Bear Squad looked up as they quickly locked onto their target.

Their perception methods differ from those of ordinary Level 2 Eagle Eyes.

The psionic bear can directly capture mental pulls on the battlefield.

To them, the executioners were a pack of mad dogs on invisible ropes.

The ropes passed through swarms of insects, spore fog, and artillery fire, one end looped into the executioner's brain, the other end landing on the synaptic beast behind.

The psionic bear guards only mark the swarm network.

[Traction Node.]

[Prioritize eliminating them.]

The Flying Bear motorcycle group in the distance immediately turned around.

Twelve heavy motorcycles accelerated along the ground, avoiding the executioner's frontal charge and cutting in from the flanks.

The swarm of insects tried to stop them, with tens of thousands of flying insects swooping down. The Spore Cannon Beast also threw acid bombs in front of the motorcycle, but the Shattering Spikes had already been fired first.

The black-gold tail flame pierced through the spore mist.

boom!

A synaptic beast hiding behind the guard insect wall was pierced through the chest cavity, and half of its body exploded into nerve fluid.

The second synaptic beast tried to retreat, but was caught up by the Flying Bear Motorcycle from the side. The Bear Guard Giant Axe swung along the ground, cutting it in two along with its guardian insect.

The traction cable broke.

The charging executioners instantly lost control.

The first few still charged towards Xiong Wei along the original route, but more executioners behind them began to deviate.

They have no new commands, only instinct.

The nearest heat source, the loudest noise, and the most dazzling light will all attract them to turn around.

The two executioners simultaneously targeted a burning transport vehicle, collided with each other, and their bodies, weighing over ten tons, rolled into a heap, crushing the surrounding knife-wielding insects into a pulp.

Another group of executioners rushed into the anti-insect trench that the drone had just dug. The burning nodes at the bottom ignited instantly, and blue and white flames shot out along the trench, burning their thick carapaces until they crackled and popped.

At the end of the fiery trench, an executioner burst forth, crashing through the flames.

Its entire carapace was burning, with blue and white flames shooting up along its spine and shoulder armor.

But this thing has no concept of stopping.

The ten-ton body pressed down on the ground as it ran wildly, the red-hot soil exploding under its feet, its skull drooping, its shoulders and back bulging, like a living siege engine that had rushed out of hell.

Blocking its path was a bear guard.

The black-armored giant stood beside the ruins of the abandoned Leman Rustank, his hands gripping an axe, his feet surrounded by the crushed corpses of knife-insects.

The shockwave from the executioner's charge kicked up ashes from the wreckage, and the broken cannon barrel of the tank slowly slid off amidst the vibrations, crashing to the ground with a dull thud.

Just as it was about to crash into the executioner, Xiong Wei rushed out from the other side and slammed into the executioner's shoulder and neck.

The violent impact unleashed a shockwave that was visible to the naked eye.

The surrounding insect corpses were shaken into the air, the wreckage of the abandoned tank slid half a meter to the side, and the armor plates scraped against the ground, sending up ear-piercing sparks.

The executioner's charge was abruptly deflected, half of his shoulder armor collapsed, and his skull grazed Xiong Wei's side before crashing into the tank wreckage.

The Leman Russ was smashed in half, its turret was blown off, and it rolled into the fire ditch, exploding into a cloud of black smoke.

Xiong Wei charged forward, swinging his giant axe upwards, the blade biting into the gap in the executioner's neck armor.

He stepped forward, his shoulder armor pressing against the axe handle, his entire body like a black wedge pressing into the side of the giant beast.

The executioner was still struggling, its huge mouth full of broken teeth opening as it lunged at the bear guard's helmet.

Xiong Wei swung his axe in a backhand motion, the blade leaving a dark gold arc in the air before smashing into the executioner's jaw.

"boom!"

The beast's roar abruptly stopped, its half-mouth twisted to the side from being smashed open.

Xiong Wei exerted his strength for the third time, slashing horizontally across the open wound on his neck with his giant axe.

The thick shell, nerve bundles, and spine were severed together.

The executioner's head flew off in half, crashing into the burning trench and sending up a spray of blue and white flames.

The headless behemoth still charged forward two steps, its forelimbs flailing wildly in the air, before crashing to its knees.

In the distance, more executioners, having lost their synaptic traction, are being hunted down one by one!

The Norn Queen's first counterattack failed.

What truly made Lawson frown was the air.

As the battle lines expanded, Lawson deployed over 100 million Hurricane motorcycles to various battlefields.

They are scattered across dozens of key worlds in the Pacific Sector, maintaining a low-altitude fire network at extremely high speeds to suppress flying swarms, clear out low-level insect tides, and sever the connection between spore landing points and synaptic nodes.

The Hurricane Motorcycle caused too much damage to the insect swarm.

They are more like a steel storm covering the battlefield.

They are fast, numerous, and their firepower is so sustained it's almost unbelievable; they can turn an entire airspace and ground into mincemeat in a short time.

The Norn Queen has made new adjustments.

The swarm chose a cheaper, but also more disgusting, method.

They started polluting the airspace.

Biological delivery capsules burst open behind the battlefield, hatching a large number of spore ejectors.

Those bloated biological organs were rooted in the ground, like rows of breathing, fleshy turrets.

As the synaptic signal was issued, the spore ejector began to spray hundreds of millions of spore mines and giant gelatinous spores into the air.

The spore mines resemble gray-white floating mines.

They float in mid-air using extremely fine air sac structures and biostatic electricity, and are slowly propelled by wind, airflow, and biogas emitted by the swarm of insects.

A single one doesn't look particularly remarkable; it even resembles a clump of rotten cotton.

But when hundreds of millions of spore mines fill the airspace, the entire sky becomes a boundless minefield of death.

The gelatinous spores are larger.

They resemble transparent, fleshy hot air balloons, filled with highly viscous corrosive liquid and bio-glue.

When penetrated, it will not immediately explode into flames, but will instead spray out a large amount of viscous material that sticks to the thrusters, sensors, and weapon nozzles.

For high-speed units, this is more troublesome than a regular explosion.

If a motorcycle's thruster is covered by the sap of gelatinous spores, it could lose control during a high-speed turn in the next second.

The damage was immediate when the first hurricane motorcycles crashed into the spore minefield.

The Hurricane Squadron is too fast.

So fast that many spore mines don't even need to be actively tracked; just floating in the air is enough to make them deadly obstacles.

Several hurricane motorcycles collided with the invisible gray-white spores as they passed each other at low altitude. The spore mines exploded instantly, releasing corrosive acid and kinetic energy impact at the same time.

The motorcycle's shield was engulfed by the acid mist, and large craters were burned into the outer shell. The pilot tried to pull up, but was covered in the sticky liquid sprayed by the second gelatinous spore. The entire motorcycle rolled and crashed into the pile of insect corpses.

More explosions occurred in the air in a chain reaction.

From the ground, the black high-speed trail that originally belonged to the hurricane motorcycle was interrupted by clusters of suddenly expanding grayish-white acid mist.

The explosions weren't as massive as Titan's cannon fire, but they were extremely dense, like a swarm of insects scattering a whole patch of cheap, ubiquitous needles across the sky.

The Queen Insect used the cheapest materials to forcibly turn the supersonic racing track into a minefield of death.

This is an extremely disgusting tactic!

Undeniably, it was effective and had a significant impact on the Hurricane Squadron.

Lawson watched the attrition curve rise from inside the command post.

Although it hasn't reached the point of causing serious injury.

But the trend is not good.

The Hurricane motorcycles' advantages are speed, quantity, and sustained firepower.

Once the airspace is heavily contaminated by spore mines, if they continue to maintain high-speed incursions, they risk hitting the mines with their own speed.

"Hurricane Motorcycle temporarily retreats from the high-altitude assault line."

"Lower the altitude."

"A low-altitude attack."

The hurricane motorcycles that were weaving through the air at high speed began to descend, abandoning the mid-to-low-altitude transition layer that was originally most suitable for them to exert their speed, and switching to a firepower mode close to the ground.

They swept along canyons, ruins, the outer ring of armored granaries, anti-insect trenches, and the edges of city blocks, using the terrain to conceal spore minefields while continuing to pour fire at low altitudes onto the swarm.