Chapter 696, Extermination Order Landed, Battle of Rheaduches (XI)

The iron coffin is the name for the Dreadnought.

It is to roughly stuff a Space Marine into an alloy life-support capsule that he can never leave. All the life support of this Space Marine for the rest of his life will depend on the life-support capsule.

At the same time, this life-support capsule is also the cockpit of the Dreadnought. Many pipes will be connected to the Space Marine's nerves, allowing them to control the huge Dreadnought like their own hands and feet. The visual system of the mecha is his eyes, and the sound receiving system is his ears.

This sounds okay.

Although he can no longer taste the taste of food, he can no longer have any physiological needs and impulses. But... Space Marines have little need for the former. In most Space Marine groups, the pursuit of appetite and food taste is despised. They are more devoted to hard work and honing their minds.

As for physiological needs other than delicious food...

It is hard to say whether they have sexual ability, but I have never seen any serious Space Marines pursuing this.

And the further fertility, that is even more solid. Space Marines cannot reproduce normally. If they really want to "reproduce", they can only do so through gene seed implantation surgery.

Therefore, without these mortal pursuits, it seems that it is no big deal for Space Marines. Whether they enter the Dreadnought Iron Coffin or not, they live like this.

But this is actually just the most insignificant price after entering the Dreadnought Mech.

The real price lies in the negative effects.

They will always stay awake, no longer need sleep, and no dreams. Their brains can certainly maintain physical health under the maintenance of the life support cabin, but mental fatigue will continue forever and cannot be repaired.

The life support cabin can ensure the health of the Space Marine's body, but due to the direct connection between the entire machine and the nerves, when the Space Marine controls the Dreadnought Mech for regular movement, a slight tingling, more like an itchy feeling, will continue to torture the Space Marines at all times.

Not only action, but just starting the visual and auditory systems is also operating the body, which will also "itch".

And when it comes to battles that require intense exercise, the itch will turn into pain.

It is precisely based on this that many dreadnought iron coffins have a bad ending. When they are not necessary, they will stay in the fleet's warehouse, library, elders' room and other places for a long time, motionless. They seem to be sleeping, but they are actually awake, but they are bored and can't do anything. After all, if they move, they will feel itchy all over their body.

But whether it is itching or boredom in the long darkness, it will eventually drive people crazy.

It is true that Space Marines are extraordinary creatures. Normal mortals may go crazy in a few days, but they can persist in it for hundreds or thousands of years...

But after all, it is not eternal.

Dreadnought mechas have a tendency to self-destruct. They often put themselves in the most dangerous situation in a certain battle in order to be freed in the battle. That not only fulfills their loyalty to the Emperor and the regiment, but also frees them from the eternal pain.

And the worse ones may not be able to endure the torture that has lasted for an unknown period of time on a certain day or at a certain moment, and they will go crazy and attack indiscriminately on their own ships, and eventually be solved by their own fighting brothers.

The name of the Dreadnought mech, the ‘Iron Coffin’, is actually an understatement. It is not just a steel coffin, but an eternal torture device.

Because of this, only disabled but strong-willed space warriors can enter the Dreadnought mech.

If you are not disabled, don’t go in. There is no need to suffer that living punishment.

Those who are not strong-willed generally don’t want to go in. Instead of enduring eternal punishment, it is better to return to the Golden Throne as soon as possible.

Even if you want to go in for a while, each war group has strict standards. For those who are disabled, have lost their combat effectiveness, or even have to die if they don’t enter the Dreadnought Iron Coffin, you have to see how they perform on weekdays and whether they are firm enough. Otherwise, they can’t withstand the eternal punishment and will harm the war group.

Leluwa wants to go in, first of all, he has great perseverance and determination. Secondly, he also has enough willpower to withstand the test brought by the Dreadnought Iron Coffin.

…

Gu Hang has no objection to Leluwa’s decision.

There are Dreadnought mechs on his starship.

That belonged to the Phoenix Regiment, and was prepared for some elite veterans who could not be rescued. Now it would not be a problem to allocate one to Leroy.

The performance of this Black Cross Marshal in the battle on the ground was amazing.

And it did have a huge impact on the battle.

The large Zerg nest was destroyed, and under that wave of incapacitating blows, hundreds of thousands of Zerg units on various battlefields were destroyed. This number may not be very conspicuous, but the key is that it also includes a large number of high-level units. After all, the level of the Zerg Hive Overlord itself is too high, and many node creatures that usually look like the highest level are actually under his control. Now, there is no need to go to great lengths to kill, just observe from a distance, and the opponent will not hide even if you use a cannon to bombard.

That directly led to the Zerg's biological Titan army, which had to retreat.

A considerable number of bio-titans did escape, but they suffered a lot of losses in the previous battles. In the subsequent retreat process, whether it was the rearguard troops destroyed by humans or the units killed in the pursuit, the army that the Queen of Zerg originally intended to use to completely destroy the human army's base on the surface of the planet was seriously damaged.

The battle is indeed not over yet, but in fact, the stage has changed.

From the first stage of airborne operations to the second stage of base defense, it is now the third stage of strategic offensive.

Taking advantage of the death of the Zerg Hive Overlord and the retreat of the Zerg Bio-titan Corps, there is no strong enough military force in the vast area around the human base to hinder the attack of the human army.

Gu Hang will naturally not waste such a good opportunity.

He decisively continued to increase the investment in ground military forces, and even wanted to send all four of Salisius, Martins, Xi Rui, and Ewing.

These four, if nothing else, are at least not weaker than Leroy. Leroy was able to get to the fourth place among them, and that was because Xi Rui was at the bottom.

Although the Blood Shark Chapter Leader, Alma Ewing, was usually silent, his actual combat power was quite strong, as Gu Hang knew.

Gu Hang could directly see his strength from his soul and the little bit of subspace essence he possessed.

At the same time, Gu Hang also had the most elite group of warriors in the entire human coalition: the Phoenix, Ortopis, and Blood Shark, the three chapters were also teleported to the ground by Gu Hang in an organized manner.

In order to take advantage of its illness, Gu Hang handed over the command of the ground operations to Salilius, the commander-in-chief of the Western Front, who replaced Leroy. His request to Salilius was to rapidly expand the area of ​​the human base within two months and destroy every Zerg nest that could be found.

We have elite troops, troops, and firepower, and the enemy's main force has been beaten back. How can we not win this battle?

Salilius completed Gu Hang's task very well.

When the human coalition can ensure a safe area of ​​more than 1,500 kilometers horizontally and vertically on the ground, the success rate of airdrop will be much higher. This not only means that there is no air defense interception from the ground, but also changes the starship naval battle close to the planet's orbit.

The human fleet is stronger than the Zerg biological fleet in terms of scale and combat power. But it is because of the orbital firepower on the ground that the war damage is greater than that of the opponent. Fighting is limited, and often going to the ground for support is purely exchanging ships.

Now, there is a whole area that is safe, which means that the starships in the sky have a relatively safe orbital airspace.

Although 1500×1500 is not large for the entire planet, if the battle distance is far from the planet, there will still be a lot of orbital firepower that can be fired. But the smaller the number, the better. Moreover, if the human starships get closer to the planet to a certain extent, as long as they are located directly above this safe area, all the Zerg orbital guns will lose their attack angles due to the curvature of the surface.

The safe zone was created in this way, allowing human ships to finally suffer less losses during naval battles.

This will feed back to the ground, making the ground attack smoother; if the ground is smooth, more and faster Zerg nests will be destroyed, the threat in the sky will be reduced, and the range of human starships will become larger, which will feed back to the ground...

In this way, it is a positive cycle.

However, this is still not enough to win.

The goal of the human coalition is not just to win, but to win within a year, otherwise the reinforcements from the "tentacles" will arrive. By then, the battle situation will change.

At present, the situation is safe and has a high success rate to deploy the extermination order weapon.

But similarly, the number of human troops deployed on the ground is too large and the quality is also high. Gu Hang also has to face the same problem as the Northern Front Legion: should they be burned directly with the Queen of Insects...

There is no need.

Gu Hang himself was reluctant to burn the Phoenix and Martins to death on the ground.

Even if we put aside the emotional factors, from the perspective of interests, perhaps Gu Hang can make up the number of Phoenixes at a relatively small cost, even at the level of the company champion. However, those who exceed the company champion and reach the level of the regiment paragon and the regiment champion cannot be made up.

Although there is a [Hero] interface that can be enlightened, the subsequent upgrades must have sufficient talent.

Talent alone is not even enough, you must have enough experience.

These all limit Gu Hang's ability to create masters.

Moreover, even if they were upgraded to the highest level 9 that the system could provide, even with the relevant training of Space Marines, their overall strength would still be slightly inferior to that of the Chapter Champion.

Just like a Psychic, who was not as good as Gu Hang in getting so many reward templates and the blessing of the Kingdom of Storms, upgrading to LV9 was nothing more than A+, and there was only one S-level.

The same is true for Space Marines.

Not only the Phoenix, but even the Raging Flames and New Age Torches have been pulled to LV8 and LV9, but in fact they are generally not up to the level of a group champion. The Chapter Masters of those two Chapters are not worthy of their names, and they do not have as powerful a battle force as the Space Marine Chapter Masters in the conventional concept.

Only Martins, the only one who had some special circumstances and had his own breakthroughs, coupled with the blessing of Gu Hang, the secondary god of the Storm God Kingdom in the subspace, was able to show that he could be called the champion among the group champions. Relatively top strength.

These things are hard to come by. Even the divine blessing that Gu Hang can control actually requires the target to be able to bear it, and the number of people who can bless it is still limited.

Now if Martins dies, it will be impossible for Gu Hang to make another copy. There will be no candidate.

Gu Hang really couldn't bear to give up on him.

For example, Gu Hang couldn't just trick others like Salisius, Xi Rui, and Ewing to death. Ewing's blood shark Gu Hang is planning something, and the first two are influential bosses in the entire empire. If they are tricked to death, the political turmoil will be huge.

However, although Gu Hang made a similar decision to Leroy during the first battle, in fact, the situations they faced were completely different.

When we really have no choice but to burn them together, we will burn them all. However, that is clearly not the case now.

The human starships in the sky are superior in size and quality. Although the battle situation is about the same, that is due to the support of ground orbital firepower for naval battles. When the ground war continues to advance smoothly, the human side will definitely regain the advantage.

The ground battle was indeed going quite smoothly.

So why be so anxious?

There is still more than half a year left before the deadline to end the battle.

Just because the Extermination Order weapons are not dropped directly onto the ground does not mean that they are not used.

Gu Hang used some transport ships to transport five rounds of Extermination Order weapons to the ground.

The Zerg were still able to sense the presence of the Extermination Order weapons, and they tried their best to intercept them.

But this time, it couldn't be stopped.

The degree of destruction of the orbital interception firepower on the ground has exceeded the critical line and the pressure given is not enough; those flying insects that can fly outside the atmosphere have to first eat the anti-aircraft firepower interception from humans on the ground.

Due to the lack of ground orbital firepower, the human fleet can protect these transport ships closer and more closely.

Even if the Hive Fleet carried out a full-force assault and suffered heavy losses under the attack of the human fleet. But even so, only four were stopped in the end, and one Sky-burning torpedo still entered the planet's surface unharmed.

At this time, the human troops began to shrink rapidly and boarded the landing spacecraft to evacuate in various safe areas.

During the evacuation process, although the success rate is only about 85%, if unlucky, the entire ship will be intercepted by the Zerg biological ship before they can return to the starship and transport ship.

But it is much better than staying on the ground and being buried with bugs all over the planet a month later.

————

4k make up yesterday.

One more chapter before bed.