Sprawled in the mud, Cheng Zhan crawled with difficulty toward the Mother Empress, a full pack of mortar shells on his back.
Along the way, he saw his teammates who had fallen into the Zerg pit before him. Most were still unconscious, but a few who, like him, had reached Lv. 19 were groggily waking up.
Among them was the team’s Blast Expert.
Seeing Cheng Zhan struggling forward, he instantly understood the captain’s intention and reminded him in a low voice:
"Captain Cheng, that’s not going to work..."
"You have to remove the safety fuses on their tips, then use this to detonate them."
As he spoke, the Blast Expert pulled two blocks of standard-issue plastic explosives from his backpack:
"C4. Use this. It packs a bigger punch!"
Cheng Zhan took the explosives, stuffed them into his bag, and traded the hand grenade he was clutching for the C4’s detonator. Then, just as his teammate had instructed, he removed the safety fuses from the mortar shells inside the bag. Finally, he glanced at his unconscious teammates nearby and gave the Blast Expert a final charge:
"Hold on to that."
"This was all a trap by the Mother Empress. I’ve failed everyone. Don’t let their deaths be too painful."
The Blast Expert spat out a mouthful of muddy phlegm and nodded seriously.
Cheng Zhan took a deep breath, lowered his head, and continued to crawl forward.
His Superpower was rather unique. Besides a certain degree of Physical Enhancent, it also granted him a special Stealth Ability.
As one of the most elite soldiers of the forr special forces, Cheng Zhan was exceptionally talented at camouflage. The Superpower he awakened thus allowed him to conceal his aura and blend into his surroundings. Ordinary Black Spine Zergs couldn’t detect him, let alone the lower-level Red-Armored Beetles.
This was his hidden trump card, sothing he had gradually discovered through the course of battle.
His Stealth Ability didn’t last long—just a few minutes, sa as his physical boost—not long enough to allow him to escape the Underground Zerg Nest.
But it could be the final resort for a counterattack against the Mother Empress.
As he slowly approached, his teammates’ blood-curdling screams suddenly erupted from behind. He looked back to see jointed, arm-thick tentacles piercing through the shoulders of his unconscious comrades.
Awakened by the heart-piercing pain, they let out gut-wrenching howls.
They were countless Lv. 9 Red-Armored Beetles, each possessing a pair of two-ter-long, folded chelicerae. The limbs pierced the shoulders of the special forces mbers, lifting them like pieces of clothing and presenting them before the Mother Empress.
So tried to resist, but one man is no match for many. Even though they were Tier One Late Stage Awakeners, they could barely move an inch within the endless Swarm after breaking free.
The terrifying, unknown high-pressure environnt deep Underground, coupled with their nurous wounds, caused their physical and ntal states to continuously deteriorate.
During the chaos, a few of the tough Lv. 19 guys suddenly unleashed their Power, snapping the Red-Armored Beetles’ chelicerae. They landed on the beetles’ Back Armor, intending to escape.
When using their Physical Enhancent Superpower, they could push themselves to their limits and gain an additional 30% boost to their Physique.
Their upper limit of 150, after the additional boost, could approach the base Physique of 200 of a Tier Two Tiger Spine Zerg.
With such imnse Power and speed, moving through the swarms of insignificant, low-level Red-Armored Beetles was naturally effortless.
Another benefit of their powerful Physique was rapid recovery from injuries.
The wounds from the chelicerae, as long as they didn’t threaten their internal organs or brain, would quickly clot and scab over, preventing them from worsening.
Relying on their enhanced vision, they found four or five openings leading to the outside, illuminated by the cavern’s faint green glow.
Just as the n began to feel a glimr of hope.
That familiar silhouette appeared once more.
Only this ti, it wasn’t just one. It was a whole pack!
Over a dozen Tiger Spine Zergs stood guard at the entrances to the Nest. As the Mother Empress’s personal guard, they were responsible for the Nest’s constant security.
Naturally, they wouldn’t allow prey already in hand to escape from the Mother Empress’s very jaws.
Imdiately, the Lv. 19 special forces mbers were swatted back by the Tiger Spine Zergs’ six-to-seven-ter-long Giant Mandibles.
They crashed heavily into the swarm of countless Red-Armored Beetles. Their newly scabbed-over shoulder wounds were pierced open again, and the continuous, tearing pain nearly made them pass out once more.
Among them, the Blast Expert’s fragntation grenade—pin already pulled—flew into the Red-Armored Beetle Swarm, but only let out a muffled THUMP.
Although it killed that Red-Armored Beetle instantly, the force of the blast was absorbed by its Back Armor.
As the last shred of resistance was crushed, the mbers of the special forces team were scrambled over by the Red-Armored Beetle Swarm and delivered before the Mother Empress.
This High-tier Zerg Race, its head alone over thirty ters tall, was the very sa Lv. 32 Zerg Race Mother Empress that had raided the South Suburb of Hai City, intending to encircle the 13th Infantry Division with another High-tier Zerg Race.
Now, after devouring half of Hai City, it had successfully advanced to Lv. 33. Its body had grown even larger, and it was only half of Wu City’s worth of Biomass away from breaking through to Lv. 34.
To minimize her losses in the coming battle, the Mother Empress not only needed to absorb a massive number of human brains to read their mories and learn their strategic deploynts, but also to plant so spies as inside agents.
Unfortunately, such an opportunity had never presented itself.
The humans she captured were either too weak to withstand parasitism and her Spirit Manipulation, or their status was too low to have access to critical information about human defensive strategies.
Until now. Finally, she had the opportunity she’d been waiting for.
After watching the humans’ amusing struggles, the Mother Empress had her servants bring her the few Lv. 19 escapees.
She then spat out several writhing, thigh-thick tendrils from her mouth. The end of each tendril split into five segnts, each covered in sharp, backward-facing barbs.
These specialized mouthparts were extrely nimble, and they quickly latched onto the heads of the Lv. 19 escapees.
The barbed blades pierced their scalps, locking on tightly. Then, dozens of needle-like thrusts, like a mosquito’s proboscis magnified, extended from the tendrils and plunged into the escapees’ brains.
The pain in their brains overwheld the feeling of their scalps tearing, but the pitiful special forces mbers had already lost the ability to scream. They could only watch, wide-eyed, as their brains were sucked out, their very nervous systems gradually falling under the Mother Empress’s control.
During this, Cheng Zhan hid on the ground, forced to watch his teammates die horribly one by one as the Mother Empress fed on them. He quickly realized that the Mother Empress’s intelligence far surpassed human imagination.
The High-tier Zerg Race knew everything about the human situation. Even this probing action had been within its calculations.
From start to finish, it had all been a ticulously woven trap just for them!
Fear and terror, mixed with rage, beca unbearable for Cheng Zhan. He forced himself to his feet and charged at the Mother Empress, who was now less than fifty ters away.
But at that very mont, dozens of Red-Armored Beetles, as if they had been waiting, moved to block his path, tackling him and pinning him to the ground.
The hundreds of eyeballs on the Mother Empress’s head all turned in unison toward the human pinned beneath the Red-Armored Beetles.
Cheng Zhan felt his mind go blank!
Under the pressure of her imnse aura, even his thoughts beca sluggish.
Then, at the Mother Empress’s command, the nearly unconscious Cheng Zhan had his shoulders pierced by the chelicerae of Red-Armored Beetles and was brought before her.
After observing the human before her for a mont, the Mother Empress let out a satisfied sputtering sound and withdrew the powerful Spiritual Power she had focused on him.
As his senses returned, the first thing Cheng Zhan did was look at his nearly numb arm. Thankfully, he was still clutching the Detonator tightly in his palm.
He was still thirty ters away from the Mother Empress. Detonating now wouldn’t even scratch her.
’I need to get closer. Right up against her would be best.’
As he used what little consciousness he had left to continue with his suicide plan, the teammates clutched in the tendrils from the Mother Empress’s great maw suddenly began to speak:
"You are their superior officer. Among humans, you seem to hold great prestige..."
"So, human... submit to !"
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