Chapter 576 94 Dark Expedition (Twenty-One, Hive Will)

Chapter 576 94. Dark Crusade (Twenty-one, Hive Mind)

Khalil stopped slowly.

He raised his head and stared at the sky. The sky over Sosa must once have been beautiful. Khalil had never seen it, but he was willing to imagine it. He felt that the sky in Sosa was most likely a very peaceful and beautiful light blue.

This planet and its system are located at the very edge of the Empire's territory. There are occasional wars, but they have never been ravaged. The Emperor's Scythe takes good care of this place, and even has the ability to patrol other nearby planets.

They were role models, like all the other sons of Roboute Guilliman. But now, there was not even one of them left.

The same goes for Sosa. However beautiful the planet's sky once was, with its painterly quality and intoxicating clouds, it is now a burning red.

There are no clouds or blue skies, and peace no longer exists. The aftermath of the combined fleet's war has spread here, and the wreckage of the battleship captured by Sosa's gravity is breaking into the atmosphere.

Most of them were eliminated by the orbiting space station through weapon arrays, and only a few of them escaped the net and launched an attack on Sousa's surface. Among them are fragments of metal battleships, as well as huge broken pieces of flesh from the Zerg race.

But more spores.

This means that the first stage of the Hive Fleet's attack has arrived - several vanguard ships that relied on numbers and luck to break through the blockade are releasing spores into Sotha's atmosphere under their instinctive urging.

In terms of their size, the bugs carried in these spores are not very large. Some may even be similar to the real 'bugs' in Sosa, but they are still bugs, and their size cannot be judged. important factor in the degree of risk.

Protected by spores, these tiny parasites burst into the atmosphere and quickly land on Sousa's surface, transforming its rich soil into something entirely different.

After this process is over, they can't wait to attack the plant. Within hours, all native plants on Sosa's surface will undergo their final genetic mutation, becoming a deadly species capable of converting oxygen into toxins.

They are about to become the driving force behind the infamous dark red skies of the Zerg Invasion.

After that, their large armies will appear.

Belisarius Cawl gripped his great ax in a low voice and activated the ferocious weapon, his voice sounding no different from the roar of a chariot engine in its hum.

"Are you sure you don't need me to activate my laser protection net? I have made plans for this day. Before the energy is exhausted, they can intercept any spores that may fall near the city."

"Dear Call, I still don't think it's necessary."

Khalil looked at the sky and spoke softly. After saying this, he lowered his head and looked at the great sage who was far taller than him.

"Besides, I'm more curious about why you insist on staying with me than this. This place will become the most dangerous battlefield. Couldn't your smart mind foresee this?"

"Do you want a more hypocritical answer or a more truthful answer?"

Khalil smiled and shook his head: "From the time we met until now, you have always been very real - so I guess the answer is something like experimental data?"

"Indeed," Call said, raising his ax on an appendage on his right side.

The sharp edge of the ax gleamed, and it did not look like the work of the Adeptus Mechanicus. In fact, Khalil was convinced that he saw on the side of the ax a personal emblem belonging only to the Primarch of the Tenth Legion, Ferrus Manus.

Interesting. he thinks. I'm a bit doubtful whether I've been dead for ten thousand years or one hundred thousand years.

"You are very frank, so I will be frank. To this day, I have collected most of the battle information of the original body through various methods. Some are written descriptions, and some are video records."

"I am responsible for a variety of tasks, at least twelve of which are directly issued by the Golden Throne and the Master. I cannot disclose the details to you, but I can guarantee that this information will be of great help to my tasks. ”

"For example, the cruelty and speed of Leon El'Jonson, and the bravery and perseverance of Angron"

He mysteriously extended an appendage, then grasped it and shook it as if he were holding a flask in his hands and that he was in a laboratory. He did not continue the topic, and Khalil shook his head slowly.

"You should be glad I'm an open-minded person, Call."

"And I am a conservative." The great sage laughed strangely. "When I first learned about your existence, I was even a little reluctant to accept it."

"So, what prompted you to accept it?"

Kaul didn't answer this sentence, just lowered his axe. His visual sensors—and any kind of implant that encompassed perception—were screaming at his nerves.

The burden of so many components roaring together is staggering, but Kaul is still able to bear it, even with some ease.

He silently recorded the scene in front of him through his prosthetic eyes. In his field of vision, Khalil Lohars's eyes had become two doors connecting the Sea of ​​Destruction.

They are flesh and blood, eyeballs that are soft and safe in their sockets, but they are also the direct medium for a spiritual tide that sweeps across an unknown number of meters.

The strong wind gradually rose, rising from a strong wind to a level that was difficult to judge within a few seconds. It rushed up to the sky visibly with the naked eye, completely occupying the entire burning curtain, as if it was splashed on the oil painting due to the shaking of the artist's hands. gray paint.

Kaul's alarm program started to sound the alarm, but he did not flinch. He just stretched out his appendages and fixed himself deeply in the wheat field not far outside the city.

They were in the eye of the storm, but the wheat around them only pressed down on them and did not even leave the soil.

A second later, the whirlwind that shot straight into the sky began to move, blowing bit by bit from one end of the wheat field to the other, without causing any damage. Not even a single ear of wheat left the bent main pole. .

Khalil walked calmly, and his whole body felt an unusual sense of 'activity'.

It tells him that this is just the beginning of the warm-up, and immediately urges him: harder!

Of course he didn't.

That's enough for now.

The sky began to spin, and the clouds stained by gunpowder smoke were dispersed. The spores burning across the sky were swept up together, and were quickly destroyed by the sharp cold wind, and the billions of parasites they carried were immediately released.

Dark, twisted, restless and only visible through a microscope. Fortunately, there are so many of them that even if you only look at it with the naked eye, you can clearly see how this black tapestry is gradually decomposed in the storm.

They didn't make any sound, or show any regret or fear, and just died in the whirlwind without any reaction, but Khalil immediately sensed an indifferent and rational peek.

It does not come from a single individual, but a cluster, lurking in the parasite corpses that have not yet been decomposed and staring quietly. The number is enough to drive people crazy, but it contains the same will. Cold, ruthless, and greedy.

Khalil looked back calmly.

He got an indescribable shock.

He smiled as expected, turned around and shrugged at the huge chariot following him, and said: "The first step of the plan seems to have been successful, Caul - what is our first step? "

"I don't remember." The great sage answered honestly and sincerely. "I just want to know what's going to happen next."

He didn't get an answer, but Roboute Guilliman did, and he didn't want it.

He stood on his command platform, staring at the Hive Fleet. Then he discovered that the discrete pieces of flesh were merging.

They were once independent entities, with different types and minute external differences. But things are different now. The differences between the discrete pieces of meat are disappearing.

Boats and boats, bugs and bugs are gradually using their predatory tentacles to penetrate into each other's bodies in the vacuum, becoming more intimate. The biomass and passengers they carry are mingling in the backlog of flesh.

The pure-blood genestealer's body fragments were shattered together with the lowest gunworms, and the gargoyle's head and Likart's carapace were stitched together with the screams of the tearing bugs.

Of course Guilliman couldn't see such details, but he could see the big picture, so he could draw a conclusion with great clarity: the hive mothership was fusing all its ships.

Theoretically, this is completely possible, because the internal organs and blood of the bugs are smaller bugs, and their ships are also bugs.

This means that they can be combined like a common knife insect under the influence of the Hive Mind to form chitinous carapace, muscles, blood vessels and internal organs.

Guilliman tried hard to convince himself through this theory that was just born.

Okay, here are the questions and options.

Q: Why does it do this?

Option 1: Khalil Lohars.

Option 2: Khalil Lohars did something he wasn't told.

Option 3: Khalil Lohars carries out a crazy plan at the instigation of the damn audacious and stupid Belisarius Cawl.

Guilliman filled in all three options on the test paper, and then walked off the podium with a livid face.

This time, he practically ran to the communications array to hurry up the crew, and his frustrated helpers told him that Macragge's Flare still couldn't contact the surface of Sotha.

If Belisarius Cawl could find out about this, he would probably express great regret and then start promoting the various upgrade options he offered for Macragge's Glory. He had wanted to do this for a long time, but Guilliman didn't agree.

What's a pity is that Kaul doesn't know about this. He is currently busy calculating data and has no time to do anything else.

In the overlapping of data flows, Kaul gradually came to a conclusion: This illogical plan is likely to have taken effect, and success is only a matter of time.

Unlike others, Cawl did not view the Hive Mind as a living being. He did not believe that a creature of flesh and blood could do what it did to the Imperium.

Moreover, the Hive Mind strictly adheres to one principle: it will use any means to try any possibility in order to shorten the process of the war.

Looking at it this way, doesn't it look more like a programmed program?

Looking at the center of the increasingly dark sky, Call knew that this principle was once again working for the Hive Mind.

"The plan worked, Call."

Khalil declared calmly in the eye of the storm, he turned his head and looked at Caul. He meant no harm, Caul believed this, but he still had to pay the price for bearing such a look.

High-temperature steam gushed out from behind and was soon torn apart by the storm. A fragment that the Great Sage placed in his chest began to emit stronger energy to supply the thirteen engines placed all over his body, without considering whether he needed it now.

But this was not what he cared about most at the moment. Through the satellite, Caul's vision was divided into sixteen small pieces of uneven size. He observed the rough huge warship from various angles, and still felt pain in his heart.

The Glory of Macragge is about twenty kilometers long, and this Zerg giant ship is about fourteen times its size. This is just the length, not to mention the width. The hive mind simplified the complexities and transformed all the living ships in the fleet into parts of a giant ship.

Cawl didn't even dare to imagine how dense this ship was. Moreover, it didn't even need to launch weapons. Its weight alone hitting the surface of Sosa was enough to bring a huge disaster.

No matter how many times he studied the Zerg, this race could always bring him new things.

For a pure researcher, this was a good thing, which meant that their curiosity could be satisfied again and again.

But Cawl was not a pure researcher. Whether others believed it or not, he embarked on this path to save mankind. From this perspective, he hated the endless evolution of the Zerg.

He commanded the orbital space station through the satellite, forcefully took over the weapon array that was firing at the giant ship according to the automatic program, and then dispatched the ground launch silo to take off forty airships.

His specially designed fighter servants occupied every corner of the cabins of these airships, and they would support the space station that had been boarded. After doing this, Cawl focused on aiming.

He wanted to use maximum power to test the defense capability of the giant ship.

Three minutes later, the weapons array of the space station fired a blazing torrent that illuminated the night sky at the cost of temporary overheating. Caul raised his head and began to observe from the perspectives of sixteen satellites and his own eyes. The result was not beyond his expectations.

Even at maximum power, the weapons array of the orbital space station failed to cause any damage to the giant ship.

This salvo did penetrate its already unreasonably thick chitin carapace and created a huge crater underneath it. But this was nothing to the ship, it had even begun to heal itself.

Caul considered his words and spoke slowly in the sky that was almost completely dark.

"I must admit that you have an incomprehensible foresight. My satellite told me that the Hive Fleet has gone crazy and has put all its ships into a brutal biological fusion."

"I have reason to believe that this is just to gather biomass to create a killer that can rival you in its eyes. Everything is the same as the plan, but the problem is, what should we do with the huge ship after the fusion is completed?"

"That ship will not exist for long." Khalil said.

After a short twenty minutes, his words came true again. Through the images provided by the satellite, Cawl saw the latest status of the giant ship very clearly: it was disintegrating.

The hundreds of meters thick carapace was the first part to show this sign. The strange cold white color completely turned black in just a few minutes, and then shrank and turned into mucus.

The exposed flesh and blood below followed closely, and the huge blue-gray meridians of unknown purpose beat at high speed on its surface, causing the flesh and blood to wither quickly, and finally even turned into flying ash.

From the bow to the stern, every part of it began to disintegrate. The combined fleet did not even need to continue firing. This unprecedented giant ship gradually died.

Its skeletal remains floated in the vacuum, quickly froze, and had long lost their activity. The starry sky that had been occupied was now empty, but Caul still found a small white object.

He manipulated the satellite, mobilized computing power, and magnified the image.

He saw an embryo.

No, not an embryo, but a small spaceship, but it looked like an embryo. The streamlined shape and its smooth white surface were full of deception. It was not big, not even as big as a Cobra-class destroyer, but it was extremely fast.

The jet holes designed by the day after tomorrow and placed on both sides of the spacecraft were helping it and its original way to quickly break into the orbit of Sosa.

At this moment, no force could stop it.

The sky burned again, and a meteor-like light slowly crossed the sky and rushed towards the wheat field where they were.

Kaul felt a tingling sensation. He didn't know where this emotion came from, but he hid it well and didn't show it.

The only person who could catch this emotion at this moment didn't pay attention to him at all. He was staring at the sky intently. The light in his eyes gradually faded, and the wind disappeared together. Kaul heard a creepy hissing sound at this moment.

It was not language, but a sound coming from inside his body. He immediately checked himself and found that at least hundreds of data processing interfaces were collapsing. Their common damage conveyed a message to Kaul.

The next second, electric sparks suddenly burst out from inside Cawl's body, the gears stopped turning, and the inevitable overload and high temperature spread from his feet, instantly igniting the wheat field.

In the choking smoke emitted by the burning wheat ears, Cawl roared in shame.

He was invaded.

He - the great sage Belisarius Cawl - was invaded by the hive mind through psychic power!

A shadow passed in front of him, and Cawl watched furiously but unable to move as the spaceship flew across the sky and slowly landed in front of them smoothly without making any sound. The wheat field continued to burn, and soon turned the surrounding world into a hellish scene.

In the lingering smoke, the white shell of the hull suddenly cracked, and then faded like a withered flower, fell into the mud on both sides, and quickly turned into ashes.

A tall humanoid creature stood up from the center of the hull.

It also had a white carapace, and four strong arms hung down on both sides of its body. Bone blades that were much sharper than blades popped out quickly on the sides of its arms, cutting off some of the blood and flesh pipes connected to its body.

It was tall, but its posture was hunched, its back was bent, its legs were bent deep into the ground, and its muscles slowly expanded under its smooth carapace. Its smooth oval head quietly turned in the direction of Kaul.

At this moment, Kaul lost his vision.

His optic nerves felt a burning pain, and the error prompts of the implants were uninterrupted. The data flow passed through his processor like a collapsed mountain, bringing a nightmare experience.

His backup visual sensor unit was quickly activated by instinct, and then it was damaged again, activated again, and damaged again.

Kaul had to manually program the photosensitive unit in the visual sensor and other sensory processors to temporarily reorganize a new "visual" system, and more data streams continued to fly by.

He wanted to continue observing the battle in this way, but failed. At this moment, in the world of 0s and 1s composed of data, a large area of ​​black garbled code that did not belong to any number suddenly appeared.

As soon as they appeared, they swarmed in, rushing into Caul's data processor like millions of bloodthirsty flying insects, forcing his already overloaded processor and brain to continue to overload

He fell to the ground, twitching in the constant electric sparks.

Khalil noticed this.

"You should focus on me." He said slightly surprised. "He should not be a threat to you."

The thing turned its head and looked at him. Its head was still smooth, but Khalil could see a pair of eyes. These eyes were hanging high above the creature's head, an ancient existence from outside the Milky Way, carrying an endless and eternal hunger.

These eyes looked at him.

"Then let's start." Khalil nodded at it and walked towards it in the sky full of fire.

The creature stood there waiting for him, without taking the initiative to attack. Their behavior made the opening of this battle very strange. There was no wind that could tear the earth apart or force that could shatter the mountaintops. It was just one side moving forward and the other side waiting.

It was not until Khalil walked in front of it that the creature finally changed its posture. In the microseconds that could not be called time, its four arms that were originally relaxed suddenly clenched and swung upwards.

The bone blades wrapped with powerful psychic energy brushed Khalil's face by a millimeter. He watched the four sharp blades slashing into the sky without blinking, and was sincerely surprised by this attack without any warning.

He could dodge it, yes, but the speed and strength shown by this creature.

Could Robert Guilliman, who did not have the forge in his heart, dodge this attack?

He began to make comparisons in his mind and came to a negative answer. He raised his head slightly and looked at the four shining bone blades. They were wrapped with psychic energy from the will of the hive. Khalil would not question their strength and sharpness.

He understood that any mundane metal - whether it was adamantium or radiant gold - could not resist these four bone blades.

In other words, if it was the Lord of Macragge ten thousand years ago, he would probably have been pierced through the armor by this creature in one encounter.

Khalil temporarily stopped thinking and threw a punch at a restrained speed, colliding head-on with the two sharp blades. He threw a fist, but what collided with two of the bone blades was a pitch-black straight knife.

The two psychic energies began to collide, and Khalil narrowed his eyes, ignoring the confrontation in this regard, just maintaining the output of psychic energy at a balanced point, and then began to wrestle with it with the knife.

The agent of the hive will roared silently, its shell was once again lifted by muscles, and the flames dancing around it left their own shadows on the white shell.

With a flash of light, its other two hands also chopped towards Khalil, but still failed to succeed. Khalil blocked the attack with his left hand, but was quite surprised - its speed became faster.

Isn't it the limit yet?

He clenched his hands and increased his strength. If you want to give a reference object, then his current strength is probably the same as Angron before his arm was broken.

The creature did not retreat under such heavy pressure, and it even had the strength to fight back. It raised its bone blade slightly, interrupted the wrestling, and slashed at his seemingly unprotected ribs with unimaginable speed.

Khalil stepped back to avoid the blow and engaged the creature in hand-to-hand combat with the speed of Lion El'Jonson's sword.

Two against four, but never fell into a disadvantage. He could dodge every attack of the hive mind by a hair's breadth, or simply slap it away before the bone blade touched him.

Although he seemed to be at ease, Khalil became more and more serious as the fight went on. He could sense that this creature was getting stronger little by little.

Its strength and speed were being enhanced in this battle, not because of psychic power or the influence of the hive mind, but because of a certain "design" in its body.

In other words, it was exerting its potential little by little.

Where is its limit? Stronger than Vulcan? Faster than Korvus Corax? It doesn't even need any skills, just pure strength and speed are enough to destroy most of the warriors in the empire.

So, can it learn skills? What about tactics? Needless to say, looking at those illusory eyes, Khalil knew that it could do it.

The Zerg can evolve continuously. They are a kind of genetically adjusted creature that can evolve characteristics that completely restrain the enemy.

Thicker epidermis, greater strength, faster speed, extremely strong self-healing ability, bioplasma that can destroy armor, force field waves that can block communications

It's really hard for you to fight this kind of thing for almost ten thousand years, Robert.

Caryl exhaled gently, removing the restrictions on his own strength.

With a flash of cold light, four arms flew high, tissue fluid gushed out from the thick blood vessels buried deep in the flesh, and then were locked by the muscle fibers at the wound that were like independent living things, and another kind of pale white muscle quickly spread from these granulations.

However, in just a few seconds, it grew a new arm, and the bone blade popped out again, launching a new round of attacks on Caryl. And this time, the chitinous carapace on its arm became thicker to a degree visible to the naked eye.

Not only that, their surface has also changed, and a transparent film that Caryl doesn't know what to call is flashing inconspicuously on the surface of the carapace.

Khalil tried to swing his sword again, but this time, the psychic energy failed to work on it, and was completely absorbed by the film.

He took a step back to avoid the monster's counterattack, increased the output of psychic energy, and swung his sword again. The film was broken, and the two arms flew high again.

The monster retreated silently, and the carapace on its chest suddenly cracked. Several tentacles like predatory tentacles popped out forcefully, bringing all six of its own broken arms back into its body.

At this moment, it had regenerated again. The film turned into another carapace, covering the original white carapace. Its new arms looked extremely burly, but the shape was also changed.

It was no longer a structure similar to a human hand, but a mechanical structure. The bone blade replaced the original forearm and became thicker. It looked extremely deformed, but Khalil had no doubt about their killing ability.

I can't fight anymore. He frowned.

There are many hive minds, and no one knows whether they can communicate with each other in some way. These fleets have their own strengths, and have evolved into different appearances according to the defense forces of different invaded areas.

Although the underlying logic is still similar and they still make good use of the Zerg Sea tactics, the gap between them is so great that it is difficult to classify them as the same race.

Khalil originally wanted to test the combat power of this creature in order to classify the archives and promote the research on the Zerg, but now, he has changed his mind.

If he continues to test, he thinks this creature is likely to bring it some bad surprises.

However, there is still a very important question: Is this creature just an emergency plan, or is it a well-prepared Zerg "primarch" that can compete with the gene primarchs?

He narrowed his eyes and his figure suddenly disappeared from the spot. When he reappeared, the two sharp blades had completely pierced the monster controlled by the will of the hive. He drew out the knife at an unstoppable speed and began to swing his arms with extreme concentration.

The precise and unstoppable slashes fell on the monster like a rainstorm, piercing and defeating it. Its living tissue fluid and muscle fibers tried to hug each other and stick together under the blade's slash, but Khalil did not hold back.

Minced meat and tissue fluid continued to splash out, and then were completely controlled by psychic energy. The wheat field was burning, the sky was dark, and the Glory of Macragge, which was coming at high speed, was looming in the sky. There were no clouds in the sky, but it was raining in the wheat field, an artificial rain.

The raindrops were minced meat and tissue fluid, fragments of a powerful creature being dismembered and shot out again and again. It tried to resist, but resistance would only bring more terrifying violence.

Its instinct could no longer understand how to deal with such a "battle". In the higher dimensional world, it was asking for help from the hive mind, but the hive mind could not understand it either, and it was confused.

It could not understand why such an independent individual existed in the material world. When its agent was dismembered to only the twitching lower body, it realized that its judgment was wrong.

Moreover, this time there will be no chance to transfer to other planets to replenish biomass, which means that it will soon face.

Death?

Khalil answered its question by shaking his head.

——It still has a lot of bugs on the space station, but there is another alien waiting there.

He took a step back, and his hands were calmly put down. The blade close to his wrist disappeared into the wide cuffs like a venomous snake returning to its nest.

Countless blue fluorescent lights floated around him, illuminating the entire wheat field, and even left a huge projection in the air in reverse. It looked beautiful and shocking, but if you look closely, you will find that it is actually all broken flesh and blood bound by psychic energy.

Khalil turned around and walked towards Belisarius Cawl. The latter was constantly cursing in binary language under waves of electric shock.

Khalil reached out and pulled him up, and found that part of Cawl's appendages had actually returned to normal and were repairing themselves. Soon, he regained his sight.

At this moment, Cawl had never thought that he still had the emotion of "shock".

He was speechless for a while, staring at the blue light spots around him. The processor that had just eased for a while seemed to be overheating again. Fortunately, he quickly controlled this emotion, but the great sage's suffering today seemed to have not ended yet.

Just as he was about to speak, he saw another meteor streak across the sky. A few minutes later, a gunboat slowly landed, and Robert Guilliman, with his hair standing on end, pushed open the hatch and strode out, rushing towards Cawl.

"Whose idea was this?!" The Lord of Macragge roared, his voice echoing throughout the wheat field.

Khalil stood aside silently.

Cawl looked at him in disbelief.

"Uh--" He tried to utter a single syllable, but Guilliman had already rushed in front of him and grabbed his appendage.

"What kind of engine did you install for yourself, Archmagos?" Guilliman whispered, his face grim.

".I modified and developed it myself."

"What about the energy source?"

"."

"What kind of energy source did you install for yourself, Archmagos?"

Khalil turned his head away and shook his head at the Ever-Victorious Army who wanted to surround him, and they understood and walked back to the gunboat. He looked up at the sky again, wishing that Sosa would never have to suffer such hardships again.

Guilliman's voice came from behind him: "I think you should give me an explanation, instructor?"

Khalil turned his head, blinked, and raised his hands without thinking: "I can write many written reports for you."