Chapter 372: The Ever-Flowing Life Machine? Universal Megacorp's Ultimate Insecticide!
Though Universal Megacorp's frontline troops had already held off the Zerg tide, the creep had spread across vast swathes of inhabited territory. Its advance seemed nearly impossible to stop.
Densely packed Queens continued injecting essence into hatcheries, further accelerating the Zerg's reproduction rate.
As more and more living tissues became infected and spread across the planet, increasingly dangerous and mutated Zerg forms were already gestating within the eggs.
Witnessing the Zerg's terrifying reproductive capabilities and their rapid-strike tactics firsthand left the entire Myriad Worlds Base stunned—especially Francis, head of the Biotechnology Division.
In his eyes, the Zerg were nothing short of the perfect bioweapon, on par with the Flood. If they could somehow be tamed, Universal Megacorp's military budget could be slashed even further.
"David and his team really got the short end of the stick—of all the places to land, they picked a biodiverse planet. If it were a desert or a dead world, the Zerg would've been wiped out ages ago," Johnny Silverhand clicked his tongue and shook his head.
It was clear to him that these Zerg sustained themselves by devouring other lifeforms and absorbing their biomass.
Without a steady supply of meat and nutrients, their exponential growth would grind to a halt.
But judging by the current state of the battlefield, it was clear some heavy-duty weaponry would be necessary.
Paul shared the same conclusion. This encounter had shown him just how nightmarish the Zerg could be.
Before Universal Megacorp HQ could issue its next orders, a swarm of roach units burst forth from the creep, charging straight for Universal Megacorp's defense lines.
These so-called "roaches" bore little resemblance to Earth cockroaches. They looked more like turtle-shaped monsters, clad in thick, plated carapaces, with razor-sharp claws growing from their backs.
Their heads were almost entirely retracted into a spiked shell, revealing only rows of vicious, jagged teeth—enough to make Anyone shiver.
Roaches were significantly larger than Zerglings. If Zerglings were the Zerg's infantry, roaches were its tanks.
Their heavy bio-armor alone was enough to prove their formidable durability.
Composed of rare earths and metals absorbed from the soil, their carapaces could rival the hardness of industrial alloys forged by humans.
Worse still, even when shattered, the armor could regenerate using raw materials from the surrounding environment.
In a lush, resource-rich ecosystem like this one, it was nothing short of a paradise for roaches.
Additionally, their ability to siphon soil components made them highly adept at tunneling and excavation.
Freshly hatched, the roaches immediately drove their six digging claws into the ground and burrowed straight beneath Universal Megacorp's frontlines—surfacing in devastating surprise attacks.
The whole scene felt like something straight out of Plants vs. Zombies—with miner zombies digging under your defenses for a sneak assault.
At that moment, Bumblebee was wielding his flamethrower, incinerating the surrounding Zerg to ash, when suddenly, a roach burst out of the ground right in front of him.
Instinctively, Bumblebee turned his flamethrower on the creature—but to his shock, the fire failed to kill it instantly!
Normally, no matter how advanced, Zerg bioweapons were still carbon-based lifeforms. They should've gone up in flames.
But this roach—clad in heavy plating—charged straight through the inferno, completely unscathed. Not only that, it even retaliated, spewing a dense blob of acidic venom at Bumblebee.
"What the hell is this thing? Why won't it burn?!"
Bumblebee froze for a moment, clearly caught off guard by the creature's resistance to flames.
In that brief hesitation, the roach's acidic spit struck Bumblebee's left arm.
In an instant, the corrosive fluid began rapidly melting through his metal plating, eating away at it until internal circuits and skeletal structures were laid bare.
Faced with such a lethal unit, Bumblebee didn't dare let down his guard again. He quickly dodged another acidic blast and hurled his flamethrower like a club.
Since fire didn't work, the weapon was effectively useless.
Just as Bumblebee pondered his next move, Optimus Prime leapt in from the side and slashed clean through the roach with the hard-light mantis blades deployed from his wrists.
Against weapons of such intense energy output, even a roach's reinforced armor wasn't enough.
"I've already reported the situation to HQ. Looks like we'll need to deploy heavy weaponry to exterminate these bastards once and for all," Optimus warned.
Against a species as ever-changing and adaptive as the Zerg, even warriors like the Transformers were feeling stretched thin.
Bumblebee glanced at the grotesque, acid-melted injury on his arm. Though it didn't hurt, he'd definitely taken a hit this time.
"Conventional guns won't cut it anymore. We need to bring in hard-light cannons."
While speaking, Bumblebee called for the Veronica system.
Soon, a hovering supply pod swooped in, swiftly dismantling and replacing his damaged arm with a freshly manufactured one.
Veronica was Universal Megacorp's most advanced field-support system. Whether it was ammo resupply or equipment replacement, these floating assembly units responded instantly.
Just like that, Bumblebee had a brand-new steel arm and was ready to rejoin the fight.
Similar scenes played out across Universal Megacorp's defensive lines. Once the roaches entered the fray, the previously suppressed Zerg began surging once more in a vicious counterattack.
Standard hard-light rifles and blaster carbines were barely scratching the roaches' thick armor.
Flamethrowers—lethal against Zerglings—were now virtually useless. And the roaches' ability to burrow made them even harder to defend against, destabilizing the entire frontline.
Their acidic venom was highly corrosive even to metal. Not even the Transformers could shrug it off.
Many of the Astartes, whose power armor had already suffered wear and tear, now had to fight even more cautiously.
After all, ceramite wasn't invincible.
Faced with this escalating threat, Universal Megacorp's troops had no choice but to retreat and regroup to form a new defensive line.
Fortunately, reinforcements soon arrived.
From high orbit, Universal Megacorp's motherships deployed massive war machines to the battlefield.
Towering 50-meter hunter-class mechs—like Crimson Typhoon and Gipsy Danger—descended into the fray.
Thanks to the widespread adoption of transforming alloys, these once-clunky behemoths had evolved into agile combat titans.
Think of them as Transformers on steroids. Their high-explosive payloads were enough to blast even roaches into shredded gore.
With the hunter mechs on the field, Universal Megacorp's ground forces regained their footing, and the momentum of the war began to shift in their favor once more.
At Myriad Worlds Base, Li Ang watched the ongoing stalemate with narrowed eyes. It was clear the time had come to end this "war game."
Given the planet's bountiful resources, the Zerg would just keep evolving indefinitely—until every living thing was drained dry.
And by then, Universal Megacorp's soldiers would be dead on their feet.
They had already seen what the Zerg were capable of. It was time to put an end to this infestation.
"Have David release the Virus. Time to clean up the battlefield."
When Li Ang's command reached the flagship, David Martinez hesitated, somewhat reluctant.
He'd genuinely wanted to fight this out—to go a few more rounds with the Zerg.
After all, in all his battles, he'd never encountered a species with such diverse forms and adaptability.
In many ways, the Zerg were one of the few forces that could go toe-to-toe with Universal Megacorp's elite ground units.
The combat data alone was worth more than any simulated training exercise.
> [All units, prepare to fall back. The Virus will now be deployed. Hunter mechs remain in position.]
When David's orders came through the comms, a wave of relief swept through the troops.
Truth be told, these bugs had been far more troublesome than expected. Without overwhelming fire support, the defense line would've collapsed long ago.
After fighting this long, even the battle-hardened Astartes were beginning to show fatigue. On average, their power armor had sustained over 60% structural damage.
At this rate, casualties would be inevitable.
Thankfully, Universal Megacorp's victory never relied on human wave tactics.
It relied on dimensional superiority—one decisive strike to obliterate everything.
It was time to show those damned bugs the true power of Universal Megacorp.
As command signals pulsed from the fleet's flagship, black viral spores began descending from the sky like volcanic ash.
The battlefield was soon engulfed in a haze of drifting, carbon-dust-like particles.
All the while, countless Zerg eggs continued greedily absorbing essence from the land, preparing to hatch yet another wave of warriors.
Some of those eggs even housed advanced Zerg breeds Universal Megacorp hadn't encountered yet. But the Zerg's one guiding principle remained unchanged: Conquest.
As long as there were resources—life force—to consume, the Zerg would never stop.
Not until the planet was a barren husk… and one massive hatchery.
But Universal Megacorp had no interest in dragging this out any longer.
After all, it was time to unleash their high-dimensional exterminator—
A high-efficiency insecticide… straight from hell.
As the sky darkened under a veil of black spores, the Queens mid-oviposition couldn't help but lift their eyes to the heavens.
The Queen tilted her head upward, trying to glimpse what exactly was descending upon the Zerg. She blinked her pitch-black eyes, puzzled by what she saw.
Then, the symbol of death arrived.
The Scorpion Virus spores rained down and landed upon the Zerg creep.
Within seconds, the crawling and writhing creatures—along with unhatched eggs—began to rapidly decompose, merge, and transform.
Their biomass was overwritten at a fundamental level, restructured into the very spores that had fallen upon them.
The infected Zerg could do nothing but watch helplessly as their bodies disintegrated into black ash-like dust.
Some nearby Zerg even mistook the infected for mutated enemies and began killing and devouring them in confusion.
This triggered a chaotic frenzy of mutual slaughter and cannibalism. Paul and the others didn't even need to lift a finger—they simply stood by and watched the madness unfold.
It was a sight so disturbing, so surreal, that it sent chills down everyone's spine.
But before long, the Zerg realized that devouring their transformed kin did nothing to halt the virus's spread.
Desperate, they surged toward the Universal Megacorp forces and any living beings nearby, scrambling to accelerate their reproduction in hopes of outpacing the spores' annihilation.
But it was a losing battle.
The Virus spores spread far faster than the Zerg could breed. In no time, tens of thousands of Zerg eggs were wiped out completely.
Hydralisks, Ultralisks, Infestors—these advanced units hadn't even finished gestating before they were reduced to dust by the virus, erased from the planet without a trace.
Of course, the Virus didn't distinguish between enemies. It targeted all non-Universal Megacorp biological lifeforms, which unfortunately included native wildlife.
But to completely eliminate the Zerg's relentless reproductive engine, Universal Megacorp had little choice. This was still far more humane than wiping the entire planet with neutron-based extinction.
After the last of the creep crawlers had been dealt with, Universal Megacorp's AI drones returned to the battlefield, deploying incendiary bombs to incinerate every inch of remaining creep tissue.
Other units resumed cleanup operations and assisted the engineering division in constructing forward operating bases.
Now that the sudden Zerg outbreak had been contained, Paul finally breathed a sigh of relief. If he'd been on his own, there was no way he could've taken down such a threat.
Thankfully, standing behind him was none other than Universal Megacorp, a force spanning the multiverse itself.
Even as Paul exhaled, Universal Megacorp's ground teams continued sweeping the area, making absolutely sure no creep or threat had been left behind.
At David Martinez's command, construction of the forward base proceeded smoothly. Paul returned to the flagship, where he and David submitted their post-battle report to HQ.
The research team aboard the warship began analyzing the creep samples and Zerg remains collected by the AI drones.
David and Paul stood before a holo-screen, facing Universal Megacorp's high council.
The good news? Despite the intensity of the conflict, not a single soldier had died. There were only various degrees of injury.
The only notable losses were the AI drones, and even those were trivial in the face of Universal Megacorp's industrial might.
Still, the battle had made one thing painfully clear to everyone: the StarCraft universe was incredibly dangerous.
Without sufficient strategic-grade weaponry as a backup, not even sacrificing human lives would be enough to conquer this realm.
"Continue exploration and intelligence gathering. Report back the moment anything new appears."
Li Ang knew full well how complex the situation in this universe was. What mattered now was establishing a foothold—and securing the five Keystone shards.
"Yes, sir."
After the call ended, David moved swiftly to fully secure the planet. He deployed additional AI drones to scout the rest of the star system.
He also established a planetary energy shield to prevent future surprise attacks via Zerg drop pods.
It wasn't a perfect solution, but it significantly reduced the chances of another breach.
Watching the forward base being constructed with perfect precision, Li Ang stood at the command console and wondered if there were any more Zerg lurking in the system.
Logically, the Zerg wouldn't waste resources on elaborate traps like this unless there was a greater plan.
Right on cue, the frontline forces transmitted a new report from the AI scouts.
Sure enough—on another planet within the same star system, they discovered a continent covered in that same purple-red creep. It was a full-blown Zerg stronghold.
"…Is that their main hive?"
Morgan Blackhand stared at the image, a chill running down his spine. The screen showed an ocean of writhing Zerg swarming across the landscape—devouring, multiplying, evolving.
It was like watching a never-ending machine of life in motion.
Anyone who fell into that swarm would be absorbed in seconds.
> [Based on our data scans, we've found orbital debris from human-made satellites around that planet. We also detected faint distress signals.]
> [Chances are high this was once a human colony world—until the Zerg invaded.]
David Martinez relayed the findings to HQ.
Li Ang immediately pieced together the Zerg's true strategy.
They'd first targeted the human colony in the system, then spread drop pods along key routes. Any fleet that passed by or landed would be instantly ambushed.
Classic encirclement and reinforcement trap tactics.
"So basically, we stumbled right into the Zerg's trap—and took the first hit."
Morgan shook his head, half-laughing, half-cursing. It was obvious the Zerg's true target had been the Terran Federation fleet.
But now, thanks to David's forces, the minefield had already been defused.
"Since we've triggered the trap, it's only a matter of time before the Zerg realize someone new has arrived."
V frowned. He feared that the Zerg might deploy their main force next—and if they had a way to resist the Scorpio Virus, things could get ugly.
Li Ang wasn't worried about the Zerg's main force. His real concern was that they might now regard Universal Megacorp as a primary threat, which would skyrocket the cost of unification.
He came to the StarCraft universe to play kingmaker—not get caught in a deathmatch.
"Exactly. The Zerg will likely dispatch Overseers to investigate. And when that happens, we'll be right back under fire."
Johnny Silverhand agreed. In his view, the current base was no longer safe. The smartest move was to get the hell out.
Sticking around to play target practice? Only fools did that.
Li Ang nodded thoughtfully, then turned to David and asked:
"How far's the nearest star system from here?"
> [Roughly two light-years. At our fleet's speed? Just moments away.]
David answered confidently. Every ship in Universal Megacorp's fleet had FTL drives—this distance was trivial.
But Li Ang didn't give the order to retreat just yet. In the current climate, staying put might be safer than jumping blind.
Any encounter with the Zerg fleet—or worse, the Terran Federation—could drag them into unnecessary trouble.
While the high council argued back and forth over whether to retreat, Paul Atreides suddenly spoke up:
> "Commanders, before we make any final decisions—I have a proposal. A risky one, but it might be worth trying."
His unexpected suggestion caught everyone's attention. Li Ang looked up at the screen and motioned for him to continue.
> "I propose we clean out that Zerg-infested planet. But before we deploy the scorpio Virus, I'd like to lead a team down there—to locate the source of those distress signals."
His words left many high-ranking officers confused.
The planet was already claimed by the Zerg. Even if they purged it with the virus, the strategic risk remained.
Using the Virus spores was costly, and sending in a rescue team for potentially dead humans? It didn't make sense.
Especially since deploying the virus would kill any survivors. To avoid that, they'd have to go in person—a near-suicidal mission.
Just as Morgan Blackhand was about to shut Paul down, Li Ang raised a hand, signaling everyone to wait.
Seeing his boss intrigued, Paul seized the moment and faced the council with calm determination:
> "If our drones can detect a distress signal, it means there's still someone alive—someone hoping for rescue."
> "If we can save them, we may gain access to critical intelligence… and perhaps even form an alliance with the remaining human forces here."
After surviving the Star Wars universe, Paul had come to understand a hard truth: "Those who win support, win the war. Those who lose it, lose everything."
He'd rallied the Rebel Alliance to Universal Megacorp's cause on Jedha—so why not forge new alliances here in StarCraft's universe?
With intel, local allies, and a network of survivors, Universal Megacorp could secure its position.
That was Paul's entire strategy.
And perhaps… the key breakthrough for their campaign of galactic unification.
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