Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 345 Answer, New Front

Minister Hou continued to ask a few questions that were irrelevant to Chen Ming.

I asked a key question: "Is there anything special about the Queen of Insects? Why can it connect with you spiritually?"

Chen Ming had been prepared for this question and answered, "I don't know."

"When our spaceship crashed, everyone died. I was the only one who survived."

"As soon as I crawled out of the wreckage, I was dragged to an underground nest by several bugs, and I saw the queen bug."

"Then my psychic powers awakened, and I had a spiritual connection with it."

“To this day I still don’t know why.”

No one can say for sure about psychic powers.

Minister Hou passed on this question and continued to ask, and his next question was also more important: "How much Zerg power do you have?"

Chen Ming once again spoke the truth: "It's just that one planet."

However, Minister Hou asked back with some doubt: "Just one planet?"

Judging from the information obtained from Chen Ming, the scale of power possessed by An Wuping does not seem to be something that can be created by just one planet.

“It’s really just one planet.”

Minister Hou obviously still didn't believe it, but he didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he changed the question: "I noticed that your Zerg fleet is almost entirely made up of cruisers. Don't you have any higher-level or lower-level warships?"

"Yes, there are, but I feel that smaller ships are just cannon fodder in terms of combat effectiveness."

"The Zerg biological ships don't have shields, so the small ships can't use the shields of the big ships to do their work, so the small ships are basically integrated into the cruisers to be used as fighters."

"The advanced ones are battleships, which I don't have."

These can be easily seen through the records, so Chen Ming did not hide anything at this time and continued to have a cooperative attitude of answering whatever was asked.

"Why don't biological ships have shields?"

"There's no reason for this. It's just that the Queen of Insects can't transform the shield system into a biological device. If she can't get a shield, then she'll just use armor to withstand it."

Minister Hou nodded and continued to ask: "Then why did you let your Zerg attack the Mechanical Clan?"

"That's what Chen Ming needs."

An Wuping decisively betrayed Chen Ming at this time and said, "Some of his resource mining bases were demolished by the mechanical tribe. He didn't want to start a fight with the mechanical tribe too early, so he asked me to retaliate."

"I see. But why was your Zerg fleet completely annihilated in the revenge?"

The expression on An Wuping's face changed slightly when he heard this question, and he responded, "Because Chen Ming needs to be completely wiped out, so that there won't be too many traces left."

"I also have my own thoughts here. If the Zerg fleet survives, they will have to return to their home planet sooner or later. To avoid being tracked down by the Mechanoids, being annihilated there is also a more appropriate ending."

When Minister Hou heard this, he couldn't understand An Wuping's thoughts, so he simply took the second half of An Wupo's words as a lie told under pressure from Chen Ming.

After all, there were tens of thousands of cruisers, and they were just given away so casually.

These tens of thousands of cruisers would be treasures no matter which star field they were placed in, but An Wuping gave them away casually just to prevent the coordinates of the mother planet from being exposed.

Is this really the case? Or is there really only one planet that has been occupied by the Zerg?

He asked, "Didn't you help Chen Ming clean up the mechanical fleet on a large scale earlier? Didn't they all jump over from their home planet? Aren't you afraid of being discovered now?"

"At that time, the Zerg fleet had almost wiped out all the mechanical races that had attacked. Even if there were any survivors, it would be impossible for them to track the location of the mother planet in such a short time."

"I have time to relocate the remaining Zerg."

"Move away? Where are you going?"

"I'm not sure yet, because I still have to continue working for Chen Ming, and there's nothing good nearby."

Minister Hou did not continue to ask further questions on this topic.

An Wuping had already decided to migrate after exposing the coordinates of the Zerg home planet, and he should not make the mistake of exposing the coordinates again, no matter to whom.

It was pointless to ask such information which was crucial to one's ability, so he changed the subject again.

"What did Chen Ming give you that made you sacrifice so much to help him?"

An Wuping did not answer and chose to remain silent.

Minister Hou seemed to have noticed something and asked tentatively, "Aren't you curious about how we discovered your Zerg?"

An Wuping said as a matter of course: "How else could they have discovered it? I was working for Chen Ming, and he couldn't possibly cover up an attack of that magnitude. If any ship from the Empire saw it and sent the news back, wouldn't it have been discovered?"

Minister Hou smiled and said, "But in fact, the Empire has not yet received any news about the reconnaissance fleet hovering behind the Mechanical Clan."

"It was Chen Ming who took the initiative to leak the news. It seems that he wanted to distance himself from you, but he failed to do so."

"And he probably didn't expect you to tell him so decisively."

After Minister Hou finished speaking, he saw that An Wuping was in a daze and his hands movements became more frequent.

He suddenly felt that the relationship between Chen Ming and An Wuping might not be a partnership, but a unilateral cooperation relationship in which one party was strong and the other was weak.

Thinking about it, An Wuping's previous situation was indeed controlled by others, so it was normal for Chen Ming to take the opportunity to stir up trouble.

At this moment, he was nodding secretly in his heart.

As a member of the Empire's ruling class, he did not want two powerful and troublesome psychics to have too close a connection.

If the cooperative relationship between An Wuping and Chen Ming can be slightly influenced, whether it is equal or unequal cooperation, it will be valuable to the empire.

At the moment, An Wuping didn't know whether he was angry because Chen Ming took the initiative to distance himself from him, or whether he was worried because he failed to achieve Chen Ming's goal. This must have planted a thorn between the two of them.

Minister Hou then brought up the next issue that might affect the relationship between the two.

"What about the battle that annihilated your Zerg fleet?"

"From what I understand, if it was just for revenge, it would have been about the time your fleet destroyed all the ships that attacked Chen Ming's base."

"There is no benefit in continuing the attack. Instead, you were counterattacked by the mechanical mothership, causing you to suffer more losses. Is this revenge against the mechanical race? Why do I feel like it's against you?"

This time, An Wuping did not answer the question directly, but thought about it carefully.

He pretended that he didn't want to say it but suddenly wanted to say it, and replied: "It's not just revenge. Chen Ming wants to use my power to steal something from the Mechanical Clan."

"But the result... I don't know if you saw it or not, but three motherships suddenly appeared and destroyed the planet without giving Chen Ming a chance to grab anything. All my Zerg were left there."

"What does he want?"

"do not know."

An Wuping responded, and then immediately added in the wrong direction: "But I guess he asked me to put in so much effort and make such a big noise, probably because he wanted the mechanical race's planet itself, so the mechanical race used the mothership to destroy the planet."

"There's no need for the Mechanical Clan to do this, right?"

"If you take my psychic power into account... there should be some. Whether it's for me or Chen Ming to get in touch with the planet, this planet is doomed for the mechanical race."

Minister Hou immediately thought about what An Wuping said.

I found this to be true.

As long as Chen Ming's psychic power allows him to come into contact with the territory of the mechanical race, the entire planet may fall directly under his control.

And if An Wuping's spiritual power is calculated based on what we have seen so far.

Such a small amount of resources on a planet can produce a fleet of more than 100,000 cruisers and still retain a large number of manpower.

Such a terrifying resource conversion efficiency...

If the Zerg infests deep underground on a planet, then if the Mechanicals have no weapons targeting the deep underground, they can only destroy the planet to prevent it from becoming a nest for the Zerg to develop.

But it is still uncertain whether An Wuping and his Zerg really have such amazing abilities.

So for the time being he could only put a question mark around what An Wuping said in the recorded information.

In addition, Minister Hou also knew that haste makes waste, so after asking this question, he did not continue to sow discord, nor did he continue to overly pressure An Wuping after knowing enough information.

"That's about it. One last question. Do you have any thoughts on leaving the empire?"

"Leave? I went through so much trouble to return to the Empire, why should I leave? Is it fun to deal with bugs every day?"

An Wuping's tone was a little aggressive when he said this.

But Minister Hou didn't care.

Anyway, he has already seen An Wuping's attitude today.

Although An Wuping and Chen Ming can both be considered good people, their thoughts and attitudes are completely different.

He should have a chance to talk to An Wuping again in the future.

Minister Hou turned off the terminal, stretched out his hand to An Wuping and said, "Okay, let's stop here for today. Thank you for your cooperation."

Although An Wuping looked a little unhappy, he did not go too far. He stood up, shook hands with Minister Hou, turned around and left the room made of silent alloy.

After closing the door, Minister Hou opened the terminal again and reported the news he had just obtained to the top leaders of the empire.

After Chen Ming took the initiative to reveal the "truth" that he wanted the Empire to know about the Zerg attack on the Mechanical Race.

Minister Hou talked about An Wuping's psychic power again: "It has been confirmed that An Wuping's psychic power is not just a simple physical enhancement type of psychic power, but a more special psychic power that can establish a spiritual connection with living things, and then allow oneself to possess the abilities of the connected creatures."

"This type of psychic power is even rarer than psychics who possess both physical mutation and physical enhancement. There was one before..."

Minister Hou was interrupted by the person on the other end of the terminal when he was halfway through his speech: "Don't mention this. I know that person's situation better than you do. Let's continue talking about An Wuping."

"Yes."

"An Wuping's psychic power is definitely not limited to strengthening himself. His ability to control the Zerg is definitely stronger than his own ability."

"The initial speculation from the Psionic Research Institute is that the Zerg he controls are special and have the ability to convert inorganic matter into energy, or An Wuping has the ability to strengthen the Zerg, giving them this ability."

"I will send you the analysis report soon."

"Except that he concealed his psychic powers to a degree that was beyond our imagination, his overall performance was similar to his previous situation."

"An Wuping must have concealed and lied in what he said today, but he has said a lot of content that contains enough information to show that he and Chen Ming have completely different ideas."

"And from the fact that he revealed Chen Ming's news without hesitation, we can also see that his sense of belonging to the empire is always higher than to Chen Ming as a person."

"You can try to develop him."

The person on the other end of the terminal said, "Okay, you can continue to follow up and further confirm the relationship between him and Chen Ming. If necessary, you can contact Chen Ming indirectly."

"Chen Ming has encountered too many things since returning to the empire. It is highly likely that his mind cannot be changed. However, An Wuping does not seem to be that kind of person. Don't push him down the wrong path."

"Let someone raise his psyker level. A Zerg fleet of that size would already be considered level 6."

"Also, do not use any threat of force, and do not use killing An Wuping as a last resort."

"The Zerg have a hive mind. I suspect that even if An Wuping's body dies, his consciousness will still exist in the hive mind."

"Yes."

Minister Hou agreed immediately. Suddenly he seemed to have thought of something, and just as he was about to speak, he hesitated and finally did not say what he had thought of.

At this moment, the doorbell of his room suddenly rang.

He immediately connected to the surveillance camera outside the room and found that An Wuping had returned to the door again.

An Wuping waved at the surveillance camera at the door and said, "Something happened suddenly. Let's talk later."

A voice immediately rang out from the terminal: "No need to hang up."

Minister Hou put away the terminal, placed it in a secret place, stood up and opened the door of the compartment.

"what happened?"

"Something happened just now. Some Zerg broke away from the Queen's control and headed towards the Mechanical Clan's territory."

They didn't expect that the thing they had just talked about would actually happen so soon.

Minister Hou was stunned for a moment.

An Wuping's previous cooperative attitude left him with almost no doubts at this moment. He immediately asked Chen Ming to go back to the room and sit down, and this time he did not close the door.

"Tell me more specifically."

An Wuping cleared his throat and said, "Just now..."

Just now, An Wuping received news from Liang Fei and Li Wei that he wanted to talk to Minister Hou.

Chen Ming knew the time had come, so from the beginning, in addition to continuing to use part of his consciousness to control An Wuping and Minister Hou's conversation,

It also sent part of its consciousness to the Black Mist prosthesis that was on a Zerg battleship.

At this time, the black fog prosthesis has undergone a drastic change compared to its previous normal human image and has become a real monster.

Although it still has a human form, some features that originally belonged to the Zerg and Mechanical races have been distorted and separated from this body that looks like a human being.

Of course, this is not real distortion, but Chen Ming deliberately made it look like a failed experiment when he designed it.

In fact, the functionality is absolutely fine, it just looks a bit ugly.

And just after Chen Ming transferred his consciousness to the black mist prosthesis.

The black fog prosthesis immediately released a large amount of black fog, starting from the cruiser he was on, and covering more Zerg cruisers around.

It completely covered almost one-third of the total number of Zerg warships in orbit.

Although the Zerg fleet in orbit was reduced by about half after the Queen reorganized the formation, the number was still terrifying.

All I can say is that under normal circumstances, the Black Mist prosthesis does not have this ability.

However, because there was no place to use the Black Mist Core for the time being, Chen Ming first stuffed the Black Mist Core into the Black Mist prosthesis, and then used his own mental power to mobilize the Black Mist spiritual energy, and the effect became obvious all at once.

Just after the black fog covered one-third of the Zerg, a special pheromone suddenly appeared in the black fog and acted on all Zerg units.

The Zerg fleet was in some chaos, then left the main force and headed towards the edge of the galaxy.

It was as if pheromones were guiding them in a certain direction.

Of course, Chen Ming is still in control.

What he needed to show now was that the Zerg fleet had used special means to control these Zergs and do the following.

The Queen had already divided the team just now, leaving a Zerg fleet specifically for the Black Mist prosthesis.

And what Black Mist has to do is very simple.

Just go and make some noise.

It would be best if it was a big noise that could be seen by everyone and all the mechanical people.

The Zerg fleet shrouded in black fog soon arrived at the edge of the galaxy, entered hyperspace and began to move straight towards the direction of the Empire.

If they didn't take a slight detour, this fleet shrouded in black fog would soon collide head-on with a star region of the Mechanical Clan.

Of course, it is not the resource-rich nebula area that Chen Ming has targeted.

Instead, it is another star region that belongs to the border, and basically all galaxies have a large number of defense facilities deployed in them.

As it is a tough nut to crack, there would be no sufficient benefit in taking it down or destroying it, so Chen Ming would not bother to attack this place.

But if it is used to attract the attention of both the Empire and the Mechanical Clan for the Black Mist prosthesis, then this is a perfect place.

The Zerg warships, shrouded in a large area of ​​black fog, suddenly started their biological jump engines together after sailing for a distance.

They were divided into several fleets and rushed directly into the star field of the Mechanical Clan. In several galaxies on the border of the Mechanical Clan's star field, they simultaneously launched attacks that were almost suicidal.

And at the same time that the black fog prosthesis was committing suicide.

Chen Ming's main consciousness was focusing on the area which was his main target.

The strength of the back of the hand in this area is much looser than the attack of the black fog prosthesis at this time.

After all, this is not a border, but an area surrounded and protected by the border.

It occupies roughly one-third of one of the seven star regions divided by the star gate.

In total, there are more than ninety valuable star systems and about four hundred planets with high development value.

Just looking at the ratio of valuable galaxies and planets shows how rich this area is.

If it weren't for the fact that the Mechanical Clan's star field is relatively small and the area of ​​this nebula is not too large, the Mechanical Clan might have more resources.

But soon, these rich resources no longer belonged to the mechanical race, but to the Zerg.

This entire logistics star field of the mechanical race is his target.

Although Chen Ming had just made a rough estimate.

At present, the scale of his Zerg fleet can only affect about forty mechanical planets in a dozen galaxies at the same time.

It's barely acceptable.

Anyway, all the galaxies here are important to the mechanical race, and all the planets play an important role in the logistical support of the mechanical race.

If the logistics base here is destroyed, the power of the mechanical race will inevitably be weakened to a considerable extent.

Even if it was not destroyed, as long as the Mechanical Clan was willing to send out a mothership to clean up the Zerg, it would be a sure win for Chen Ming.

Not to mention that there are some galaxies and planets where there are no mechanical races, and Zerg can also be deployed.

The Mechanicals think that there are no resources to be developed, but in the eyes of the Zerg, the planet itself is a resource.

These planets may not necessarily have the mechanical means of defense.

As long as you let a Zerg bug drill in, you won’t know what will crawl out after a while.

After confirming that the Black Mist had started fighting with the mechanical clan's defense forces.

Chen Ming deliberately waited for a while to give the mechanical clan a response and send reinforcements to the border where the black fog prosthesis was fighting.

After receiving the news from the Black Mist Prosthesis that the second wave of reinforcements from the Mechanical Clan had arrived.

Chen Ming gave instructions to the Queen of Insects.

The fleet that had just disappeared near the Zerg Planet in orbit immediately started its jump engine.

Within the entire area that was Chen Ming’s target, countless transition fluctuations appeared.

The Zerg fleet, with a number of more than 200,000 cruisers, once again crossed the border and penetrated deep into the mechanical star field.

It even split into dozens of smaller fleets and attacked different galaxies.

Doing so would most likely result in Chen Ming suffering another loss of more than 200,000 cruisers.

But his goal was not to win the battle, but to break through the defense line of the Mechanical Clan and send the Zerg to the Mechanical Clan's planet. As long as he could get there, the amount of losses would no longer be a problem.

Of course, this combat method is only used now when attacking border planets.

If Chen Ming dared to leap too deep into the mechanical race's star field and directly cause trouble for the most important galaxies of the mechanical race.

If all of his Zerg were dead, they might not even be able to touch the planet itself, let alone cause enough damage to the mothership.

But at least this tactic, which is almost equivalent to losing one's life, is still very useful near the border area.

Even after the fighting force was dispersed, many Zerg fleets were destroyed in space.

But it was precisely this dispersed attack method that caused the defense forces of the mechanical race's logistics zone to react somewhat untimely.

The orbital defenses of several planets have been breached.

And the moment the Zerg on those planets that broke through the orbital defense facilities landed.

In a sudden burst of black fog, several Guard Zergs wrapped in thick black fog appeared.

The Mechanoids could only see the Zerg Guards for a moment, and then a surging black fog completely enveloped the surrounding environment, protecting the Zerg units as they dug underground.

Even though the mechanical race had urgently used the cruiser's jump capability to deploy units such as the Demon King on many planets within a few hours after Chen Ming's actions.

The working logic of some orbital defense facilities has also been modified, allowing some facilities to be used exclusively for internal defense.

This is to avoid the trouble caused by the Zerg going deep underground after landing.

However, the firepower of these entities cannot directly break through the defense formed by the multiple layers of black fog.

The surging black fog was like a huge dark parasite that was injecting its eggs into the planet of the mechanical race.

Although the mechanical race had tried their best, they still failed to defend themselves completely against Chen Ming's sudden attack which took place only a few hours later.

As long as some insects, under the cover of the black fog, penetrate deep into the depth that the mechanical race cannot handle temporarily, those guard insect races will immediately disappear from their original locations and appear on the new battlefield.

Continue to cover the next batch of Zerg, break through the defense line of the mechanical planet, and go deep underground.

Although due to the limitation of the amount of Black Mist spiritual energy, the number of Black Mist Mechanical Spiritual Awakening Nerves is limited, there are only seven in total, and there are only seven Black Mist Guard Zergs.

Including the Psychic Guard Zerg that Chen Ming created using the scraps of his Psychic Awakening Nerves, there were only twelve of them in total.

Responsible for the protection of up to three Zerg landing sites at the same time.

However, after Chen Ming and the Queen of Zerg deliberately adjusted the rhythm of the attack on different galaxies, these guard Zerg were enough.

Their combat effectiveness is sufficient to protect the Zerg units and achieve their goals.

As long as the insect eggs can be placed deep underground on the mechanical planet, the rest of the matter can be left to the Queen Insect, and Chen Ming does not need to worry about anything.

But accidents often come faster than tomorrow.

Not to mention it’s not tomorrow yet.

On the battlefield where the Royal Guard Zerg first arrived and the battle was about to end, a sound suddenly rang out, as if sinking into the deep sea.

"Phase behemoth?"

(End of this chapter)