StarCraft: Tyranid Empire

Xantos, this god-like steel giant proudly and majestically flew over the sky of the Imperial Forum, casting a huge shadow on the tens of thousands of people cheering.

Compared with its overly large body and armed forces, Xantos's pair of "V"-shaped wings appear round and short, just like the flipper-shaped feet of a sea lion. But even so, it still flies well and steadily.

The designers and technicians of the Imperial Engineering Corps are both geniuses and lunatics. Swan's men once claimed that as long as the thrust is strong enough, they can send the emperor's palace into the sky and let this largest building in Augustgrad perform cobra maneuvers in the air.

Augustus almost approved this ambitious and bold plan, which he called the Wandering Palace. But unfortunately, this plan was ruthlessly sanctioned by Prince Arcturus because it was "costly, impractical, and meaningless."

Of course, no matter how good the equipment is, it is useless if the driver is not good. Tychus Finley is fully capable of this job. This guy's love for super-giant war machinery and violence can almost be compared with women and alcohol. He can drive a baby carriage and a space battleship.

Tychus has no interest in most people and things in this world, but everything depends on the reward. He is the kind of person who learns swan dance from scratch in order to rob a train.

Tychus drove the Xantos around the Imperial Square several times. A large number of tactical aircraft took off from the hangar and gathered around like a black storm. They were huge in number, in strict formation, and the distance between them was as precise as if measured with a ruler.

Finally, the Xantos retracted its wings and landed on the ground with ease. Groups of fighters immediately lined up to return to the hangar, as fast as the sharp blade retracted by this steel giant.

"Citizens, this is the power of the empire." Augustus was facing the cameras of dozens of large media outlets in the empire. He held the hilt of the Dynasty Sword with sharp eyes, just like the statues erected everywhere in Augustgrad.

"Another great achievement of the engineering community of the Xantos Empire is the biggest jewel in the crown of Terran Industry. All imperial people should take it for granted that all our achievements today are due to the nature of this race. We are enterprising and we are as strong as steel."

"Since the era of slash-and-burn farming, humans have never stopped fighting. When we mastered fire and guns, we drove away most of the beasts on the earth. Once we had starship cannons, we competed for the galaxy."

"Amon, whether he is really a fallen creator or a bluffing clown, once humans obtain the gun of destiny, they will kill gods."

At this time, the enthusiasm of the people has reached an unprecedented high, and Augustus just added fuel to the fire.

This is Augustus' daily routine. Unless he is on a campaign, he spends most of his time in the palace, with his best generals and most trusted ministers. Augustus rules his vast army and bureaucracy from the throne, and rules the vast star region of the empire.

During the rest of the time, Augustus's schedule is also quite tight. He usually attends various important public events or travels with Queen Kerrigan to inspect various places.

Whenever facing the camera, Augustus always has to say a few words.

Augustus is not a natural orator, but he practices diligently.

The emperor likes to challenge his shortcomings, such as his poor fighting skills. Now, after good training, he can fight back and forth with the royal brain worm Alpha.

At this time, when Augustus finished speaking, the scene changed, and Xantos began to demonstrate its transportation capabilities.

Layers of landing boards were opened from the fortress-like mechanical structure of the legs of Xantos. Each one was five stories high. War Wolves, Goliaths and rows of plunderers in fine steel armor walked out in a line. Each mecha and each piece of armor was painted with a bright imperial flag, and each red shield of the marines was marked with a white whip ring emblem.

It can be imagined that Xantos would be a mobile weapon platform and military fortress with powerful firepower. When necessary, it can also take on the responsibility of siege. At the same time, engineers have left enough redundant space when designing this terrible war machine, so that other weapons can be added or replaced in the future.

According to Augustus, another undisclosed Xantos model even has a full set of automated weapons production and repair workshops, with the ability to build and assemble large armor plates. In the body of Xantos, several huge furnaces can swallow hundreds of tons of crystal ore like a gluttonous stomach, smelt and forge it, and cast it into steel ingots dozens of inches thick to produce armor, wheels, bearings, rails and other accessories that are difficult to obtain in time on the battlefield.

Strictly speaking, this Xantos is more like a super heavy factory composed of land-based bases, turrets, high-quality armor plates and anti-aircraft weapons. There will not be too many of them, but just like those space weapon platforms moved by folding engines, they are indispensable in a large-scale battle far away from the empire.

According to the scheduled plan, the empire was supposed to show the powerful weapon system of Xantos to the public today. The Imperial Marines Headquarters even got a scrapped Odin II mecha. If everything goes well, Xantos will first use missiles, lasers, flamethrowers and rail guns to bombard in turn, and finally use the Vulcan blaster to make the final decision.

However, these loyal believers of the doctrine of firepower advantage got one thing wrong from the beginning, that is, they might send the audience to the sky together.

By design, the Xanthos has enough firepower to destroy the armor of a Gorgon-class battlecruiser and burn enough armored forces to cover the entire Imperial Square into a pile of molten industrial waste. But unless there is no other way, any savvy commander should not let their Gorgons land in the atmosphere and compete with the Xanthos in firepower without opening the shield.

On the other hand, deploying such a killer in such a densely populated area is no less than handing the red button to the bull.

There is a precedent for this. In a public exercise, Captain Jon Dyre, an Imperial Hero-class Viking fighter pilot, destroyed his military base in just 30 seconds and slaughtered the colonies, perfectly demonstrating to people why the Vikings are called the wrath of God.

Subsequent investigations showed that past experiences were the main reason for Jon Dyre's madness. He had to personally kill all his subordinates infected by the swarm virus, and suffered for this for the rest of his life.

However, on such an important occasion, Xanthos was still handed over to Tychus with confidence, probably because this thing generally has an unusually strong psychological quality and almost no sense of shame.

However, next, for Augustus, today's ceremony is over, and the remaining time of Xanthos may be open to the citizens of Augustgrad, so that they can all take a look and promote patriotic ideas.

According to Augustus' style, the most advanced weapons are always the next, so any weapon is outdated once it is equipped, and the backwardness can be displayed.

The Terran Empire can even authorize the Kemorian Federation and Yumoyan to produce their own Xanthos. Anyway, the real strength of the Empire has never been a certain technology, but the size, mobilization and war potential.

Augustus did not ask the Protoss how they view Xanthos. Before, he just asked for those in the Empire who cared about these views.

In addition, the Empire does not need to sell equipment to any Protoss forces. From their aesthetic point of view, Xanthos undoubtedly looks bloated and fat, without any aesthetic feeling.

The Protoss will slaughter their enemies gorgeously. Every deployment of the psychic network and the warp matrix is ​​like a note passing through the battlefield. They flatten everything with flames, like using a knife to elegantly spread butter on bread.

If there were Protoss from the Purifier Council here today, they might think that manned machinery is obviously outdated, and the era of military intelligent machinery will come from now on. Fortunately, these mechanical Protoss are still proud Templars in their bones, and have no desire to expand, otherwise they will have to fast forward to the situation where carbon-based creatures have been eliminated.

But Augustus has to say that although the weapons of the Empire are not as good as those of the Protoss, they are not much inferior in creating death and destruction, and the quantity is large and sufficient.

Compared with large machinery, the Imperials are actually more keen on distributing "express delivery". They like to smash all kinds of things on the battlefield, sometimes missiles carrying nuclear warheads, Odin mechas dropped on the battlefield, and even abandoned space stations warped to the enemy's face.

"The Empire has many machines like this." In front of a group of foreign guests, Arcturus was also tough.

It is still rare to hear such words from his mouth: "The weapon is not the key, the most important thing is the person who controls it."

Any advanced weapon would not be a secret to Amon. He could make a hundred Xanthos, or directly use the void energy to create something similar out of thin air, just like Augustus making a hundred fried eggs on the stove.

But Amon doesn't care about these petty gains, even the death fleet of the Tal'darim Protoss is not worth his excessive worry.

"Yes." Jinara thought that Arcturus was praising Tychus, so she sarcastically said: "I would rather give the Skywalker to my opponent than to a fool."

This noisy ceremony was really a torture in Jinara's eyes. Indeed, a huge Rakshir ceremony may include tens of thousands of Tal'darim, and the waves of cursing, provocation and even fighting between the two sides are far less than these humans.

To the Protoss with their keen telepathic abilities, humans are indeed overly noisy creatures. They never conceal their shallow thoughts when they speak, and their mouths are still chattering.

Augustus waved his hand to signal them to be silent, and at the same time, his eyes were like a square, looking through the surging crowd and looking at the invisible distance.

In fact, he didn't have any deep meaning, he just pretended to be profound.

He learned it from Zeratul.

This way, others would think that what he was about to say would be very important.

People don't understand the true direction of the war more than they think. Even most people can't count how many worlds the Empire has, let alone call out the names of other Imperial territories outside the core world.

In addition to this lively scene, the military camps across the territory of the Terran Empire are busy, and the troop movements are more frequent than ever before. The transfer order has even just arrived recently. In many places, it is still dark, and the soldiers have received the order to set off before they know what they will have for breakfast.

Many soldiers knew that they were rushing to the front line, and sufficient supplies meant a great war, but they did not know that the other 3/4 of the empire's fleet had already left the station. Now, half of the empire's fleet has entered a hyperspace jump state and can no longer be contacted.

The destinations of all fleets were fake. In fact, the end of their journey was the Otalis Rift, where there was a gate to the void.

There was no sense of direction in the universe. At this time, only those who were careful would notice that the starlight outside the porthole was abnormally becoming scarce, and only those who were truly proficient in navigation could use this to calculate where they were.

But this didn't mean anything.

Augustus had said long ago that he would march into the void, but Amon didn't believe he really had the courage.

This was a gamble.

The Imperial Army would either kill Amon or be wiped out in the void. From then on, except for the humans on Earth, no other human forces could stand up to Amon alone.

The battle of Bysher was just a coincidence. The order to attack the void was not issued suddenly, but was the result of long-term preparations after the Battle of Aiur and the careful consideration of decision makers.

In fact, it was only after Augustus ordered the fleet to assemble that he learned that two Ark of the World had appeared in Baishel, and realized that Amon was going to make a big move there in the near future.

Coincidentally, this would allow Amon to take advantage of the situation. Amon might think that the Terran Empire and Darram were going to launch another Shakuras-style battle in Baishel, or launch a large-scale counterattack in various parts of the Koprulu Sector to regain the lost territory.

But Augustus's appetite was much bigger than his, and his target was Amon himself.

To this end, Augustus had to mobilize the full strength of both humans and Protoss.

Since the Doomsday War, all their plans to decapitate the Zerg Overlords have come to nothing, and there is no hope of saving the Zerg from Amon, and all attempts to imitate the UED to control and enslave the Overlords have ultimately proved to be nothing more than a fantasy on paper.

And neither humans nor Protoss can drag it on.

Therefore, they must be prepared to face both the Void Army and the Zerg in the void at the same time.

The current Terran Empire has a sense of a world alliance. Augustus has basically unified the Koprulu humans, and although the Protoss are not convinced by each other, they are willing to ally with humans to resist Amon.

Beyond Augustus's sight, the gear-shaped skyscrapers pierce the sky.

Augustgrad seems like an unreal dream. No one could have expected that the new empire was built on the ruins of Korhal, and even the most optimistic people estimated that it would take at least ten to twenty years to clean up the ruins of Stirling.

Even today, Augustgrad is still slowly expanding outward. As the largest industrial heart of the Terran Empire, the Augustgrad Industrial Zone has swallowed up all the mines of Korhal, and now it is the mining industry of the entire empire that provides it with blood transfusions.

Today's industrial zone is much quieter than before, but it has not stopped operating. All foreigners who come here will be shocked by its amazing vitality and creativity. Every passage in and out of here is crowded with trucks, trains and transport barges, bringing raw materials and transporting products.

"Actors is right. We still have a lot of such equipment." Perhaps Augustus did have selfish motives. The battlefield of Bysher is dangerous enough, but it is better than the void.

Even after today, Augustus will board his flagship and go to Urna.

"Humans are ready to march into the void." Augustus said, "I know you are too."

"The fire of strife is burning fiercely." Jinara said, "I am here for this. The death fleet has been assembled and will arrive in the void soon."

"Alarak's anger towards Amon is unmatched. For this reason, he is willing to condescend and listen to the advice of the imperial humans."

"I hope you will do what you say." Arcturus said. (End of this chapter)