The Norn Queen was almost completely out of options.
That Lictor had been a specially tuned individual, specifically designed to evade the Queen of Blades' psionic detection and the Zerg's various stealth-revealing units, yet the final ambush had still failed. As long as the Queen of Blades remained alive, sending more Norn Emissaries or Norn Assimilators was simply throwing them away. Unlike the Custodes, the Queen of Blades possessed psionic power that allowed her to ignore most conventional risks.
The Norn Queen could only hope for a victory on the broader battlefield.
Currently, the Tyranid Swarm was launching assaults from multiple dome sectors toward the Third Dome. In terms of overall numbers, the Zerg forces in the Third Dome were at a clear disadvantage, but the Webway gate was continuously pouring out reinforcements. Cerebrates and Queens directed the massive front, while the Swarm Overmind surveyed the entire theater from a global perspective.
"The situation is stable."
The Zerg Swarm's defensive capabilities were formidable, and with endless reinforcements, the Tyranids couldn't win even if they fought to the last bug. It was just that there were too many Tyranids; it would take time to clear them out.
"I have plenty of time. As long as I take this Craftworld, my objective is achieved."
The Overmind had not forgotten that he was here for the star charts. The charts within a Craftworld marked the ultra-large Webway routes capable of accommodating the vessel itself. Once those were found, the Zerg fleet would never have to worry about travel distance again.
The fighting at the front was exceptionally brutal, but the Overmind didn't care. The Swarm didn't concern itself with the cost of conquest and assimilation; completing the objective was enough. The casualties were so high that corpses covered the ground, forming hills in some areas. The Tyranids had little opportunity to collect biomass, while the Zerg used their creep to slowly reclaim it.
This made the Norn Queen incredibly anxious. Before the battle was even decided, she sent out Rippers to recover biomass. These small, head-sized crawlers appeared in massive numbers at the front, devouring the corpses of fallen units.
"Oh? Trying to recycle corpses? You think I'll give you the chance?"
A Defiler sprayed a cloud of Plague, instantly killing a vast number of Rippers. The Norn Queen wanted to scream. Rippers were the lowest of the low—cannon fodder that didn't even have their own digestive systems. Their only purpose was to eat until full and then jump into a digestion pool to become biomass. She couldn't justify adding a specialized immune system to such minor units just to counter the Defiler's Plague. Adding a temporary immune system to Hormagaunts was a loss, let alone Rippers.
Left with no choice, the Norn Queen sent Haruspexes forward as biomass transport units. They swallowed corpses in huge gulps to be delivered back to the digestion pools in the Bio-ships. The efficiency was painfully slow—so slow the Overmind wanted to laugh.
What was even funnier was that when a Haruspex finished eating and prepared to head back, an Infestor's parasite barb shot out and hijacked the creature's head.
"Trying to run after you're full? You think I'm stupid?"
The Norn Queen was truly going insane. This wasn't how you were supposed to fight! She was desperate; the biomass was right there, but she could only look and not eat, while the enemy used a specialized method to decompose it. If this continued, her losses would be catastrophic. The digestion pools were waiting—was it really impossible to do something as simple as moving a corpse?!
No! The Norn Queen was hungry. The Great Devourer's eternal hunger tormented her, and she craved the biomass. The hunger of the Swarm could never be satisfied.
Hormagaunts began carrying the corpses of their kin back to the pools, slowly pressing toward the Zerg positions. Because of the Norn Queen's upgrades, the gaunts could now ignore the Defiler's Plague. But the efficiency still wasn't enough. To prevent the Zerg creep from stealing biomass, Pyrovores began lobbing shells to bomb the creep, severing its connections. Creep cannot survive independently without a Creep Tumor; once severed from the main network, it begins to wither.
"Using any means necessary just to eat, huh? Well, I won't let you have a bite."
The Overmind looked at the position of the Tyranid Bio-ships and prepared to deploy the Swarm's most powerful unit. This unit was not the Queen of Blades, nor was it an Ultralisk.
It was the Brutalisk.
The Brutalisk was the largest ground combat unit in the Zerg Swarm, yet many had never seen one. It wasn't a standard production unit; in Abathur's view, its cost-effectiveness was inferior to the Ultralisk. However, its power and size were undeniably superior, and it possessed anti-air capabilities that the Ultralisk lacked. When produced, it looked more like a Tyranid unit if one didn't look closely.
The Overmind produced only one Brutalisk. One was enough.
"It's time to end this. Kans, Zasz, Zagara, Izsha—hear my command! Prepare to launch a counter-attack following the Brutalisk and the Ultralisk herds!"
"As you command!"
The counter-attack began. The horn of the offensive officially sounded as the massive behemoth reached the battlefield. The Brutalisk's structure looked more insect-like, resembling a giant scorpion. Its tail curved high, and six legs supported a body so massive that smaller units could run beneath it. The largest pair of claws on its front were extremely similar to common Tyranid scythe-talons, capable of piercing any ground unit's defense, including Titans. Furthermore, it could spray acid at both ground and air targets.
It was a truly versatile unit.
It did have weaknesses: its movement speed was slow, its six-legged gait far inferior to the sprinting four-legged Ultralisk, often causing it to fall behind the main force. Second, it was expensive and had obvious vulnerabilities—or rather, its entire body was a target. Regardless, it hadn't been phased out for nothing, but as the Swarm's largest ground unit, it was occasionally indispensable.
"Charge!"
The Brutalisk began to break the enemy lines. No matter what creature stood before it, its claws pierced them easily. Any unit big enough to be skewered by its claws wasn't "small"—they were at least five or six meters tall—yet they were tiny compared to the Brutalisk.
Meanwhile, the Ultralisk herds charged from other directions, quickly trampling countless Hormagaunts and Warriors. The Ultralisk charge was truly the foundation of the Zerg's foothold in Warhammer 40K. Without them, the Overmind wouldn't know how to fight.
"I'm becoming so spoiled by these Ultralisks that I only know how to 'A-click' with big cows. I wonder if my brothers from the other two races feel the same way—spoiled by Thors and Colossi until they forget how to micro."