Chapter 39: Worried about my ability?
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
A dark spinning point appeared behind him, with golden light spilling out from the edges, and a strong gravitational force was extending in a state invisible to the human eye. After opening the spatial channel with a little energy, Lin Xu could hardly control his body and fell into the spatial channel.
–
The first wave of Zerg that appeared in the Delta region were just their vanguard. The barrier detection system in the Delta area was cut off by another group of rodent Zerg from beneath the hover, and without Lin Xu’s advance warning, they could have attacked directly into the undefended airfield and slaughtered civilians. The Silver Fortress, which lacked targeted weapons, had less than a fifty percent chance of stopping the Zerg army from coming in full force.
Now that the radial-wheeled airfield had been gathered into the fortress’s iron walls, and the Nature’s Evolution was protected deep within the fortress, the Abyss Fleet was in first-class anti-Zerg combat mode, with formations sailing into deep space.
The Zerg vanguard destroyed some of the fortress’s surface equipment and weaponry, but was soon blown to pieces by artillery fire. Engineers and intelligent machinery worked intensively to repair the electromagnetic barrier, and Abyss Fleet kept the incoming Zerg outside the barrier. But the Delta sector became the only battlefield inside the fortress.
The Zerg appeared to know that human communication devices did not respond well within the black barrier, and scrambled to get to it. Some of the Zerg that had crossed the Abyss Fleet’s blockade boarded the Delta Sector and began to fight the human mecha, with countless long-range missiles fired from inside the fortress into deep space, exploding into countless fires, and in the near distance was the dazzling glow of mecha particle beams and lightsabers.
Carl Hill, in command of the fortress, sent a message to his father, Gália Hill, head of the Fifth Legion and in charge of the Golden Cross defense line, asking for help, but the response was that it would take at least three days for reinforcements to arrive.
They needed three days, but it was as if the Zerg would not diminish, and every hour the scout ships reported new Zerg appearances, but this was the Golden Cross fucking line! Outside is the Abatis Galaxy, where there is almost no life! How could any Zerg come here?!
Carl Hill wiped his messy hair and gave the order to hold the Silver Fortress at all costs!
As he ordered the missiles to target the outside of the Delta sector, Heinrich, standing in the Victoria’s command room across the comm screen, pressed his eyebrows and clenched his fists, confirming to Ika again, “Lin Xu…”
“Alive.”
Yesterday, when Heinrich saw on the screen that Lin Xu was swept into the universe with Zerg, his mind went blank for a moment, he could hardly think about anything, only a buzz in his mind.
Until Ika calmly told him, “The sensors show that Dr. Lin is still alive.”
“Alive, okay…what sensors?”
“The sensors and locator I put in Dr. Lin’s space suit, but the electromagnetic disturbance in Delta has temporarily disabled the locator.”
Heinrich immediately dispatched a crew to the Delta sector to check the situation and asked Ika, “Why did you put a locator in Lin Xu’s suit?”
Ika, “If I don’t locate him, what if he leaves without a word?”
Whispers taught in historical records that this was how the Crown left the Ark fleet three thousand years ago, without a word.
But soldiers found no trace of Lin Xu in the Delta Sector or its outer rim, and some speculate that there was no resistance in space and the explosion may have pushed him far away, and if so… No human could survive unprotected.
Ika insisted that Lin Xu was alive, and if it had been Zhou Pingbo, Heinrich might have suspected that he was using lies to calm him down, but Ika was unlikely to do so. Heinrich had to force himself to steady his mind and put all his thoughts into fighting this wave of Zerg.
Lin Xu, Lin Xu…
In the interval between the military layout, Heinrich occasionally cast his eyes to the vast Star Ocean, and some thoughts involuntarily came to his mind. Did he make a mistake? He should have locked Lin Xu in area H, together with his two rabbit-cats, locked in the room, unable to step out. Like a treasure trove of jewels, beautiful, safe from prying eyes.
–
The earth was scorched by the young stars hanging high in the sky. Lin Xu had just opened his eyes when they were stung by the star’s dazzling light. He tried to move his arm to block the daylight, but it pulled a wound in his chest and he coughed violently.
The yellow sands of the Gobi were splattered with drops of blood, and the sand between his breaths rubbed his throat with pain and itch.
But he didn’t care what happened to his throat at the moment, he was awakened from his drowsiness by a wave of fear, his nerves were tense, and his animal instincts alerted him to the approaching danger.
A glance up and shadows enveloped him, the tall body of an armored Zerg blocking the star as he gazed at Lin Xu, bringing a coolness. The Zerg’s tentacles wavered, seemingly confused by the creature in front of him. Lin Xu attempted to stand up, but saw a dark, cold fish tail slapping the sand – his energy was almost depleted and he couldn’t support his legs.
The Zerg, about three meters tall, was puzzled, a little unsure if the half-human, half-fish creature in front of him counted as human, but he didn’t dwell on it for long as the sharp, mantis-like forelimbs probed at Lin Xu’s head.
Between breaths, the mantis leg was blocked by an invisible barrier in mid-air, and he couldn’t break through the mass of air. It could only press down on the force and push the mantis arm forward closer to Lin Xu’s face. The beads of sweat rolled down from Lin Xu’s eyes as he missed by a centimeter.
The Zerg let out a sharp scream, and the next moment, his forelimbs were ripped off. Lin Xu used his waist and abdominal strength to make a bounce, holding the sharp mantis leg, climbing on the Zerg’s back, and sticking the mantis leg into the back of the Zerg’s head.
His sharp armor also grew, sticking into the Zerg’s neck, one inch, another inch… Yellow-green Zerg bodily fluids spurted out along the wound. Lin Xu’s blow directly split the insect brain in half, and the Zerg’s body spasmed a few times and fell to the ground, shaking up the yellow sand all over the ground. The kill was quick and crisp, taking less than ten seconds to complete.
Lin Xu fell to the ground coughing up blood, the Silver Fortress explosion aftershocked his internal organs, he suspected there might be some internal bleeding.
Between the lines of sight, the Zerg’s brain marrow seemed to glow with some kind of bright light, and Lin Xu squinted to confirm it again. The Zerg in the Star Ocean game were greened up so that gamers could not see the gory Zerg details – such as the Zerg’s sticky, shiny, gooey brain marrow – that were too gory. Lin Xu was stunned, reached over and hung his palm in mid-air, telekinesis powers gathered the glittering debris together like a small whirlwind.
Not long after, from the Zerg’s disgusting body, Lin Xu extracted a light purple transparent stone, about the size of a thumb, light purple in the flow of energy aura. Does Zerg also have a crystal core?
Lin Xu froze, he broke half of the light purple crystal stone, energy spread into the palm of his hand, and felt half of the dragon scale with him and took a bite… The energy in the dragon scale tasted similar to the crystal core, and this light purple crystal tasted similar…
The energy re-injected into his dried up body moisturized Lin Xu’s body and repaired the damage, but one F-Class Zerg crystal was not enough, so Lin Xu swallowed the remaining half of the dragon scale.
Feeling the energy in his body gradually filling up, Lin Xu retracted his fishtail and stood up. The lower half of his space uniform had shredded into pieces and fallen aside when the fishtail appeared, and the body of the C-Class Zerg killed by Lin Xu also fell aside like a mountain.
Lin Xu walked over and cut open his brain to take out a larger yellow crystal core, and turned to look at the small Zerg he had just killed. The only one who crossed the space channel with him was the C-Class Zerg, the other Zerg…belonged to this desert itself.
Lin Xu tapped on the terminal, which showed that it could not access StarNet and could not be located. The deafening, horrific insect buzzing was still vibrating in the air. Lin Xu took a deep breath and turned around to look at the approaching Zerg swarm not far away.
It was like another horrific apocalypse, the only consolation being that the Zerg were not infectious and had no human form so he could cut them up without psychological burden. But they were simply moving hills, there were numerous creatures similar to corrosion, blasting, and sonic biological attack means. In the Empire, no one dared to think, that if humans had not yet designed mecha, in the end, how could they fight with the Zerg?
If he fought, he would be able to regain energy to open the space channel to leave; if he could not, he was ready to be eaten clean by the Zerg, spit out the bones into the yellow sand and buried.
—
The day after the Zerg invasion, the fortress barrier was breached again, and the mecha division in charge of that area was almost completely wiped out, blocking the Zerg from further invasion of the fortress.
The repair and reinforcement of the barrier was in full swing. It was suggested to abandon the fortress barrier and retreat to the interior of the fortress for defense, which was jointly rejected by Carl Hill and Heinrich.
But the fact did lie before the two commanders, their ammunition, energy and troops were depleting, while the Zerg kept flowing. The fortress could no longer hold Zerg corpses, and many Zerg corpses were pushed into space and left to fend for themselves. The initial count was 500 Zerg, but now, there were nearly 500 corpses alone, and scout ships continued to report new Zerg.
Carl Hill smiled bitterly during the online strategy session, “If there were no more Zerg, I’m afraid this would be enough for His Majesty to award me the Order of the Thornbush. But now… it’s a matter of survival.”
The Silver Fortress was so far away from the Capital Star in the Empire’s center that, in some cases, even the transmission of information was delayed. Carl Hill sent a letter explaining the status of the battle and had not received a reply from the Empire yet.
Heinrich’s expression was covered with a cold and decisive frost, ignoring Carl Hill’s sad joke and glancing at Zhou Pingbo.
Zhou Pingbo understood, forced a smile to cover his tired look, and said to the generals online at the same time, “As we all know, the Golden Cross defense line is far away from the Ent nebula where the Zerg are located, and there should not be any Zerg. The recent number of newly appeared Zerg fluctuates at a regular value, not like a mere… accident, if we can find the cause of the Zerg’s coming, we may be able to solve the dilemma we are facing.”
There were whispers in the conference room and Heinrich swept his gaze over them, “Do you have any comments?”
The discussion suddenly stopped, and the people were too secretive to look at Heinrich.
Finally, Carl Hill spoke up, “Marshal Chu, finding the Zerg’s source means following the Zerg’s route… The information we have so far is that we need to enter the Abatis Galaxy, where there is almost no communication signal and it is very dangerous. Large starships must remain near the fortress to fight, and if a small formation is detached to probe…it’s almost a death sentence, and even if someone has the courage, they don’t necessarily have the ability, it’s just a waste.”
“It’s not a waste now?” Zhou Pingbo jerked to his feet, the light screen of casualty battle reports in his hand was tapped to a garbled code. Heinrich pressed his palm, Zhou Pingbo reluctantly followed his gesture to collect his temper and sat down.
Those golden pupils looked at the crowd as if they could pierce the light screen, “I will go. Are you still worried about my ability?”
Carl Hill, “Marshal Chu! You are the Supreme Commander of the Abyss Fleet! How can you put yourself in a dangerous and unknown situation at this time?”
“If the Abyss Fleet will fall into chaos just because the Supreme Commander is not there, then it is better for me not to be a Marshal.” Heinrich said coldly, “Of the mecha we currently have, Blizzard has the strongest performance. I will lead a five-man mecha team to move forward in stealth, avoiding combat as much as possible to find answers as fast as possible.”
Author’s comment.
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