Chapter 327: Two of a Trade Never Agree
The war with the Tyranids was a relentless, unending meat grinder.
On Iphix, reinforced with the biomass from Laesos, the Leviathan fleet began a non-stop assault. Every moment, countless Tyranid creatures were deployed onto the planet. By paying a heavy price, the Tyranids had managed to occupy a small area of the planet and establish a few Capillary Towers and digestion pools, finally allowing them to reclaim a sliver of biomass.
As if seeing a glimmer of hope in winning this war, the Tyranids began to double down on their investment in Iphix. As their losses continued to mount, they also began to display their powerful adaptability. More and more Tyranid bio-morphs, specifically designed to counter the Zerg, were being produced.
Pyrovores began to spew fire, clearing the nearby Creep. They had realized that fighting the Zerg on the Creep was a losing battle. On or off the Creep, there was a clear difference in the Zerg's combat effectiveness. On the Creep, they were faster and could even directly regenerate their wounds from it.
The Hive Mind had never imagined that in a war, it would be unable to achieve numerical superiority on a planet's surface. It was even forced into the humiliating position of having to dig in and defend a small area, slowly looking for an opportunity to advance.
In addition to the Pyrovores, Biovores, acting as artillery, were also being mass-produced to deal with the Zerg's endless, large-scale advances. The expendable Locusts spawned by the Swarm Hosts were a nightmare for the Tyranids' smaller units, and they could only use the Biovores to wear down their endless numbers.
On the front lines of the battle, the number of Tyranid behemoths, like Hive Tyrants and Tyrant Guard, was also far beyond the normal scale. In a one-on-one situation, a Brutalisk could not defeat a Hive Tyrant. But the problem for the Tyranids was that the number of Brutalisks was only increasing the more they fought.
For the Hive Mind, a Hive Tyrant was not a creature that could be casually produced. But in this battlefield, which was like a flesh-grinding millstone, the acquisition of biomass for Abathur was practically endless. The pure energy absorbed by the Creep could not directly produce a Brutalisk, but as long as there was enough biomass, Abathur could evolve any Zerg ground unit into one.
They fought, they consumed, they evolved. One moment it might be an ordinary Zergling; the next, after absorbing enough biomass, it would become a giant Brutalisk.
The Tyranids had still not released their ultimate weapons, such as the Hierophant or the Dominatrix. The Tyranids were also searching. The battle with the Zerg had made them realize a commonality between them: gestalt consciousness civilizations like theirs always had a central node.
Zagara was now daring to appear directly on the battlefield. Her intelligence and self-awareness had attracted the attention of the Hive Mind. Her display of intellect had made the Hive Mind believe she was a synapse-hub on the level of a Norn-Queen. The moment she appeared on the battlefield, the Hive Mind would, even at the cost of wasting countless amounts of biomass, try to kill her.
The ground war was a crushing advantage for the Zerg, but the Tyranids still held dominance in the void. This meant that they could deploy troops to any location on the planet at will. If Zagara had not been accompanied by enough Queens, she might have already been killed in one of the Hive Mind's no-holds-barred air-drop assassination attempts.
However, Zagara becoming the apparent central node was not a bad thing for Lucan.
"Zagara, has your body recovered?" Abathur's voice rasped.
"Abathur, we can clearly gather enough forces to destroy the area they occupy! Why are we just letting them stay there?!" Zagara's voice was full of resentment. She was the one on the front lines, the one fighting. But Abathur was hiding here and had even used the Queen's name to restrict her from leading her Swarm to destroy that area directly.
"Zagara, war is not so simple. Have you forgotten the orders of the Queen and the Lord?" Abathur's voice was calm and emotionless. "The resources and time required to win this war through pure consumption and attrition are too great. But you do not need to be too impatient. The time for revenge will not be long. For now, your appearance only draws the attacks of their so-called Tyrants and Lictors. We must wait patiently, wait for the Zerg to grow even stronger and to consume enough of their biomass. We must let the threat you pose in their eyes continue to rise, until they are willing to use even more powerful bio-weapons to kill you."
In Zagara's eyes, she knew that Abathur was trying to use her as bait again. She wanted revenge, yes, but she wanted to use other Zerg to eliminate the enemy. She was not, by nature, the one best suited for combat.
"Are you trying to use me as bait and send me to my death, Abathur?!"
"Zagara, the Queen will not let you die. Our master is no longer the Overmind. We are the Queen's subordinates, no longer expendable consumables that can be thrown away at will. You must believe in the Queen, and in the Lord."
Abathur's words calmed Zagara considerably. She did not believe Abathur, but she believed Kerrigan. For special Zerg like Abathur and Zagara, their obedience to Kerrigan was not just because of the Hive Mind, but a willing loyalty born from her charisma. They both believed that the Zerg would become great again in Kerrigan's hands.
Meanwhile, the situation on Asphodel had also begun to change.
Day six.
The Imperial soldiers on Asphodel had already lost count of how many attacks they had repelled. The scorched stench of burning Tyranid corpses filled the entire city of Phodia. A grey-black smoke obscured the sky. The Tyranids within the city had been more or less purged. Although the casualties among the mortal troops were still within an acceptable range, the soldiers' mental and physical stamina were beginning to approach their limits.
But thankfully, the large-scale Tyranid offensive seemed to have gradually stopped.
Through the efforts of everyone on this planet, the Tyranids had begun to gradually abandon Asphodel. The Hive Mind's analysis had begun to conclude that the biomass that could be harvested from conquering Asphodel was no longer enough to make up for its losses. Lucan's tactic of burning all the biomass was a direct attack on its food supply, and there was nothing the Hive Mind could do about it.
Rather than continuing this meaningless battle on Asphodel, it was better to throw all available ground forces onto Iphix and into the meat grinder with the Zerg. If it won there, the Hive Mind could use the immense amount of biomass to turn around and drown Asphodel in true numbers.
As the war between the two races became more brutal, for the Tyranids, the war against the Zerg was no longer just about the pursuit of biomass. As the saying goes, two of a trade never agree. Sensing the Zerg's ability to devour biomass and energy, the Hive Mind knew that if it allowed them to grow stronger, they would eat all the food in its bowl. By killing several Brutalisks, the Swarm had also discovered the Hive Tyrant genes within them. From the current situation, if the Zerg were to be well-fed, then it would starve. Everything it had accumulated would have been for nothing, just a wedding dress for the other.
However, to prevent the humans on this planet from intervening in the battle on Iphix, the Hive Mind still left a considerable number of bio-fleets in orbit around Asphodel. It also controlled the remaining Tyranid creatures to hold their positions in the wastelands, no longer attacking. For the Hive Mind, as long as the humans left their fortified positions, its swarm could still win the war on the plains.
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