Warhammer: Empire Reboot

The firepower density has decreased somewhat.

The swarm's airspace pollution was temporarily effective, but it did not completely disable the Hurricane Motorcycle.

Lawson seemed thoughtful; although the tactics were disgusting, they were also within his expectations.

If the Tyranids were so easy to deal with, they wouldn't be the biggest threat to the galaxy.

“UR-025”.

"Tyron contaminated the airspace with spore mines and gelatinous spores, forcing Hurricane Motorcycles to lower their altitude and reducing the density of their fire network. Is there a solution?"

The solution proposed by UR-025 was even more brutal than Lawson had anticipated.

Spore mines and gelatinous spores are not high-speed flying units, nor are they actively tracking weapons.

They float in the low to medium altitudes using airbags, weak biostatic electricity, and battlefield airflow. Taking advantage of their three characteristics—low heat source, low signal, and low metal reaction—they forcibly pollute the high-speed airspace that hurricane motorcycles excel at.

Since they are floating objects, there's no need to use expensive missiles to clear them one by one; it's best to just shatter them directly.

The UR-025 design is a sonic weapon, a high-power directional sonic array.

By projecting infrasound and high-frequency oscillations at specific frequencies into the sky, a continuous vibration spectrum of "massive heavy engines approaching" is simulated.

Tyrensporids do not have ears, but they have seismic structures.

These airborne bio-mines need to sense airflow, pressure, vibration, and rapidly approaching large targets in order to detonate or spew out before a hurricane motorcycle can hit them.

What UR-025 does is to use sound waves to create a false battlefield signal for them, making them mistakenly believe that a large number of high-speed units are approaching, thus causing them to release acid, gel, and kinetic energy shocks in advance.

In other words, it was a deception to trigger a self-destruction.

If the frequency is tuned precisely enough, the spore minefield will resemble a gray-white cloud sea swept by an invisible giant hand, bursting continuously from the inside.

Small spore mines can release corrosive liquid before contacting any target, detonating nearby spore mines as well.

The only problem is time.

High-power acoustic arrays are not as simple as just strapping a few speakers to a drone.

The UR-025 requires twelve hours to calibrate.

Lawson agreed: "I want to see the sky open again in twelve hours."

The aerial threat remains unresolved, but the Zerg swarm's new ground-based countermeasures have already begun.

On various battlefields, the defeats of the first batch of ordinary executioners were fully transmitted back to the Norn Queen via the synapse network.

The Norn Queen quickly completed her assessment.

Thus, the swarm began to evolve the executioner itself.

Deep within the Zerg hive fleet, the massive breeding chambers were forcibly rewritten.

The hatching sequence of low-level blade worms and gun worms was suppressed, the regular replenishment of flying swarms was reduced, and a large amount of biomass that should have been allocated to the normal landing tide was diverted to a few heavy culture capsules.

Inside the capsule, muscles contract like a noose, bone plates proliferate layer by layer, and the chitinous carapace hardens repeatedly in high-pressure biological fluid.

Large numbers of low-level worm embryos are reabsorbed and become nutrients for larger individuals.

The Norn queens were still frantically communicating.

The frantically transmitted synaptic signals, if translated into a meaning the Empire could understand, would probably only be one sentence long.

What doesn't kill us will only make us evolve at the speed of light.

Thus, a new type of behemoth was sent to the battlefield.

[Dominator-level Executioner]

When the first Overlord-level Executioner crawled out of the spore delivery sac, even the Astronautical Army's artillery was momentarily stunned.

It was larger than an ordinary executioner, with a shoulder height of nearly six meters and a weight of over ten tons. Its center of gravity was extremely low, making it resemble a siege fortress clad in living armor.

Its head has almost degenerated into a tiny mouthpart, which is only responsible for breathing, swallowing, and emitting a low, rumbling roar.

It is covered with two meters thick inclined chitin armor, the surface of which has a layered misaligned structure with extremely disgusting angles, like a swarm of insects biologically growing a tank front armor specifically to trick shells into ricocheting.

Even if you shoot through that fake head, it won't die.

The actual synaptic nodes were viciously stuffed into the deepest part of the thoracic cavity by the Norn Queen.

It was no longer just the heart and lung sacs, but a huge mass of neural tissue, resembling a small brain worm, encased in thick ribs, a living reaction carapace, and multiple layers of muscle sacs.

Whenever the outer layer is hit hard, the surface chitin will actively burst and peel off like reactive armor to absorb the impact.

If the attack continues to penetrate deeper, the second layer of muscle will spray out gel, forcibly deflecting the penetration path.

The deepest nerve core is encased in a sloping bone plate, like a living command tower hidden inside a ten-ton behemoth.

This thing doesn't need to be towed.

It is the node itself, it is the general itself.

When the first Dominator-level executioner crashed into the line of fire, it did not run in a straight line like an ordinary executioner.

It suddenly stopped during its charge, its powerful hind legs plowing two deep furrows in the mud, and its carapace spewing out high-pressure biogas to forcefully suppress its momentum—this was a feint.

The ground shook.

Xiong Wei's heavy shield clashed with the executioner's shoulder armor.

Nine-ton heavily armored infantrymen and ten-ton biological behemoths collided head-on, and the shockwaves simultaneously sent surrounding insect corpses and rubble flying.

The executioner's bone scythe swept across, but Xiong Wei blocked it with his heavy shield. The power hammer then smashed out from the side of the shield, hitting the outer reactive carapace of its chest cavity.

The shell burst open, and acidic blood splattered everywhere.

But the muscles around the giant beast's damaged carapace contracted rapidly, sealing the crack shut.

The other bone sickle thrust backward from below, aiming straight for the bear guard's waist and abdominal joint.

Xiong Wei took a half-step to the side.

The bone scythe grazed the outer layer of the power armor, sending sparks flying, as the two sides clashed.

This executioner is indeed more troublesome; it can feint, change direction, and block.

Soon, even more Dominator-level executioners pressed forward.

They formed a wedge-shaped square, with the front row using sloping shoulder armor to create a living iron wall, while the rear row spewed out corrosive anti-aircraft guns and bone spikes from the gaps.

The low-level blade insects weaved around the giant beast's feet, filling gaps in the firepower and forcing the Imperial firepower to be unable to easily flank it.

It must be said that this tactic is very effective.

The first salvo of heavy artillery from the XV8 series slammed into the front-line behemoths, shattering their armor and sending blood and flesh flying, yet the Dominator-class executioner column continued to advance.

The most severely injured end retreated voluntarily, while the other end immediately took its place, its shoulder armor filling the gap, and the phalanx continued to advance.

The Dominator-level executioner finally gave Xiong Wei a worthy opponent.

These are heavy tactical nodes built by the Norn Queen using massive amounts of biomass, representing a targeted evolutionary process by the swarm against the Bear Guards.

On the battlefield, behemoths collided with giants.

Bone scythe smashes shields, power hammer shatters armor.

The corrosive cannon tore through the ground, and the heavy axe cleaved into his chest cavity.

One after another, the Overlord-level executioners charged forward under the barrage of cannon fire, while one after another, the Bear Guards stepped forward to meet the giant beast.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The battlefield was like two giant meat grinders colliding.

Inside the frontline command post, Lawson looked at the combat data of the Dominator-level Executioner and sneered.

"They've finally decided to invest."

The Norn Queen's adjustments were faster than expected.

A new species has evolved so quickly.

Kolosen knew very well that this kind of thing couldn't be cheap.

The stronger the Tyranid organism, the more biomass it needs.

It is common knowledge that the more complex the neural tissue, the more scarce nutrients, synaptic chambers, and incubation time it needs.

Lawson's judgment was correct; the swarm was indeed in a panic.

Ordinary executioners are simply heavy siege beasts that are led by synaptic nodes to charge forward.

The Dominator-level Executioner directly inserted the command function that should have been performed by external synaptic organisms into the deepest part of its own chest cavity.

That massive mass of neural tissue was essentially close to a miniature brain worm.

To protect this core, the Norn Queen added layers of ribs, reactive carapaces, sloping chitinous armor, and an exaggeratedly thick muscle sac.

Its dummy head can be punched through.

Its outer shell can be blown apart.

Its shoulder armor can peel off actively, like a living reactive armor, to counteract the penetration of shards and heavy artillery.

It can even stop suddenly, change direction, feint, block, cover, and replace wounded while running at full speed.

But all of this costs money.

The swarm's currency is biomass.

In order to create this batch of Overlord-level executioners, the Norn Queen had to adjust the entire hatching structure.

The number of Blade Bugs, Gun Bugs, Flying Bugs, and Ordinary Warrior Bugs that should have been continuously flooding the battlefield was reduced by a portion of their hatching quota.

The low-level insect swarms that should have filled trenches, consumed ammunition, and flooded defenses were instead drained of nutrients and fed into fewer, more expensive, and stronger heavy behemoths.

Meanwhile, the Zerg fleet also accelerated the extraction of biomass from other conquered worlds.

Some planets that were not yet fully digested were prematurely drained.

Some rear meat depots that were supposed to provide a stable supply of Notillon and Prometheus were forced to send their reserves for the next few days, or even the next ten days, to the front lines ahead of schedule.

Terran swarms rarely choose this strategy voluntarily.

Because it does not conform to the most reliable cannibalistic logic of the swarm.

The Terran's forte in warfare has never been fighting with expensive elite troops against the enemy, but rather using massive numbers of cheap individuals to wear down the enemy, using death to recycle death, and using corpses to breed the next swarm of insects.