TCPUAAV Chapter 120

 

Ruan Shiqing was in the lab conducting an examination on Sally, who had fully undergone her Zerg transformation, while outside the spaceship, an intense battle raged on.

 

Hector, Garland, Merrell, and the young ones piloted their fighters, leading the soldiers in surrounding the black warship. Meanwhile, Rong Heng operated a gunboat, relentlessly firing toward the black hole, sealing off the enemy’s quickest escape route.

 

Caught off guard when its hangar was blasted open, the black warship had already activated its defenses and begun to retaliate.

 

The lower hatch of the warship opened, and an endless swarm of Zergs began pouring out. These massive creatures clashed with the fighters in the air, while the black and green warships stood in a tense standoff, neither making a rash move.

 

For a while, the battle reached a stalemate, but Rong Heng’s side still held a subtle upper hand.

 

Whether it was the soldiers or the young ones, all were seasoned in slaying Zergs. Their teamwork was seamless, and with the addition of ferocious firepower, they quickly cleared out the first wave of Zergs.

 

But the enemy didn’t stop there—more Zerg troops followed.

 

After three consecutive waves, Rong Heng finally realized something was off. “No… they’re stalling for time.”

 

From the command center, he monitored the battle in real-time via the central control system. When he saw three waves of Zergs deployed one after another, he sensed a problem—if the enemy vessel carried such a massive Zerg force, they should have unleashed all of them at the beginning instead of dispersing them in waves, weakening their own strength.

 

Moreover, each subsequent wave had a larger number of Zergs, but they were noticeably smaller and weaker in combat. The differences were subtle, but after careful comparison, Rong Heng picked up on them.

 

“These Zergs… look like they were bred in a rush,” Rong Heng murmured, narrowing his eyes. Ever since learning that the Zergs were capable of mimicking human form, his speculations had become bolder.

 

Hector’s exaggerated voice came through the comms channel. “No way! What’d they do, pump them full of growth hormones?”

 

“We’ll know once we bring them down. Stop wasting time on the bugs—concentrate your firepower on the enemy warship,” Rong Heng commanded.

 

If his hunch was right, continuing to engage the Zergs would only play into the enemy’s trap, wearing down their own forces in wave after wave of chaotic skirmishes.

 

If that was the case, then they couldn’t allow the enemy any more time to churn out Zerg soldiers.

 

All fighters immediately adjusted their formation and tactics, ceasing their entanglement with the Zergs. Taking full advantage of the fighters’ superior maneuverability, they began a coordinated assault on the black warship. The low-level Zergs, clearly lacking intelligence, were tricked by the young pilots, who deftly maneuvered around the black warship to avoid their attacks—while deliberately luring the dim-witted creatures into slamming into the warship’s own energy shields.

 

Turning the enemy’s strength against itself proved both efficient and effective. After three hours of sustained warfare, the Zergs managed to punch a hole in the black warship’s shield.

 

Rong Heng seized the opportunity and launched a dual-helix high-energy ion cannon directly at the breach.

 

Amid the intense explosion, metal fragments scattered like meteor showers, and the colossal black warship was nearly torn in two.

 

“Prepare for forced boarding.”

 

Rong Heng’s voice remained steady over the comms.

 

The young ones, piloting their fighters, were already at the front lines. They dove through the breach, initiating an aggressive boarding assault within the enemy vessel.

 

*

 

In the lab, Ruan Shiqing was meticulously recording Sally’s biological data.

 

The monitor showed that her vital signs were steadily declining, but strangely enough, the ten insect eggs inside her were still developing.

 

“These eggs… seem to be absorbing her as nutrients,” Ruan Shiqing murmured to himself, glancing at the growing stack of data beside him.

 

According to all known information, the Zerg didn’t reproduce like this.

 

The Zerg hierarchy was strict and clearly defined. Under normal circumstances, only the queen laid eggs, which were then incubated and raised by worker drones. There had never been a case of eggs directly consuming the host as nourishment. This behavior directly contradicted the current structure of Zerg society—among the Zerg, only the queen had reproductive capabilities.

 

The queen was a unique existence, reigning supreme atop the hierarchy. She would never sacrifice herself to nurture her offspring. Only at the end of her life would a queen expend all her energy to lay a single royal egg—that egg would become the next queen.

 

But everything now stood in stark contrast to the records.

 

Something massive and unknown had clearly changed within the Zerg.

 

Ruan Shiqing turned to the little one at his side. “Jiao Jiao, are you feeling anything?”

 

The youngling sat in a chair next to him. The seat was a bit too high, so his little legs dangled in the air. The antennae on his forehead stood straight up, and his dark red eyes stared fixedly at Sally in the isolated chamber, the black pupils contracting tightly.

 

He pressed his lips together, a deep frown of confusion on his face.

 

An inexplicable sense of anxiety stirred inside him.

 

The aura emanating from Sally’s abdomen also made him uncomfortable.

 

“Yucky.” Ruan Jiao wrinkled his face in distaste. After speaking, he continued to stare intently at Sally’s swollen belly.

 

Ruan Shiqing frowned slightly. There wasn’t much useful information to glean from the cub’s words, so he had no choice but to keep observing. The anthropomorphized Zerg were already an earth-shattering phenomenon—what he could do now was record everything about Sally’s condition in as much detail as possible. Once released, these findings would help the Empire better understand the Zerg and avoid being completely caught off guard in the future.

 

At that moment, a soft beep came from the monitoring device. Ruan Shiqing looked up just in time to see the weakly twitching black Zerg inside the chamber lose all signs of life. Its limbs fell limp, the entire body appearing as if it had been hollowed out. All that remained was a grotesquely distended abdomen—unnaturally swollen and towering.

 

Ruan Shiqing switched the monitoring focus to the eggs inside the Zerg’s abdomen.

 

What surprised him was that the number of eggs was decreasing—one, two, three…

 

As the number dwindled, the grotesque bulge began to deflate. Eventually, only one egg remained. That lone egg, having absorbed all the nutrients, pulsed rhythmically like a heart, as if something within was trying to burst out.

 

Ruan Jiao tensed and stood up, the antennae on his forehead standing taut. He instinctively clutched Ruan Shiqing’s sleeve, a soft wave of psychic energy rippling out from around him.

 

Ruan Shiqing instantly recognized the unusual nature of this final egg. He didn’t take any chances—he immediately lowered the reinforced transparent barriers around the experimental chamber and activated enhanced defense protocols. At the same time, he summoned a team of assistant robots into the lab, just in case.

 

The egg, about the size of two basketballs, pulsed violently. Its yellowish-white shell was torn open by black chitinous limbs, and a jet-black Zerg emerged from within.

 

It wasn’t large, and its appearance wasn’t much different from that of a normal Zerg. On the surface, it didn’t look particularly threatening.

 

Ruan Shiqing watched as it struggled out of the egg, wobbling unsteadily to its feet. Its head turned, and the red compound eyes quickly locked onto them. The long antennae atop its head swayed as it opened its mouth and let out a silent screech—

 

Silent only in the literal sense—the pitch was so high it was beyond the range of human hearing.

 

Ruan Shiqing didn’t notice anything strange at first—until a sharp pain flared in his ears. He instinctively reached up to touch them and felt a wet sensation at his fingertips—blood.

 

Only then did the bizarre screech start to become audible.

 

It was a sound beyond description, like countless fine needles stabbing into his ears and skull. His mind went blank for a split second, until a tug at his sleeve snapped him back.

 

He looked down sluggishly and saw Ruan Jiao’s anxious little face.

 

The cub’s antennae were trembling wildly. His mouth was opening and closing, trying to say something—but Ruan Shiqing could no longer hear him.

 

Through his blurry vision, he noticed that the reinforced transparent barrier was already beginning to crack. The newborn Zerg was still shrieking.

 

All other sounds faded away, leaving only that piercing cry—like a relentless stream of needles drilling into his brain.

 

In the final moment before collapsing, Ruan Shiqing managed to issue one last command to the standby robots: eliminate the target.

 

The assistant robots immediately initiated the purge protocol. The newborn Zerg, though dangerously abnormal, was still physically fragile. Under the coordinated attack of the robots, it was swiftly neutralized, leaving behind only a lifeless corpse sealed inside the chamber.

 

The comms channel, momentarily scrambled by the high-frequency screech, finally stabilized. Rong Heng’s voice came through clearly at last: “What happened in the lab?”

 

—Just moments ago, an alert had flashed for the lab sector, showing abnormal readings.

 

“Daddy! Daddy!”

 

But instead of Ruan Shiqing’s warm, composed voice, what rang out over the channel was the panicked cry of a young child.

 

Something had gone wrong.

 

Rong Heng’s heart skipped a beat.

 

Before leaving the bridge, he immediately handed control over to Noah and ordered the little mermaid to retreat to the command deck of the warship. Then he took off at a sprint toward the lab.

 

The lab doors slammed open as Rong Heng burst inside, striding in large steps. The first thing he saw was Ruan Shiqing collapsed on the floor. He rushed forward and lifted him into his arms, his sharp gaze sweeping over the lab.

 

Aside from some hairline cracks on the isolation chamber and the surrounding barrier panels, everything else appeared intact.

 

He turned to the flustered Ruan Jiao and asked in a low, tense voice, “What happened?”

 

Ruan Jiao’s eyes were wide as he shook his head vigorously.

 

He didn’t know.

 

He and Daddy had been watching the larva hatch from its egg. He could feel that the newborn emitted a strong psychic presence, one that was tinged with something unpleasant—something that made him uneasy. That was why he had raised his antennae defensively, trying to block the newborn’s influence and shield Daddy from it.

 

But somehow, Daddy’s ears had suddenly started bleeding, and his expression turned vacant. Ruan Jiao had shouted and tugged on him for a long time before Daddy finally snapped out of it—but by then, it was too late.

 

The little one trailed behind Rong Heng’s heels, step for step, watching as he swiftly carried Ruan Shiqing over to the med pod and placed him inside for emergency treatment.

 

Tears streamed down his cheeks, falling one by one with soft plops onto the pristine lab floor.

 

He hadn’t protected Daddy.

 

 

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Omg what the heck happened!!!!!

 

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