Chapter 583 Mimicry Hatchlings

The magnificent city of Tarsonis shows the world more than just majestic skyscrapers, comfortable high-end residential areas and fashionable commercial buildings. Beneath its glamorous exterior, there are slums that are considered to be a haven for filth and evil, a word often associated with violence and danger.

The slums are the product of the rapid development of Tarsonis City, with extremely high population density but lack of necessary supporting public safety and sanitation facilities. It is right next to the gleaming marble columns of the Nagfa Hall of the Bundesrat building and the wide, clean streets.

Tarsonis's ugliness, like her glory, cannot be hidden or disguised.

The Tarsonis vividly refer to the slums as rows of drainage ditches next to beautiful giant buildings, and believe that the people living there are just untouchables engaged in menial occupations. They are gutter rats who earn their living by stealing, Make a living by committing crime and rummaging through dumpsters for leftover food.

In the old federal era, slums and wealthy areas were separated by power grids and armed personnel from highly paid security companies. Hell and heaven seemed to be only a short distance apart. If those dissolute rich kids want to experience a thrilling adventure, then the slums are their best choice.

And although the Tyranid Empire government has achieved initial results in the governance of the Tarsonis slums, in the deepest part of its darkness it still maintains the appearance of the past, with no lights and countless small streets and alleys hidden in the darkness. Smells of decay and decay.

Stone, a newly graduated Imperial Ghost Agent, can no longer remember whether he had been to such a place before entering the Ghost Military Academy, but he had actually seen it - in the dream of another Ghost Military Academy student.

Stone's Dark Templar LS Master (Lassatar) once said that many humans have primitive, elementary psychic abilities, which are understood by humans as unexplainable phenomena-intuition, omens, and cause and effect.

The student grew up in this environment until an Imperial agent brought her back to Korhal from the swill and garbage heaps.

In the past, the slums of Tarsonis were full of chaotic shacks built spontaneously. People were like swallows carrying mud, collecting materials bit by bit to build their own shelters. Only the upper class inside could afford to live in prefabricated houses. . Newcomers can only lie down on the open space with ventilation holes. Even a pipe can fit dozens of people, often with no clothes on, like maggots in cheese or shipworms in rotten tree roots.

Gangs and unscrupulous businessmen have colluded to rule the neighborhoods of the slums, and they are the masters here. They sell drugs, enhanced medicines, implanted prosthetics and artificial organs to make huge profits. Anyone who dares not to accept their product will be beaten, so 99% of the people have used drugs, and the children here are born with drug addiction.

People in the slums can only do precarious labor jobs, and women always work while lying down.

"Guys, this place gives me chills," Vega said on the channel. Her psychic index is very strong, not only can she transform and control objects, but she can even invade the opponent's brain and control their thoughts. This means that Vega's perception of danger is also higher.

"Zergs like places like this. They like to build nests and lay eggs in Char's fiery caves. They are as relaxed and comfortable as piglets rolling in the mud." Captain Pierce said.

The old city, deep in the slums here, is no longer inhabited. Relics of the past still exist, but they have almost been reduced to ruins.

In the narrow area between skyscrapers, countless shacks made of aluminum alloy are stacked on top of each other, forming countless streets and lanes. Nowadays, these crumbling houses have long been smelly and black, and only a few thin rats can be seen occasionally.

God knows how these haunting rodents came to the Koprulu sector, or they are just another native species with similar morphology and habits. But just like the colonization activities after the discovery of the New World, rats, fleas and diseases have always accompanied the colonists.

With the help of the helmet's detection function, the ghost agent can even clearly see the lice on the mouse.

"Where are the others?" Stone asked. Although there are no civilians here, they are not the first team to enter here. Each ghost team is independent and will not contact each other at the risk of exposing their location until necessary.

There are no light sources in this area except for the lights from the skyscrapers. It is in these dark corners that the zerg thrive.

During the Brood War, most of the offensive strategies adopted by the Zerg against humans were simple and crude frontal attacks, and humans were unable to stop them at all. At that time, human beings were still very weak in the eyes of the Overlord. As long as the supreme Lord of the Insect Swarm wanted to, the Insect Swarm could raze the most powerful and rich Tyranid human home planet to the ground at any time.

But after the Second Total War broke out, the Swarm switched to a more effective offensive strategy. That is, infiltrating the city through parasitic infection, launching an attack from the inside to weaken human power, and cooperating with the outside when necessary.

Even if parasites are not used to infect humans, there are always those who are greedy and willing to sell out the empire for a few credit coins.

Over the past four years, the Zerg have continued to evolve and grow, just as humans are always developing new weapons and capital ships. In order to deal with the threat of the zerg, even the protoss who uphold the immutable laws of their ancestors are developing new void glow ships to enhance the strength of the fleet. They are also actively looking for new colonial planets and awakening ancient technologies everywhere.

"At least five teams have entered the sewers below, and they are nearby." Pierce said: "Each team carries a reconnaissance drone, and there are a large number of widow mines and black widow spider mines in front of them. Open the way and nothing will go wrong.”

"If these teams discover zerg or are attacked by unknown forces, we will know immediately."

"The evacuation of civilians has greatly increased the vigilance of the Zerg, and they know that they have been exposed." Vega said: "If I were the Zerg, if I had known that the enemy was coming, of course I would not sit at home and wait."

"Either strike in advance or set up an ambush."

"You're scared." The speaker was a female ghost agent named Tanya. She has an enviable status as one of the personal guards of Emperor Augustus Mengsk.

The female ghost agents are all beautiful.

Tanya was sent to Tarsonis to cope with the shortage of manpower here. Her level is not high, but her fire control ability is extremely lethal to the zerg.

"I'm actually worried that you are scared. Don't think that you can look down on people just because you have been a servant in the palace." Vega retorted: "You must have made the queen unhappy before you were kicked out of the palace. No one can escape from the little thoughts. Her eyes."

The Queen of the Tyranid Empire is also one of the most powerful ghost agents since the establishment of the Ghost Project. Every student who studies in the Ghost Military Academy will inevitably hear the instructors nagging: I feel that I am not as good as Queen Kerrigan in this way, and I am not as good as her in that way.

Yes, Kerrigan is indeed the best Ghost agent, but her greatest achievement is becoming the queen of Emperor Augustus.

"But I know you are just scared." Tanya said: "No matter how high your test score is, it can't change the fact that you are just a chick in actual combat, but don't hold back."

"Shut up." Vega said, "I just feel disgusting down there."

Stone, on the other hand, remained silent. Perhaps female ghosts always like to quarrel.

Speaking of which, it turns out that Stone is a somewhat irritable person, and as a ghost, he always has his own ideas about combat plans, and it is inevitable that he will have disputes with others. However, whether it was Vega or Tanya, he was no match at all.

"Wait a minute, this is not a ladies' tea party." Pierce said as he lifted a sewer manhole cover, turned over and jumped down, with the team members following closely behind.

It was an unsettling night, and the Tarsonis had no idea what was happening beneath their feet.

After jumping into the sewer, Stone still felt a sense of suffocation even though he had already activated his breathing mask. The air was so rancid and rotten that the flames lacked enough oxygen to fully burn.

The sewer system in Tarsonis City has a history of more than two hundred years, and has continued to extend as the city expanded, eventually turning into a huge underground world. Even if the engineers who built these sewers are still alive, It's impossible to tell what it originally looked like.

The entire city of Tarsonis was built on it, which is why this incident attracted so much attention from the Augustgrad Palace. With the continuous influx of new immigrants from the outer colonies, the city of Tarsonis alone has a population of 3.7 billion. And no matter how many people there are, it won't take long for the zerg to completely devour them.

"It looks like there are no signs of the presence of zerg here." Stone has seen those infected human buildings in textbooks and video collections, but now everything seems to be normal.

It probably hadn't seen sunlight in a century or two, and they were standing in mud and excrement. If not wearing combat uniforms, people who stay in such an environment for a long time will soon suffer from serious skin diseases.

It turns out that the work of unblocking sewers was done by residents of slums. The cost of hiring sewer cleaners is far less than the cost of maintaining cleaning robots, and such jobs are fiercely fought for in the slums.

Hundreds of people die in Tarsonis's sewers every year, and many more disappear due to disorientation within.

There is a map of the sewers on Stone's helmet display, and it is simply a spider web extending in all directions. Most of the passages have been marked by reconnaissance drones, and only the area they are currently in is the key marked dangerous area.

"But there's not even a mouse here," Vega said.

"And there is only one kind of life form in the Zerg territory." Stone thought of the knowledge he learned in class.

Never underestimate your opponents, especially if they are Zerg.

Stone followed his team silently through the muddy pipes of the sewers, their latest hostile environment suits allowing them to blend perfectly into their surroundings.

This tight-fitting suit helps Stone channel his psychic powers, increasing his strength and agility. In a duel with ordinary people, even if they are equally well-equipped and well-trained warriors, they are no match for ghost agents.

Of course, a ghost's best weapon is their mind, everything else comes second.

Suddenly, Stone and others were convinced that they heard some kind of high-pitched howl, which was as unpleasant as a blade scraping against glass.

"Team D and Team E are in trouble, guys, they are nearby." Immediately afterwards, a support mission briefing appeared on Stone's mask.

Stone's team immediately entered a state of high-speed movement. The physical enhancement of the combat suit and the new enhancer gave them superhuman speed. The enhancers they use are different from those used by the Marines. They are more effective and have fewer side effects, but they are much more expensive.

Soon, they stepped on a carpet tumor wrapped by tendrils and sarcoma, and the dark brown carpet was spreading quietly under their feet. In most cases, creep acts as the eyes and ears of the swarm.

When a Marine steps on creep, he is effectively exposed.

Not only that, the sewers have been completely transformed into huge chambers, and some cracked eggs have revealed a terrible truth. The ferocious-looking zerg are wandering in the darkness, waiting to deal a fatal blow to the intruders.

But Stone did not see the other ghost teams. Instead, what appeared in his field of vision was a group of weird-looking creatures.

Several miners wearing jumpsuits, farmers holding farm tools, office workers in suits and ties, and even beautiful female singers walked towards the ghost with frightened expressions on their faces.

"Fire!" Of course Pierce couldn't be fooled by such a trick.

These mimicking hatchlings have finally become smarter and will no longer conjure up a bunch of identical clones to fool people.

Stone immediately activated the assault mode of the C-20A canister shotgun in his hand, and killed one of the mimic hatchlings with a few precise bursts. The latter immediately turned into a pool of squirming tissue with a terrifying scream. .

Ghost agents are elite warriors, and the weapons they are equipped with are also the best among individual soldiers. The C-20A is an upgraded version of the C-10 from the old federal era with comprehensively improved performance. It is equipped with a 24-capacity magazine and is suitable for different combat environments.

At this moment, the remaining mimic larvae showed their fangs one after another, and the skin that originally belonged to humans rolled out from the inside out, revealing bloody tissue and blade-like bone blades. Even trained ordinary soldiers would inevitably scream and lose their voices when seeing this horrific sight.

A mimic worm squirmed and moved forward quickly with its two pairs of extended forelimbs. Its everted tissue and the tissue underneath it were disgusting.

Suddenly, Stone's heart seemed to stop for a moment, because the face of the mimic larva turned out to be His Majesty Augustus Mengsk, and it obviously imitated the holographic projection image.

Immediately afterwards, the mimic larvae that was rushing towards Stone immediately burned in the scorching blue flames, making a painful squeaking sound. It was Tanya who took action. She was lighting the mimic hatchlings one after another like a fire mage.

"I almost rescued you." Vega ran past Stone.

"Well done, Tanya." Stone looked at the face burning with blue flames and said suddenly:

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty."