“The target has been intercepted!” Although the soldiers didn’t have ti to sound the alarm, their battlefield recorders captured and transmitted everything up until they were consud.
“Blast that area open!” By this point, the last of the connecting zones had been breached, causing the entire battlefield to collapse. From above, nurous bottomless pits could now be seen.
“We can’t! Our people are still down there!”
“As long as their suits aren’t hit directly, there’s a fifty percent chance they’ll survive this round of attacks!”
“That will still cause massive casualties.”
“Their sacrifice is worth it; we must complete the mission!”
On the surface, the Ji soldiers had already evacuated. Their detection equipnt was hastily reinforced and airlifted away. Due to the rush, a large amount of gear and supplies were left behind.
The underground troops were also notified to either regroup with the K2N9s and K1KN10s or urgently retreat from the battlefield. However, just as they began moving, the bombers tasked with the attack arrived overhead.
The Ji race’s decision was born out of necessity. The Swarm Empress had already linked up with the Burrowing Worms—masters of digging tunnels. If allowed to turn around fully, within minutes, or even tens of seconds, they could dive deep underground. At that point, completing the mission would beco exponentially harder for the Ji forces.
A barrage of B5 bombs rained down. According to Selina’s calculations, launching the attack without delay ant the Swarm wouldn’t have ti to extract the target from the K2N9. Moreover, with the Burrowing Worms helping to shield her, even concentrated bombardnt from multiple B5 bombs wouldn’t kill the target. Other considerations, including friendly troop casualties, were irrelevant.
Explosions echoed continuously, and the Ji communication channels were flooded with curses, cries for help, and screams of pain. To avoid undermining morale, the Ji commander had no choice but to block communications from so units.
“Have we located the target?”
“She’s still there, and hasn’t moved far!” When the entire area was swallowed by the Burrowing Worm, the battlefield recorders on the swallowed soldiers lost connection due to the worm’s magnetic field. However, the K2N9 carried a quantum communicator. To avoid harming their Empress, the Burrowing Worm wouldn’t destroy the K2N9.
Indeed, the Ji forces could track the Swarm Empress indirectly by locating the K2N9. The situation was better than expected. Unable to digest what it had swallowed, the Burrowing Worm temporarily lost its ability to dig.
Thus, it could only follow behind other Burrowing Worms, causing slight mobility issues. Its earlier turning maneuver had wasted precious ti.
Due to the Ji forces’ swift and decisive response, when the B5 bombs struck, the Burrowing Worm had only completed sixty percent of its reorientation.
After the bombardnt ended, the battlefield—which had been reduced to a thin layer of soil clinging desperately together—collapsed entirely, plunging into the depths below. From above, a colossal pit over five hundred ters deep appeared, resembling the maw of an abyss, inducing vertigo at a glance.
Thanks to the enhanced defensive capabilities of space-based creatures, the Burrowing Worm that swallowed Sarah erged battered and wounded, though only superficially. Even the hundreds of ters of falling caused minimal serious harm.
However, it faced an embarrassing predicant—it couldn’t consu soil while protecting Sarah, thus losing its tunneling ability.
The previously excavated tunnels had already collapsed under the Ji forces’ relentless bombardnt, trapping the Burrowing Worm in the deep pit. It could only wait for other Burrowing Worms to carve a path for it.
But since the Ji forces deliberately collapsed the pit, they naturally had counterasures ready.
“Is the Hercules ready?”
“A few auxiliary modules haven’t been installed yet, and it hasn’t undergone any debugging yet.”
“There’s no ti. We can’t give the Swarm any breathing room. Deploy the Hercules!”
The originally clear sky suddenly darkened as clouds gathered, but closer inspection revealed these weren’t clouds—it was a massive warship.
Disk-shaped and over ten kiloters in diater, this ten-thousand-ter behemoth was sothing rarely seen by the Ji race, let alone inside a planet’s interior.
Even without any action from the ship, its sheer mass caused gravitational disturbances as it approached the ground. Soil, rocks, sand, dust, grass roots, and leaves defied physics, drifting toward the giant vessel.
By the ti it reached its designated position, small storms had erupted around it. During this period, more tal modules continued attaching to its surface. What once appeared enormous—tal blocks over ten ters in length, width, and height—now seed minuscule in comparison.
“Activate it!” At the bottom of the massive pit, the Burrowing Worm carrying Sarah, aided by dozens of others, began moving again. Half of its head had already burrowed into a newly carved tunnel when suddenly, an overwhelming pulling force seized it, like a giant hand gripping it and attempting to drag it upward.
In the air, a spectacular and dazzling scene unfolded. The “Hercules,” a colossal ship spanning the void, hovered a hundred ters above the giant pit. Its underside opened a circular hatch five kiloters in diater—a true abyssal maw devouring everything. Compared to this, the Burrowing Worm’s gaping mouth was insignificant.
Dozens of tornadoes, carrying thousands of tons of mud, stones, dust, grass roots, and leaves, surged toward the giant maw, creating an apocalyptic scene. Even at the bottom of the pit, hundreds of ters away from the ship, escape from the imnse suction was impossible. The freshly collapsed, loose soil ford the thickest tornado-like column, spiraling upward into the maw.
Even the Burrowing Worm—a behemoth hundreds of ters long and ten ters wide—was rendered powerless before this abyssal maw, akin to an insect being swept away.
Occasionally, Burrowing Worms lost their support as surrounding soil was sucked away, leaving them suspended in the air. Without limbs, these helpless creatures could only await their fate.
Other Swarm combat units, such as Modified Spider Combat Bugs and Heavily Armored Warrior Ants hiding deep underground, were also pulled into the air. These smaller-to-dium-sized units had little resistance against the overwhelming force.
Moreover, this attack was indiscriminate. Ji soldiers, K2N9s, and even the massive K1KN10s were all dragged upward. It remained to be seen what awaited them beyond the giant maw—and whether the Ji forces had prepared asures to distinguish friend from foe.
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