Under the squad leader's persuasion, and with the mindset of 'it's not a loss to taste it before I die,' the noobs all pried a small piece of meat from the military-green can and put it into their mouths.
Then, the entire trench fell silent.
The next second, everyone was stunned.
"Holy moly! What kind of divine taste is this?!"
"It's too delicious! Better than any meat I've ever eaten on Earth!"
This was their first time tasting such an exquisite delicacy in this game. Before this, hunger was either eliminated by resetting their status through death or by gnawing on tasteless nutrition bars.
This feeling of happiness, exploding on their taste buds, even far surpassed most of the delicious food they had eaten on real Earth.
One of the noobs with the fastest hands finished eating first. He let out a satisfied breath, leaned against the earthen wall of the trench, and looked up at the sky, trying to savor the lingering aftertaste.
This unconscious action allowed him to see something: "Huh, what kind of special effect is that in the sky?"
Hearing this, the others who were busy licking their cans instinctively looked up. In the hazy sky, countless tiny black specks were falling from the clouds, like a dense spore rain, scattering across the entire planet's surface.
The squad leader was the first to react, roaring sharply: "Special effect my ass, the tyranid has arrived!"
The trench immediately became a flurry of activity. However, under the squad leader's command, the chaos was quickly quelled. Everyone took their positions, nervously gripping the plasma weapons they had just received, and stared ahead.
A noobs couldn't help but ask: "What's going on? We didn't receive any notification that the enemy was coming?"
The squad leader said irritably: "What? Do the bugs have to send an diplomat to tell us before they come to eat people? How come I didn't know the Tyranid Swarm still follows the Rites of Zhou?"
The noobs also realized he had asked a foolish question, chuckled awkwardly, immediately shut his mouth, and focused on observing the front.
Just then, a series of dull cannon shots came from behind. Whistling shells flew over their heads, accurately landing in the open ground not far in front of the squad. But strangely, these shells did not explode; they just quietly stuck in the mud.
The noobs were still wondering what was going on, but the squad leader had already issued a new order:
"Everyone! Immediately check your equipment's airtightness! Now, inject the combat fluid immediately! They're firing gas shells from the rear!"
The noobs immediately complied. Sure enough, as soon as the squad leader finished speaking, the shells that had landed on the ground began to hiss and emit deep green gas. These gases instantly ignited upon contact with the outside air, expanding wildly at an explosive speed. In just over ten seconds, everyone's vision was completely covered by the rolling, highly toxic dense fog.
The ground began to vibrate slightly in a rhythmic manner, and the tyranid's characteristic, scalp-tingling shriek came from the distance, growing closer. Before long, in the players' tactical visors, a large number of white outlines of tyranids were already appearing.
The squad leader immediately shouted: "Don't be in a hurry to shoot! We're holding plasma weapons now! Fire only on my command!"
The players then forcibly suppressed their instinctive urge to immediately pull the trigger, watching as the white outlines representing the enemy in their field of vision grew more numerous and closer.
The squad leader calmly identified the types of tyranid rushing towards them: "Most of them are Termagant and gun worms, with a few Warrior tyranid scattered about. I don't even see a shadow of any other high-tier units... Tsk, I was hoping to at least get a solid hit on an Exterminator."
When the monstrous figures of the Tyranid Swarm burst out of the toxic fog and reached a distance of five hundred meters from them, the squad leader finally gave the order: "Fire!"
Over a dozen scorching plasma orbs instantly shot out of the barrels, tracing dazzling blue trajectories through the dim toxic fog, like a dozen miniature suns. They plunged into the dense tyranid charging formation.
The hit bugs, along with a large area of their surrounding kin, were instantly melted and vaporized. The impenetrable tide of bugs was forcefully cleared out, leaving a large, shocking blank area by this first volley.
The Tyranid Swarm clearly hadn't expected such terrifying firepower from this inconspicuous small trench. But having charged this far, retreating would only cause greater losses. So, the swarm not only didn't retreat but instead let out even sharper screeches and began to accelerate madly.
Dazzling plasma orbs continuously flew out from the trench, turning any daring bugs that approached into steam. A few noobs, their eyes red with bloodlust, even let out frenzied shouts: "Wahahahahaha! Come on! Bugs! Wahahahahahahaha—!"
However, the Adeptus Mechanicus Player from Ryza did not join this frenzy. He was holding an old, hard-covered notebook and writing furiously in it with a metal pen. The squad leader, unlike the other noobs who had all their attention on the front, noticed this and asked somewhat curiously: "You're a tech-priest, using paper and pen to record?"
The other party replied casually without lifting his head: "My memory core is enough to record everything, but I'm used to the feeling of a pen tip gliding across paper; it inspires me."
The squad leader shrugged and didn't bother him anymore. Just as he was about to fire his cooled-down plasma gun again, a stream of green acid rained down from above. If he hadn't reacted quickly and dodged, the acid would have hit him squarely in the head. Even so, his entire right arm was rapidly dissolved by the strong acid, turning into a wisp of green smoke.
With the combat stimulant, he didn't feel any pain. The squad leader shouted: "Up in the sky!"
However, even though the squad leader said 'up in the sky,' those noobs didn't know what to do. Asking them to use slow-firing plasma guns, which required prediction, to shoot at the high-speed, erratically flying Gargoyle in the sky was too difficult.
Ultimately, the Helldivers established defensive lines centered around the major cities on Planditium, and the further out they went, the weaker their firepower configuration naturally became. In such an outermost, crude trench, the only anti-air capability was to randomly shoot laser guns into the sky and hope for luck.
Its essence was to fish: the tyranid were the fish, the Helldivers in the trench were the bait, luring the tyranid to attack these biomass-containing positions, and then detonating the fuel-air bombs buried under the positions for a big strike.
The squad leader also quickly reacted, and he immediately issued specific orders: "Big Bear Second Bear! Come cover me, don't let me die! The rest of you don't worry about those few Gargoyle in the sky, let them spit! Focus on attacking the tyranid in front!"
Thus, a bizarre scene unfolded on the battlefield. The Gargoyle continuously spewed deadly acid from the sky, and the players in the trench were constantly melted and died, but then immediately reappeared unharmed from the toxic fog, picking up their previous selves' weapons, or receiving a new plasma gun from the Adeptus Mechanicus Player, and rejoining the battle.