StarCraft: Tyranid Empire

"Recovering remaining airdrop pods"

"All ground personnel have been evacuated."

"The doomsday device has been deployed."

The voice of the communications sergeant on the bridge deck of the White Star rang out one after another. At the same time, there were almost hundreds of people talking in the communication channel of the entire fleet, but they were still in an orderly manner.

"Where is Zeratul?" Augustus asked after waiting for a while.

At this moment, below the porthole in front of you is the huge Imperial fleet anchored in the high-altitude orbit of Atrias. Hundreds of warships of different sizes and models are connected end to end, arranged endlessly, vast and spectacular.

Under the fleet, the planet that was being pulled into the void little by little was trembling in Amon's rage. Huge red spots were spread around the cracks in the void. The sight was extremely horrifying.

"No news yet," Reno replied.

As if lost in the sea, there has been no news from Zeratul since entering the Temple of Iris. At that time, the Temple of Iris had completely become a medium for Amon to pull the planet Atrias into the void. It was filled with violent void energy and terrifying void creatures, even imperial soldiers wearing heavy raider armor. It’s also hard to get close to.

"Then wait a little longer." Augustus warned himself to be patient.

And just after a while, the situation of the planet Atrias became visibly worse. The psychic storm that swept across the entire planet brought drastic changes in the weather. The cyclones that frequently covered half of the continent indicated that a terrible catastrophe was taking shape.

Augustus stared at this terrible sight, his heart sinking. He would not allow Atrias to fall into the void like this, otherwise the surrounding imperial colonies would be placed in an extremely dangerous situation.

Atriaus must be destroyed.

"Sir, the Void Seeker has responded to our call." Finally, a communications soldier shouted at this time.

"Come in," Renault said.

"Brothers, with the blessing of the gods, I succeeded." In the picture on the other side, Zeratul is personally driving his Xel'Naga spaceship Void Seeker through the storm-condensed, lightning-thundering atmosphere of the planet Atrias. .

"Your safe return is more important than anything else, my friend." Augustus breathed a sigh of relief: "Zeratul, what did you find in the Temple of Iris?"

"Augustus Mengsk, I'm afraid even you can't imagine what I went through in the Temple of Iris." Zeratul had just experienced a bloody battle, and his simple and low-key armor and shirt were soaked with... The blood of the enemy. He must have had a narrow escape, but he was overjoyed to see the hope of saving the world.

I can imagine that I also know that Xel'Nagaurus will definitely communicate with you through the Temple of Iris, and even know what he said to you. Augustus complained in his mind.

"Have you found the prophecy? Zeratul." Raynor asked.

Augustus also showed a curious expression. He really wanted to know if Aurus would say anything more this time.

"Yes." Zeratul rarely gave a very positive reply: "In the void catalyst deep in the Temple of Iris, I heard a friendly omen, as if an ancient voice from the other side was calling me. .”

"In that voice, I seemed to see the birth and death of the universe, during which countless civilizations rose and died, like the sun rising and the moon setting, eternally unchanged."

"That voice." Augustus looked at Zeratul and thought to himself that you are still showing off at this time.

This is Zeratul's usual way of speaking. He always talks eloquently, linking one link to another, pausing from time to time, as if he is waiting for you to ask. Occasionally, Zeratul does have the intention of teasing others, but this is definitely not the case now.

"The voice told me that the Keystone will guide you to hope," Zeratul continued.

"Keystone?" Augustus was very cooperative.

"In a bright light, I saw that the keystone was the Xel'Naga artifact stored in the Tyranid Empire's Skigel Research Station." Zeratul said happily.

Zeratul should indeed be happy, because as early as after the Xel'Naga artifact was unearthed and assembled, humans had already begun to study this magical creation.

Recently, Zeratul witnessed a breakthrough in the research on Xel'Naga artifacts, and even found the coordinates of Urna.

Apparently, that's what the voice meant by "guidance."

And Zeratul still remembered that he blurted out Urna's name at that time, which made the voice in the bright light let out a slight sigh.

I don’t know why, but Zeratul probably heard wrong, and he has no ears.

"What a coincidence." Augustus said that fortunately we happened to be studying the Xel'Naga artifact, and we were really lucky.

"What else did that voice say?" Raynor urged Zeratul.

"In the final battle, Xel'Naga will help us fight against Amon." Zeratul added: "I believe that is the last part of the prophecy, the most important piece of the puzzle."

"Xel'Naga. Where can we find Xel'Naga at this time? Damn it." Renault patted his head and suddenly realized: "Urna, the hometown of Xel'Naga."

"I don't believe it. It's impossible not to find even a Xel'Naga. But if they could have dealt with Eamon long ago, why do they have to wait for us to find it." He thought of many things in an instant, and felt that this script seemed familiar:

"Are these Xel'Naga imprisoned, waiting for us to rescue them?"

Renault thought he understood.

And if Tychus were here, he would probably be in such a useless state that there would be no use in rescuing him. It would be better to just die.

"This is good news." Augustus nodded: "But only by truly entering Urna can we reveal the answer to the puzzle."

At this time, the White Star's advanced sensor array had detected the position of the Void Seeker, indicating that it had ascended into the high-altitude orbit of the planet Atrias.

"Swan, you can start." Augustus ordered: "Activate the doomsday device to end all this."

A Mercer-class doomsday device can turn a planet into ashes and destroy all life on it. This is a terrifying planet-level extermination weapon, more terrifying than a thousand apocalypse-level nuclear bombs.

And after Rory Swann's transformation, the power of this old federal doomsday device is even more terrifying. The planet Atrias, which has a large amount of high-energy gas resources stored inside, is itself a huge explosive barrel. Once detonated, its terrifying power is enough to throw the entire continent into the air.

Even during the Second Total War, the Terran Empire had activated this device only a handful of times. It would rather use nuclear bombs or virus bombs for large-scale orbital bombing than use this terrible weapon.

Soon, Augustus' orders were passed down from level to level. In a silent moment, huge and bright light spots suddenly flashed on the planet Atrias, and violent explosions ignited huge cracks filled with high-energy gas at an extremely terrifying speed. The fissures formed by the flames spread like spider webs on the planet's surface at an incredible speed. All the volcanoes were erupting violently, and countless lava rivers overflowed.

"I hope we won't use this weapon again." Augustus ordered: "Navigator, send us out of orbit."

Suddenly, Augustus discovered that a war could be so simple. No matter how terrifying the Tal'darin and void creations on Atrias were, they had to follow this planet to the end.

Sometimes he doesn't have to win the game at all, he just needs to flip the table.

This feels a bit strange.

Hopefully this doesn't open some kind of Pandora's box in your own mind.

Following Augustus's order, the large-scale imperial fleet, led by the White Star flagship, jumped into the opening hyperspace channel one after another and disappeared.

In an instant, Atrias's brightness suddenly increased a thousand times, until it became the second sun in the galaxy. This short-lived sun struggled for a while, and then turned into a torn ball of light in an extremely shocking gesture, shattering into pieces.

Just as the last batch of Imperial warships disappeared, it exploded.

Countless planetary fragments were thrown into the air, some as large as starships, and some much larger than Augustgrad. The explosion detonated the second and third satellites of Atrias in succession, and threw the largest satellite to the edge of the galaxy until it completely escaped the gravity of the star and turned into a dark and cold of wandering stars.

Most of the planet Atrias has collapsed, and the remaining parts will slowly darken after the remaining oxygen and high-energy gases are burned out, but they will not cool down. Over millions of years, its crust and much of its mantle may have cooled and coalesced again to form a fragmented, dead planet.

This is a trace left by a war between civilizations, a trace left by a human civilization that emerged on the edge of the galaxy.

A few standard Earth days later.

Sigma Sector, Imperial Colony Chiron III.

The first person to discover this planet was a Kaimorian explorer. He was lucky enough to discover this planet in a system that was considered impossible to have a settlement zone.

This explorer is also a "gold digger", the kind of interstellar escort who explores crystal veins among the stars all year round. In those core worlds that have long been controlled by conglomerates, even unexploited resources have been harvested as their private industries.

But above the endless starry sky, all resources are ownerless. As long as you explore far enough, opportunities will always come to your door.

Of course, you also have to keep these treasures, and the wisest thing to do is to sell them as soon as you make a big profit.

After receiving a considerable amount of credit coins, the explorer dedicated the planet to the great Emperor Augustus and returned to his hometown to reunite with his wife and children after thirteen years of absence.

The landing point of the colonists on the southern subcontinent of Chiron III was located near an estuary delta, where the climate was suitable, the water source was abundant, and it was far away from the dangerous native wildlife communities of the main continental plate.

It was an autumn day in the dense forest outside West City, the largest settlement in Chiron Colony. Golden fallen leaves covered the ground, but the forest trees shone with colorful luster.

A white road runs straight through the forest, also covered with golden leaves, like a thick blanket. The sky here is very blue, with soft white clouds piled up in clusters. A gust of wind blows, and golden rain falls from the sky again.

There are many gorgeous small birds living in the areas around the forest and close to the water. You can pick up a lot of eggs anytime and anywhere. If you want to fish, just sit by the river for an afternoon and you will be able to harvest more than one person can eat in a month. Chiron trout.

The people of Chiron III were lucky. They caught up with the era when the Tyranid Empire was opening up a new colony in the Sigma sector, and this planet was indeed the paradise that everyone dreamed of, as advertised by the Imperial Immigration Bureau.

There are nearly two thousand proven habitable planets in the Sigma sector, but very few of them are highly exploitable. Some of them are either too far away from the mainland, or they have terrifying nature that is difficult to understand and solve. disaster.

As for a land as beautiful as Chiron III, it is difficult to find another one even in the Sigma sector.

Today, Chiron III Colony has been able to basically achieve self-sufficiency and no longer needs to transport supplies from the mainland within the Koprulu sector.

Within two years, more than 20,000 colonists who arrived at Chiron III used the materials on hand to build a city with water pumping facilities. As the first pioneers, people reclaimed new land and established convenient automatic irrigation facilities to harvest food from the land promised by Emperor Augustus.

Gradually, around the first settlement, the colonists continued to expand outward, building towns and villages around new farmland and new mining areas. With the development of colonies, small-scale shops, restaurants, and hospitals also sprang up. On the other side of the galaxy, a small human society that was as small as a sparrow and had all the internal organs was naturally formed without deliberate guidance.

When people no longer had to worry about survival, the colony's population also began to grow on a large scale. In the first month of this year, about 800 newborns were born on Chiron III.

These newborns know nothing about their parents’ homeland; for them, this is home. The only thing that remains unchanged is the flag of the Tyranid Empire flying over every colony.

In the imperial colonies in the Sigma sector, each colonial governor is still an official sent from Korha Augustgrad, and their children will also grow up on this land during their term. This belongs to this era of great expansion. unique memory.

It's almost perfect - except for its proximity to Tal'darim protoss territory.

Today, there is an atmosphere of uneasiness in the air of the colony, because there are many uniformed imperial soldiers among them. Although the huge Imperial fleet was still anchored in the planet's orbit, the shadowy colonists soon realized that war was approaching.

Fortunately, this was just a false alarm. These imperial soldiers who came to Chiron III were not wounded soldiers who had to be evacuated to the rear after the war. They were wearing double-breasted gowns, three-cornered hats and tasseled brochures. They were just here to receive honors from the emperor.