Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 189 Raid

a week later.

Chen Ming arrived near the Mechanical Race galaxy with a fleet of five cruisers, including Supreme Point, Stardust, Brilliance, Glory and Defender.

The appearance of these five cruisers has undergone some subtle or obvious changes since a week ago.

These changes all have a common feature, which is to make the spacecraft itself more suitable for playing its own role.

The source of these changes is the improvement of Chen Ming's spiritual power after absorbing the new spiritual nerve.

Just a few days ago, after the Qiling Nerve arrived, Chen Ming imitated the situation in which he absorbed the Ling Nerve.

At the moment when he stimulated his mental power to the extreme using various equipment taken from the Afterglow Research Institute, he absorbed the spiritual enlightenment nerve that Baiquan gave him that had not been specially cultivated.

The difference from last time was that Chen Ming did not fall into a coma this time, but completed the entire process of absorbing the spiritual nerves soberly.

And he clearly senses the changes in his spiritual energy, allowing the spiritual nerve to be completely and completely absorbed, completely becoming the nourishment of his spiritual energy.

At this point, Chen Ming's mental power increased significantly.

When Chen Ming absorbed his first spiritual nerve, he could only control destroyers with his spiritual power, but now he could control cruisers.

Now, Chen Ming's mental power has jumped from being able to control nearly five cruisers to being able to control seven at the same time.

Chen Ming felt that his ability to control the mental power of ten cruisers was a key point. By then, he might be able to control the next level of spaceship.

Of course, more may be needed. After all, the difference between battleships and cruisers seems to be greater than the difference between cruisers and destroyers.

But at least Chen Ming can see the goal, then it is possible to achieve the goal.

In addition to the progress in mental power, Chen Ming's spiritual power also has new abilities.

Chen Ming's most basic [Repair] ability, which he had from the very beginning, has an additional branch.

An outrageous option called [Deep Repair].

Its effect is not limited to damage on various things controlled by Chen Ming, but affects more essential places.

It can repair some problems with the theoretical design of some Chen Ming-controlled spacecraft or equipment, making these things more consistent with their own functions and closer to perfection.

The price is still a huge consumption of mental energy for Chen Ming.

But the mental energy is restored after sleeping, so it is almost not consumed.

It's just that Chen Ming has been in a coma every day for the past week.

Of course, there are some things that this ability cannot do.

That is, it can only perform in-depth repairs on the objects that Chen Ming's ability works on.

In other words, when Chen Ming performs in-depth repairs on the cruiser, the only object he can repair is the cruiser itself.

Any additional equipment components, such as spacecraft armor, tachyon spears and shield modules that can be removed and installed at will will not be affected.

Unless Chen Ming specifically performs in-depth repairs on these things, the mental energy consumed will not change and is still quite terrifying.

Only the spacecraft structure, basic control equipment, or the plasma system exclusive to the Brilliance class that are part of the spacecraft will be optimized along with the cruiser itself.

But the problem is not big. The optimization of the spacecraft itself also includes various radiation transportation routes. These alone can enhance the performance of the spacecraft itself by at least 20%.

What's more, Chen Ming's spiritual power is not limited to this, and there are more optimizations in the details of ship application in combat.

Many of them are optimizations that Chen Ming cannot understand even when he is driving a cruiser and drawing blueprints with 3D imaging.

The overall combat effectiveness is improved by at least 50%.

Although the in-depth maintenance, which is the highest point of the exploration ship, seems to be more focused on exploration and protective operations, the offensive capabilities are slightly reduced.

Moreover, the mental energy consumed in every in-depth maintenance in the past has reached an abnormal level, but at least Chen Ming was still very happy every time he fell into a coma.

Because this means that there are still many places where his spiritual power can be explored.

Shipling had previously shown the ability to [transform] directly from the microscopic level when Chen Ming condensed the second condensed spiritual energy source.

But now this essential [repair] ability has not been shown, which shows that Chen Ming can at least rely on the advancement of spiritual energy to obtain the ability that the ship spirit can master in advance.

There is still more potential to be explored in psychic powers, and for a psyker this is definitely something worth celebrating.

And in the past week.

Chen Ming spent six days focusing on the cruiser.

These six cruisers include the five currently launched by Chen Ming, as well as the refraction-class heavy unmanned cruiser operated by HR, whose attitude has softened a lot recently, as a guarantee of the combat effectiveness of the temporary stronghold.

For the rest of the day, Chen Ming gave his mental power to the Queen of Insects.

[In-depth repairs] have been carried out that can also be carried out on the biomass spacecraft and the insect queen that is the core of the biomass spacecraft.

At that time, Chen Ming also specially brought the consciousness of the Insect Queen, which had been developing for a day near the mechanical city he wanted to attack, back into its body.

Then he activated the ability he had just acquired and which he had already used once on the highest point.

Then, the insect queen exploded.

The entire body exploded, leaving only the brain, the carrier of the queen's consciousness, still twitching in place.

But this does not mean failure, but rather part of a deep repair process.

The broken Zerg flesh and blood tissue was rewoven under the influence of Chen Ming's spiritual energy.

A large number of invalid gene fragments that may have been broken from the Zerg genes left over from ancient times were all cleared away by Chen Ming's spiritual power.

All genetic fragments that had no significance to the race were also cut off.

It restores simplicity to the worm queen's already somewhat bloated genes.

Of course, all the previous statements were incomprehensible. He could only see that the exploding body of the insect queen was constantly secreting dark, rotten liquid.

It is the consciousness of the Queen of Insects that transmits to Chen Ming in real time what impact his spiritual energy will have on the Queen of Insects.

While the remaining body tissues were expelling the liquid, they were gradually stuck together under the pull of the hyphae that had become part of the Zerg, and returned to their original state.

The content of the last consciousness transmitted by the Queen of Insects that Chen Ming obtained before his mental power was exhausted was that the spiritual energy it obtained by swallowing psychic fungi was even more enhanced.

It was here that Chen Ming understood the effect of the Insect Queen's psychic energy.

It is the most simple and crude ability to strengthen physical fitness through spiritual energy.

And this spiritual energy is not placed on a single insect queen, but on the hive mind of the entire insect hive.

The hive mind is the brain of the Zerg, and it makes perfect sense for psychic powers to be hosted on the hive mind network.

Chen Ming immediately thought of a possibility along this line of thinking.

But it was immediately interrupted by his exhausted mental energy, and he fell into a coma.

When Chen Ming woke up.

He saw that the size of the insect nest that the insect queen had already developed on the planet he controlled had shrunk by a full quarter.

All the disappearing bugs were absorbed and devoured by the queen last night and used to complete the process of deep repairs.

After this process was completed, the insect queen did not directly start to update the Zerg individuals. Instead, she transferred her consciousness to another body again and continued to complete the goals set by Chen Ming.

Until today, a week later.

At this time, Chen Ming, who was at the highest point of one of the five cruisers in space, was observing the entire mechanical colony through the scanning array.

And only he saw this scene. In the end, he still did not open the real-time broadcast to Bai Quan.

It can only be said that some things are best not exposed until he is ready.

Of course Bai Quan also understood this and knew that Chen Ming had many secrets that could not be known to others, so he didn't say much.

I just hope that Chen Ming can send him a video later and give him the parts he can see.

Of course Chen Ming could meet this requirement, and he really needed the commanding teachings Baiquan gave him.

Anyway, when the time comes, just edit it a little and put what can be shown in the video.

For example, right now, before the Zerg have set off, the image recorded by the Supreme Point Scanning Array is showing the appearance of the mechanical city.

The city itself is still almost the same as before, with only some less obvious developments and no sense that they are about to face disaster.

But having said that, it is still quite troublesome to actually fight.

After all, attacking a city with complete defense facilities is a risky behavior in itself, but there are enough profit promoters behind Chen Ming to let him do it.

There are three ways to attack such a city.

In the air, on the ground and underground.

Chen Ming ruled out the air immediately.

Because the Zerg, which is the main means of siege, are not flying creatures. Although some of them do have the ability to fly, not all of them can fly.

Moreover, after Chen Ming completely captures the space orbital defense facilities and possible subsequent support, the sky is actually not a very safe and suitable place for attack.

And the remaining two methods are above ground and underground.

The underground was also excluded.

Because Chen Ming knows the city of the mechanical race very well, and his knowledge has been verified through scanning at the highest point.

The underground of the entire mechanical city is made up of a tight combination of high-strength steel columns and steel plates, which bear the weight of the entire city.

Unless the Zerg have the power to directly overturn a city, attacking from underground is not a wise choice.

Of course, Chen Ming also considered hollowing out the soil and rock layers beneath the entire mechanical city and letting the entire city sink underground.

But through Chen Ming's understanding of the mechanical clan he controlled, it was clear that the mechanical clan had an attack method targeting the underground.

Relying on the mechanical city itself to generate powerful vibrations deep underground.

Judging from the performance of the relevant equipment Chen Ming found in his city. Even the current Zerg race cannot withstand the attack of the mechanical race using cities as weapons. If they are not careful, they will be shocked to death.

So there was only one way left, attack from the front.

Although this is the most difficult path, Chen Ming believes that the insect queen, which has evolved many times and has been strengthened by his spiritual power, will not let him down.

After the cruiser arrived at the predetermined combat position, Chen Ming sent the information to the insect queen to start taking action.

And he himself started this battle initiated by himself from space.

The five cruisers entered the jump state at the same time, and in just a few seconds appeared on the orbit of the mechanical colony planet, between the orbital defense systems.

Even if the machine race had already started to react the moment it detected the transition wave appearing in the orbit, the speed at which the orbital defense facilities were deployed could not keep up with Chen Ming's activation of the spacecraft's weapons.

The five cruisers had a total of thirteen large weapons, and the torrent of particles emitted by the thirteen tachyon lances instantly swept through the surrounding orbital defense facilities, destroying them before they had time to transform.

The orbital defense facilities covering one-fifth of the planet's equatorial orbit were completely wiped out in just thirty seconds by the terrifying tachyon spears launched almost continuously.

It has lost the ability to defend externally, and it has also lost the ability to turn these orbital defense facilities around to help ground operations.

At this moment, Chen Ming's highest point suddenly detected a fluctuation caused by the transition appearing near the orbit.

The jump interference device that Chen Ming had prepared long ago was activated instantly, completely disrupting the fluctuations of these jumps and directly interrupting this wave of additions to the mechanical clan.

Perfect preparation makes it impossible for any unexpected situation to happen.

In the blink of an eye, all the living forces of the mechanical race in space were completely wiped out by Chen Ming.

However, he did not stop, but continued to command several cruisers to perform their tasks.

He needs to place jamming equipment that can block the signal of the entire planet at the poles of the planet in front of him and in the direction facing the star.

And it is also necessary to lock in the number and location of those orbital defense satellites that were not completely damaged in the raid just now.

Dropping Afterglow instances on them, controlling them becomes part of his combat abilities.

At times like this, more firepower means more possibility of victory.

After completing this step, while waiting for the second wave of additional members of the mechanical clan.

Chen Ming was finally able to take some time to take a look at the situation on the ground.

At this time, we are on the edge of the mechanical colony city.

The pitch-black carapace made the Zerg race like a pitch-black tsunami, rushing towards the city crumbling in the waves.

Obviously, the Zerg commanded by the Queen of Insects also had an advantage.

Among the insect waves, what caught Chen Ming's attention the most was a huge insect unit that appeared at the front of the mechanical race's temporary defense line.

The appearance is similar to the pitch-black Zerg that Chen Ming has seen from the Queen's genes, but it is larger, and the thickness of its front carapace has forced it into the armor of the cruiser.

It charged ahead of the rest of the Zerg race, using its body to resist the firepower of the mechanical race.

Relying on brute force, he shattered several lines of defense built by the mechanical race.

There are almost no weapons on the ground that can cause enough damage to it.

It was forced to withstand countless attacks that could tear the rest of the bugs into pieces, and protected most of the bugs behind it.

Destroyed the machine race's dream of blocking the Zerg race from the city.

Even though most of the Zerg who took on huge amounts of damage fell on the way to the charge.

But as long as the Zerg are allowed to enter a more complex environment inside the city, even if it is just on the edge of the city, they will be able to perform better on the flat land.

And some Zerg that the Queen has been hiding can finally play a suitable role in the right position.

Chen Ming saw a group of small flying Zerg with elytra and a relatively bloated abdomen flying out of the cave dug by the Zerg.

Under the cover of the Zerg on the ground, he dodged countless anti-air fires, rushed into the city, and took the initiative to self-destruct above the area where the mechanical race was densest.

Countless amounts of Zerg blood fell from the sky, almost dyeing the ground of the city the color of Zerg blood.

The blood of the Zerg has not lost its initial properties due to the first two evolutions, and still maintains the ability to attack the mechanical race.

In the blood splashing all over the sky, a large number of mechanical tribe individuals gradually lost their combat capabilities, and could only be crushed by the subsequent charging Zerg tribe.

And unknowingly, a deep purple carpet gradually spread from the cave where the Zerg appeared to the city, accelerating its expansion while absorbing the Zerg corpses.

On this layer of carpet that can provide a steady supply of nutrients to the Zerg, the Zerg's combat effectiveness can also increase significantly.

The defense line of the mechanical clan was broken again and again.

As the environment becomes more complex, some special bugs with the appearance of worms have appeared again, half-lurking in the ground.

They themselves are extremely fragile, but they can spit out high-energy liquids formed by melting very unstable energy crystals.

When these liquids are impacted by any severe external force, they will produce some reactions that Chen Ming likes very much.

explosion.

The power is comparable to the explosion of left-diameter explosives.

Although it may not be able to completely blow up the armor of the mechanical clan, it can easily shatter the internal structure of the mechanical clan through impact.

These special new species of bugs.

All were the result of the communication between Chen Ming and the Insect Queen in the past week.

The idea was put forward by Chen Ming and the result was realized by the late Qing Dynasty.

After Chen Ming used deep repair on the insect queen last time, the insect queen had completely cleaned out the useless parts of the genes and mastered the valuable ones.

So it has the ability to rub all kinds of Zerg with its hands, and it can even do some things that Chen Ming didn't expect at first.

Just like the kind of worm-like bugs that half burrow into the ground.

Chen Ming's original idea was just to evolve the Zerg queen to be able to directly spit offensive liquids, or directly spit Zerg blood to interfere with the mechanical tribe, as a long-range unit for Zerg combat.

But the insect queen simply relied on the knowledge in Chen Ming's mind and the various natural biological materials it knew to liquefy the energy crystals and construct a dangerous liquid similar to the effect of left-diameter explosives.

Even though there are not many of these bugs because they are fragile and indeed very dangerous.

In actual combat, they were able to create liquid energy crystals with constant nutrient supply, and the auxiliary insect swarm broke through the defense circle inside the mechanical city with overwhelming force.

However, the mechanical tribe is not just for a living.

It did take some time to continuously break through several defense circles on the periphery and within the city, so that the machine race could finally organize a decent resistance.

As various combat units of the mechanical tribe arrived in the direction of the Zerg attack from all over the city, the momentum of the Zerg attack finally suffered a setback, and the losses instantly increased.

In particular, it is a flying mechanical unit of the mechanical family.

It has a similar appearance to the Flying Mantis Jingmantis that Chen Ming had seen before, but it is lighter and can fly in the sky for a long time.

After it occupies the commanding heights of the battlefield, it is difficult for Zerg flying units to break through its sniping attacks.

It is also difficult to resist it.

And with the emergence of these flying robots, Chen Ming also noticed that some optical stealth combat robot units appeared on the battlefield.

They wander on the edge of the battlefield, and if they get the chance, they will pierce into the heart of the insect nest like ghosts, assassinating the jet worms among the Assassin Insects, which are the greatest threat to the mechanical race.

If you kill one of them, they will immediately burst out with more terrifying mobility than the flying mantis and evacuate the battlefield in an instant.

Only a body was left that was about to explode.

As these two mechanical bodies gradually began to affect the battlefield situation.

The blazing silkworm that Chen Ming had seen before also appeared on the front line of the battlefield.

But when he saw them, Chen Ming breathed a sigh of relief.

These fiery silkworms are all about ten meters in size. When they activate their weapons, they will emit raging heat waves and scorching red light.

Like a huge red iron, it hit the Zerg, and at the same time activated their flamethrower mode for close combat.

But it was just as Chen Ming had predicted before.

When these flames that stretch for nearly a hundred meters cover the Zerg, a large amount of blood will actively overflow from the gaps in the Zerg's carapace, extinguishing the flames and releasing a large amount of acid mist.

It does not affect the Zerg's vision, but it will affect the oxygen content in the air and slow down the combustion efficiency.

The Zerg can live in space and in a vacuum, and the lack of breathable air is nothing to them.

And the fungi under the Zerg's feet will also undergo some changes when burned by flames.

The fungus will turn into the viscous fluid like the insect queen did when she just woke up from the cocoon, which can greatly slow down the damage caused by the fire.

And when the flames sprayed by the flame-boosting silkworms are mixed with fuel and sprinkled on the bacteria carpet.

The fungus blanket can even eat and digest these combustion accelerants directly.

Just like the rigid digestive sac of a queen worm digests all kinds of strange food.

The fungus carpet on the ground has inherited this ability of the insect queen.

The combination of these factors has resulted in the damage that fire can cause to the current Zerg race, which is not even one-third of the damage that the Zerg Queen received when she attacked another mechanical race city.

However, in addition to this close-range flamethrower mode, Chisican also has another ability to cover clusters of powerful artillery that Chen Ming has also seen.

Although this city of the mechanical tribe is still in the development stage, there are still a number of blazing silkworms divided into two waves.

As the Chisican on the front line lost the battle.

A sharp, intertwined roar suddenly appeared in the sky.

(End of this chapter)