Thump! Thump! Thump!Roooaaaaaaar!!!
The night sky was filled with the roaring of the zerg and the sound of explosions as the zerg and protoss forces clash on the surface of Kashrya. Swarms of flying, carapaced, leathery winged zerg covered the sky as they fly around almost like one ma.s.sive black cloud. Their ear piercing screeches alerted the protoss of the cloud of death above them. To counter the storm of mutalisks, the squad of pheonix and the carrier was deployed.
High Templar Ky"tra.s.s is in charge of the carrier. Its ma.s.sive kilometer and a half long golden form covering much of the sky. Upon reaching firing range, the carrier deployed its interceptors as preliminary fire. Eight holes form on the protoss ship"s hull as an interceptor emerges from each hole.
The small, two engined golden crafts flew towards the raging cloud of mutalisks. Upon reaching eighty yards in range, the interceptors opened fire. Plasma bolts flew towards the cloud, causing fiery explosions to erupt. Each interceptor present doubles the damage of their attacks, letting two charges be enough to eliminate several mutalisks in range.
Sensing their forces being eaten away in the dozens, the cloud of mutalisks ignored the ground protoss forces and directed their full focus on the attacking interceptors. In a single command, the armored leather winged worms fired their glaive worms. Crescent shaped worms were fired out of their second "mouth" at the bottom. These worms spun in the air as they made their way to their targets.
As they made contact with the interceptors, hundreds of dents formed and crushed the interceptors who almost immediately fell from the sky and into the zerg ground forces. Before the mutalisks could refocus on attacking the protoss ground troops, the carrier"s blue marks began to glow brightly as it fills with concentrated energy. In a second, a glowing wall of blue erupted from its front. It pierced through the cloud of death, burning thousands of mutalisks and halving the cloud"s ma.s.s.
A big flaming hole formed on the cloud that penetrates to the other end. All mutalisks nearby it were crippled by the flames while those hit are vaporized into atoms. Before the overlords could issue another command, another batch of interceptors appeared alongside the full squad of phoenix. They proceeded to bombard the mutalisk clouds in plasma beams and rays, rapidly reducing their numbers.
Not long after, the cloud that darkens the sky has been removed with a few interceptors as a sacrifice. With the large mutalisk swarm gone, the ground forces are in less stress as templar have one less thing to dodge while clearing down the horde of zerg. The carrier now fires its purifier beams and used its interceptors to clear out ma.s.sive zerg breeds while the phoenix squads handle all remaining airborne zerg. With the artillery and the carrier handle the ma.s.sive zerg breeds, the first zerg tide was thoroughly decimated with only injuries and a new dragoon.
With the first tide down, the protoss forces gained several hours to build more weaponry and warp in any forces they can find. Lucky for them, they managed to establish contact with a surviving squad of tempests, phoenixes led by a damaged carrier. Apparently, they landed a few hundred miles away after the ambush by zerg forces on the planet"s moon. Nereis is glad and relieved that their forces have been doubled with this addition.
Using the warp gates, they managed to warp in all of their comrades and their supplies. With this, they managed to construct a few turrets and a wall on their established defense line. When the second tide comes marching in, their purifier beams managed to destroy another mutalisk cloud in an unexpected attack. With slightly more than double the amount of interceptors and pretty much everything, the horde was quickly taken down with only heavy damage received by the wall and many batches of interceptors destroyed as casualties.
After the second tide"s thorough elimination, the protoss breathed a sigh of relief. They only have 6 hours left before the advancement is complete and their zerg allies will rejoin them in the battlefield. In the mention of that, preserver Shir"a inquired the Praetor to what she meant. On the bridge of the primary carrier, Praetor Nereis and preserver Shir"a conversed as they looked down at the charred battlefield far below them.
"Praetor, please enlighten me on the subject of your zerg allies. They seem to play an important role in your survival." Preserver Shir"a is a like minded protoss who would like to learn more about this ally they have just gained. Despite being quite elated with having an ally emerge out of the blue, she kept her suspicion as a habit which had kept her alive through many battles against other sentient races who wish to destroy the grand protoss empire.
The preserver had her hands at her back, like a commander observing the battlefield. Due to her immense psionic capacity, the preserver floated a few inches above the golden floor of the ship"s bridge. Nereis contemplated on their recent victories and the events that surrounded them. It seemed almost coincidental that they have found their separated allies a battle prior and not randomly teleport something else.
If not for her experience in strategy, she would not notice this coincidence. However, she still has an hour or two to contemplate on this. Informing her allies about the "good" zerg right now is more important. Fighting on two fronts is the last thing she needs right now, especially since her ally informed her that they would be far more powerful and numerous after this advancement process.
"These so called zerg claim to follow another leader also known as the Overmind. They reacted violently to the zerg besieging us, calling them corrupted zerg. A Zerg Queen that calls herself as Praelis is the one in command of the zerg aiding us. Her forces are mighty and each of her zerg are at least twice the strength of the counterparts we faced. Not to mention, they could convert the zerg attacking us but that is limited by how many of these things called overlords they presently have."
"Did you have any suspicions about them?" Turning to the preserver, she replied, "Yes I did. However, the Zerg commander showed no signs of lying or hiding any information. Either this is a sign of good deception or something else, I commanded my high templar to peer as far as they can into her mind to discover any surface thoughts. To my relief, the queen had no hostile intentions on us but was instead, overjoyed with crushing the zerg that has been hara.s.sing my forces."
The preserver is quite pleased with their new ally. This zerg commander or Queen seemed to despise the enemy zerg as much as the protoss do or possibly even more. They have fought the zerg at the edge of their borders for decades and have grown to hate these ever evolving insects and their brutal conquest in devouring all life before them. If you asked a member of the conclave, they would obviously state that they are easily winning the war.
But, ask it from a veteran templar and they would say it"s the strongest enemies they faced. Ones that they would admit rival the protoss empire in power. Nereis turned away and looked back down to the charred, creep infested battlefield below her. She took a short look at her allies" bio structures and the field of green, pulsing coc.o.o.ns that surround these structures.
The praetor could only sigh as she had a feeling that the next wave would be against insurmountable odds. The preserver saw her glancing at the coc.o.o.ns and asked, "Praetor, what are those things?" These coc.o.o.ns and bio structures are something she noticed earlier but did not ask, a.s.suming that either she is seeing something wrong or that it is of no concern. "Those coc.o.o.ns are the zerg allies I mentioned earlier."
The preserver looked at these oval coc.o.o.ns, pulsing with life. She could feel their psionic presence emanating a signal from their location. She eyed their bio structures, taking note of their fleshy and carapaced forms. She found it intriguing about how their biological nature could rival protoss might in the battlefield.
Curiously, the preserver asked, "Why are they inside these coc.o.o.ns?" The preserver surmised that their allies are definitely inactive, but for what purpose, she is not aware of. "Praelis has informed me that they are entering a stage of evolution. After this one day evolution occurring in coc.o.o.ns is completed, they would awaken with more variety of structures and units alongside significant upgrades to their current variants."
The preserver is quite surprised, something any protoss is rarely accustomed to. Hearing information about their newest ally becoming more powerful is to say the least, unnerving. If they rival Praelis" forces before their evolution, how much stronger would they be. With more variants, they could match the current protoss units without having to completely rely on swarm tactics.
Lucky for them, they seem to lack any form of artillery and other roles. Unless there is an immense difference in quality, these roles still need to be fulfilled in order to rival the protoss forces. While a.n.a.lyzing the information on their new allies, the preserver exited the room to prepare her forces. In fifteen minutes, a protoss battle plan has been formed.
Reavers would be placed on the plateau alongside photon cannons. The reavers would target the zerg tide outside the valley and the zerg inside the valley, allowing them to quickly decimate their numbers and to cause disturbances in their charge. Photon cannons will act as primary defenses to shoot down the zerg units that reach the plateau"s feet and all zerg air units in range. This formation is further enforced by immortals and dragoons which will ensure that the zerg wave would be further diminished.
In case that the zerg manage to break through and reach the plateau, they are to let the zerg destroy their defensive structures. As they are low in numbers, death should be avoided at all costs. All forces are placed in the form of choke points, as it is most effective against swarm tactics which are the main point of the zerg swarm. The commanders of this fleet continue issuing their commands, preparing for a third tide to occur.
1,000 km north from the protoss forces.…
A ma.s.sive wasteland unfolds, the purplish gray carpet of creep covers the land like a ma.s.sive blanket. The creep is squirming with life as colonies of various microorganisms gain and transport energy and nutrients for the Swarm"s purposes. In the distance are towering structures of flesh, carapace and bones. From these ma.s.sive structures come zerg coc.o.o.ns from within their fleshy orifices.
The bloated, octopus like Overlords floated stationary around this kingdom of flesh like bee guards to a hive. At the center of this fleshy land is a ma.s.sive structure towering above all others. It appears to be a ma.s.sive hive, with many orifices as well as tentacles on its pentagonal pyramid form. As an extension of each edge, a ma.s.sive bone structure protrudes upwards as if challenging the forces of heaven with its fearsome claws.
Drones enter and exit this 100 meter tall structure, delivering blue crystals and green flesh sacks containing vespene gas. Through the numerous orifices at the ma.s.sive hive, orderly lines of drones enter and exit the hive, either delivering the resources to fuel the hive"s growth or exiting after doing so. Various zerg strains patrol around the hive, making it an impenetrable fortress.
Inside the structure there are fleshy tunnels and rooms, like within an ant colony"s hive. In the central room, a ma.s.sive and immobile creature is present. It had a mult.i.tude of thick, grubby legs anch.o.r.ed to the living floor. Its body was covered by a thick, almost transparent, jelly like substance.
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Inside the jelly are its soft but immensely powerful organs. Brain matter was lined up inside the jelly, with many nerves forming networks on the pinkish brain matter. Small impulses pa.s.s through these nerves, their interactions causes small flashes of blue lights. These flashes make it seem that these blue lights travel along the nerves and the interconnected brain matter.
Yottabytes of information flow along these vessels, processed by the cerebrate"s highly advanced and extensive brain matter. Cerebrate Azir is a newborn cerebrate, created to combat the protoss at their borders and to expand on new worlds. It controlled a few dozen systems and controlled a newly formed brood with 33 billion zerg under his command. Unlike other newborn cerebrates who are supervised by a senior, the Overmind did not allow any other cerebrate to interfere with Azir"s development.
The Overmind wanted to see if Azir would grow into something rivaling senior cerebrate as he requires another powerful brood to push back the protoss forces. Azir had a good month, he had halted protoss advancements in the south and conquered worlds to slowly surround the protoss. With the protoss underestimating his and his fellow cerebrates" intelligence, they are none the wiser about the events transpiring south of protoss s.p.a.ce. Just a day ago, his forces had managed to hit the jackpot.
A protoss praetor was cornered by his forces. Removing a praetor was like removing a lieutenant from the enemy forces. Not to mention, no protoss reinforcements have come to her aid and thus, he wouldn"t have any troubles with eliminating her. However, he came across one problem. Her forces managed to rebuild and reorganize, allowing the praetor to survive the first two waves of zerg he sent.
There were zerglings, hydralisks, roaches, overlords, queens, mutalisks and ultralisks in those two a.s.saults earlier. Apparently, the protoss possessed two ma.s.sive ships with beams that tore apart his forces with ease and hundreds of flying machines that decimated both his air and ground forces. Seeing that his attacks are not killing her is quite annoying, considering that only one of ten of all his a.s.saults have failed to produce their intended results. Now, he would have to get a little serious.
As his enemies exposed his lack of numbers and capabilities in the air, his mutalisk cloud was quickly decimated and his ground forces were then bombarded from above. To provide the mutalisks a great advantage, he would add devourers and scourges. Devourers are the more bulky and insect like version of the mutalisk. Devourers shoot acid that weakens enemy armor and doubles damage made by all attacks, allowing a combination of devourers and mutalisks to make short work of all ma.s.sive enemies.
As according to what he saw through the hivemind link, the destructive beam ship is a ma.s.sive construct that measures around one and a half kilometers long, about four hundred meters wide and over five hundred meters tall. Through the memories of the now dead overlords he sent, he saw how it pulsed with blue energy before a pillar of light shot out, filling the world with light and tearing a ma.s.sive hole that wiped out more than half of the mutalisks he sent. Its ma.s.sive size would become its downfall as such a vessel would suffer the bombardment of the scourges. Scourges were a more bloated version of mutalisks with a mouth for its face.
Teeth sharper than knives decorated its leech like face while carapace covered the rest of its crescent shaped body. Scourges flew with two leathery wings, moving more quickly than mutalisks. Compared to a human, a scourge was easily twice its size and it had a most deadly weapon. The metabolism of scourges allowed them to undergo a process of plasma metamorphosis.
This would be activated upon death as enzymes and hormones would immediately be released. These enzymes and hormones would trigger a chain reaction to transform the scourge"s large form into a ball of explosive bio plasma capable of blowing up with a force of a hundred ton"s worth of explosives. If the cerebrate were to guess, he"d say that five scourges would be enough to turn one of those golden ships of death into falling debris. As for the other flying machines, he found a way to take care of them.
After the second a.s.sault, the cerebrate has completed the evolution for mutalisks. This allows their glaive worms to bounce of their enemies twice. Under concentrated fire, a horde of the same amount would quickly fall under the rain of reflected glaive worms. After reviewing his tactics for another five minutes, the cerebrate Azir relayed his commands to mobilize the swarm.
Ten thousand zerglings, five thousand hydralisks, three thousand roaches, two thousand mutalisks, a thousand overlords, five hundred devourers, two hundred queens, a hundred ultralisks and fifty scourges were deployed. A tide of zerg surged forth from the hive cl.u.s.ters as all the ground units moved forward as one. Overlords flew above this wave, relaying control and informations to the queens walking within the tide. As for the skies, the clouds of mutalisks and devourers blotted out the afternoon sun.
As for the scourges, they were commanded to stay behind, acting as a nasty surprise for the protoss forces. They all converged at one spot and began advancing towards the protoss territory. Not long after, tremors were heard as the zerg stampede closes into the protoss defended plateau.
From the protoss base…
Zealots hurried to their stations, followed by the quadruped immortals and dragoons. Phase smiths hurried all productions and advancements for their robotic units as they felt the tremors coming from the incoming tide of demonic s.p.a.ce insects. All photon cannons were activated, their blue light turning on and their orb shaped cannons pointing upwards. In preparation for the attack, they modified the photon cannons to be of longer range in order to slow down the zerg charge.
Reavers take their positions as they prepare their scarabs and smart bombs to aid the cannons in bombarding the zerg front lines. In the sky above, the carriers prepare their formation alongside their current air forces. Interceptors were building up, surrounding the carriers and shielding the carriers that produced them. Phoenixes fly ahead, preparing to engage the tide in hit and run tactics to reduce their numbers while tempests follow behind, charging their magical b.a.l.l.s of psionic destruction.
As the two forces converge, a war unlike anything the planet has ever seen unfolds. A war between the golden armored angels from the stars and the endless tides of demons from below.