Tick-tock, tick-tock.
In the depths of a desolate planetary wreck, silence reigned. The stone walls here were unusually slick, vaguely discernible as stalactites and stalagmites formed from deposits of calcium carbonate and other minerals. Across their surface, pools of dark, nearly black, deep-purple viscous matter writhed.
Creep.
Unlike the outer rim of the planetary remains—where the creep, frozen by the cosmic cold of more than minus two hundred degrees Celsius, had lost its vitality and resembled a 'pigment coating'—deep within this planetary husk, the creep was alive.
These dark-purple substances that covered nearly every cavern surface pulsed like writhing gel, laced with vascular networks resembling living tissue. They throbbed as though breathing.
The cavern walls crawled with soldier bugs, stationed like vigilant guards.
In sight were some with bodies built for extreme mobility, some with scythe-like limbs sharper than blades, some armored with thick chitin plates… and many others resembling diligent worker bees, scurrying tirelessly through the rifted caverns.
Beneath them lay heaps of active eggs, packed tightly together. Through the translucent membranes of those about to mature, within the murky amniotic fluid, clawed and fanged larvae writhed, ready to burst from their shells.
Guzzz~
At that moment, the central spawning pool upon the creep suddenly roiled. Formed from dark-purple viscous fluid, the spiked, beast-mawed pool surged—splash!—
Water dripped into puddles, giving off soft echoes.
Then, as a nearly four-meter-tall, seven-to-eight-meter-long monstrous beast rose from the spawning pool, swinging the two long, sharp appendages jutting from its shoulders, every insect resting upon the creep lifted its head almost in unison.
Screee!
Its forelimbs were more slender than the rest, refined and streamlined. A crown-like fan-shaped crest adorned its head, its whole body armored in grayish-purple chitin. Behind it swayed a tailbone more than three meters long, its bladed tip glinting with the light of death.
The broodmother turned toward the source of the tremor, intelligence flickering in its gaze.
There, within the reach of its psychic command, countless soldier bugs had suddenly gone silent.
"Humans?"
"Of the Terran Dominion? Or…"
Its rasping mandibles clicked out syllables with inflection. If a third party had linked with the broodmother's mind, those alien sounds would translate into its doubts and shifting emotions.
Anger.
Or perhaps grievance.
Bastards!
A mere dozen dared to trespass upon a broodmother's territory and run rampant!
Hissss—!
Its thickly armored skull, linked by a web of neural strands, housed an advanced biological brain, its psychic might immense. Without facing the enemy directly, simply from analyzing the information relayed by a king bug, it unleashed a furious roar.
If not for that dragon…
It had been resting peacefully, intending—under the renewed command of the Queen of Blades—to once more gather its swarm, marshal its forces, and march toward the Queen of Blades' position, leaving behind this world laid barren by Zerg infestation.
Unlike most mindless Zerg who knew only slaughter, as a broodmother it possessed the ability to solve complex problems, to multitask, and to command lesser kin.
Every broodmother was a vital piece of the Zerg race. They were the reason the swarm was split into multiple 'independent' hives.
And it—was the leader of a great hive!
Soon it would respond to the call of the sole current Zerg overlord—the Queen of Blades—and rise once more to unleash the swarm's apocalypse.
As in times past, it would command its hive to fight for the Queen of Blades.
Whether it was once the United Earth Directorate fleet, the Protoss, the Kel-Morian Combine, the Umojan Protectorate, the Terran Confederacy, or now the Terran Dominion—in its mind, there was no enemy the Queen of Blades could not overcome.
That confidence had driven it to amass a nearly inexhaustible hive fleet, draining this poor primitive planet of everything. Countless Zerg were hatched: drones, overlords, zerglings, queens, hydralisks, banelings, overseers, roaches, infestors, corrupters, mutalisks, broodlords, ultralisks, leviathans…
Everything was perfect, until… just as it awaited the Queen of Blades' next command to gather, a thunderous boom erupted.
Against the light of the star, from a rift in the void, descended a massive blue-and-white dragon.
Yes—because the Queen of Blades' former self had been Terran, it had taken pains to learn all it could about them. According to Terran knowledge, that creature was none other than the dragon of their children's bedtime tales, a beast of chaos, greed, and lust that snatched away children.
And then… nothing more.
That dragon had sat its bulk down upon the surface, and before its hidden swarm could even emerge to fight, tens of thousands were crushed. The worst part—it was my loss!
Why did the evil dragon act so disgusted, as though startled?
Then came a mouthful of "plasma dragon spittle."
Still summoning its swarm, it only knew that when the white brilliance poured down, when the plasma's radiance outshone the star itself, its brood threw themselves upon one another to form a wall of flesh around it.
It would never forget that moment: a single, colossal plasma beam pierced the planet's crust in an instant.
The countless Zerg brooding and hatching below were incinerated by the sweeping heat.
Hydralisks, zerglings, leviathans, ultralisks, broodlords—either obliterated in the first wave of plasma, or crushed to pulp in the planetary upheaval as the crust split apart, or hurled into the freezing void of space…
When it finally regained consciousness from the deafening explosion, the swarm was gone, the planet sundered, and the vast Zerg army it had painstakingly raised was all but annihilated—only a pitiful handful of stragglers remained, cowering in the nest.
The culprit, brushing itself off without a trace of guilt, was long gone.
It fell into despair.
After ordering the overlords and queens to resume producing and hatching, it plunged itself into the spawning pool at the hive's core.
How could it face the Queen now?
Other broodmothers commanded vast armies, while it looked like a rabble fleeing for its life…
And now, a mere dozen Terran soldiers had dared to venture into its hive, treating it like some soft target, taking advantage of its weakness.
Though these Terran marines were bulkier, and their weapons looked more advanced and intricate than the C-14 gauss rifles and CMC-300 powered armor it remembered…
Still—
A broodmother without her swarm was nothing compared to even a queen?
Hissss~
The endless chain of explosions, deeper and heavier than the rattling of 'spine launchers,' gnawed at the broodmother's mind. It climbed furiously out of the spawning pool, its gleaming limbs like steel needles, shrieking in rage.
"Arrogant wretches! Gather all forces… No, I shall go myself—I will tear these Terrans apart!"
Even without its swarm, it could not defeat the dragon—but them? It could.
Hissssss!
...
Boom! Boom-boom-boom!
In the dark, damp tunnels, standard explosive rounds cut through the shifting sea of fire. Bright yellow bursts tore into insect flesh, shrapnel and flame devouring scores of Zerg, shockwaves scattering their ranks.
Yet within the next instant, more poured forth to replace them. Nearly every second, dozens, even hundreds of bugs surged from the pits.
Their repulsive screeches filled the caverns. In reply, the nozzles of flamethrowers spat narrow tongues of fire, lashing out to meet them head-on.
Whooosh—!
The creep burned, the sudden surge of scorching heat nearly roasting the swarm alive. More than roasting, though, it was the boiling blood and brain matter bursting from ruptured carapaces that spread faster than anything else.
Hissss—!
Whether small but vicious zerglings, hydralisks firing armor-piercing spines from beneath their chitin plates, or ferocious mutalisks—in the face of high-pressure flamethrowers, all were equal.
Crack-pop!
Countless boils swelled on the bodies of Zerg piling forward in waves, spreading from ruptures across their frames.
Slowed down, it was clear: the instant the scorching flames touched their carapaces, they melted like frying eggs. Boils swelled, swelled again, then burst—spewing yellow-green fluid in sprays.
Heat weapons, incendiaries, plasma arms—against them, such tools were wasteful. Using powered melee weapons or explosive bolts one by one was even more inefficient. Indeed, high-pressure flamethrowers proved the most effective.
Expecting a swarm, beyond the standard squad weapon loadouts, several more flamethrowers had been issued. Half of the combat servitors assisting in coordinated support also bore flamethrowers.
Clatter-clash!
One silver-armored warrior, eyes glowing red, swung up a massive powered greatsword. With arcs of crackling disintegration fields, he cleaved straight through a tunnel.
"Our target is the hive mind. Keep formation."
Heavy boots thudded upon the ground. Raising his hand, John fired a plasma burst into an 'eye' hidden among mutalisks. It possessed numerous additional sockets filled with hyper-evolved sensory receptors, a creature obsessed with detecting the slightest movements and bypassing the highest-grade camouflage.
"The fiercer the attack, the more it proves my judgment correct. A hive mind is watching us."
Sizzle!
At the head of the formation, John—117's energy shield rippled under impacts. Bone-white armor-piercing spines clattered to the charred, burning creep beneath him as they lost momentum.
He ignored them. Raising his arm, another plasma burst tore through the chest of a hydralisk lurking behind zerglings, the blast clearing the tunnel briefly.
Shing!
Then, reversing his grip, his power halberd flashed, cleaving leaping Zerg into neat halves.
"These things differ from the Flood."
In his helmet display, Cortana appeared, enlarging the image and listing every type of Zerg encountered so far.
"The deadliest part of the Flood lies in their parasitic spores and the unpredictable mutations of each host. In contrast, these creatures seem like carefully gene-coded bioweapons, consciously divided into distinct roles and specialties. They're like a synthetic army, complete with every unit type."
"Mm."
Slash—!
John only nodded, but his movements did not slow. When more swarmed a tunnel, he rushed in, his blade shimmering with blue arcs. In a dazzling instant, hundreds of Zerg were severed cleanly, smooth cuts leaving blood to gush a moment later.
"Combat servitor Honkai energy batteries at 23.7% expenditure. At current output, with basic action and live-fire capacity sustained, expected duration: two hours."
Seasoned as ever, Cortana monitored the squad's integrated data without waiting for orders.
"Good. Enough."
Picking up a larva slightly less grotesque than the others, John held it briefly before crushing it into pulp, blood spraying like a smashed watermelon.
Too hideous, too twisted. Better not to test it yet—who knew what memory-transfer effects consuming it might cause.
"Advance. Increase speed."
There was no Astartes warcry, no fanatical chants of Imperial auxiliaries or servitors. John spoke flatly:
"Yes!" ×N
Boom! Boom-boom-boom!
Whooosh—!
Rumble—!
Splatt—splatt—
...
Under John's lead, the Daemon Inquisitor squad pressed deeper into the tunnels. Behind them lay only filth and heaps of Zerg remains—some reduced to charred, twisted husks, others blasted apart by searing plasma.
An execution of ruthless efficiency.
Crunch!
"Rooaar—!"
The clash of steel echoed violently as a massive beast collapsed, shaking the tunnel. Before John lay a monstrous creature like a mutated tortoise, a living siege engine. A power halberd pierced its skull, the blade nearly cleaving its chest in half, yellow-green ichor gushing like a fountain, not yet ceased.
"Cortana, gather the data."
Around John surged violet-red Honkai energy, the very light dimming as it was absorbed into raw violence. Even the flames among the swarm seemed pale by comparison.
"We're close."
The Zerg grew fiercer with every wave. John assessed calmly.
Then—rustle, rustle—
The swarm abruptly halted. At the end of the tunnel, surrounded by countless insects, the broodmother bellowed in fury: "Terrans—!"
Inside his helmet's display, Cortana's expression shifted to amusement: an enemy not fleeing, but striking back.
"Wow, this hive mind talks. In English, no less. Looks like we found our target, Chief. Take it alive."
"Understood."
Thud!
Heavy steps crushed creep and stone.
Bzzzzt—!
Blue-white arcs flared from his halberd's disintegration field.
"Rrr—Ter—"
...
Beep.
"Inquisitor, this is Daemon Inquisitor Squad. I am 117. Target captured."
—
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