Chapter 388: Surrounded on All Sides! The Matriarch Ship Falls! Launch the All-Out Assault!
Seeing their own executor Naeon's face twist in fear, the Tal'darim warriors who hadn't participated in the Bysel campaign quickly realized something was wrong.
The mere size of the gigantic ships from the Universal Megacorp had already filled them with dread, and Naeon's expression only confirmed their worst suspicions.
Sure enough, when the Moon of War, Infinity Night, and Dreadnought opened fire on the Tal'darim fleet simultaneously, a wave of destruction followed—many ships had their energy shields overloaded in an instant and were torn apart mercilessly.
Alarms blared throughout the Tal'darim fleet, and a cascade of system error messages flooded their holographic displays like a flurry of snowflakes.
Even the ship they prided themselves on—the Worldship—only barely withstood the first wave of fire. When the final cannon blast grazed the hull of the Mothership, it left behind a shocking, jagged scar.
Had that blast veered just slightly and struck the engines, the entire mothership would've plunged from the sky immediately.
"Adjust angle! Full counterattack!"
Inside the violently shaking command room, Naeon gritted his teeth and issued the order.
After all, this was the Tal'darim's home turf. With a vast number of ground-based anti-ship weapon systems, they might still stand a chance against the Megacorp forces.
The ground troops, upon receiving the order, quickly recalibrated the Judgment Walkers, turning their cannons toward the Megacorp's ships orbiting above.
But the Megacorp was ready. Their fleet swiftly deployed the Infinity carrier to engage the enemy's surface defenses.
"Command, target locked!"
"Fire!"
With Marshal Terrence's command, the Infinity unleashed several orbs of lightning from its main battery. Boosted by acceleration rails, the electric arcs ignited the sky with blinding brilliance.
Thousands of plasma orbs shot forth, soaring across 20,000 kilometers before slamming into the ranks of the Judgment Walkers.
As these orbs struck, they chained together into a devastating electromagnetic field that crackled between the Walkers, igniting countless arcs of searing electricity. The sound was thunderous, and flashes of light resembled mythical beasts roaring in the storm.
Their energy shields collapsed first, and then the powerful currents disabled them. In mere seconds, the Walkers began to melt down into pools of molten metal.
The Tal'darim ground forces had no chance to retaliate.
Meanwhile, the Mothership Matriarch attempted to return fire—but the nearby Infinity Night loomed nearly 30 kilometers long, six times the size of the Matriarch.
Even when Naeon stubbornly ordered the thermal beam cannons to lock on and strike the hull of Infinity Night, leaving a massive scar several kilometers long, the attack barely pierced the Megacorp's shielding. Unlike the fragile Protoss capital ships, these shields were thicker and far more durable.
After several exchanges, Terrence and Paul deduced that the Matriarch's "Galactic Vortex" couldn't bend gravity over long distances. Otherwise, it would've sucked in a Daelamm mothership earlier instead of just a handful of unmanned drones.
"Keep your distance—don't give them the chance to use the gravity field! Maintain fire!"
Terrence relayed the order to all vessels.
As the Megacorp fleet reached full formation and prepared for an even deadlier second salvo, Naeon reluctantly issued the command:
"Activate the Galactic Vortex—now!"
It felt almost like a turn-based game—each side revealing new tactics and counters, desperate to outplay the other.
As the Megacorp's second barrage streaked across space, the Matriarch deployed another gravitational field—a miniature black hole that hovered like a shield in front of the ship.
To its credit, the Galactic Vortex was astonishingly effective, swallowing almost the entire volley—including hardlight and solar lance blasts—into the abyss like a bottomless pit.
Seeing it work, Naeon finally let out a breath of relief. Under normal circumstances, he would've never dared attempt this tactic—triggering the vortex at close range meant even the Matriarch itself risked being pulled in.
Fortunately, they had adjusted their positioning just in time. The vortex absorbed the incoming fire, shielding them from the Megacorp fleet's second wave of concentrated attack.
"Now's our chance—retreat!"
Naeon wasn't foolish enough to linger after buying himself some time. He knew the Tal'darim fleet was outmatched. The best the vortex could offer was a brief delay.
As expected, after the Megacorp's second barrage finished, their weapons entered a temporary recharge phase.
The Matriarch used the opportunity to begin retreating—but Naeon's relief didn't last long. A blazing plasma beam descended from the heavens, striking the now unshielded Matriarch dead-on.
"What happened?!"
The ship's violent shudder reignited Naeon's panic. Scanning the recon feed, he saw it—another ship had appeared above the Matriarch:
A Carthage-class Carrier.
Though the Galactic Vortex had nullified the Megacorp's main fleet attack, the invading forces had brought more than just that.
The Moon of War had unfolded its deployment platform, launching a swarm of additional ships—including carriers now converging to destroy the Matriarch.
The upgraded Moon of War wasn't just a superstructure—it had full deployment capability, summoning a backup fleet when needed.
From the far end of the starfield, the Carthage-class glowed faintly as the aftermath of its plasma cannon dissipated. That devastating sneak attack had been its doing.
No matter how powerful the Matriarch was, it could only project one gravitational shield—and it certainly couldn't cover every angle.
This ambush from above had been perfectly aimed. The Matriarch's biggest weakness was at its top, where shielding was thinnest. From there, one could even glimpse internal systems.
Although not quite as massive as the Infinity-class, the Carthage's main plasma cannon was one of the most advanced in the Megacorp arsenal. After passing through reinforced accelerator tubes, it could easily punch through 20 meters of superalloy plating.
Protoss warships rarely relied on armor—their design philosophy emphasized shielding and agility. As such, the blast pierced through the Matriarch like a fork through grilled fish, igniting a chain of internal explosions.
The already-crippled ship began to tilt uncontrollably toward the planetary surface. Its gravitational systems had failed. It was falling.
Terrence, never one to miss the chance to strike a downed foe, quickly gave the order:
"All batteries—recharge and prepare to fire again!"
Naeon had truly run out of options. The vortex he created could delay the fleet, but couldn't break through the Infinity Night or Dreadnought. And if he tried to pivot the Matriarch's weapons toward the Carthage-class, he'd expose its vulnerable sides to the rest of the fleet.
No matter what decision he made, it would invite destruction.
Moments later, the Carthage fired again—this time hitting the energy crystal core of the Matriarch. The ship lost all power and began spiraling downward.
Worse yet, the crash trajectory took it directly into the Rift Field Generator—a massive energy device that maintained a protective field.
The Matriarch struck the generator with a thunderous crash, shattering it completely. As the field collapsed, the path to the surface lay wide open.
With the protective barrier gone, the Megacorp's ground forces began their landing operation.
Following Terrence's command, troops aboard assault craft and drop pods descended en masse, all heading straight for the Tal'darim relic vaults.
At the forefront was Megatron and his Decepticon squad—unstoppable titans wielding twin thermal hardlight blades, slicing a Judgment Walker into four pieces in one charge.
He was like a wild bull crashing through everything in sight.
"All Decepticons—transform and attack!"
Since conquering the Transformers universe, most human units had been reassigned to colonial garrisons. The Megacorp's elite were now drawn from multiple multiverse factions: Covenant Elites, Autobots and Decepticons, Imperial clone troopers, and Force-wielders.
Human soldiers didn't even qualify as cannon fodder anymore—they were relegated to patrols and peacekeeping in the rear lines.
Against the towering Transformers, even Tal'darim psi-warriors looked fragile and helpless.
Being silicon-based lifeforms, the Decepticons were practically immune to psychic manipulation—and in raw power, few could challenge them.
Worse yet, the Decepticons were aerial specialists. A single burst of speed carried them several kilometers, making them nearly impossible for ground troops to counter.
Meanwhile, Chimera Tanks demonstrated their incredible adaptability. Even in space battles, their diverse weapons systems proved devastating.
The Tal'darim's ground formations were like twigs before a charging war elephant—crushed underfoot.
Still reeling from the crash of their flagship, the Tal'darim defenders were thrown into chaos by the Megacorp's relentless assault.
In space, there was no sound—only flickering lights and tremors of constant bombardment.
Photon turrets exploded one after another. Above, the Transformers strafed Tal'darim psi-warriors repeatedly with impunity.
Blinded by this combination of overwhelming firepower and strategic disarray, the Tal'darim had no effective response.
With the flagship destroyed and command structure severed, the ground units were like headless insects—scattering aimlessly, only to be vaporized by the Megacorp's artillery.
After cleansing the surface with dense bombardments, the Megacorp's forces advanced in full formation.
A legion of sentinel robots and clone troopers in powered armor deployed from airships, armed with blaster rifles and guided by a network of AI drones and recon units.
Their objective paths were pre-programmed. All they had to do was follow the route and complete their missions.
Above, the fleet maintained aerial fire support—laser cannons and plasma orbs rained down continuously.
Most Megacorp units didn't even need to engage in the fiercest combat. They merely moved in after the bombardment to mop up.
Thanks to innovations from the Megacorp's science division, the new plasma orbs could track enemy movements and follow them like ghostly pursuers.
The moment they made contact, the result was catastrophic: violent energy detonations and extreme heat.
Among the hardest hit were the Tal'darim Slayers—who were utterly devastated.
The killers had assumed they could use Phase Blink to dodge the pursuit of the crackling orbs of lightning, but the orbs were in no rush. When their targets vanished, they simply hovered in place for a moment.
Then, the moment the targets reappeared, the orbs would immediately resume their pursuit. Many of these energy spheres wore down their quarry over time, eventually exhausting and killing the constantly fleeing assassins.
Amid the blinding flashes and roaring discharges of electricity, a large number of the killers were paralyzed and subsequently blasted to pieces by the giant mechs that had taken control of the warzone.
Seeing this, the rear Daelaam forces looked as if they'd seen a ghost, staring in disbelief at the relentless advance of the Megacorp warriors.
They had seen human warfare before, but the Terran Federation forces were only ever barely capable of holding a defensive line—never had they witnessed such an overwhelming and unstoppable offensive.
This wasn't something the Terran Federation was even remotely capable of pulling off!
Even the humans from the Earth Union shouldn't have forces this powerful. After all, the Earth Union's technological development was roughly on par with the Terran Federation.
"Are they really the same human race we used to know? Robots, fully armed interstellar soldiers, massive warships and artillery…"
Lokia felt like its brain had crashed. It couldn't understand how a civilization that had only entered the space age less than 300 years ago…
Had somehow caught up to the Protoss in what felt like a single night.
The strength the Universal Megacorp was displaying was nothing like the feeble race Lokiah had once known.
"Executor, I reported this to you long ago—this human force is something entirely different. They're a new faction we've never encountered before."
Artanis spoke as if this had been obvious all along. A human capable of conjuring lightning barehanded… being more advanced than the Daelaam Protoss didn't seem that surprising anymore.
Lokia was left speechless.
Everything happening before it was like a sledgehammer to the head. A new power had clearly emerged in the Koprulu Sector—Universal Megacorp!
Meanwhile, as Megacorp launched a full-scale assault on the Tal'darim, the Daelaam forces that had previously been blocked by the Rift Barrier now surged forward as well.
However, their target wasn't the Tal'darim's vaults of relics and treasure—it was the prison cells where fellow Protoss were being held captive.
Seeing that victory was now inevitable, Paul boarded his morphing fighter and flew from the flagship to the battlefield. His current top priority was securing the final Keystone fragment.
This was critical to the Boss's ultimate plan.
At this point, under the relentless bombardment of the Megacorp expeditionary forces, the Tal'darim's vault was on the verge of collapse, just moments from being breached.
Though the stationed Tal'darim garrison continued their desperate resistance,
With their Mothership destroyed and the Rift Barrier disabled, the Megacorp–Daelaam coalition forces surged in from all sides like a flood.
The already demoralized Tal'darim troops finally broke when Megatron himself led the charge, kicking down the giant doors of the vault. The Decepticons quickly followed and were the first to storm in.
Paul and Panam each led a strike squad into the massive vault, heading straight for the deepest chamber in pursuit of the Keystone fragment.
Inside this dim, narrow warehouse, a squad of elite Tal'darim psionic warriors was making their last stand.
As Naeon's trump card unit, they would never allow Paul's forces to take the final Keystone fragment without a fight.
"For the Tal'darim! Loyalty—!"
The psionic warriors shouted in unison and launched a suicidal charge with their warblades drawn.
Paul remained calm, swiftly unleashing a barrage of Hunter Blades. The razor-sharp, Adamantine-coated projectiles danced through the narrow corridor.
But even when impaled, the Tal'darim warriors did not stop. It was as if they had used some forbidden technique to seal off all sensation,
Willing to perish if it meant taking down the Megacorp strike teams with them.
"What kind of curse are these freaks using? Even the Hunter Spikes aren't enough to take them down!" Panam exclaimed, stunned by the fanatical warriors.
Sensing the danger, Paul immediately ordered the use of gravity grenades. Graviton fields were deployed to pin the psionic warriors in place.
Once they were immobilized, Paul commanded his troops to open fire, overwhelming the Tal'darim warriors with concentrated firepower until they were shredded.
"These Tal'darim are clearly different from the ones outside. What the hell is going on?"
Panam was puzzled.
Paul walked over silently and picked up a severed limb, examining it closely. After scrutinizing it inside and out, he finally noticed something strange.
Claws, just like those of the Zerg, were growing inside the limb. Other scattered pieces of tissue showed similar insectoid features.
The severed limb even showed signs of being alive. As Paul approached, it twitched and sprang up with a reflexive strike, trying to attack him.
Fortunately, Paul reacted quickly—his lightblade was drawn in a flash, cleaving the limb in two and preventing any injury.
"What the hell? Have they been infected with some kind of Zerg virus?"
Panam looked at the claws sprouting from the remains and suddenly recalled the human infected they'd seen earlier—these Protoss seemed to be suffering from something similar.
But Paul shook his head solemnly. "Impossible. By all accounts, the Zerg shouldn't be able to infect the Protoss."
Both the Zerg and the Protoss were chosen successors of the Xel'naga. If the Protoss were that easily infected by the Zerg, the Xel'naga would never have picked them as their primary heirs.
Megacorp's central database confirmed that the Protoss were protected by the Khala and psionic energy, and their genetics were fundamentally incompatible with the Zerg.
Under normal circumstances, they shouldn't be susceptible to Zerg infection.
So what the hell is going on with these twisted Tal'darim?!
"We'll deal with it later. Keep moving."
Paul set aside his doubts for now and focused on recovering the Keystone fragment before digging deeper into this mystery.
Soon, the Megacorp strike team reached the heart of the vault. Suspended in the air was the final piece of the Keystone.
But somehow, Naeon—long absent from the battlefield—had made it there too. Disheveled and glaring with hatred, he positioned himself protectively in front of the fragment.
"Naeon, there's still time to surrender. You and your people might yet be spared."
Paul instinctively offered him a chance to submit. With the Tal'darim defeated, there was no point in more needless resistance.
Naeon, fully aware that his legacy was about to be reduced to ashes, no longer looked manic or arrogant. Instead, he roared with tragic fury:
"Foolish human! You have no idea what I've sacrificed for the Protoss! Only I can lead us to eternity!"
Naeon couldn't understand—Amon of the Xel'naga was already among the Protoss. All they had to do was follow their master's will to achieve ultimate evolution and ascend as Xel'naga.
But the stubborn old fools of Daelaam refused to change, insisting on the slow, outdated evolutionary path of the past.
If all Protoss had joined the Tal'darim and accepted their master's blessings, they could've ascended to godhood within their lifetimes!
"I don't care what you've done. Universal Megacorp only negotiates with tribes that can cooperate. If you're not one of them, we'll just put you down ourselves."
Paul stared directly at Naeon, ready to charge forward at any moment.
Naeon responded with a sinister, eerie laugh. Suddenly, he raised both arms, turning his back to the Keystone fragment and muttering an arcane incantation like some dark ritual.
In an instant, crimson lightning surged across his body—and his form began to mutate rapidly.
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