Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 191 Purgatory

Chen Ming won the battle in space by relying on his uncanny psychic powers and the mechanical race, which had never encountered an enemy like him.

However, after winning the battle, he discovered that the situation on the ground was not optimistic.

Just when he quickly dealt with the second batch of additional members of the Machine Clan, the Insect Queen was counterattacked by the Machine Clan.

The reason lies in the centipedes, the main mechanical body of the mechanical tribe that they encountered when they first entered the core area of ​​the city.

Those centipedes equipped with charge cannons can directly destroy the Zerg's most powerful front-row human shield with a single shell, and the aftermath of the shell explosion after penetration will affect a large number of Zerg.

Although a large Zerg cannot die even if such a hole with a diameter of forty centimeters is opened in its body, this also means that it cannot share the damage with other Zerg.

We can only allow explosions and arcs to wreak havoc among the insect swarms.

So in the past ten minutes, in front of the core area of ​​​​the city, the mechanical tribe relied on the bombing of the organized Centipede's charge cannon to suppress the number of the Zerg tribe.

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

Hellfire Cannon and Charge Machine Gun.

The Hellfire Cannon is better, it is the flame cannon shell version of the Charge Cannon, and its penetration performance is even worse, but the flame damage range after the shell explodes is larger.

However, the effect of flames is not ideal when the Zerg on the ground have various means to counterattack. On the contrary, pure impact or other damage is more effective in killing the Zerg.

For example, Chen Ming was previously forced to use the long-range artillery bombardment of the Blazing Silkworms supported by the Tachyon Spear at the highest point, and now the electric arc generated by the explosion of the charge cannon.

Both types of damage can be devastating to the Zerg.

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

The charge machine gun is said to be a machine gun, but it is no different from a machine gun.

The diameter of the bullet has reached the point where it can break the limbs of the Zerg at will, and it also has the same terrifying penetrating ability as the charge cannon shell.

Coupled with the high rate of fire of the machine gun itself, and the special performance of the charged bullet exploding at the point of impact, producing a violent arc.

Let these bullets penetrate the front row of Zerg in batches and cause frequent damage to other Zerg.

In the dense insect swarm, the strength is much higher than that of the Hellfire Cannon.

It was these three centipedes equipped with different types of weapons that led the rest of the mechanical race to suppress the advancement of the Zerg race, and even looked like they were about to counterattack.

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

He suddenly discovered that a batch of fungi suddenly rose up on the carpet under the Zerg's feet.

And the density of fungi is higher than before, like a purple curtain covering the Zerg and Machine races on the front line.

Although there are blazing silkworms and centipedes equipped with hellfire cannons that are quickly cleaning up these fungi flying in the sky, when the coverage area and density of the fungi reach a certain level, the flames cannot completely remove them.

At most, all the fungi that fell on the extremely high-temperature silkworms would die.

Most of the other mechanical races on the front line are still covered by these fungi.

Chen Ming noticed the specialness of these fungi as soon as they started to appear.

They are not the fungi that the previous insect queens used to sense the invisible units of the mechanical race, or it is not right to say that they are fungi.

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

This was not a bug that Chen Ming and the queen had created in advance, but a new bug that the queen had just cultivated.

The only things that allow the queen to breed new insects are those centipedes that are difficult to handle.

This is the method used by the insect queen to target the centipede.

Chen Ming withdrew his hand from the control panel of the Supreme Point and continued to read.

It just so happened that he also wanted to know where the insect queen's limits were.

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

Chen Ming discovered that these fungi gradually spread on the mechanical bodies, infiltrating into the body through the gaps between their armor and structures.

From the perspective of other Zerg species, one cannot see what the fungi and bugs that infiltrated into the mechanical body are doing next.

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

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

And because Chen Ming used the hive mind network and the auxiliary access of psychic energy to access the nerves of the miniature Zerg to obtain the pictures that these Zerg "see".

Therefore, Chen Ming's perspective felt extremely distorted at this time.

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

These Zergs that have infiltrated into the mechanical race use the fungi that protect them to take root directly in place.

By absorbing the extremely tiny energy crystals it carries and the energy of the machine race itself, it strengthens itself and continues to spread.

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

And came into contact with the carpet that had unknowingly expanded to the feet of the mechanical race, and connected with the carpet.

With the nutrients provided by the carpet, the fungi in the machine race grow even more rapidly.

Almost in the blink of an eye, the entire machine clan was completely filled.

Just when Chen Ming thought it was over, the micro bug could completely kill such a machine in just one step.

He suddenly discovered that these tiny insects hiding in the bodies of the mechanical tribe had suddenly formed cocoons, just like the queen of insects.

However, unlike insect queens, they do not break out of their cocoons.

Instead, countless nerve-like tentacles grew directly from the cocoon, and gradually spread to the entire body of the machine race along with the fungus in the body of the machine race.

Chen Ming then used the sensor to see a charge cannon centipede that was covered in fungi. It suddenly turned its muzzle, aimed at the rear of the mechanical clan's front, and fired a charge cannon.

Immediately afterwards, other mechanical races that were completely covered by fungi and allowed the micro-Zergs inside to develop to the cocoon stage also made the same move.

They are controlled by the micro-zero race, betrayed by the machine race, and used against their kind.

Chen Ming didn't know how the insect queen learned to control the mechanical body. It might be that the insect queen learned and used it now.

It may also be that some of the knowledge in his head is shared through the cellular network.

But in any case, the Worm Queen did manage to launch another powerful attack before being pushed back.

Although such parasites cannot target those fiery silkworms that maintain high temperatures at all times, the fiery silkworms alone cannot play a decisive role.

Because the number of mechanical races that were covered by fungi just now was at least three thousand, and this happened to nearly two thousand mechanical races within these three thousand miles.

The situation on the ground battlefield has completely changed.

With the betrayal of the Centipede, the trump card of the Machine Race, the Zerg immediately broke through the defense line set up by the Machine Race at the edge of the city's core circle, completely breaking the Machine Race's resistance.

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

After learning about this miniature bug, it turned out that it was a bug that the Queen of Bugs had just barely evolved based on it and made reference to the genes of parasitic animals and plants.

Whatever is needed on the battlefield, the insect queen can evolve.

This is the ability of the insect queen.

It seems that the insect queen doesn't need his follow-up help very much.

After thinking about it, Chen Ming decided to arrange for the cruiser to land on the planet in advance, preparing for the Zerg to start capturing the remaining individuals of the mechanical race.

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

It is obviously very difficult to kill the entire city when the mechanical race star field next door may increase its numbers at any time.

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

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

Chen Ming would not do things like weapons washing that were harmful to others and not self-interested.

It is the individual mechanical race that he grabs that is valuable to him.

And now there just happen to be new bugs that can assist him in capturing the mechanical race.

Now the front line has been pushed into the core of the city by the Zerg. The Zerg behind have spread in the city and begun to capture

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

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

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

Its existence once again curbed the progress of the insect tide.

The appearance of this mechanical family is similar to that of a centipede, but its size is fully doubled compared to the centipede's average size of about 20 meters.

Its size on the ground battlefield can be said to be unparalleled, being seven or eight meters larger than the giant Zerg.

But just being huge doesn't mean anything, just like a centipede can shoot through giant bugs with one shot.

So if this machine was just an ordinary machine, the Zerg would have simply run over it.

But since it can contain the insect tide, this machine is obviously not ordinary.

I saw that its whole body was exuding as high a temperature as a blazing silkworm, but the heat it contained was far hotter than that of a blazing silkworm.

And this scorching heat, which was a fatal threat to the Zerg, did not dissipate with the passage of time like the blazing silkworms. Instead, it gathered inside the body and actively transferred to the limbs and feet.

It was transferred to the ground that had been specially modified by the mechanical clan in the mechanical clan city.

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 is heating up at a terrifying speed with this machine at the center.

The white city originally made of dolomite steel alloy is moving closer to the orange-red heat.

The Zerg relied on their own ability to influence the environment to suppress the damage caused by the fire to them. And when the environment has gradually changed from a normal environment to an environment shrouded in high temperatures and flames, the Zerg's methods are somewhat less effective.

Especially the creep that is in contact with the metal ground inside the mechanical city.

The germ blanket that spread forward as the Zerg invaded gradually shriveled up, lost water, became deactivated, and even began to burn under the scorching heat that could cause a city to begin to heat up.

Even if the insect queen continues to increase the supply of nutrients to the fungus carpet, it can only barely keep the growth rate of the fungus equal to the rate of loss.

Once the supply of nutrients slows down a little, the carpet will be instantly burned into a puddle of dregs 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 problem that prevents the Zerg from moving forward.

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

This machine race itself is destroying the city of the machine race.

Even as the temperature spread by this machine family further increased, some buildings made of dolomite steel began to melt under the extreme high temperature.

Burning flames and molten metal almost covered the path it walked and the Zerg it was about to encounter.

It formed a scene like purgatory.

Moreover, this machine race itself has a huge cannon that is almost as long as its body and looks like an electromagnetic gun installed on its back.

Chen Ming has already seen the power of Centipede's weapons. This is a giant artillery carried by an individual of a very special mechanical race. It is definitely a terrifying weapon in ground combat.

Although Chen Ming didn't have much contact with the mechanical clan, since he had more contact with Yu Hui, he had deliberately learned about the knowledge and news about the mechanical clan next door, and he had some understanding of the mechanical clan.

But Chen Ming had never seen or understood the machine that appeared in front of the Zerg now, and he had never found anything similar to it in any of the information he had searched.

But Chen Ming knew one thing clearly. This machine must have technology that truly surpasses this era.

The heat emitted by a mechanical body that is no more than 40 meters tall can actually affect the environment of the surrounding city.

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

But a forty-meter-sized body can heat up a coverage area of ​​tens of kilometers to such an extent that it is definitely not something that modern technology can achieve.

There must be powerful individual soldier skills left over from that civilization.

Although Chen Ming only needs to ask one of the five cruisers in space to mobilize a large weapon, he can completely solve this problem with a tachyon spear.

But after seeing the performance of this machine clan, he wanted more.

Moreover, landing operations does not mean that we will always have the opportunity to directly use space weapons to carry out dimensionality reduction strikes on the ground as we do now.

Obtaining such a special machine family is also of considerable benefit to him.

So after seeing the impact of this machine.

It and the city-core cruiser behind it.

Chen Ming wants them all.

So now he didn't wait for the Insect Queen to show off herself. The scanning array at the highest point that had already begun to descend directly started at full power, trying to find weaknesses in this machine that could quickly solve it.

It's just that when this scanning array, which can scan the entire planet, scanned this mechanical family, the result it scanned was pitch black.

In addition to the external armor and some exposed structures that can be scanned, the rest of the mechanical family seems to be covered with some special protective material, and the scanning array cannot scan it at all.

But this is to be expected.

Chen Ming could still analyze some of the details on the scanned surface to figure out that this machine seemed to be a temporary machine activated by the machine family.

Many of the maintenance details are problematic, and it has obviously not been well maintained.

Combat equipment and weapons that lack maintenance and upkeep often have problems during long-term use.

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

It seems that the only way is to let the insect queen pile up directly based on the number, relying on the sacrifice of a large number of individual Zerg, and just pile it up until it malfunctions.

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

But at that moment the bugs made new violent movements.

The giant cannon on the back of the machine moved.

The surrounding heat suddenly began to converge toward the giant cannon in a manner that violated the laws of physics.

The gun barrel emits a scorching red light, and the sides of the gun body violently emit violent airflow carrying extremely high temperatures.

The threat posed by the orange-red laser beam emitted by its locking device made all the insect swarms crowded forward as if they had received extreme stimulation, even without the command of the insect queen.

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

The moment it opened fire, the entire city seemed to sink into darkness.

All light was absorbed by the giant cannon.

In the blink of an eye, an area nearly a kilometer in diameter in front of the machine race was occupied by a fireball with only a dazzling flash visible.

Whether it was the Zerg race, the Mechanical race that had not retreated to safety, or even the Mechanical race's building itself, they were all covered by this fireball.

And dozens of seconds later, the fire completely dissipated.

All that was left was a deep pit.

And at the bottom of the pit, there are large lakes formed by molten metal.

Except for the Mechanical Race themselves and their own buildings, all that was left inside were the corpses of the Zerg Race that had been burned to ashes.

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

The Zerg suffered casualties in just a few seconds that were almost equal to the losses they suffered along the way.

The entire front line was dragged back nearly a kilometer as a result.

The mechanical race, which had been destroyed by the centipedes who were controlled by parasites and turned against them, once again took advantage of this opportunity to reorganize.

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

If the Zerg want to come again, they won't have as good a chance as before.

Moreover, the high temperature of the surrounding environment has been rising, and it has begun to gradually affect the Zerg parasites in the bodies of the mechanical races.

If this continues, these mechanical tribes mixed in the Zerg tribe may turn back again at any time.

The insect queen can only be forced to let these parasites retreat to the outer city.

Then, let the Zerg who are still alive continue to rush towards the recast defense line of the mechanical race in the distance.

Only one step away from the mechanical race's cruiser, the insect queen no longer worried about any casualties.

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

It doesn't matter even if the corpse is not absorbed and is directly burned to ashes by the flames.

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

He only needs those mechanical tribes.

Time passed by minute by minute.

The artillery of the special machine family has fired more than ten times in succession.

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

Although Chen Ming could feel that the time it took for the machine to activate the giant cannon on its back was getting longer, which was obviously due to poor maintenance.

But it has only become longer, and the key progress has not happened. There is no way for the Zerg to break the current deadlock.

Chen Ming was also a little anxious at this time.

It's absolutely not possible to continue like this, he must go faster.

After all, the Mechanical Tribe is a hive mind, and everything that happens here is known to the Mechanical Tribe within the Mechanical Tribe star field.

In other words, after the second batch of reinforcements from the mechanical tribe were easily killed by Chen Ming, the third batch of reinforcements from the mechanical tribe will definitely not make the same mistakes as before.

The third group of mechanical tribes coming will most likely kill him.

So now he is considering whether to give up this special machine family and instead only obtain his initial target, the machine family's colonial cruiser.

But just when Chen Ming was about to give up, he suddenly realized something was wrong.

The movements of that machine clan seemed to be slightly delayed.

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

Chen Ming immediately said to Chaofan at the highest point of his ride: "Fried rice, do me a favor."

"I don't understand command."

"You don't need to understand. Please help me calculate the propagation time of the machine clan's communication signal and the delayed reaction time of the machine clan below every time it makes an action."

Chaofan didn't reply, but sent a string of data to Chen Ming a few seconds later.

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

"What is this?"

Chen Ming once again cast his eyes on the special machine on the ground and said, "That machine does not have a core chip, and all its actions are controlled by the cruiser."

The strange delay he only noticed after a long battle was exactly the time delay required for the signal propagation of the cruiser behind.

This machine is not a living machine at all, it is just a controlled body.

Chen Ming finally found its fatal weakness.

(End of this chapter)