sbdcsierra Chapter 20 [Hunting the Mother, A Long March in the Shadows]
Chapter 20 [Hunting the Mother, A Long March in the Shadows]
The year 1900 of the Anthill era.
Another century has passed.
The nature of warfare has changed over a century of protracted struggle and attrition.
Large-scale clashes between legions have proven to be an inefficient war of attrition.
The speed at which the plague evolved exceeded all expectations; it always managed to develop corresponding counter-units to counter the tactics of the Kaz civilization.
Inside the Temple of the Hive, after decades of contemplation, the wise king Khaz finally came to a conclusion: all the peripheral flesh and blood tissues are merely extensions of the main body.
This war will never end until the Matrix, which is hiding in the shadows and directing everything, is found and destroyed.
Thus, a secret operation codenamed "Sharp Blade" was approved.
A special squad composed of the most elite units in the entire civilization will break away from the main army and venture deep into the heavily polluted wasteland.
Perform the task of finding and marking the parent organism.
The commander of this squad is the same hero who once saved the hive city with his individual wisdom under the Eternal Bastion.
734.
The Blade Squad consists of thirty of the most elite ghost assassins and ten Arbiters equipped with the latest model of the Splitting Beam.
They are the pride of the Kaz civilization, the elite who walk on the edge of a knife.
The Long March began in a region known as a wasteland of blood and flesh.
The mother of the plague possesses extremely high intelligence; it is not foolish and is certainly constantly migrating within the vast flesh and blood.
The Blade Squad's pursuit was like finding a needle in a haystack.
They evaded the main force of the plague, discerning every faint signal that might point to the truth.
In the year 1930 of the Anthill Era, while tracking a suspicious signal, the squad stumbled upon a dormant hatchery. Three ghost assassins and one Arbiter, in order to cover the main force's retreat, fell into eternal slumber on that crimson land.
In the year 1960 of the Anthill Era, the squad encountered an unprecedented, unique plague unit capable of inflicting psychological shocks.
Half of the ghost assassins were burned.
In the year 1990 of the Anthill Era, the squad had only fifteen members remaining.
They have consumed most of their resources, and their resupply is nearing its limit.
A century-long, solitary expedition eroded the core will of every unit.
The dawn of victory seemed far off, and the endless wasteland of flesh and blood appeared to have no boundaries.
"Instruction: Report on mission feasibility." For the first time, a ghostly assassin sent a skeptical signal to 734. "For a hundred years, we have never been able to capture the exact coordinates of any Matrix; does this mission... contain a logical paradox?"
"Persist." That was the only word in 734's response.
The year 2080 of the Anthill era.
Before despair arrived, change came.
"High-energy polymerization reaction detected! Stable signal source! Matches all characteristics of the parent organism!"
The eight surviving members were greatly encouraged.
Following the signal, they arrived at a seemingly calm basin.
There were no signs of any plague activity here, yet the core logic of 734 instinctively made them wary of it.
Everything went too smoothly.
But they had no other choice; this was their only hope.
As the team stepped into the familiar trap in the center of the basin, it appeared once again. Decades of struggle had long since made it impossible for later generations to understand the hardships their predecessors had endured.
The dormant unit breaks through the ground.
Their escape route was completely cut off.
"Team, tighten your defense!" 734 remained frighteningly calm.
The four surviving Arbiters and three ghost assassins stood back to back, forming a small circular defensive line.
But they all knew that their demise was only a matter of time.
"Code name: Night Owl." 734 suddenly gave the order to the last ghost assassin in the squad.
"exist."
"I will create a window for you, a window that will absolutely not be disturbed, a window of 0.3 seconds."
"Command confirmed... But, Commander, what about your core...?"
"Execute." 734 said without the slightest hesitation.
It turned around and faced the endless waves of hunters alone.
"Boom—" 734's body transformed into a dazzling sun.
The massive energy fluctuations attracted the attention of all the hunters in the basin.
They abandoned their attack on the ring-shaped defensive line and rushed towards the brightest light source.
"For Kaz!" The remaining three Arbiters, following their commander, charged into the enemy ranks.
They used their own bodies to shield 734 from the first wave of impact, and then detonated themselves just before being swallowed up.
The hero, and his last guard, traded their lives for those precious 0.3 seconds.
The ghostly assassin known as Night Owl, taking advantage of this opportunity earned at the cost of his life, concentrated all his senses into a sharp blade, piercing through the flesh and blood barrier before him.
A fleeting glimpse.
It saw it.
At the edge of that chaotic battlefield, a huge, blurry black shadow flashed by.
Matrix!
"Night Owl" instantly overloaded its energy core, transforming all matter and energy into a beacon that testified to its existence.
"Eternal Beacon, launch!"
The beacon, trailing a long flame, resembled a shooting star tearing through the darkness, passing through every crevice of the battlefield. All the Kaz civilization members saw it.
[In the year 2100 of the Anthill Era, the "Blade" squad perished.]
The coordinates of the mother body have been locked.
The expedition... has ended.
This coordinate, named Eternity, originates from the life-lighting of the heroes "734" and the entire "Blade" squad.
Inside the Nest City Temple, trillions of war simulations were being conducted in parallel within Kaz's consciousness.
All deductions based on past experience ultimately point to the same result: failure.
As the Eternal Beacon was exposed, the Plague Matrix also sensed the spying.
Countless more powerful and structurally more twisted Guardian-class Plague Units were produced.
The mother creature transformed its nest into an insurmountable meat grinder.
Time is passing by, second by second.
Every citizen of the city awaited the king's decision.
Finally, after all the simulations failed, Katz made an extremely crazy decision:
"Using 42% of the mass of civilization, a one-time supersaturation impact can create a sustained attack window of 0.7 seconds... Feasibility: 9.3%."
Project Ark
Wise King Khaz ordered the Constructors to build the four outer districts of the hive.
Those homes that carried their centuries-long memories of construction were transformed into massive suicide attack ships loaded with overloaded death-defying adjudicators.
This is a high-stakes gamble with half of civilization at stake.
Winning creates a fleeting opportunity for the final blow.
If they lose, the Kaz civilization will lose its last home and its remaining strength, and will be powerless to fight back in this wasteland.
Logic once again triumphed over nascent emotions.
The city of Chaodu has come to life.
The year 2150 of the Anthill era.
A massive project spanning half a century has come to an end.
Outside the capital city, four massive, towering mobile fortresses, detached from the main structure, stood.
Countless Constructors silently dismantled the homes they had once built with their own hands, installing hundreds and thousands of Death Judges into every corner.
When the transformation was complete, the people responsible for carrying out the final voyage boarded these arks that could never return.
They have no self-awareness, only a single, pure command: move forward, and then... detonate.
But at the moment they stepped onto the city wall, these cold-blooded enforcers, for the first time ever, collectively looked back at the main body of the nest city that they would protect with their lives.
Perhaps it is the deepest, most primal longing for the concept of home that is rooted in our genes.
"Start it." Kaz's will was weary.
The four massive mobile fortresses adjusted their direction and charged towards the restricted area from four different angles.
The mother of the plague immediately noticed these four uninvited guests.
Countless Imperial Guard units emerged from the ground to form a defensive line, attempting to tear these fortresses apart ahead of time.
The arks simply used their massive bodies to withstand the acid rain strong enough to melt and activate metal, crushing one bloody battlefield after another, and rushing toward their predetermined coordinates.
When the first fortress reaches the coordinate point, the values of all internal resources reach a critical point.
The blue sun rises in the east of the bloody wasteland.
The sturdy flesh armor crumbled, and the rampaging plague units disintegrated.
A huge fan-shaped gap was forcibly torn open in the defense line that the plague had thought was impregnable.
Then came the second, the third, and the fourth sun...
The plague mother was thoroughly enraged.
It devoted the vast majority of its new forces to those four positions.
In its view, this was the Kaz civilization's all-out attack.
This, in turn, creates a fleeting, fatal window of opportunity for the true "sharp blade."
"The spear of vengeance, strike!"
At the most secret exit of the hive, a small team composed of the new generation shot like an arrow into the death tunnel paved with the lives of the Ark.
Their armor is more sophisticated than that of their predecessors, and their cores pulsate with even greater power.
They are the future of the Kaz civilization, and the embodiment of revenge.
"Activate overload mode!"
Every team member was burning with passion, sacrificing themselves to gain several times the fighting power in a short period of time.
Following the direction once indicated by "July 34th" and the path paved by countless martyrs, they launched their final assault.
Despite the main force being drawn away, the path to the core of the mother body was still filled with the strongest Imperial Guard units.
To cover the flank, one of the Arbiters deliberately detonated the Overload Core, perishing along with the three-headed Royal Guard.
Just before being pierced by fleshy tentacles, a ghostly assassin channeled his last energy into the shield of an ally.
The 20-man squad was losing men as they charged forward.
Fifteen people... ten people... five people...
When the last three surviving team members broke through the last thin barrier of flesh and blood, they had almost exhausted all their energy.
This is a huge cavity located deep underground.
The entire cave was made up of countless still-wriggling flesh and blood.
Right in the center, the mother of the plague revealed her true form.
It is as vast as a mountain range, with countless thick blood vessels connecting every corner of the cave, supplying nutrients to the entire plague-ridden race.
They have arrived.
The final war begins here.