The efficient killing of plasma weapons brought an addictive thrill. After concentrating their fire for a long time, the players noticed that the endless Tyranid Swarm in front of them seemed to have suddenly crossed an invisible boundary, becoming sparse and losing its momentum.
The players, who had been highly focused, were all stunned by this scene. One player scratched his helmet and said, somewhat uncertainly, "What's going on? Is it... over?"
Looking at the pathetic scene in front of them, where there were no more reinforcements, only a few scattered Termagants and Gun Termagants instinctively charging forward, the players couldn't help but feel a hint of disdain.
"I feel like these tyranids aren't all that great? All bark and no bite."
"Exactly. I thought they'd be ferocious, but this is all the force they have?"
"It's best not to underestimate them," the squad leader's voice cut in, pouring cold water on everyone. "tyranid tactics are ever-changing. They might be mobilizing stronger units. Let's quickly take care of these remaining ones first."
"Yes!" everyone responded, raising their weapons, intending to clear out the few straggling bugs.
Just then, the ogryn Player named Big Bear quickly spoke up: "Wait, Sir, don't kill them yet! We... let's capture them alive."
"Capture them alive?" The squad leader looked at him strangely. "Why? Saving them for New Year's?"
The ogryn scratched his massive head and said in a simple yet excited tone, "I... I want to try what it feels like to raise a tyranid."
As soon as he spoke, there was a second of silence in the trench, followed by a burst of exclamations, and everyone gave him a thumbs up: "Awesome! Only you can come up with something like this!"
"Holy crap, raising a Termagant as a pet dog, huh? That's so punk rock!"
"I support it! squad leader, let's go capture them alive? This sounds so much fun!"
Even the squad leader was intrigued by this outlandish suggestion. He grinned: "Alright, why not capture them?"
With that, he turned to try and get the Adeptus Mechanicus Player to join. After all, if a Tech-Priest participated, using his technology and equipment, the capture would obviously be much easier.
"Brother, are you joining us for a..."
However, when he turned his head and saw the scene behind him, his words caught in his throat, and he was completely stunned.
The Tech-Priest, who should have been standing not far behind them, calmly recording data, was long gone. In his place, in the distance, was a rapidly receding, almost invisible red figure.
Only the Omnissiah knew when he had run off, and how he had run so fast.
The other noobs followed the squad leader's gaze and also noticed this, falling into a state of confusion. They completely failed to understand why the seemingly professional Adeptus Mechanicus Player had run. Weren't they in a great situation now, even having time to catch pets?
"Not good..." The squad leader was the first to react, the two words almost squeezed through his teeth.
Before he finished speaking, the sky suddenly darkened.
A massive, rain-like shower of splintered bone shards descended from the sky, emitting a sharp whistling sound, instantly covering the entire position. These living projectiles, fired by tyranid ranged bio-artillery, split into countless tiny bone fragments in mid-air, each carrying deadly kinetic energy and penetrative power.
The relaxed players had no time to react. The world in their eyes was instantly filled with countless rapidly falling white lines, and then their bodies were riddled like sieves by this terrifying rain of bone shards.
Planditium, Strategic Command.
On the huge holographic star map, hundreds of light points representing the outermost outpost positions had been extinguished one by one at an alarming rate over the past nearly an hour, turning into glaring red, signifying loss of contact.
A cold electronic voice continuously reported the last signals of various squads—usually a reading of a violent energy burst, followed by eternal silence.
EGO stood in front of the command console, watching data streams cascade across the holographic screen before him. A staff officer quickly walked up to him and handed him a data slate.
"The first line of defense has completely lost contact. Initial assessments have been compiled."
EGO took the data slate and quickly scanned the report. His finger swiped across the screen, finally pausing on a line of anomalous data.
"Most of the outer squads activated self-destruct within ten to twenty minutes of engaging the Tyranid Swarm," he said, pointing to the data. "But this squad, they held out for nearly an hour."
He looked up at the staff officer beside him: "How did this squad manage to hold out for an hour?"
The staff officer was clearly prepared; he knew EGO wanted to know if this method of holding out could be promoted throughout the army. He immediately replied, "Reporting, Sir, I have already inquired. Their situation was quite special; they achieved this level due to having all-plasma weapons."
"All-plasma..." A flicker of understanding crossed EGO's eyes, then he said with a hint of regret, "Alright."
This answer ended any possibility of widespread adoption. Plasma weapons are immensely powerful, but their instability, high cost, and complex maintenance requirements meant they could not become standard issue equipment.
The staff officer continued, "However, after compiling the battle reports from all positions, we found one noteworthy situation."
"Most positions were subjected to a full-scale tyranid assault within the same timeframe. Although there were slight differences of a few minutes in their collapse times due to variations in the personal qualities of the garrisoned soldiers and officers, overall, they were very close. These positions successfully inflicted heavy casualties on the tyranid vanguard cannon fodder units through self-destruction, achieving remarkable results."
The staff officer paused, then pointed to another section of data on the data slate: "However, a small number of positions, such as Outpost 117 which held out for an hour, were bypassed by the tyranid main force, or had stronger firepower, causing other surrounding positions to fall while they continued to resist.
The result was that these 'protruding' positions were precisely eliminated by tyranid long-range fire units from a safe distance. Even if the fuel-air bomb automatically detonated due to the squad leader's death, it failed to achieve any significant results."
EGO nodded: "As expected, it has no major impact. Self-destruction is an open strategy."
"The tyranids cannot possibly avoid using ground units to attack our subsequent positions; those won't be just isolated trenches. If they truly intend to use large-scale long-range artillery units and only deploy a small number of line-filling units, thinking they can just blast their way through... then we will request astartes assistance, gather ogryn and elite veterans, launch a counter-charge, and directly overwhelm them to teach them a lesson."