Chapter 191 Purgatory

Chen Ming won the battle in space by relying on his illogical psychic power and the mechanical race, which had never encountered such an enemy as him.

However, after winning the battle, he found that the situation of the Queen Zerg on the ground was not optimistic.

Just when he quickly dealt with the second batch of reinforcements of the mechanical race, the Queen Zerg was suppressed by the mechanical race.

The reason lies in the centipedes, the main mechanical bodies of the mechanical race, encountered when the Zerg just entered the core area of ​​the city.

Those centipedes equipped with electric charge cannons can directly smash the most powerful front-line meat shields of the Zerg with a single shell, and rely on the aftermath of the explosion of the shell after penetration to affect a large number of Zerg.

Although a large Zerg with a diameter of 40 cm will not die even if a hole with a diameter of 40 cm is opened on it, it also means that it has no way to share the damage for other Zerg.

It can only let the explosion and arc rage in the Zerg swarm.

So in the past ten minutes, in front of the core area of ​​the city, the mechanical race relied on the bombardment of the centipede's charge cannon to suppress the number of Zerg.

And the mechanical centipede here is not only equipped with charge cannon, but also with two other weapons.

Hellfire cannon and charge machine gun.

The hellfire cannon is better, which is the flame shell version of the charge cannon, and the penetration performance is even worse, but the flame killing range after the shell explodes is larger.

But the effect of flame is not ideal when the Zerg on the ground have various means to counter it. On the contrary, pure impact or other damage can kill Zerg more.

For example, the long-range artillery concentrated bombardment of the Fiery Silkworm that forced Chen Ming to use the high point speed spear to support it, and the arc generated by the current charge cannon explosion.

Both kinds of damage can bring devastating blows to the Zerg.

And the charge machine gun also has the ability to destroy the Zerg.

The charge machine gun is called a machine gun, but there is no difference between it and a machine gun.

The bullet diameter is enough to easily break the limbs of the Zerg, and it also has the same terrifying penetration ability as the shells of the Charge Cannon.

Coupled with the high firing rate of the machine gun itself, and the special performance of the charge bullets that explode at the point of impact, producing a violent arc.

These bullets can frequently kill other Zergs after penetrating the front row of Zerg in batches.

In the dense Zerg tide, the strength is much higher than that of the Hellfire Cannon.

It is these three centipedes equipped with different types of weapons that led the rest of the mechanical race to suppress the Zerg's advance, and even looked like they were going to counterattack.

Just as Chen Ming was about to start the idea of ​​supporting the ground that he had just had before encountering the second wave of reinforcements from the mechanical race.

He suddenly found that the fungal carpet under the feet of the Zerg suddenly raised a batch of fungi again.

And the fungi were more dense than before, like a layer of purple curtain covering the front-line Zerg and mechanical race.

Although the Fiery Silkworms and the centipedes equipped with the Hellfire Cannons were quickly clearing the flying fungi, when the coverage area and density of the fungi reached a certain level, the flames could not completely remove them.

At most, all the fungi that fell on the extremely high temperature of the Fiery Silkworms died.

And most of the other mechanical races on the front line were still covered by these fungi.

Chen Ming noticed the specialness of these fungi as soon as the fungi rose.

They were not the fungi that the Queen of Insects used to sense the invisible units of the mechanical race, or it was not quite right to say that they were fungi.

Because Chen Ming found that the key to the matter was not the raised fungi themselves, but the tiny bugs hidden inside these fungi.

These were not the bugs that Chen Ming and the Queen of Insects had made in advance, but the new bugs that the Queen of Insects had just cultivated.

The only reason why the Queen of Insects could cultivate new bugs was those centipedes that were difficult to deal with.

This was the method used by the Queen of Insects to target the centipedes.

Chen Ming withdrew his hand from the control panel at the highest point and continued to watch.

It just so happened that he also wanted to know where the Queen of Insects’ limit was.

As a large number of fungi attached to the bodies of the mechanical race at the front line.

Chen Ming found that these fungi gradually spread on the mechanical bodies and penetrated into the bodies through the gaps between their armor and structures.

From the perspective of other Zergs, it was not possible to see what the fungi and bugs that penetrated into the mechanical bodies were doing.

So Chen Ming immediately connected his consciousness to one of these micro Zergs and broadcast what they saw in real time to his eyes.

It is not quite accurate to say that they saw it. These micro Zergs have no vision. They rely on their own special structures and the surrounding fungi to perceive the surrounding environment.

And because Chen Ming used the hive mind network and psychic energy to access the nerves of the micro Zerg to obtain the images that these Zergs "saw".

So Chen Ming's perspective at this time was extremely distorted.

But after adapting for a while, he got used to it and understood what the micro bugs were doing.

These insects that penetrated into the body of the mechanical race used the fungi that protected them to take root directly on the spot.

They relied on absorbing the extremely tiny energy crystals they carried and the energy of the mechanical race itself to strengthen themselves and continue to spread.

These fungi gradually spread to the bottom of the mechanical body and returned to the outside world.

And they came into contact with the fungal carpet that had unknowingly expanded rapidly under the feet of the mechanical race and connected with the fungal carpet.

With the nutrients provided by the fungal carpet, the fungi in the mechanical race grew even faster.

Almost in the blink of an eye, the entire mechanical race was completely filled.

Just when Chen Ming thought it was over and the micro-bugs only needed one step to completely kill such a mechanical race.

He suddenly found that these tiny bugs hiding in the mechanical race suddenly cocooned, just like the queen of insects.

However, unlike the queen of insects, they did not break out of the shell after cocooning.

Instead, countless nerve-like tentacles grew directly from the cocoon, following the fungi in the mechanical race, and gradually spread to the whole body of the mechanical race.

Then Chen Ming saw through the sensor that a centipede with electric charge cannon, which was covered with fungi all over its body, suddenly turned its muzzle and fired an electric charge cannon at the rear of the mechanical front.

Following closely, other mechanical races that were completely covered with fungi and whose micro-insects inside had developed to the cocoon stage also made the same move.

They were controlled by the micro-insects, betrayed the mechanical race, and used them to deal with their own kind.

Chen Ming didn't know how the Queen of Insects learned to control the mechanical body. It might be that the Queen of Insects learned and used it immediately.

It might also be that some of the knowledge in his mind was shared through the honeycomb network.

But in any case, the Queen of Insects did make another powerful attack before being pushed back.

Although such parasites could not target those fiery silkworms that kept high temperatures all the time, the fiery silkworms alone could not play a decisive role.

Because the number of mechanical races covered by fungi just now was at least 3,000, and nearly 2,000 of these 3,000 mechanical races had such a situation.

The situation on the ground battlefield was completely tilted.

With the betrayal of the centipedes, the mechanical clan's trump card, the Zerg immediately broke through the defense line set up by the mechanical clan at the edge of the city's core circle, and completely broke the mechanical clan's resistance.

Chen Ming also took advantage of the favorable situation on the battlefield to communicate with the Queen of the Zerg.

He learned about the situation of this micro-bug, which was just barely evolved by the Queen of the Zerg, and was created based on it and the genes of parasitic plants and animals.

The Queen of the Zerg can evolve whatever the battlefield needs.

This is the ability of the Queen of the Zerg.

It seems that the Queen of the Zerg should not need his subsequent help.

After consideration, Chen Ming decided to arrange for the cruiser to land on the planet in advance, and prepare for the Zerg to start capturing the remaining mechanical clan individuals.

After all, the main purpose of Chen Ming's raid this time was not to completely kill the mechanical clan on the planet, but to rob the population of the mechanical clan and the colony ship of the mechanical clan.

With the possibility of reinforcement of the neighboring mechanical clan star field at any time, it is obviously very difficult to kill the entire city.

Although if Chen Ming really wants to destroy the city, it is not impossible to just let the cruiser's large weapons wash the ground.

But even mechanical individuals without combat capabilities are quite meaningful to Chen Ming.

Chen Ming will not do things that harm others and benefit himself by washing the ground with weapons.

Only the mechanical individuals that he has snatched are valuable to him.

And now there are new bugs to assist him in capturing the mechanical race.

Now the front line has been pushed into the core of the city by the Zerg, and the Zerg in the rear have spread in the city and started to capture

The front-line Zerg has approached the cruiser in the center of the mechanical city, and will soon be able to completely paralyze all ground forces and let the Zerg take whatever they want.

However, not long after Chen Ming started to implement his plan, an accident happened again.

Not far from the mechanical cruiser, a unique and huge mechanical race that Chen Ming had never seen before suddenly appeared.

Its existence once again curbed the pace of the Zerg tide.

This mechanical family looks similar to a centipede, but it is twice as big as the centipede's average size of about 20 meters.

Its size on the ground battlefield can be said to be far ahead of others, and it is seven or eight meters larger than the giant Zerg.

However, it is meaningless to be huge, just like a centipede can easily shoot through a giant Zerg.

So if this mechanical family is just an ordinary mechanical family, the Zerg would have run over it long ago.

But since it can contain the Zerg tide, this mechanical family is obviously not ordinary.

It exudes a high temperature like a fiery silkworm all over its body, but the heat it contains is much hotter than that of a fiery silkworm.

And this heat that poses a fatal threat to the Zerg did not dissipate with the passage of time like a fiery silkworm, but gathered inside the body and actively transferred to the limbs and feet.

Transferred to the ground in the mechanical city that had been specially transformed by the mechanical race.

The metal ground gradually began to shine due to the high temperature.

A heat wave also suddenly rose from the environment around the city.

The core area of ​​the entire mechanical city was heating up at a terrifying speed with this mechanical race as the center.

The white city originally built by Baiyun Steel Alloy was moving towards the orange-red heat.

The Zerg relied on its own ability to influence the environment to suppress the damage caused by the flames.

When the environment has gradually changed from a normal environment to an environment covered by high temperature and flames, the Zerg's methods are not very effective.

Especially the fungal blanket in contact with the metal ground inside the mechanical city.

As the Zerg advanced, the fungal blanket that spread in front gradually shriveled, lost water, and became inactive under this scorching heat that could cause a city area to start heating up, and even began to burn in the end.

Even if the queen of insects continued to increase the supply of nutrients to the fungal blanket, it could only barely keep the growth rate of the fungi equal to the loss rate.

Once the supply of nutrients is slightly slow, the fungal blanket will be instantly burned into a pool of slag by the high temperature conducted by the metal, and will no longer be able to provide a steady stream of nutrients for the Zerg on the front line.

This is not just a trouble that prevents the Zerg from continuing to move forward.

In addition to the high temperatures that have begun to affect the environment on a large scale, some mechanical buildings that are not made of Baiyun steel alloy have even begun to melt.

This mechanical family itself is destroying the cities of the mechanical family.

Even as the temperature spread by this mechanical family continues to rise, some buildings cast from Baiyun steel materials have begun to melt under this extreme high temperature.

The burning flames and molten metal almost cover the path it has walked and the Zerg it is about to meet.

It forms a scene like purgatory.

And this mechanical family itself has a huge cannon with an appearance like an electromagnetic gun, which is almost as long as the body and installed on the back.

Chen Ming had seen the power of the centipede's weapon. It was a giant cannon carried by a very special individual of the mechanical race. It was definitely a terrifying weapon in ground combat.

Although Chen Ming had not had much contact with the mechanical race, since he had more contact with Yu Hui, he had deliberately learned about the knowledge and news of the mechanical race next door, and he had some understanding of the mechanical race.

But Chen Ming had never seen the mechanical race that appeared in front of the Zerg, never understood it, and had never found a similar existence in any of the materials he had searched.

But Chen Ming was clear about one thing, that this mechanical race must have technology that was truly beyond this era.

The heat emitted by a mechanical body that was only more than 40 meters long could actually affect the environment of the surrounding city.

Although it was not the entire city, and the mechanical race city itself was basically made of metal, it was very easy to conduct heat.

But a 40-meter-long body made the coverage area of ​​dozens of kilometers warm up to this extent, which was definitely not something that modern technology could do.

There must be powerful individual technology left over from that civilization.

Although Chen Ming only needs to let one of the five cruisers in space mobilize a large weapon and use a tachyon spear to completely solve this problem.

But after seeing the performance of this mechanical family, he wanted more.

Moreover, landing operations do not mean that there will always be opportunities to directly use space weapons to carry out dimensionality reduction attacks on the ground like now.

It is also quite beneficial for him to obtain such a special mechanical family.

So after seeing the impact of this mechanical body.

It and the cruiser in the city core behind it.

Chen Ming wants all of them.

So now he does not wait for the queen to perform herself, and the scanning array on the highest point that has begun to land is directly started at full power, trying to find weaknesses in this mechanical family that can quickly solve it.

However, when this scanning array that can scan the entire planet scans this mechanical family, the result of the scan is pitch black.

Except for the external armor and some exposed structures that can be scanned, the interior of the rest of this mechanical family seems to be covered with some special protective materials, and the scanning array cannot scan it at all.

But this is also expected.

Chen Ming can still analyze from some details on the scanned surface that this mechanical family seems to be a temporary mechanical body used by the mechanical family.

There are problems with many maintenance details, and it is obvious that it has not been well maintained.

And combat equipment and weapons that lack maintenance and care often have problems during long-term use.

Perhaps the only shortcoming of this mechanical family is that it lacks maintenance and cannot fight for a long time.

It seems that the Queen Zerg can only rely on the number of piles and the sacrifice of a large number of Zerg individuals until it breaks down.

After receiving Chen Ming's order to try to capture the machine, the Queen made the same choice as Chen Ming had just thought, commanding the Zerg to continue charging.

But at the moment when the Zerg made a new and violent movement.

The giant cannon on the back of the machine started moving.

The surrounding heat suddenly began to gather towards the cannon in a way that violated the laws of physics.

The barrel emitted a scorching red light, and the flanks of the cannon violently emitted a violent airflow carrying extremely high temperatures.

The threat brought by the orange-red laser beam shot out by its locking device made all the Zerg swarms desperately rush forward as if they had received extreme stimulation even without the Queen's command.

But before the Zerg came into contact with the machine, the cannon had already fired.

At the moment it fired, the whole city seemed to fall into darkness.

All the light was absorbed by the giant cannon.

In a blink of an eye, the area in front of the machine with a diameter of nearly a kilometer was occupied by a ball of fire that could only see dazzling flashes.

Whether it was the Zerg or the Mechanic that had not retreated to safety, even the Mechanic's buildings themselves, were covered by this ball of fire.

And a few dozen seconds later, when the flames completely dissipated.

All that remained was a deep pit.

And at the bottom of the deep pit, there was a large lake made of melted metal liquid.

In it, except for the Mechanic's own people and their own buildings, the rest were all the Zerg's bodies that had been burned to ashes.

The power of this weapon was close to the power of large weapons that were normally only carried on cruisers.

And the Zerg suffered casualties almost equal to the losses they had suffered along the way in just a few seconds.

The entire battle line was directly dragged back nearly a thousand meters.

The Mechanic, which had already been defeated by the centipedes that turned against them under the control of the parasites, once again took this opportunity to regroup.

They were not afraid of this scorching environment like the Zerg.

If the Zerg wanted to come again, they would not have such a good chance as before.

Moreover, the temperature of the surrounding environment has been rising, and has gradually begun to affect the Zerg parasitic in the bodies of the mechanical race.

If this continues, these mechanical races mixed in the Zerg pile may turn against them again at any time.

The Queen of Zerg can only be forced to let these parasites retreat to the outer city.

Then, let the surviving Zerg continue to rush to the defense line recast by the mechanical race in the distance.

Only one step away from the mechanical race cruiser, the Queen of Zerg no longer cares about any casualties.

Anyway, all Zerg individuals will return to the hive mind network at the moment of death, and their bodies will be reabsorbed by the fungal blanket.

Even if the body is not absorbed and is directly burned to ashes by the flames, it doesn't matter.

From the moment Chen Ming put the resources on this planet, he never thought about recycling the resources.

He only needs those mechanical races.

Time passed by minute by minute.

The artillery of the special mechanical race has fired more than a dozen times in succession.

The casualties of the Zerg have reached a point that is difficult to calculate.

Although Chen Ming could feel that the time it took for the mechanical race to start the giant cannon on its back was getting longer and longer, it was obviously due to poor maintenance.

But it was only getting longer, and no key progress had occurred, so the Zerg could not break the current deadlock.

Chen Ming was also a little anxious at this time.

This would not work, he had to be faster.

After all, the mechanical race was a hive mind, and the mechanical race inside the mechanical race star field could know everything that happened here.

In other words, after the second batch of mechanical race reinforcements was easily killed by Chen Ming, the third batch of mechanical race reinforcements would definitely not make the same mistake as before.

The third batch of mechanical races that came would most likely kill him.

So he was now considering whether to give up this special mechanical race and instead only obtain his original goal, the mechanical race's colonial cruiser.

But at the moment when Chen Ming was about to give up, he suddenly realized a problem.

The movements of the mechanical race seemed to have a slight delay.

Either the delay is caused by the wear of the parts due to lack of maintenance, or it is a strange delay that should not occur according to common sense.

Chen Ming immediately said to Chaofan, who was riding on the highest point: "Chaofan, help me."

"I don't know how to command."

"No need to understand, help me calculate the propagation time of the mechanical family communication signal and the delayed reaction time of the mechanical family below every time it makes an action."

Chaofan did not reply, but sent a string of data to Chen Ming a few seconds later.

When Chen Ming saw this string of data, a gleam of light flashed in his eyes, and he subconsciously said: "That's it."

"What's this?"

Chen Ming looked at the special mechanical family on the ground again and said: "That mechanical family has no core chip, and all its actions are controlled by the cruiser."

The strange delay he just noticed after a long battle was the time delay required for the signal transmission of the cruiser behind.

This mechanical family is not a living mechanical family at all, it is just a controlled shell.

Chen Ming finally found its fatal weakness.