StarCraft: Tyranid Empire

Strong winds blew constantly at the Tosh family's small shack, and the haggie moss and fluffy hay used to keep it warm rustled.

While sitting on the bench with one leg missing in front of the shack, Gabriel Tosh stared at the rolling waves in trance, watching one wave after another smash into pieces as it hit the shore.

The sea in Haiji is icy blue, and the warm sunlight in early winter is like the still-dry gradient layer on an oil painting, with various spots and stains on it, which are the turbid sewage discharged by the heavy metal smelting factories in the city and along the coast.

A dilapidated diesel fishing boat with a clattering motor is sitting at an equally dilapidated small dock on the coast. The blue-green flag fluttering in the wind at the stern of the boat is like a rag struggling in the wind.

The fishermen of Geladi always go fishing day after day in their small fishing boats that seem to have come from centuries ago. This is their only chance to get some money or even identification. But no one has ever succeeded.

This ocean was once rich in aquatic products and picturesque, but now it is on the verge of death because of the brilliant glory of human civilization here. People here always have no hope, but in this poor and backward world, tomorrow will never be worse than today.

The clouds in the sky are loose, and the strong wind is blowing them around, as if they are a lens that is moving ten times or a hundred times faster. Sometimes Tosh would try to figure out what was on the other side of the ocean. Later he realized that if he kept going forward, the sea was still the sea, and on the other side was a wasteland even wider than this ocean.

When Tosh realized that his increasingly elderly grandmother was calling him, he stood up and looked back from the roof of his shack to see more shabby houses and shacks built with bricks, rotten wood, and scrap metal. There is no end in sight.

Every few hundred feet there is a wind turbine, its huge blades spinning in the strong winds that sweep through the slums, bringing precious electricity to the poor. This is also the cheapest resource in Haiji, a moon world where hurricanes and tornadoes are rolling around all the time.

The noise of the wind wheel and the sound of wind are the sounds of this world that will never fade away, better than the chirping of birds and beasts. Only the restless heavy metal rock music can bring a touch of ups and downs and passion to the hopeless and depressed life here, which is as pale as water.

At the end of the slum area, on the other side of the inlet, is the city of Grande, a city of high-rise buildings, brightly lit with factories, goods and clean streets. The slums and the bustling city are so close to the people here that they can cross this distance in less than forty minutes on foot.

Tosh has never been to Grand City. He has been in this slum with no hope for as long as he can remember. Just like the people in this slum, Tosh has no way to go to school or even receive the simplest education.

People in slums and shacks can always look up and see the splendid city that seems to stand in the sky, but no one has ever been able to step into it. In a corner of the city, the filth, stench, poverty, hunger and disease that even strong winds cannot dispel are still destroying the lives of everyone here, causing them to age prematurely.

This is also a place where filth and evil practices hide, where gray interests and gangs run rampant. The Grandy slums that have accompanied the city since its establishment are the dark side of the entire city.

"Little Gabriel, come back to the house." Tosh's grandmother was still calling him.

"Manan Thres tells me that a powerful storm is coming. She will destroy everything and the walls will collapse."

Tosh's grandmother was incredibly old. Her dark brown skin was covered with wrinkles and spots, and she was as thin as skin and bones.

My grandmother has always been a strong family patriarch and the leader of this small tribe. Her whole body is wrapped in the robe of the high priest of the Haiji Voodoo sect. It was a dark linen robe with twisted and absurd totems painted with blood-red paint. The most eye-catching VEVE logo symbolized Haji's goddess of death, Manan Thres.

Hearing his grandmother's words, Tosh turned back to his little shack that seemed to be crumbling.

His grandmother had always believed that she was blessed by Manaan Thres, and red was the color of the goddess of death. Followers of the Haji Voodoo sect believe that the goddess of death is real, and that the totems and ornaments symbolizing Manan Thres will bring them protection and strength.

Low education, superstition and ignorance caused the people in the slums of Grandia to retreat into the chaotic structure of gangs, families and tribes after more than a dozen generations, while in the more remote corners, the nomadic tribes who were outside of civilization Is a major worshiper of the popular Voodoo sect.

Tosh's little shack, built from a few suspended car frames and a rain shelter, wouldn't last long in a hurricane. But the same is true for stone houses. After a hurricane destroys everything, people always have to rebuild their homes, day after day, year after year.

There was a five-foot-long bed in the shack, which was Tosh's most precious possession. The rest were bottles, cans, animal skins or other things Tosh had scavenged from the trash, expired food or rotten apples.

"Take it and kill it. Manan Thres needs blood to sacrifice." Grandma opened the blue gauze curtain of the small shack to block mosquitoes, flies and thieves from prying eyes, and handed Tosh a sharp knife. Screaming Grandy blue-eyed mouse.

Originally, there were no rats in Haji. Just like flies and mosquitoes, they all followed the footsteps of the Tyranid human colonists to this remote lunar planet. These cunning rodent creatures have adapted perfectly to the environment here, and the population is much more prosperous than humans.

Tosh pinched the screaming rat's tail to keep it from biting his finger.

Then, Tosh pulled out a sharp triangular dagger from the trash pile nearby, inserted it into the mouse's brain and nailed it to the ground. Tosh then used another knife to slit the rat's throat and drain the blood before peeling off its skin cleanly.

"You did well, Gabriel, child, the angel that Manan Thres gave me." Grandma knelt down in front of the small pool of rat blood.

“An angel who announces God’s will and announces the day of death.”

"But remember, before peeling off its skin next time." She took the blood of the mouse and wrote the VEVE logo while kindly telling Tosh: "Keep it alive."

"Manan Thrace will tell you what is the right time to sacrifice at the right time. Blood, killing and death will win the favor of the goddess of death."

"But why, we have been offering sacrifices to the goddess of death, but she never responded to me?" Tosh asked his grandmother.

"It's not the time of destiny yet." Grandma showed an angry expression for a moment, which frightened Tosh for a moment, but fortunately her anger quickly disappeared.

"Manan Thres is deep in the soul world, in your hearts and ours." Grandmother has always been kind to Tosh - even though she is a strong person who is feared by her people.

Grandmother is a loyal believer in Manan Thres, the goddess of death. She is weird and mysterious, a fatalist, and even Tosh, who can read other people's minds, cannot see through her.

"Did I not do enough?" Tosh's black eyes showed a milky white luster, and a red light lingered on the surface of his body.

"Oh - she's looking at you." The wrinkles on my grandmother's face were all gathered together with joy: "That's witchcraft, but don't show it in front of other people. Except people from the Voodoo sect. Destiny will guide you and it will never turn its back on you.”

"Witchcraft." Tosh concentrated his energy and released a powerful spiritual power, and everything in the shack flew off the ground and floated in mid-air. He knew he could crush them as easily as he could crush the soft tissue of a brain or a throat.

However, Tosh could not show off his power because that would provoke the Terran Federation police or other departments. Nothing good happens when the federal government comes here. They are more feared than murderers and are synonymous with trouble.

That will bring misfortune.

Tosh once showed his "witchcraft" when he was young, which caused a terrible supernatural phenomenon. Those around him feared Tosh's power and drove his family to the edge of the slum, which is why the shack is so close to the sea.

For a long time, Tosh has believed in her grandmother's words. Grandma's words are the authority and all the facts. His power is of course a kind of witchcraft, which was given to him by the goddess of death, and his mission is to bring her blood.

"When you are ready, you can bring some higher-level sacrifices to Manan Thres." Grandma picked up the skinned and boneless mouse, sucked the blood from her fingers and said, " She said that water is what makes up everything in the world, and people are part of water."

"I don't like killing. I don't like doing that, grandma." Tosh once again rejected his majestic grandmother: "Forgive me, I can't kill. No. I can't hurt those innocent people."

“I only hear the cries of the souls of the dead, but Manan Thres remains silent.” He said: “If possible, I hope that I can kill some heinous people instead of homeless people and homeless people on the streets. Those who are homeless.”

"Under your face that makes those people fearful, you are so kind." Grandma did not show any anger: "Then who should define the measure of crime? Haiji is a place of lawlessness."

"On me, Grandma," Tosh said.

"You will be a leader with a sense of honor, and one day you will rule the world." Grandma laughed, but the laughter was as sharp as glass scratching a cement wall.

"Gabriel, you are the savior of Haji, the gospel of this world." She said with a smile: "You have to save others and declare the death of the enemies for Manan Thres."

"Praise be to Manan Thrace and her gifts. She has made you unique. You are destined to be a leader and a master of the world."

As she spoke, the grandmother took out from her long priestly robe several strings of beads strung with thread and placed them, one after another, around Tosh's neck. Finally, she took out a necklace with a little rag doll on it and put it on Tosh, looking at her grandson with a smile.

It was a human-shaped doll, no more than a few inches in size, sewn with cloth and buttons. The two sides of the doll had two expressions, one happy and one sad.

An ancient spell doll.

"If you encounter an enemy you cannot defeat." Grandma said slowly.

"Just nail it," Tosh replied.

"Lots of roots."

At this time, the howling wind outside suddenly intensified many times. It was a roar like a mountain and a tsunami, as if the gods were roaring. This hurricane was far stronger than before. The shack was shaking violently, and it would soon leave them.

Tosh suddenly felt uneasy. He saw the gloomy, dark cloud-covered sky from behind the blown door curtain. A tornado is forming across the ocean, bringing terrible disaster and death.

The sky darkened in an instant, as if it had entered the dark night. The small-tonnage fishing boats that are too late to enter the port are one of the few lights left on the ocean. They are racing against time. If they are slower, they will be swallowed up by the tornado behind them.

The rain poured down, soaking the waterproof canopy above Tosh's head in a matter of seconds.

The city of Grande in the distance is still brightly lit, and the neon lights shine even more brightly at this moment. The city stretches among colorful lights, including countless Christmas trees hanging with colorful lights or a beetle carrying fireflies on its back.

The creaking sound of the shack shaking became more intense, but Tosh heard some different sounds from it.

"There's a monster coming," Tosh said to his grandmother.

"Perhaps the monsters are the messengers of Manan Thres, where are they?" Grandma asked.

"In heaven," Tosh replied, standing up.

At the same time, a heart-rending air raid siren sounded in the distant Grand City. Storms are a common thing in Haiji. When they come, sirens will sound in the city, but the sound should never be like this.

Several old-fashioned Avenger fighter planes passed at high speed over the slums, and the lights on their tails flew above the dark clouds against the heavy rain.

The accumulated cumulus clouds triggered a thunderstorm, and in a flash of lightning, Tosh saw hundreds of black dots falling from the gaps in the sky.

In an instant, the face of a roaring monster suddenly appeared in Tosh's mind. It was a creature with a dragon-like head, bat membrane wings and a worm body. In the light of another lightning, a large number of huge, flying beetle-like creatures fell from the sky, like debris falling from the gaps in the clouds.

Several bright orange flashes of explosions appeared on the horizon, which was the final fate of those brave Avenger fighter pilots.

"Run!" Tosh suddenly rushed out of the shack and ran wildly through the slums.

"Run!"

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