The alarm did not sound, for it was no longer needed. Every unit silently and efficiently entered combat readiness. Heavy bunker gates slowly closed, and the automatic turrets' shields disengaged, revealing the ominous red glow of their targeting lenses beneath. The Helldivers checked their weapons and took their firing positions, their movements as precise as machines. The entire island fortress, in mere tens of seconds, transformed from a bustling construction site into a silent and deadly steel behemoth.
Then, the sky suddenly darkened.
It wasn't that dark clouds obscured the sun, but rather that light itself was swallowed by an invisible force. A primal fear, stemming from the deepest parts of the soul and the oldest instincts of life, surged into everyone's hearts, as if the end of the entire planet was about to descend the very next second.
Tallen Wick looked up at the sky; the bright sunlight had been completely obscured at some point. Like a beast in the forest suddenly catching the scent of a predator, every biological component in him screamed, urging him to flee the place immediately. Yet, he chose to remain motionless, his mechanical prosthetics firmly fixed to the alloy deck.
Then, he saw the apocalypse.
The 'things' that had obscured the starlight finally revealed their true forms. Countless spore pods, growing twisted tentacles and composed of pure flesh and chitinous carapaces, rained down from the pitch-black sky like an unending downpour, whistling as they plunged towards the earth.
"Omnissiah..." Wick murmured in an almost inaudible voice. In that moment, he fully understood why these people said they had no confidence. This overwhelming number, even if they simply crashed down by their sheer mass, would be enough to crush everyone here and level the entire island.
The next second, the automated point-defense guns on the position began their roar.
Deafening roars instantly swallowed everything. The somewhat dim fortress was illuminated as bright as day by the dense muzzle flashes. Countless tracer rounds formed a net of fire that shot into the sky, precisely tearing apart the spore pods attempting to air-drop directly into the fortress.
Fortunately, other than the highly mechanically modified Wick, there were only the Helldivers, who were already accustomed to the battlefield. Otherwise, the terrifying noise alone would have been enough to instantly rupture the eardrums of any unprotected mortal.
Upon realizing that this anti-air firepower, which disregarded logistical costs, could not be breached, the spore rain above the fortress quickly thinned out and diverted to more distant areas. These unknown xenos evidently possessed extremely high collective intelligence.
And in the distance, beyond the reach of anti-air firepower, countless drop pods successfully landed. A world composed of flesh began to replace the originally ocean-dominated natural landscape at an astonishing speed. Creeping fungus and digestion pools spread wildly; all organic and inorganic matter on this planet was rapidly decomposed, drained, and transformed into pure, viscous liquid biomass.
Wick watched as the originally azure sea level visibly receded. In just over ten minutes, the vast ocean covering the entire planet was nearly dry, revealing the damp seabed below.
At this time, the xenos' attacks on the fortress were still sporadic. Clearly, they didn't care much for this small, stubborn 'nail,' or rather, they completely ignored it.
And the Helldivers' response to this was—to launch a large number of promethium incendiary bombs into the open-air liquid biomass pools. The promethium continued to burn fiercely in the pools, using the liquid biomass as fuel.
The effect was immediate, and the bugs instantly became agitated. The previously open-air biomass pools quickly grew more fleshy tissues, pulsating like giant hearts, and eventually became completely enclosed to shield against the effects of the promethium flames. Simultaneously, large numbers of Hormagaunts and Termagants crowded into a terrifying purple-black and white tide, roaring as they rapidly advanced towards the fortress from the exposed seabed.
However, the bugs still didn't pay much attention to this human force. In their eyes, the biomass here was simply too little to warrant too much investment. Therefore, the one leading them was only an Exterminator—a gigantic bio-weapon with a thick exoskeleton, capable of rapid self-healing, and able to toy with a leman russ tank in close combat.
But a unit of this caliber was clearly not yet capable of ignoring dense point-defense autocannons. Several automated autocannon turrets immediately locked onto it as the highest priority target, and concentrated fire erupted in bursts of blood on its carapace. In just three seconds, the giant beast was torn to shreds.
As for the other Hormagaunts and Termagants, they naturally met the same fate. A casual sweep from the point-defense guns could clear a bloody path through the tide of bugs. Realizing that a frontal assault was unfeasible, the bugs decisively began to retreat.
However, the prepared Helldivers immediately deployed a second wave of promethium incendiary bombs. The target, however, was not the retreating bugs, but the mountains of Pyro corpses piled on the battlefield. The sheer number deployed was so great that the entire area around the fortress became a sea of promethium flames. The biomass that should have been recovered was, of course, completely burned to ashes.
Faced with such a situation, the bugs, in order to preserve more biomass, had no choice but to painfully abandon the corpses. The remaining Hormagaunts and Termagants let out furious shrieks towards the fortress; they surged in like a tide, and then retreated just as miserably.
The engagement began suddenly and ended just as suddenly, so quickly that even Wick was a little bewildered. He looked at the three Magoss beside him and found that they remained solemn, without the slightest hint of relaxation. He then understood that this war was far from over.
Wick couldn't help but ask, "You seem... to have known the detailed information about these xenos for a long time?"
"Yes," Boni replied distractedly, seemingly processing post-battle data, and proactively changed the subject, "What do you think we should name this newly discovered xenos, Tallen?"
"Isn't it called tyranid?" Leonid interjected from the side.
"That was the original!" Boni immediately retorted, "Now we are the first to discover and officially engage them. Perhaps their specific intelligence reports and combat manuals on how to deal with them will all bear our Name! The right to Name is naturally ours!"
"Hmm..." Dimitry pondered for a moment, then said in an extremely serious tone, "How about calling them Pink Fluffy Bunnies?"
Everyone who heard this name couldn't hold back, even Joker's mouth twitched slightly.
Boni rolled his eyes: "Forget it, I doubt anyone would want to be killed by Pink Fluffy Bunnies. I think it's better not to come up with other names; let's just name them after this planet, tyranid."