Chapter 950, Blood Rose Labyrinth

Chapter 950, Blood Rose Labyrinth
Vislani claimed that the Dark Eldar had the ability to destroy the entire Comoros.

I don't know if it's true or false.

Because it's difficult.

During the human invasion of the Comoros, they assessed the destructive effects of extermination weapons on the Comoros, and the results were not very optimistic.

Even setting aside the possibility of the extermination order being intercepted, and the fact that their own troops would suffer losses inside the Comoros after the extermination order was issued.

Judging solely from the destructive effect, neither the Sky-Burning Torpedo nor the more advanced Earth-Blast Planet Destroyer could achieve the desired results.

The core of the Sky-Burning Torpedo lies in igniting a planet's atmosphere, burning everything on its surface, leaving only a layer of lava before it slowly extinguishes and eventually returns to desolation.

Although the Comoros also has an atmosphere, the unique characteristic of the curtain is that the atmosphere is artificially created and is divided.

Even if the Sky-Burning Torpedo ignites in an area, it is very likely that it will not spread for long.

There's no need for any deliberate separation; each 'district' or 'block' is inherently discontinuous.

The same applies to planet-destroying bombs. Essentially, these are terrifying earth-penetrating super bombs that penetrate a planet's outer shell and detonate in the mantle layer. The enormous and unique energy is conducted to the core, causing a horrific internal reaction, followed by collapse and explosion from the inside out, thus destroying the entire planet.

Like the Sky-Burning Torpedo, although the Earth-Exploding Planet Destroyer is much more powerful and technologically advanced, it is essentially the same thing: destroying the structure of the planet itself to achieve the effect of 'annihilating the planet'.

The Comoros is not a celestial body. Deploying a planet-destroying bomb would be like launching a large, uncontrollable bomb, potentially destroying one or two cities. But that would be a drop in the ocean for the Comoros as a whole.

Even after humans conquered part of the Comoros region, their understanding of this city built within a curtain became increasingly clear.

Comoros may not even be a single physical entity, but rather a city pieced together from countless discontinuous districts and neighborhoods.

This assembly technology is like a foreign language to humans, and we cannot understand it yet.

Currently, both the Great Sage Kaul and the scholars and technical experts of the Alliance have reached a general consensus: with current human technology, there is essentially no effective way to destroy Comoros. At most, they could use some planet-destroying weapons to destroy a single city.

Even so, it's not very realistic.

The cost is too high.

Even the cheapest Sky-Burning Torpedo has a very high manufacturing cycle and cost.

Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the detonation will be successful.

Leaving aside the possibility of interception or friendly fire, even if the delivery is successful, the probability of a successful detonation is probably less than 30%, because the atmosphere of a single street or city is completely different from that of an entire planet.

Multiple factors combined make it almost impossible to use this type of weapon to attempt to destroy the Comoros.

Even without considering the resistance of the Dark Eldar, the human side cannot find a suitable way to completely destroy Comoros. Therefore, scholars and researchers naturally suspect that the Dark Eldar are just making empty threats.

They themselves may not even have the ability to destroy Comoros.

Installed.

But first and foremost, this matter must be taken seriously. We cannot naively believe that it's all just bluffing, and that they'll actually blow up the Comoros when they're truly pushed to the brink of annihilation.

That's when it truly felt like trying to fill a basket with water – all for naught.

Not only will they lose the benefits they most desire, but the large military force the alliance has invested in Comoros will also suffer.

Secondly, Ambassador Dexa directly presented the detailed process by which anthropologists argued that the Dark Eldar lacked the ability to destroy Komorro.

Even if the Dark Eldar scoffed at it, saying that humans were short-lived and lacked knowledge, and that the Dark Eldar must have such technology, Texas still had to adopt an attitude of "no matter what you say, I just don't believe it."

Otherwise, could this dark-skinned man really use the destruction of his own home and a fight to the death as a condition to control humanity?
If you're so capable, then destroy yourself and wipe out your entire race.

From a rational perspective, it is certainly worse than unconditional surrender and can only be regarded as a condition for negotiation. What humanity should do is not to engage in a negotiation with the Dark Eldar based on this condition, but to resolutely deny its authenticity.

Unless the Dark Eldar present the Alliance with concrete evidence of their ability to destroy Comoros.

But if that's the case, it tells the alliance how to deal with it.

Given that the Dark Eldar are unwilling to prove themselves, and even if they do, the Alliance will not accept or acknowledge their actions, the destruction of Komorro can only be considered an ultimate measure, left hanging but unusable.

Apart from that, their core strategic condition is that they can inflict unbearable losses on humanity on the battlefield.

On the battlefield, the Dark Eldar are trying to prove their worth.

……

On the battlefield within the Comoros, humanity had launched a massive offensive over the previous two to three months. They had not only wiped out several districts of Black guerrillas but also extended the battle line further. They were even close to capturing the next port.

Although the next port is only a small port, and the throughput of the veiled spirit gates it can open is less than one-fifth of that of Queen Rose Port, even a small amount is still valuable, and it will further accelerate the speed at which the Alliance can send troops and transport supplies in.

Actually, the current shortage of troops is a relatively minor problem. The more significant issue lies in maintaining a high-intensity offensive posture, which requires a massive amount of logistical resources from human armies. From fuel and energy to consumables like artillery shells and food supplies... with over a billion human troops currently fighting in the Comoros, the amount of resources consumed every day and every hour is simply astronomical.

In reality, a significant portion of Queen Rose Port's transport capacity is currently dedicated to the transportation and storage of these supplies. Large numbers of second-line troops have also been deployed, responsible for a great deal of logistical work, delivering various military supplies to the front lines. In short, as humanity advances rapidly on the battlefield, the Eldar's bargaining chips will dwindle.

But it was precisely at this moment that the human forces encountered a huge problem on their main offensive route.

The 'Blood Rose' maze nodes, and the rats.

This name was given to humanity by the diplomat Vislani. Her expression was filled with pride as she described it.

As for its effects, Veselani certainly wouldn't say. She only claimed that it was an 'unbreakable defense'.

Many of its functions have been discovered by human frontline troops through the bloodshed of countless soldiers.

The so-called 'labyrinth' is not a physical building in the traditional sense, but a war machine constructed by the Dark Eldar technology department under Viktor's control.

This enormous living structure, occupying several urban areas, is skeletally constructed with countless mutated white bone vines and a complex network of flesh and blood pipes. Its internal environment simulates the ecological field created by the ancient spirit race.

The maze has three core functions.

Firstly, the bone vines entwined with dark runes are mobile, making the movements of human troops completely uncontrollable once they enter them. During a support mission, a path that was clear to those who came before becomes impassable to those who follow; an entire force can advance, but unknowingly be cut off and scattered by the movement of the mist and vines.

In this environment, human forces are very vulnerable to being outnumbered in localized situations and can be quickly eliminated by the Eldar forces, who are adept at cutting off, ambushing, and launching surprise attacks.

Secondly, these bone vines can also form special patterns and shapes at key locations to create a kind of psionic rune, activating high-speed psionic transmission channels hidden within the 'maze', allowing troops to move quickly.

Thirdly, the scarlet flowers that cover every corner have the ability to sense information and convert energy. The energy characteristics and movement trajectory of any entrant will be recorded and analyzed, making the battlefield one-way transparent to the Dark Eldar.

Fourthly, the Blood Rose 'Labyrinth,' a weapon of war capable of covering an entire city, is an absolute energy consumer. However, the creatures that die within the labyrinth are captured by the vines, quickly digested, and fed back into the labyrinth as an energy reserve. Especially during battles, the inevitable pain of death at the moment of death provides excellent nourishment.

The entire Blood Rose Labyrinth is both a living trap and a fortress that provides the defenders with almost unlimited battlefield support.

The ratman legion, trained by the so-called 'Shadow Eater' family, is a force specifically bred for this environment.

Their hunched spines were covered with somewhat rudimentary armor, and their overall size was similar to that of a human child of about ten years old. These low-ranking ratmen cannon fodder units generally had a significant portion of their brain structure knocked out during the genetic modification process, replaced with biological neural nodes capable of receiving maze commands.

As human troops enter the maze-like streets, these "rats" silently seep out from sewage outlets, ventilation shafts, and even cracks in the peeling walls. They use the maze's sensory network to accurately predict the human firepower axis, and then, with their endless numbers, frantically overwhelm the human troops.

They appear in groups behind armored vehicles or on the flanks of infantry formations, their destructive methods primitive yet efficient. After all, not all of them are cannon fodder; some are 'special forces' as well.

Self-destructing rats carrying highly corrosive slime spores gnaw at armor seams with acid, then explode upon being killed, not caring whether they kill their own units in the process—after all, ratman units are worthless no matter how expensive they are; engineering rats equipped with dimensional jammers paralyze vehicle engines and communication arrays; hundreds or thousands of berserk combat rats use maze bioelectric stimulation to tear apart the throats of lone soldiers at terrifying speeds; and the few rat trolls that appear have heights of over five meters, possess powerful vitality that allows them to withstand the bombardment of tank main guns without immediate death, and terrifying strength enough to overturn tanks!
The maze vines became their best cover and transport route. Every human corpse that fell provided more energy to the maze, catalyzing the creation of more twisted rat shadows.

In the early stages of encountering such a harsh war environment, humanity suffered enormous casualties, and the offensive was forced to come to an end in several districts covering the Blood Rose Labyrinth.

After attempting a direct assault to destroy the bone vines, only to find that the casualties were too high and the bone vines were ineffective, humanity was forced to study this weapon of war from the Dark Eldar and try to find a way to counter it.

The two hundred soldiers from the fourth and fifth companies of the Black Hammer Legion were responsible for this mission.

This group originated from a newly established Blood Angel Primitive Forging Group after the Blood Angels Chapter joined the Alliance. They all used Blood Angel Primitive Forging Geneseeds, resulting in a remarkably high overall skill level. Even if they weren't entirely composed of Blood Guard members and couldn't be considered an elite chapter, their strength surpassed that of regular chapters.

On the battlefield, two hundred Black Hammer warriors, along with four armored infantry regiments, struggled through this living hell to advance into the core area of ​​the "Skullcrack Crosstown." Their experimental operation's objective was to capture the landmark signal tower there.

The base of the tower is enveloped by the labyrinth's energy core; destroying it would theoretically paralyze a vine-generating channel.

Following the tactical map, we quickly approached the target location. There should be an alloy passage here that leads directly to the base of the tower.

But on their way to the tunnel, they discovered that it was very different from the previous intelligence; the bone vines had altered the environment and the roads.

To avoid getting lost in the maze, they had to spend a lot of time clearing away the bone vines and scarlet flowers they could see.

Of course, they don't necessarily have to do it themselves.

Shortly after the call, the human air force arrived. Fighter jets and bombers dropped a large number of incendiary bombs on the area, burning almost every inch of land, just to clear a path for them.

But it's still quite difficult.

The vines were resilient and could not be burned without the intense heat of a thermal sprayer. Incendiary bombs could burn some of them, but some remained stubbornly intact.

Moreover, once this area is burned down, new ones will extend from other places. What's even more terrifying is that many of the white bone vines are hidden underground and inside the walls, and they will extend out again after the fire is burned.

After a section of the area was cleared up, it would be restored to its original state shortly after people walked over.

The scarlet flower is easy to destroy, but it also tends to hide in nooks and crannies, and can easily be missed if you're not careful.

Even if you burn everything clean, and really use heat to burn every inch of land and walls clean, after a while, the white bone vines will extend and dominate the area again, and new ones will grow on the vines.

There was no other way but to grit our teeth and keep going.

On the way forward, vines were already sprouting in the charred, still-warm air-raided area.

Lu Baigang, the company commander of the fourth company of Black Hammer, had already anticipated the difficulties of this mission.

(End of this chapter)