In the air behind Planditium's third line of defense, a nauseating mixture of smells lingered—scorched promethium, ozone, and the sweet, cloying scent of decaying flesh. Two Helldivers, clad in full-body uniforms, were laboriously dragging corpses, tossing them onto a growing mound.
The pile of bodies contained everything: fallen comrades in uniforms identical to their own, but more often, Tyranid creatures of various forms. Not far away, two promethium flamethrowers lay silently on the ground; clearly, a 'purification' was about to begin.
"Ugh…" one of the Helldivers groaned in disgust. He had just flung a Termagant's corpse aside and was now futilely trying to wipe the slimy goo from his gloves. "These tyranid bodies are so damn disgusting, all sticky and greasy. And I keep feeling like the parasites inside them are crawling up my gloves."
"Damn it, can you shut up?" his companion snapped, forcefully tossing a shredded tyranid carcass onto the pile. "Now that you mention it, I'm getting that feeling too!"
"I'm so glad our standard uniforms are full-body and come with gas masks, so at least we can't smell anything," the first man complained. "Without these two things, you could kill me, and I still wouldn't come do this kind of mission for merits. How is this any different from pulling a shit-cart in the lower levels of a Hive City?"
The other man nodded in agreement, flinging the half-torso in his hands to the top of the pile with a dull thud: "Let's hurry and light these things on fire, burn them clean, and spare ourselves this torment."
The two said no more, quickly shouldering their flamethrowers and expertly opening the fuel valves. As they lit the corpse pile, they changed the subject.
"Before the war, weren't we told to use strong acids to temporarily dissolve the bodies and then deal with them uniformly after the war? Why are we burning them now?"
"We ran out of acid, obviously," the other replied matter-of-factly, his voice muffled by the mask. "War is like that. No matter how much preparation you do beforehand, once the fighting officially begins, you'll always find your preparations were far from enough. Not to mention, our enemy is the Tyranid Swarm… You'll get used to this kind of thing."
At this point, the Helldivers' voice suddenly paused. He turned his head in confusion, his gaze sweeping across the desolate battlefield, but saw nothing except a small hill, already half-blown away by bombs, that had been there all along.
"Did you hear something?"
"Something?" his companion asked in confusion. "No, it's just the wind. We're behind the third line of defense, where would any noise come from? Don't get distracted; let's finish this mission quickly, get our merits, and leave."
However, no sooner had he finished speaking than three shadowy figures, like specters, suddenly burst from the reverse slope behind the small hill! Their speed was beyond imagination; in an instant, they covered dozens of meters and charged at the two men.
The two heavily armored Helldivers only had time to turn their bodies in shock. The Helldivers who had first heard the noise didn't even have time to pull the flamethrower's trigger before a sharp bone blade pierced his chest with lightning speed.
Immediately after, the Tyranid Warrior swung horizontally, and his upper body instantly separated from his lower body. He couldn't even let out a scream before falling as two severed pieces of a corpse.
"Holy shit!" His comrade, who had just been chatting with him, was killed instantly. The other Helldivers immediately fell into a rage. "You stupid bugs, today is your death day!"
He pulled the trigger, and an angry dragon of fire roared out, instantly engulfing the three Tyranid Warriors.
With the strength of the Warrior bugs, they were clearly not strong enough to advance against the high-pressure promethium flamethrower's flames. In the high heat, hot enough to melt steel, these three aliens, who had successfully ambushed them, shrieked and screamed. Their hard carapaces quickly blackened and cracked, and they soon lost all vitality in the flames.
The player panted heavily, only stopping the spray when the fuel tank's pressure indicator light began to flash. Before him, the three Tyranid Warriors had already turned into three charred remains.
"Ha… Hahahaha!" He panted and laughed maniacally, walking forward and fiercely kicking the charred bodies. "Thought you were so tough, huh? How come you're not moving anymore? You stinking bugs, if you've got guts, come to daddy!"
Under the rush of adrenaline, he had clearly forgotten his earlier statement of "we are in the rear." Since he was in a theoretically safe area yet encountered an attack from Tyranid Warriors, the situation on the front line was likely already precarious.
It was at this moment that an indescribably heavy thud resounded.
"Thump!"
The ground shook violently, as if struck by an invisible giant hammer, even lifting the player off his feet for a moment. He instinctively turned around and then saw a colossal creature, four or five stories tall, standing not far behind him, its cold compound eyes indifferently watching his tiny existence.
"Whoa," the Helldivers looked up. "Is this a high level one?"
"Splat!"
After a sound so faint it was almost inaudible, a giant foot slowly lifted, leaving behind only an unidentifiable, reddish-black pulp on the ground.
Inside a regimental command post, the atmosphere was as heavy as a physical entity.
"Which defensive line just lost contact?" The regimental commander's gaze was fixed on the holographic sandbox, where the glaring red dots representing the Tyranid Swarm were tearing through the green grid representing the human defense lines with an unstoppable momentum.
A staff officer quickly stepped forward, his fingers rapidly swiping across a data pad, bringing up the latest casualty report: "Reporting, sir! It's G-7 Outpost and the Twelfth Contact Node, both lost contact thirty seconds ago."
The regimental commander said nothing, merely extending his tactical-gloved hand and drawing a straight line on the holographic sandbox, connecting the series of green dots that had just extinguished. That red trajectory pointed directly to their current location—the regimental command post.
"It's moving in a straight line," the regimental commander's voice betrayed no emotion, as if stating a fact unrelated to him. "It seems the target is indeed us. At this speed, it will be here in a matter of minutes."
He gazed at the holographic sandbox, watching the once perfectly clear three-dimensional terrain map now being ruthlessly devoured by that glaring red torrent.
This defensive line was meticulously designed by him and his comrades over countless days and nights, based on Planditium's terrain; every firing point, every communication trench on the line, was forged by the sweat of the soldiers. He had once believed it would be an iron Great Wall, at least enough to make the bugs chew until their mouths bled.
But now, in front of a monster of that caliber, this defensive line, into which countless efforts had been poured, was as fragile as a paper sandcastle on a beach, crumbling at a touch.
An unspeakable gloom welled up in his heart, mixed with anger and unwillingness. But he merely transformed this emotion into a very soft snort.
"Charge," he murmured, "the faster the better… We've prepared something nasty for you."