426 Battle to the death, bloody combat! (1/2)
In lieu of such circumstances, the momentum of the beast tide soared rampantly! Due to the sudden vacuum of firepower resistance against the viperwolves, the berserking viperwolves were on the verge of infiltrating the arachnid base. Yet right at this moment, ten over gigantuous creatures shockingly emerged from the Nydus Worm. These creatures were exceedingly familiar to them. Indeed, the spawns made possible by Sheyan and Mogensha’s previous offering of genetic coding, the Flame Beetles of the Blackthorn tribe!
These humongous beetles were hastily transported to various crucial intersections by overlords, before assisting the groups of resisting zerglings. Instantaneously, they acted like a sluice gate, once again locking down the viperwolf tide, locking them to death!!!
The viperwolves’ claws posed no threat to the Flame Beetles, whose carapace were as thick as 30 cm. Instead, the sheer leaning weight of the humongous Flame Beetles was sufficient to squish them! Once the viperwolves gathered excessively, or any aerial Mountain Banshee swooped down in assault, the Flame Beetles would spray out a horrifying spread of burning acid, incinerating all into charcoal.
As for those crafty zerglings, they merely spied the situation by the side. Once they witnessed any viperwolf lagging alone, several zerglings would immediately pounce forth; relying on their superior quantity to engage in brazen chomping and slashing! According to theory, the viperwolf was indeed stronger than the zerglings; however, such an advantage shrank in the face of innumerable population of foes.
In the viperwolf’s perspective, their strength resided in their intelligent usage of collaborative assaults, and not the current state of reckless charging; viewing death as their return to home. Their most suitable battlefield should be within the dense forest during the night, where they could stalk and silently creep up to their preys. Once their prey revealed any flaw, they would then ferociously lunge in. It definitely wasn’t such a rigid carnage of flesh and blood!
On the contrary, the zerglings were creatures coincidentally honed through countless thousands of years of the evolution of the arachnid race; troops that had been refined by the vicissitudes of life, through innumerable head on clashes. When comparing the two, the shortcomings of both parties were evidently illustrated.
As for the Mountain Banshees that weren’t impressive in numbers; after they finished spearing assaults against several lurkers, the dozens of Mutalisks in the sky fixated their attention towards them. The single combative prowess of the Mountain Banshees squared off against the overwhelming superiority of multitudes of Mutalisks. Even in the face of bullying flocks, the muscular dominant and swifter Mountain Banshees held not a tinge of fear against the Mutalisks…...
Yet to sustain this, one premise had to be fulfilled – the absence of a massive disparity of quantities between both sides, where the battlefield retained a neutral state without any aiding reinforcements.
But the reality of the matter was……..beneath the aerial battlefield, there were wholly 23 aerial defensive Spore Colonies that had been promptly incubated out! Just in time, continuous and concentrated jets of flourishing corrosive green spores catapulted out. Ever since the Blackthorn Overmind had evolved to a Silver lord class, the entire tribe naturally evolved with the overall trend; the incubation rates of organ structures had accelerated by several folds.
Due to the surprisingly rapid fire of the Spore Colonies, the propelling green spores carved out streaks of criss-crossing green in mid air; as though they were weaved into a densely knitted net!
This was the details of the second assault: The beast tide was utterly annihilated.
Arachnid Tribe casualties: 17 Mutalisks, 9 lurkers, 167 zerglings, 2 flame beetles, 4 overlords, an organ structure and 12 Spore Colonies.
Shockingly following that, the intelligence transmitted by reconnaissance overlords about the third offensive wave completely surpassed Sheyan’s expectation. It was probably because Mother Nature Eywa had identified the defensive capabilities of the arachnid base as being reliant on favourable topography; but in terms of military prowess, they were actually somewhat strained and lacking in manpower. Eywa astoundly dispatched a fleet that comprised majority of long range slingers, blended with a smaller amount of viperwolves…...
Such a proposed response was absolutely not wrong. If one already possessed overwhelming superiority in in terms of numbers, then the combat efficiency of a purely long range squad would indeed be greater than a close combat one. This pertained to the sullen fact of the rear close combatants being stalled at the back, while the frontlines received injuries but were unable to scatter in retreat.
Once the long range assaults of the slingers focused their fire output, then what could a Flame Beetle do about it? They similarly couldn’t withstand that. This move inevitably altered the initial state; a state described as ‘with a lone ranger guarding a narrow and treacherous terrain pass, even ten thousands cannot pass through’.
Nevertheless, why hadn’t Eywa commanded a skirmish that combined the mobilization strength of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd beast waves? That only signified one fact – Eywa’s mental prowess wasn’t sufficient to command such a raid of undaunted creatures even in the face of peril! Or perhaps, the price needed to assemble such an exaggerated amount of creatures was too extravagant for Eywa.
Besides, the creatures she mustered were different from the arachnids. They weren’t tools of warfare by nature, but possessed their personal sentience; understanding pain, the desire for life, and fear. To suppress such innate instincts would place an astounding strain on one’s mental prowess. Even in the realms of legends, even the strength of divinities were bounded by limits!
“This is a golden opportunity, my friend!” Sheyan suddenly smirked as he muttered to himself.