The Tyranid Swarm's offensive was like an endless tide of flesh and blood, crashing in wave after wave against the stubborn reef of the "Hedgehog" fortress. The mortar positions in the rear roared continuously, pouring tons of high-explosive ammunition into the no-man's-land.
Each explosion stirred up a bloody storm of dirt and shredded meat, significantly alleviating pressure on the front line.
The battle settled into a brutal yet efficient cycle. The vast majority of the swarm was annihilated by the outer defenses and artillery fire. Any stragglers that managed to rush into the trenches were immediately torn to shreds by the crossfire. If, by extremely bad luck, one or two elite units or a small group of the swarm broke through the firepower, the ogryn players in the company would roar and charge forward.
His massive body served as the best mobile cover, using his flesh, blood, and bludgeon to buy precious firing time for his teammates behind him.
Although there was only one ogryn in the entire company, in this kind of heavily fortified trench warfare, it was not easy for the tyranid to frequently get close, so overall, it was just barely enough.
However, maintaining this steel defense line required a massive consumption of ammunition. After the battle had lasted for nearly an hour, a change quietly arrived.
The first to fall silent was the heavy lumberjack gun (heavy weapon) that had been roaring the loudest in the fortress. RNGesus pulled the trigger, but the gun's mechanism only made a few weak "clicks" and no longer spewed its deadly fire.
He turned his head to look at a Helldivers squad member who should have been getting ammunition from the storage room but was now casually leaning against the wall, as if admiring the scorched landscape: "Out of ammo?"
The squad member shrugged and spread his hands: "Isn't it obvious?"
Just then, a chorus of empty clicks echoed through the fortress like a plague. The laser guns in the hands of other players also failed to respond when their triggers were pulled, leaving only their indicator lights weakly flickering. Several Helldivers took multiple magazines from the fire pit and swapped them in, but they all only produced the empty clicks of depleted energy.
"Squad leader, I'm out of bullets."
"My gun's also jammed."
"Mine too."
RNGesus frowned, wondering whether he should use the company channel to ask the adjacent position for some bullets, when shouts from the adjacent position already carried through the trench: "Hey! guys from the next squad! Do you still have any bullets? Can you spare some?"
An awkward silence lasted for a second on C3's side.
RNGesus took a deep breath and shouted back across the trench: "We're out too! Fix bayonets!"
"Damn it!"
The Helldivers didn't hesitate. They all dropped their empty guns, which were worse than mere fire pokers, and drew various melee weapons from their backs or waists. chainswords buzzed, power swords gleamed with energy, and many more drew standard combat knives, preparing for the final frenzy.
The swarm would not stop because you were out of bullets. Deprived of suppressing ranged fire, the tyranid tide broke through the outer defenses at an unprecedented speed, surging into the trenches in a dense, dark mass.
The narrow, concrete-poured zigzag passages instantly transformed into the most primitive and bloody gladiatorial arena.
A Termagant leaped down from the wall, attempting to pounce on a player, but he dodged aside, simultaneously striking back with a chainsword, cleaving it in half from top to bottom. However, before he could catch his breath, another Termagant hung upside down from the ceiling, its scythe-like forelimbs stabbing down like lightning, piercing his chest.
"The Emperor kill them!" the player roared in his last moments, clinging tightly to the creature on him, using his body to block a corner of the passage.
"Hold the entrance!" RNGesus shouted.
The ogryn roared, wedging his massive body into the entrance of the communication trench. The bludgeon in his hand became a blur of motion, smashing any approaching creatures to pieces, scattering blood and gore. He was like an unbreakable city gate, while the players behind him used the cover he created to stab the dense swarm with bayonets through the gaps.
The battle had lost all semblance of tactics, becoming only the purest form of killing and being killed. The Tyranid Swarm poured in from the ground, walls, ceiling—from every conceivable angle. The Helldivers, in turn, wielded their weapons, putting all their strength into slaying the enemies before them.
A player was knocked down by three Termagant. Before he was torn apart, he pulled the pin on his last grenade. The booming explosion turned him and the surrounding creatures into fragments, the splattering blood even coating the ceiling.
The close-quarters combat in the trenches became increasingly primitive and brutal.
The bodies of the Helldivers and the Tyranid Swarm piled up, quickly forming nauseating dams of flesh, carapace, and broken metal. These "walls of corpses" greatly hindered the advance of subsequent tyranid, blocking the narrow passages completely and making it impossible for them to move.
The Hive Mind evidently noticed this problem. Some larger Warrior tyranid began to tear and crush the bodies blocking the way with their massive scythe-claws, attempting to clear a path forward.
But often, no sooner had they destroyed a portion than new Helldivers would roar and charge forward, actively using their bodies to block the breach again. Both sides' bayonets and claws could pierce and kill enemies through the gaps in the corpses, but this only made the passage more congested and the dam of flesh and blood more solid.
The battle fell into a strange equilibrium.
Now it seemed that, although the fortress had been breached due to lack of ammunition, as long as the Company Commander was alive, the Helldivers, who could revive indefinitely, could tie down the massive tyranid in this underground labyrinth. This tactic of filling the front line with lives was even more efficient than the previous firepower saturation, and it might delay them for even longer.
RNGesus had just lopped off a Termagant's head with his entrenching tool and was about to catch his breath when someone clapped him heavily on the shoulder.
He instinctively turned his head, only to see the face of the guy who should have been leisurely browsing forums in the command room.
"Company Commander?! What are you doing out here?!" RNGesus exclaimed in shock.
The Company Commander simply pointed behind RNGesus: "Then look behind you!"
RNGesus spun around, his pupils contracting sharply. In the deeper passage behind them, a colossal creature was rapidly rushing forward. It had the body of a giant python, covered in thick carapace, and its huge head was full of sharp teeth—it was a tyranid burrowing unit, a Digger Serpent! Clearly, the ground of the core command room where the Company Commander had been was already burrowed through from below.
"Do you have any heavy weapons left?" the Company Commander asked with extreme speed.
"Already used them all up," RNGesus wiped the tyranid blood from his visor, "but after fighting for so long, I've accumulated quite a bit of merit."
"Forget the merit, keep it for yourselves." The Company Commander took a deep breath, "It seems it's time for me to make my move..."
"What?"
This line, full of a sense of déjà vu, stunned all the Helldivers who heard it. Could their Company Commander, who spent his days drinking soda and slacking off, actually be a hidden master?
The Company Commander let out a loud roar, and his body actually flew up, defying gravity! Immediately after, raging flames erupted from his body, instantly transforming him into a human torch! He shrieked in pain, raising his hands, and two scorching torrents of fire, like giant dragons, spewed from his palms, instantly engulfing the passages in both the front and rear directions.
Whether it was the Termagant horde in front or the Digger Serpent behind, they were powerless before these merciless flames. The Tyranid Swarm, which was about to converge and utterly crush the players into pulp, was instantly incinerated into flying ashes.
"Holy crap?!" The Helldivers present were all stunned, "You had this move and didn't use it sooner?!"
"Because this is freaking psychic power!" the Company Commander wailed in agony amidst the flames, his voice completely distorted, "If I use it, I'll... explode!"
No sooner had he finished speaking than the psychic flames on his body completely lost control. The inferno, like a bursting dam, erupted around him, indiscriminately filling every inch of space within the fortress. Both the Helldivers players and the Tyranid Swarm were incinerated in these purifying flames, without even time to let out a scream.
At the original site of the fortress, a constantly twisting warp rift, emitting an ominous aura, was left behind.
A figure impatiently squeezed out of the rift. It was hideous in form and exuded pure malice.
"Hahahaha!" The demon let out a piercing cackle, "That foolish mortal finally swallowed the poisoned candy I gave him! mortals, suffer, wail, fear! I will take all the souls on this planet..."
Its victory declaration stopped abruptly halfway through.
The newly appeared demon was stunned. Before it were not the delicious, fearful souls it had imagined, nor were there weak mortals waiting to be slaughtered.
Instead, there were thousands upon thousands of dense Tyranid Swarm, enraged by the instantaneous destruction of the massive biomass within the fortress. Their crimson compound eyes stared in unison at this uninvited guest, as if looking at a piece of fresh meat that had suddenly appeared.
"...What are you?" the demon instinctively asked.
Responding to it was a deafening shriek. The swarm surged forward.
"Vile creatures, I shall now bestow destruction upon you... Hmm?" The demon tried to harness the power of the warp, but was horrified to discover, "Why is my connection to the Empyrean so weak?! What are these... these shadows?!"
It didn't even have time to comprehend the terror of the warp's shadow before countless claws and scythes had already pierced its ethereal form. Finally, a tyranid Warrior bit off its head, and the ambitious demon shrieked as it rolled back into the warp.
Its only achievement was, before being overwhelmed, instinctively smashing the head of a Termagant charging at the very front with a punch.
In fact, it should perhaps have been glad. Although this achievement was inferior to even an ordinary Krieg soldier with an entrenching tool, it at least came to the real universe and breathed two breaths of fresh, spore-filled air. If the tyranid had not deliberately weakened the local black screen to lure reinforcements, it wouldn't even have been able to poke its head out of the warp rift.