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Chapter 226: I'm a Zerg, I Don't Understand
🕑 Added 2025-08-17 13:48:24 +0000 UTCChapter 226: I'm a Zerg, I Don't Understand
"Karax, command of the Spear of Adun is yours. I am taking the Templar to capture this warship! Lord Lucan needs this Blackstone Fortress!"
"Hierarch, rest assured, leave it to me."
After seeing the power of the Spear of Adun, the Chaos fleet also shifted its target to it. The Tempests engaged the Chaos warships, and the Ultramarines' fleet also began to assist the Spear of Adun in a counter-attack. Although they detested xenos, they did indeed need this warship to stop the Blackstone Fortress for them.
And as Macragge was attacked, the nearby star systems also immediately dispatched their own fleets. Scattered warships forced their way through the warp and entered Macragge.
Kerrigan's Zerg had also already approached the massive Ark of Omen. The Leviathans had no energy shields to block damage and could only rely on their sturdy biological carapaces to withstand the cannon fire from the Ark. Compared to the Protoss warships, the Zerg's dominance in the void was several notches lower.
Two Leviathans used their own bodies as cover to shield the advance of the subsequent forces. Their flesh was already riddled with holes from the explosions, and they were in a near-death state. But unless they were completely killed, the Leviathans could continue to advance. The Leviathans swung their tentacles, smashing the incoming torpedoes. And the Dark Mechanicum hereteks on the Ark of Omen were desperately torturing the blasphemous machine spirits and the bound daemons, forcing the Ark to release even stronger attacks.
By the time these two Leviathans had been turned into countless pieces of flesh floating in the void by the endless cannon fire, the remaining Leviathans had already closed in on the Ark of Omen. They pressed right up against it, rendering its powerful long-range weapons useless. Their swinging tentacles directly smashed its external point-defense guns. And their bio-plasma cannons, with their highly corrosive acid, began to tear open gaps in the weak points of this jumbled-together warship. The two biological armor spikes on their prows pierced into the ship's interior.
Countless Zerg poured in through the ramming spikes and began to kill everything within this corrupted warship.
After successfully boarding, the Queens began to release creep, starting a battle for territory with the blasphemous flesh that had been generated by the warp corruption within this warship. The purple creep began to devour the corrupted flesh growing on the ship's decks and bulkheads. However, this corrupted flesh, which had a life of its own, continuously multiplied under the supply of warp energy, attempting to destroy the invading creep. The warp corruption of the Ark of Omen was simply too severe, causing various anti-physical phenomena to constantly occur within it. Being inside it was comparable to being directly in the warp. The derelict ships that had drifted in the warp for countless ages had long since accumulated a massive amount of warp energy.
The creep and the corrupted flesh devoured each other. The warp-energy-supplied corrupted flesh seemed to have the upper hand for a time, but the creep was also simultaneously absorbing the energy, sending it back to the Leviathans. The deficit created by their rapid jump was quickly replenished, and more energy was sent into the spawning pools to produce more Zerg. As more Queens joined and absorbed enough energy, the creep finally began to spread outward.
And inside the Ark of Omen, the bound daemons were liberated. Daemon engines moved in packs, and corrupted combat servitors also tried to drive the Zerg out of this warship.
On the ground, Vashtorr also sensed everything that was happening inside the Ark of Omen. The sudden entry of the Protoss and the Zerg made him even more anxious. And the Gorgons floating high in the sky were also causing him a great deal of trouble in his advance.
"Faster! Faster!"
Unfortunately, the closer he got to the shrine where Guilliman was, the stronger the human defensive forces became, and their counter-attacks were more resolute.
And Kerrigan had also set foot on the Ark of Omen. Feeling the Chaos energy spreading in the air, Kerrigan was also extremely disgusted. If a mortal force had broken into the interior of the Ark of Omen, this power would probably already be eroding their bodies. And the indescribable sights within the warship, combined with the warp whispers generated by the high concentration of Chaos energy, would be enough to drive an ordinary mortal mad.
The insane whispers from the warp and the injection of a dense amount of warp energy were trying to corrupt Kerrigan and her Zerg. But for the Zerg, they had no self-awareness to begin with, nor did they have the emotion of fear. Whisper all you want, I don't understand anyway.
The hive mind protected them from being corrupted by Chaos. However, Kerrigan also discovered that some of the smaller Zerg had undergone some special mutations under the torrent of dense warp energy. Temporarily putting aside the urge to study them, Kerrigan ordered other Zerg to capture them as samples for later research.
But it was not only the Zerg who were without fear in this warship. There were also the daemon engines and the corrupted and modified automata. Neither side would stop their actions until one was completely dead. The complex corridors inside the Ark of Omen became an advantage for the Zerg, while the pure mechanical bodies of the daemon engines became their disadvantage.
The Zerg known as Vipers and Corruptors—the former could spit out a cloud of poison that disabled energy-based weapons and slowed the energy supply from the Soul Forge to the blasphemous body. And the slime spat out by the latter eroded the armor of the daemon engines. Once they were caught in close combat and lost their ability to eliminate the Zerg on a large scale, the Zerg would use their numbers to overwhelm these debuffed opponents.
The Zerg's evolutionary mechanism had long since developed its own set of tactics for dealing with purely mechanized enemies. The Zerg's sharp spines and claws destroyed every instrument they saw, especially those daemon-steel neuro-bundles. For every segment of the neuro-bundle that was severed, Vashtorr's control over this blasphemous warship was reduced by a fraction.
The corruption of this warship was too deep. Lucan had no intention of spending the effort to purify this pure product of Chaos. His request to Kerrigan was to completely destroy it.
Under the protection of the Swarm, Kerrigan began to go deep into this blasphemous warship, searching for the central control known as the "Ferrymen." No one could pilot this kind of warship by conventional means. Even those blessed by Chaos could not control its extremely twisted systems, which had been exposed to the warp for a long time, through any cogitator array or machine spirit. In every area with a daemon-steel neuro-bundle, there would be a fusion of a daemon and a physical entity. They were enslaved and bound, taking on the duties of the original crew. An unknown evil sorcery made these daemons obey the commands of the ship's master and control this blasphemous warship for him.
But this also meant that once these Ferrymen were destroyed, the Ark of Omen would once again have a mind of its own. Vashtorr would not be able to control it, and the warship itself would destroy those who tried to control it from within.
Soon, Kerrigan, using her own psychic powers, followed a daemon-steel neuro-bundle and found a Ferryman. Flesh and machine were fused together. A humanoid monster was embedded in the wall, its eyes bulging, a large number of severed limbs connected to its body.
Kerrigan looked at the bizarre existence before her with disgust and unhesitatingly destroyed it with her psychic powers. And as the Ferryman of this area was killed, a part of the Ark of Omen immediately went offline. Some of the warp entities that were still fighting the Zerg began to attack both the Zerg and the daemon engines indiscriminately.
Sensing all this, Kerrigan knew that she did not need to destroy all the Ferrymen. Just half of them would be enough to make this Ark of Omen completely lose its combat capability. She urged the Zerg to speed up their attack, without regard for casualties. This warship, radiating warp energy, was the best nutrient for the Zerg.
And Artanis had also already entered the interior of the Blackstone Fortress, and had even come face-to-face with the Ultramarines who had broken in ahead of him.
