Chapter 429

「「Forward! Forward……! 」」

「「Repeat! Request support! 」」

Inside the cockpit, Liuying's breath was heavy and fragmented.

Sweat slid down her temples, leaving winding traces on her pale cheeks. Her eyes, at this moment, seemed to have been drained of all light, leaving only a bottomless void.

「「Request support! 」」

「「Command, Firefly Squad Four has discovered the mother bug! 」」

「「Repeat, request support——」」

「「Forward! Forward! 」」

The noisy communications signal exploded in her ear like a sharp dagger, repeatedly stabbing her nerves. Those sounds contained roars and anger; she could not even tell which were genuine cries for help and which were merely persistent auditory hallucinations in her mind.

Outside the mech, the sky‑obscuring insect swarm continued to devour everything aimlessly…… the artillery fire still rumbled.

She gritted her teeth, operating the mech's artillery to blast several charging true‑shelled insects; the insects' viscous bodily fluids were instantly vaporized, leaving only a layer of murky dark red.

「「Haah… haah……」」

Rapid panting echoed in the sealed cockpit. But just as she was adjusting, a massive impact suddenly surged from all directions; countless insect swarms slammed into her mech, overturning it to the ground.

At the critical moment, a mech rushed from beside her, its artillery bursting into brilliant orange‑red within the insect swarm. It turned to look at Liuying: "Get up! The target is right ahead—keep breaking through!"

Liuying at this moment finally came to from her daze: "Yes!"

——

Pirate King

「「Is this… the universal locust plague? 」」

The insect tide in the firmament resembled a rolling dark‑red tsunami, almost piercing the canopy to shroud the entire sky; that hair‑raising rustling sound filled heaven and earth, making Blackbeard's scalp go numb.

Is that place…… hell?

Although in the simulated universe he had once stood from a star's perspective to watch the locust plague, participating in the extermination of the insects as a "Resistance Army" was still his first time. Previously he had imagined in his mind using the Dark-Dark Fruit's Black Hole to crush the insects, but now it seems…… even if these insects lined up to let him kill him, he probably could not finish them in a lifetime.

The insect swarm's numbers are endless, while humans suffer casualties every second.

…But 【Propagation】 isn't dead, is it?

But after a moment's thought, he quickly rejected his own speculation: "Wrong, the universal locust plague ended long ago——otherwise our world might have been completely devoured. 【Propagation】 is dead; this is not a locust plague, but the offspring left behind by 【Propagation】."

Bajies widened his eyes: "Offspring? Can the offspring of 【Propagation】 achieve this effect?"

Kuzan nodded: "…It seems the insect swarm has always been a major threat in the universe; this military organization called Gelamo has the task of resisting the insect swarm. But I never expected that a mech of Sam's caliber would be merely an ordinary combat unit in Gelamo——this really……"

Kuzan swallowed the two words "exaggeration". He too is a former Navy Admiral; if someone now told him that someone like him, Chiquan of that rank, could only be a grunt in another empire…… then just how strong must that other empire be?

——

Artillery fire plowed burning trenches across the scorched earth, and the small mech unit in which Liuying was located was struggling to advance through the insect tide.

「「Maintain formation! Left wing, fill the gap! 」」

Countless iron cavalry fell before her eyes.

Were there among them anyone she had previously spoken with? In the violent jolting of the charge, she first realized this problem. The holographic screen kept flashing scarlet warnings, until at some moment…… the artillery fire and the noisy ear‑side communications all fell into an eerie silence.

A shadow shrouded the entire battlefield.

She lifted her gaze; a mountain‑sized mother bug slowly rose from a fissure in the crust, like a living dark cloud. Behind it was an even denser swarm of insects, buzzing as they surged toward everyone.

In this wave of the insect tide, Liuying watched helplessly as a comrade's mech was torn apart by the swarm, collapsing like a withered leaf.

「「Who else is alive? Cover me as I approach the mother bug. 」」

An urgent mechanical sound came from behind; Liuying jerked her head back to see a battered mech shoving a red button into her hand.

「「This is……」」

"Activate it immediately upon seeing the signal." The other's voice was calmly terrifying, but the next second it turned and charged into the insect swarm, maneuvering through the artillery fire with agile movements until it leapt and landed on the mother bug's limb——

「「Pfft! 」」

Sharp bone spurs suddenly shot from the mother bug's limb, piercing its mech completely. In a spasm of twitching, the dying pilot tore off the mech's faceplate and flung it into the mother bug's carapace.

「「Agreement passed… execute scorched‑earth operation……」」

「「For…… Her Majesty the Empress! 」」

——

Teyvat

「「Too heroic. 」」

「「Sigh……」」

On Mount Mystic Storage, the True Lord Who Borrows Wind from the Lingering Clouds let out a deep sigh. Although she had seen similar tragic scenes during the Archon War, after thousands of years…… even now this hellish painting on the firmament inevitably stirred those memories she had sealed away for ages.

「「I don't know if that bespectacled little girl survived; this immortal still rather likes her. 」」

The True Lord Who Carves the Moon and Builds the Sun shook his head: "…I'm afraid they're also gone, right? This immortal can tell: these children are merely frontline soldiers of the legion, brainwashed into becoming sacrificial pawns for the Empress; without orders, they cannot leave the cockpit even unto death—truly cruel."

Before the endless insect swarm, life seemed reduced to cold numbers. The swarm cares nothing for individual deaths; behind each demise arise tens of thousands of new lives, making humanity's count utterly insignificant in comparison.

「「Without a corporation or envoy…… or any genius willing to step in, otherwise relying solely on these mechs…… is like ants trying to shake a tree. 」」

The True Lord Who Harmonizes Water and Stacks Mountains waved his wings, "But speaking of that, since the insect swarm's harm is so great, could it really be that no envoy is willing to act? The Hunt? The Divine Vessel? The havoc wrought by these insects is probably no less than 【Abundance】, right?"

「「Divine Vessel? They themselves are locked in a life‑and‑death struggle with the Abundance folk, and now 【Destruction】 butts in—where would they find the strength to oppose the insect swarm? Still, the mechs of the Gelamo Empire are quite exquisite; this immortal would also like to study them……」」

「「Liuyun, you wouldn't dare say you could research and build one of these mechs, would you? 」」

Liuyun pushed up the red‑rimmed glasses on her nose: "What's impossible? After this immortal studies it for a hundred or so years, maybe we can't imitate one…… we might even be able to build something better——"

「「Boom—」」

Before the words even finished, a sky‑shaking, earth‑splitting explosion rang from the firmament, as if the heavens were about to collapse. All three High Immortals were blinded by the sudden blinding white light and could not open their eyes until the blast's roar gradually faded, then they slowly opened their eyes.

「「……What…… is happening? 」」