40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 574 92. Dark Expedition (Nineteen, Belisarius Cawl's Zerg Classroom)

Khalil opened his eyes and saw a vast expanse of steam, hot and boiling. Belisarius Cawl's huge body was looming in it, and the clicking sound from under his robes was as loud as heavy rain.

It seemed dangerous, but he was manipulating his limbs and making calculations in such a steam.

The blue light of the holographic projection screen reflected his outline in the still continuous steam, which was completely unlike that of a human. The multiple moving limbs were one of the main culprits for this impression.

Khalil coughed lightly, and the blue light dissipated. Belisarius Cawl turned around at a speed that was completely inconsistent with his posture, and the steam quickly dissipated under a gust of wind that came from nowhere.

He shook his head and put back the artificial eye that he had removed at some point, as if nothing had happened. Oil - or something like that - oozes out from the interface between flesh and machinery, making the old face even more terrifying.

Of course, the Archmagos himself knows nothing about this.

He smiled strangely, and the cold air from the auxiliary respirator sprayed out in bursts. His appendages began to tap each other, checking each other's status and retracting under his robe. He nodded to Khalil with great joy.

"The bugs are coming!" Cawl shouted.

"."

"I said the bugs are coming, my lord."

"I-" Khalil paused for a moment, and was genuinely confused for a moment.

"Excuse me, Archmagos Cawl, I don't understand, is this something to be happy about?"

"Of course not in the secular sense, but for me, this is indeed worth celebrating. Sosa has been on the edge of the feast of these greedy creatures for the past nineteen centuries, which has caused great trouble for my research."

"What research?" Khalil asked.

"Research on the Zerg." Cawl replied. "You don't know, sir. But before I arrived in Sosa, I promised the respected Robert Guilliman that I would come up with a solution that would work for the bugs."

"Although he didn't believe me very much, I did push this matter forward seriously. And now, it's time to check the results."

The hunched giant sage waved excitedly at Khalil and took him to the huge mechanical maze again. He walked very fast, and this time he never had to find his way.

In just three minutes, they arrived at a surveillance array. Thousands of observation screens hanging from the ceiling were full of Sosa's scenes, from forests, fields to cities that were still burning.

Without seeing any movement from Cawl, two mechanical arms passed through the dense collection cables and swept them all away. Two screens followed closely behind, and some kind of anti-gravity device hummed at their bottoms.

"Allow me to introduce you to my observation window. In the first few centuries when I was still in the habit of self-examination, I would observe the outside world from here, but later I went too deep."

Call began to talk and took out a single golden gear from under his red robe. He did not use his appendages to do this. The gear was held in his right hand.

Although it had long been mechanized, Khalil still saw something unusual in this action, but Khalil did not intend to explain, and just began to concentrate on fiddling with the gear.

Khalil saw that he could not get an answer, so he simply began to observe the two screens. The scenes they showed were the two ends of a city, burning.

The local defense forces of Sosa were riding their transports to roll over the ruins. The work of collecting corpses had been suspended. Another war had come.

But the enemy did not appear.

Khalil frowned and turned to look at other observation screens, still not seeing any signs of Zerg invasion.

"Great Sage."

"Yes, yes, I am here, my lord--" Khalil answered without looking up. "——Please give me a few more minutes, okay? I'm searching my memory. The secret key I designed is a bit too complicated. I don't have time to waste on unlocking it."

Khalil had no choice but to wait. Kaul did not disappoint him. Just two minutes later, he laughed loudly, and the golden gear in his hand suddenly began to deform.

Complex mechanical structures swarmed out from under its golden shell, and soon the gear was multiplied into a key.

Kaul bent down holding it, the ground cracked, and a silver cylinder slowly rose. Kaul inserted the key into the keyhole on its surface and twisted it gently.

"A little trick of old-fashioned structure, sir. Data is not always reliable, but as long as it is properly maintained, the machine will never betray you-"

The great sage laughed and took another step, walking towards the deepest part of this screen jungle. There, a huge screen was slowly lighting up.

"I have designed and launched many satellites for Sosa over the years. They can show me the scene outside Sosa when necessary."

Caul explained, but he was still laughing strangely. Khalil looked at him incomprehensibly, but found that Caul was laughing even happier.

"Of course, out of respect for the Emperor's Scythe and the local lords, I usually don't use these forces beyond their permission. However, I think they should no longer have any opinions about me, a red-robed weirdo. Anyway, my lord, look here."

Kaul stood up straight and pointed to the upper left edge of the screen with his right hand. The screen quickly shrunk from the surface of Sosa, who was safe and sound, to the burning void.

Khalil squinted his eyes and saw an indescribable void naval battle.

The Macragge's Glory combined fleet is fighting against the insect swarm's living ship group, which has a biological texture. Their number is difficult to calculate. Even at a rough glance, it is several times that of the combined fleet.

Any general would be overwhelmed when faced with such numbers of adversaries, but the leader at this time was Robert Guilliman.

The living ships of the swarm are being destroyed by continuous volleys one after another. Huge pieces of flesh and carapace float in the dark vacuum, which soon freeze and shine in the gunfire, as if one after another is bleeding. as strange as his eyes.

It seemed like they were at a disadvantage, but the Zerg seemed not to care. Their ships still maintained a uniform slow speed and moved forward, like a huge and discrete piece of meat. No matter how much the ferocious beast of the combined fleet bites, it will never stop.

Moreover, they are by no means unable to fight back.

Armor-piercing spikes, acid shells and other killing techniques that can only appear on living creatures are spurting out from the heads of their so-called ships at hundreds of times the size. The attack power is not very powerful, but it is victorious. In large numbers and almost impossible to dodge

The void shield has a limit to what it can withstand. Moreover, any ships that block the way will be pulled into the same death by their impact ships or fall into the embarrassing situation of engine shutdown.

"Well they don't care about their losses," Call said in a thoughtful tone. "That's true, they can afford it."

His tone suddenly became a little angry.

"Judging from this speed, if our fleet cannot strike a decisive blow, then they will not suffer any fatal losses at all. Ah, there is still here, sir."

The screen zoomed again, and at the edge of the Sousa galaxy, more Zerg living ships were approaching seemingly slowly.

"It's too numerous to count," the great sage muttered in an angry tone, and the sound of gears began to rotate again.

He lowered his head and pondered, but Khalil felt the ground beneath his feet shaking.

The blue light flashed, and he looked down and found that the fighter servitors he had seen in the darkness were being awakened one after another. The number was endless, and they were getting on the transport vehicle and leaving the interior of Pharos Mountain at a uniform pace. .

"No, no." Kaul suddenly said. "We must prevent them from reaching Sousa's orbit. Once the bugs' spores break through the atmosphere, they will never stop unless they completely occupy the sky. I don't want my servitors to fight a war of attrition with the bugs, sir. "

He looked at Khalil.

"What do you think?" Khalil asked.

"How much do you know about the Zerg?" Call asked, his tone suddenly becoming polite.

Khalil did not delve into the reasons behind this, but said calmly: "I have read an investigation report, the main subject is the release of Zerg spores, and the evolutionary characteristics they showed during the process."

"Is it the one written by Agina Silas?"

"Yes."

Call began to nod again, continuously, and the oil leaking from the prosthetic eye began to decrease.

"Very good, very good. Although Ajna is very stubborn, she is indeed an excellent investigator. This gives us a good start for the next topic - in short, now that you already know something about them, then I’ll get to the point quickly.”

"I won't mention the types and differences of bugs. Anyway, they are fine. I believe that even the Tyrant Lord of the Hive Mind is probably not a threat to you."

"What is the Tyrant Lord of the Hive Mind?" Khalil asked and interrupted. The word Caul said was a coined word, difficult to pronounce and extremely long.

"It's just a big, strong, fast and smart bug," Call said. "They are different from most insects in that they are very good at learning and countering our resistance methods, but this is not the point. After all, the real threat of the insect swarm lies in their numbers."

"I think even you would be troubled if you were surrounded by things like knife bugs and gun bugs. So, here's the point."

Kaul suddenly leaned down and told Khalil solemnly and seriously: "Most bugs do not have self-awareness in essence. They are just a combination of weapons and tools. What really controls them is a collective consciousness. We will It’s called the Hive Mind.”

"It has no entity and cannot come to the battlefield in person, but it possesses extremely powerful psychic power, far exceeding our psykers, and can even distort the surrounding subspace."

"It is powerful enough to prevent demons from coming, make ships sailing in the warp astray, make people suffer, bewilder and fall into nightmares, and psykers will fall into even worse situations."

"According to research, the Hive Mind will control all bugs through some synaptic organisms - node organisms. That is to say, although it does not exist, it is everywhere. It builds a big network , so that it can see everything happening on the battlefield and respond quickly."

"You want me to deal with it." Khalil remembered his explanation, then ignored it all, and gave this conclusion very calmly.

"."

Kaur was silent and didn't speak for more than ten seconds. His face was full of shock and confusion, but he soon returned to normal and nodded suddenly.

"Yes, yes. This is a feasible solution. The fundamental purpose of the Hive Mind is to devour biomass. All its actions are for this purpose, so we can use you to let it evaluate."

The more he talked, the more excited he became, and the more he talked, the more excited he became. He began to move back and forth, and finally burst into laughter.

"Ha! Sir, you obviously have some kind of intuitive talent in research! This is a good idea! If the Hive Mind feels that this is a loss-making business and the biomass recovered cannot be compared with what was paid, then it will naturally Will retreat!"

"That's not what I meant," Khalil said. "My idea was to just kill it."

Call was silent again, his huge body beginning to tremble, his parts buzzing under his robes. One second, two seconds, three seconds, he and Khalil kept looking at each other

Then, the great sage finally realized that this gentleman might be serious.

The remaining half of his face suddenly showed a wave of anger.

"But it's a disembodied thing!" Call yelled, waving his appendages and looking utterly devastated.

"Did you listen to my explanation?! It doesn't exist, it is a swarm of insects! If you want to kill it, you must kill all the insects in this fleet. This is simply impossible!"

"I didn't say I was going to kill all the bugs, I just said I was going to kill it or, as you say, make it quit."

Kaul laughed angrily and asked, "So, how do you do this?"

"It's very simple -" Khalil smiled at him, and there was even a little satisfaction in his smile. "—I have a plan."

Call looked at him, gears turning, expression numb, and after a few seconds he asked, "What's the plan, my lord?"

"You'll know." Khalil said lightly, turned and left.

The Great Sage stretched out all his appendages angrily and rushed towards his workbench at high speed. Ten seconds later, as the ground shook, the heavily armed Belisarius Caul followed him like a heavy armored vehicle. Khalil.

As he charged, he roared: "I'm going to report you to Robert Guilliman!"

"Report me for what?" Khalil asked.

"reckless!"

Khalil laughed.