27: Chapter 27: Mechs Take to the Battle, Defeating the Zerg

The lingering echo of the alarm still resonated over the city walls; Chen Wuwang's fingers were already tapping on the edge of the command console.

Those three soft taps were like the prelude to war drums, or the pulse of destiny's countdown.

The red dots on the northern horizon had pressed within a ten-mile range; the swarm's vanguard spread their carapaces, stingers pointing downward, forming a dive posture. The City Protection Spiritual Array hummed and trembled, arrow tower muzzles glowed with crimson light, and the entire Eastern Desolation Main City was tensed like a bowstring.

At this critical moment—

A silver-gray stream of light soared from within the city, tearing through the clouds and lunging straight into the heart of the insect tide!

"Patriarch, watch me!"

A roar erupted over the communication channel; it was Chen Xiaodao.

He piloted the "po shan" mecha, its propulsion System fully open, the hull glowing crimson due to the friction of air from overloading. At the moment the sound barrier was forcibly broken, the shockwave acted like a blade, carving a vacuum rift through the dense array of Worker Insects ahead.

The swarm's offensive came to a halt.

Before they could adjust their formation, Chen Xiaodao suddenly pushed the control lever forward, and the main cannon's charging bar was instantly filled.

"Sword Intent Resonance—Activate!"

Spiritual energy surged within his body, vibrating in sync with the mecha's core. That "Meteor Sword Intent," originating from a rainy night when he was five and buried deep in his blood and bones, poured through the neural interface lines directly into the cannon barrel. The spiritual energy condensing at the muzzle was no longer a simple beam but transformed into the phantom of a giant sword spanning the sky; wherever its edge pointed, heaven and earth lost their color.

"Star Stream Piercing the Sun—Break for me!"

Boom!!!

A hundred-zhang-long blazing white Sword Qi tore through the firmament, accurately hitting the high-energy signal source three miles behind the swarm—the location of the Broodmother Consciousness Projection!

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a sharp, nearly silent wail coming from the depths of the Void Realm. Immediately after, that suspended ghostly green halo distorted violently, shattering layer by layer like a screen with a lost signal, before finally collapsing.

The command structure was severed.

The Zerg's collective movements stiffened, like marionettes that had suddenly lost their strings. The originally orderly charge began to fall into chaos; some flying insects even collided with each other and fell toward the ground.

On the city wall, Chen Wuwang's pupils constricted slightly as his mechanical prosthetic eye quickly scanned the battlefield's data stream.

"Mental node destroyed, command chain broken, the swarm has entered an instinctive stress state," he whispered to himself, though not even a hint of a smile touched his lips.

He knew that the true battle had only just begun.

Sure enough, after a moment, the remaining Zerg did not retreat but instead launched an even more frenzied assault. Large numbers of Worker Insects self-detonated, spraying black slime that corroded the spiritual array's membrane; several elite Commander Insects charged toward the ground defenses carrying Egg Core toxins, attempting to contaminate the Spiritual Vein entrance.

The sea-of-corpses tactic had arrived.

"Xiao Dao," Chen Wuwang pressed the communication button, his voice as cold as ice. "Don't get bogged down in the fight. Use guerrilla tactics to clear the commanders and prevent them from reorganizing."

"Understood!" A rasping breath like metal rubbing together came from the other end of the channel. "Three high-Rank Leaders detected on the left flank, gathering toward the canyon. I'll go intercept them!"

Before his voice faded, the "po shan" mecha had already completed a sharp turn in mid-air. Its foot thrusters flashed three times, and using the mountain for cover, it moved at high speed, vanishing into the mist of the northern slope in the blink of an eye.

For the next three days, the Northern Plains of the Eastern Desolation became a purgatory.

By day, the sky was obscured by insect carapaces; by night, the fires of war illuminated the earth.

Mecha squads took turns striking out, weaving through smoke and severed limbs.

Every "po shan" was covered in scars: some had armor corroded through by acid, exposing internal energy-conducting conduits;

Some had damaged thrusters, relying on a single side's jet to maintain flight;

One had even lost a mechanical arm but still used its main cannon against the ground as a support to continue firing at the approaching enemy groups.

Chen Wuwang always stood at the very front of the city wall.

He hadn't taken a single sip of water or sat in a chair once. His right fingertips tapped incessantly on the edge of the stone table, while his left hand subconsciously gripped a titanium alloy dagger, its blade carving deep grooves into the tabletop one after another.

Each groove corresponded to an emergency dispatch, a resource reallocation, or a life-and-death decision.

By the evening of the third day, a turning point finally appeared on the battlefield.

The number of Zerg had plummeted by nearly seventy percent; the remaining units were low on morale, and the rhythm of their charges had slowed significantly.

Several Commander Insects attempting to carry Egg Cores into the earth veins were blown to pieces by pre-planted mines, their toxins backfiring and incinerating large swaths of the swarm.

The time had come.

"Activate the 'Earth Vein Backlash Array'," Chen Wuwang ordered.

Deep within the underground Spiritual Vein, the long-accumulated purification energy flowed backward along preset rails, erupting violently at the surface vents a hundred zhang outside the city.

A crimson-gold torrent, a mixture of scorching spiritual flow and high-pressure steam, soared into the sky like an earth dragon turning over, sweeping up swaths of low-Rank Worker Insects and instantly incinerating them to ash.

This strike completely crushed the Zerg's final will to fight.

The remaining individuals stopped attacking and turned around, fleeing in panic.

Even the elite Commander Insects, who had once been unafraid of death, retreated rapidly under the drive of mental fluctuations, escaping toward the depths of the Eastern Wasteland.

They were defeated.

Three days later, the Zerg fled in rout.

Only charred earth, broken carapaces, and mecha wreckage that had yet to cool remained on the battlefield. When the wind blew, ashes flew through the sky like a black snow.

Chen Wuwang remained standing, motionless.

His mechanical prosthetic eye locked onto the last escaping black shadow in the distance; only after confirming it had completely left the detection range did he slowly shut down all communication channels.

Then, he activated the Wide-Area Spiritual Wave Broadcast—a means of transmission that could penetrate spatial barriers and reach directly into the conscious level.

His voice wasn't loud, yet it was clearly imprinted in every bit of the air:

"Zerg Broodmother, next time you come, bring some decent soldiers."

His tone was flat, even carrying a hint of mockery, as if the world-shattering war that had just occurred was nothing more than driving away a pack of nuisance wild dogs.

After the broadcast ended, he immediately switched back to the public command frequency: "Lower the entire army's alert Rank to Level 2. Allow the wounded to return for repairs, the supply team to recover usable materials, and the patrol team to clear remaining threats on the outskirts."

The orders were concise, powerful, and well-organized.

Victory was certain; no more words were needed.

At this moment, the sun was setting, its afterglow spilling over the city walls and casting his solitary, upright figure. The dagger on the stone table was still stuck in a crack, its blade stained with a bit of dust. His right hand hung down, his fingertips still gently tapping the tabletop with a steady rhythm, just as it had been three days ago at the start of the battle.

Heavy footsteps came from the direction of the training grounds.

The "po shan" slowly landed, its hull cracked in many places, and the interface of its left mechanical prosthetic arm emitting blue smoke. The moment the cockpit opened, Chen Xiaodao took off his helmet, his face covered in traces of sweat mixed with blood, but his eyes remained bright.

He looked up toward the high platform on the city wall and, across a distance of several hundred meters, nodded to Chen Wuwang.

Mission accomplished.

Chen Wuwang didn't move or wave.

But the finger tapping the tabletop paused for a moment.

Then, it continued.

Tap, tap, tap.

In the distance, a broken Zerg compound eye lay quietly in the scorched earth; deep within the pupil, a faint green light seemed to flash.