Chapter 1 The Strange Protoss Nexus (a new volume begins!)
After two full days of travel, Warev's caravan finally arrived at the Eastern Pass, the final dividing point between the mountains and deserts of Khanduras.
Xue Hua's insect swarm fleet also officially left the orbit on the second day of the caravan's departure and arrived near the target point indicated by the protoss beacon.
After the crossing, what appeared in front of the Zerg fleet was an asteroid almost half the size of the moon located in a huge asteroid belt.
Stukov strictly abided by the mission plan formulated by Xue Hua. He first asked the accompanying monitoring king insect to scan the asteroid and confirmed that there were no other biological signals on the asteroid except the biological signals of the protoss.
After the biological signal existed, the insect fleet was ordered to begin approaching the asteroid.
The plan went very smoothly at first. The Zerg fleet successfully entered the gravitational circle of the asteroid, and the king insects also successfully placed the Zerg troops on the surface of the asteroid.
However, when the Overlord Overlord followed the biological signals of the protoss and prepared to approach the protoss facility on the asteroid, it was attacked by the protoss' automatic defense system - the photon turret.
Photon turrets are the basic defense facilities of the Protoss base. These unmanned automatic defense weapons will fire photon cannons at any unit marked as a hostile target within the range.
However, the activation of the photon turret requires the power of Kel'darin crystals, but as we all know, there will not be any Kel'darin crystals until the Protoss' backup base is activated.
This is to prevent some unnecessary mechanical wear.
And this means that the protoss facility now appearing in front of the Zerg troops has been activated.
After understanding this situation, Stukov did not rush to act rashly. Instead, he asked the Overlord Insects and Supervisor Overlord Insects to spread out across the entire asteroid to first confirm whether there was only this one star spirit on the asteroid.
facility.
This move soon proved to be very wise.
Because the supervisory king insects soon discovered another protoss facility hidden in a crater less than 20 kilometers away from the first protoss facility.
That's a Protoss Nexus.
This is what is called the "Protoss Base" in game terms.
But what is a bit strange is that although this star spirit hub is still operating, the king insect has not detected any biological signals inside.
All psychic signals come from those Protoss buildings.
Although the King Insects were unable to conduct in-depth observations due to the existence of the photon turret, judging from the existing observation results alone, the functional buildings in this protoss base are too strange.
The entire base complex covers an area of approximately hundreds of square kilometers, but the number of photon turrets accounts for one-third of the total area.
The entire base is surrounded by dense photon turrets, just like the first Protoss facility.
Except for the photon turret, all the units exposed to the insect swarm's reconnaissance field of view are probes and mechanical sentries, and all the protoss buildings exposed to the insect swarm's reconnaissance field of view are only furnaces, crystal towers, portals and hubs.
.
There were neither the fanatics that a normal protoss military base would have, nor a control core.
Moreover, although this base appears to be a prosperous scene on the surface - probes are constantly collecting some unknown minerals from the crater formed by meteorite impacts and returning them to the hub, and mechanical sentries are constantly patrolling among the photon turrets.
But Stukov always felt that something was wrong in this base.
So far, all the protoss mechanical units that have appeared in front of them are not even a living protoss lifeform.
But the biological signal detection report of the monitoring king insect shows that there should be living protoss in these two protoss facilities, right?
What's more, if there is no one in charge of this base, why did they launch them here in the first place?
Show Xingling’s technological strength?
Stukov did not hesitate for too long before giving the order for a full-scale attack.
No matter what mysteries are inside, you just need to crack open the outer shell and stick your head in to see if it will solve the problem.
Of course, the attack command only targets the two Brood Lords and the Destroyers who have successfully landed.
Since the defense facilities of the protoss are all photon turrets, it is the best choice to use the unit with the longest range to dismantle them step by step.
The two brood lords quickly launched the attack first. Their huge bodies flew towards the Protoss' second base and stopped at the edge of the photon turret's attack range.
Then, several small insects that looked like crabs and were about the size of a table appeared on their backs.
These little bugs are brood worms. They are the biological cannonballs of the brood lord, which is where their name comes from.
With the help of the sliding track on the back of the brood lord, the brood worms were launched at extremely fast speeds. The photon turrets instantly sensed the invasion of the swarm. They turned their guns and started firing at the incoming brood swarm.
Photon Cannon.
Unfortunately, this didn't have any effect.
The brood worms were very fast, and most of them avoided the spherical shells of these photon cannons. Only a few were hit by the photon cannons, and then disappeared into nothingness in a burst of white light.
Moreover, the number of brood worms is also very large. The brood worm lord can launch a dozen brood worms at the target at a time, and the interval between two launches is very short, so an army of brood worms can be formed on the ground very quickly.
The brooder shells quickly hit the protoss photon cannon's defense line head-on. Since all protoss units, whether buildings or units, have shields, the brood worm that hit the target first only hit the photon cannon.
On the shield.
But there was no way these shields could last long under the saturation attacks of the two Brood Lords, and soon the photon cannon's shields shattered into spots of light all over the sky.
Without the protection of the shield, the photon cannon, relying only on its own armor and structure, is simply not enough to resist the attack of tens of thousands of brood worms that have gathered in a short period of time, especially as the number of these brood worms continues to increase.
under increasing circumstances.
As one photon cannon after another turned into cosmic garbage floating in the sky in the firelight, a hole was quickly torn open in the outer defense line of the Protoss Base.
A large group of mechanical sentries came from the center of the base. These protoss made combat drones to reverse the numerical disadvantage of the army on the battlefield. They not only had very good combat effectiveness, but also had certain abilities to use psychic technology.
They can create an impenetrable obstructive force field on the battlefield to split enemy troops or block the attack of enemy close combat troops. This kind of force field is of little use in front of large units, but it is useful when dealing with small units.
But he has repeatedly accomplished extraordinary feats.
The mechanical sentry can also create a defensive shield called the "Guardian Shield" in a hemispherical area around itself with itself as the center. This shield can weaken the enemy's long-range troops' attacks on friendly troops protected by the shield.
.
In addition, the mechanical sentry also has the ability to create illusions. It can generate the illusion of two protoss units. This illusion is very fragile and cannot cause any damage to the enemy, but it can be used to perform reconnaissance missions, or use
to deceive the enemy.
Mechanical Sentinels are very good combat units. They not only allow the Protoss to reduce personnel losses in battle, but they can also be used to perform security missions.
However, when the opponent these combat drones face is a swarm of tens of thousands of Brood Insects, even if their combat effectiveness is ten times stronger, it will not help.