Chapter 683, 'Tentacle'

The subsequent development of the war was surprisingly similar to what the Queen of Insects had estimated.

Gu Hang, who led the alliance's main fleet, eventually completely destroyed the Zerg reinforcement fleet that came south from the Lefu and Jianmen star fields.

In the end, only two biological battleships escaped with a small number of fast-running warships, and the rest all died in this starry sky.

After the victory, in order to avoid those bugs and come back to use the wreckage of the ships and convert it into biomass, the Alliance even spent more time here to clean up the battlefield.

The small fragments of ships were burned; the larger corpses of biological ships, especially those transport ships filled with biomass, were directly powered and launched into the stars of this galaxy to ensure that they would be completely destroyed and could not be reused.

At the same time, Gu Hang also led the main fleet to intercept the Zerg fleet withdrawn from the Dantao battle.

They had received orders to escape, but were still intercepted and destroyed.

From Shan Taoxing's side, Marshal Xi Rui also brought good news.

He ended the offensive after the Zerg fleet withdrew.

Now that the mission has been accomplished, there is no need to waste further lives.

After Gu Hang sent the report of victory in the battle, he decisively withdrew his troops from Shantao.

The withdrawal process was also smooth. Although the enemy still had a lot of troops on the ground, without space support, as long as there was a stable base to ensure that the orbit in this direction would not be hit by the anti-orbital biological artillery on the ground, there would be no big problem.

While continuously evacuating his troops, he also transported a precious "Sky-Burning Torpedo" on hand to the ground.

This Burning Sky Torpedo exploded when there were only a few people left on the last planet.

In the end, nearly 10,000 people died on the planet. After all, it was unrealistic to evacuate everyone and then detonate the Burning Sky Torpedo. Otherwise, if something unexpected happened, it would be a real accident.

It may not sound glorious to blow up one's own people, but compared to destroying this planet that once had a population of 900 billion and has now been digested into a huge amount of biomass, the blow it brings to the Zerg is extremely heavy, and the exchange ratio is also cost-effective enough.

As for why they didn't evacuate all the people before bombing... the core reason was that they were worried that after the people were evacuated, there would be no ground support, and the insect swarm on the surface was still very powerful. If the Burning Sky torpedoes dropped down were intercepted by biological cannons or flying insect demons, it would be a big loss.

The value of ten thousand soldiers' lives compared to the Burning Sky Torpedo... well, there is no doubt that the Burning Sky Torpedo is much more valuable.

That's what cold calculation is like.

But in any case, the single peach was destroyed. 900 billion people, to be honest, if all this biomass was taken away by the Queen of Insects, it would probably be equivalent to half of the biomass brought over by the fleet that went south before.

Another wave of heavy losses.

Gu Hang and Xi Rui reunited again.

They rested for about a week and then set out again.

The original plan was to go west and open up connections with Salisbury and Martins.

But they soon discovered that this was no longer necessary.

The swarm evacuated on its own.

The Queen of Insects took back almost all the power she could control and gather. She hatched the transport ships that could be filled with biomass, soldier insects, and worker insects, and ran back; those that could not be taken away were left where they were, and fully hatched into soldier insects, preparing to cause trouble for humans.

She reduced her military forces to the extreme, almost all of them were withdrawn to the Rheaduches galaxy.

This clearly means that they will wage a protracted war with humans on Reyaduches, the former iron-clad home planet.

Play the long game.

But what was she relying on to drag herself down?
At first, Gu Hang only had a guess, without clear evidence. When he personally came to the galaxy of Rheaduches, he quickly realized what it was.

Trying his best to peer through the shadows of the subspace and look towards the very distant parts of the physical universe, he saw a huge Zerg fleet approaching.

It was not through the subspace, nor through the astral tunnel, but at normal sub-light speed, sailing from a very far place, "slowly" towards Rheaduches.

That hive fleet was quite large, even larger than the swarm controlled by the Queen.

Is that what is called 'Douches Tentacles'?
Humans call the structure above the Hive Fleet a "tentacle". This is an extremely large level, and is also the largest Zerg structure that the Human Empire has encountered so far. When the main force of a "Zerg tentacle" arrives within the Empire, it will often cause a super-large disaster across multiple universes, requiring the Empire to gather a very large force to put an end to it.

Throughout the history of the Empire, there have only been two times when the Tentacles appeared and were successfully resisted. Each time, it left a very deep and painful memory for the entire Empire.

There may be many queens on a tentacle. They are generally equal and of the same level, but in fact they have different statuses according to the size of the swarm they control. The most powerful and probably the oldest one is called the "mother" - in fact, queens are likely to be related by blood, although the worms don't care about this.

In the past few hundred years, there was a "void wormhole" in Rhea Duchess, and when the Hive Fleet kept emerging, the Zerg scholars of the Empire believed that there might be a "tentacle" sailing in this direction from the physical universe level, gradually approaching the territory of the Empire. What always emerged was only the vanguard fleet.

This possible "tentacle" was named "Duchess Tentacle" after the place name.

However, after observation, Gu Hang believed that it should not be the main force of the tentacles.

The quantity is a bit off.

That should be just another vanguard that has set out from the tentacles. The main force of the tentacles is still far behind, unobservable and unreachable.

But even so, the arrival of this Zerg fleet will bring great changes to the battle situation.

Gu Hang continued to observe this Zerg Hive fleet for two days and basically confirmed that his idea was correct.

Moreover, he analyzed a piece of news: at the current speed, this Zerg fleet would need about thirteen standard Terra moons to reach the Rheaduches system.

This means that the human side would be better off resolving the issue of Rheaduches within a little more than a year to avoid the two sides from joining forces.

It is not enough. After all, the Queen of Insects has withdrawn so many troops. It may take a long time to conquer them.

But after all, we have given a certain amount of time and we can fight for it.

An idea gradually formed in Gu Hang's mind.

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The previous chapter made up for yesterday's, and this chapter is today's.

(End of this chapter)