Chapter 398: Super Ultralisks! Hundred-Meter-Class Jaeger! Phase Disruptor Cannon!
The battlefield exploded into chaos!
Because only Zerglings were agile enough to scale the towering city walls, most of the other Zerg units couldn't climb up immediately. This gave the AI-controlled turret arrays of the Megacorp a brief window to rain down firepower from above.
Countless Zerglings were swiftly torn apart in the crossfire. Hard light beams sliced them clean in half, gravity fields clustered them together, and artillery blasts reduced the swarm to mangled remains.
But this advantage was short-lived. The arrival of the Ultralisks reignited the ferocity of the Zerg onslaught.
Massive in size, each Ultralisk charged like a living siege engine straight toward the fortified wall.
Every thunderous step it took sent plumes of dust into the air and caused violent tremors across the ground, leaving behind deep, cratered footprints. Any Zergling too slow to dodge was crushed underfoot, reduced to paste in an instant. One Ultralisk, its monomolecular tusks gleaming, slammed headlong into the wall.
In a deafening crash, a spray of shattered stone burst outward. Nearly ten meters thick, the wall was instantly breached, a massive hole blown open by the impact. The Ultralisk barreled through the gap and continued its rampage inside.
The shockwave of the collision rippled through the entire defense perimeter. Fortunately, the fortification had been built solidly enough to avoid immediate collapse. The AI turrets stationed atop the wall still functioned and kept firing.
However, the gaping breach had already allowed the Zerg tide to surge inward like a flood through a broken dam, pouring into the depths of the base.
Worse still, reinforcements arrived via Tunnelers—swarms of alien creatures emerging from below. The Zerg assault was now in full force and showed no signs of stopping.
The breach was not isolated. Other Ultralisks were also using their monomolecular blades to tunnel their way through the walls.
Zerg units were beginning to pour into the core of the base. Fortunately, the AI turrets atop the walls still provided suppressing fire, preventing a total collapse—for now.
But the colossal Ultralisks were already rampaging near the heart of the forward base. Every structure in their path was crushed. The thick walls posed no barrier to their brute force.
Even defensive structures and traps had little effect. Against beasts with such overwhelming mass and hideous durability, terrain meant nothing. They simply charged forward, trampling everything in their path. Any structure struck by them crumbled like paper.
If the Ultralisks continued unchecked, it would only be a matter of time before they reached the Keystone's charging area.
Watching the behemoths storm into the base's core zone, David Martinez's eyes turned cold. He issued a command without hesitation: "Initiate deployment."
[Affirmative.] came the response from the comms.
The Ultralisks ran wild through the city center. Bunkers and turrets were barely the size of their feet. A single stomp reduced hardened steel to rubble—utterly powerless against them.
The Ultralisks at the front line were clearly larger than those Paul had encountered during the earlier survivor rescue mission.
Not only were they taller and bulkier, but their bodies were also clad in reinforced chitinous plating, making them even more difficult to kill.
After all, these Ultralisks were elite troops personally pulled from the Zerg's primary hive by the Queen of Blades. Compared to regular units, they were in a whole different league.
In StarCraft terms, these were fully upgraded Ultralisks—with triple attack, triple defense, and enhanced carapace. They were worlds apart from basic, un-upgraded units.
These fully equipped juggernauts had their armor maxed out to the extreme. Not only could they shrug off Terran fusion blasts with ease, they could even tank a direct hit from a battlecruiser's Yamato Cannon.
As the undisputed kings of the Zerg ground forces, these Ultralisks had defensive capabilities surpassing any armored tank.
Even hard light turrets couldn't bring them down quickly enough.
A Chimera tank managed to land a direct hit on one of the beasts. The blast gouged a crater in the ground, sending shockwaves through the area.
The explosion kicked up clouds of dust and a hail of shredded Zerglings. But then, from within the debris, the Ultralisk charged forward once more, continuing its demolition spree against the turret line.
Even after taking a direct hit from the Chimera's main cannon, only a small chunk of its skull had been damaged.
Its multi-layered armored carapace still held strong. The blast injury was superficial at best.
And even if they were injured, Ultralisks had backup organs inside their bodies that could compensate for damaged ones. This allowed them to keep rampaging, even after suffering major hits.
As this Ultralisk prepared to trample the Chimera tank beneath its feet, a massive shadow suddenly descended from the sky.
A titanic mechanical figure slammed down like an orbital bombardment, crashing straight onto the Ultralisk's skull and smashing it into a crater.
The attacker: the Gipsy Danger, the Jaeger from Pacific Rim Universe 002!
This was a super-heavy Jaeger, towering at over a hundred meters tall—twice the height of a standard Ultraman.
In comparison, the enhanced Ultralisk, barely over 50 meters tall, looked like a kitten next to it.
Gipsy Danger hammered its fists down relentlessly. Each punch drove the Ultralisk deeper into the crater, compressing its armored skull.
The area already damaged by the Chimera blast caved in even further under the assault. No matter how tough the chitin, it couldn't withstand that kind of pummeling.
Half a century ago, such a colossal combat unit would've been seen as a pipe dream within the Megacorp. The idea of hundred-meter-class Jaegers was practically science fiction.
But with technological advancement and refined engineering, even this once-fanciful weapon platform had become a reality.
The Megacorp's R&D department had pushed these Jaegers to the next level—equipping them with the flexibility and raw strength of a Transformer.
Even more impressive, they were fitted with Protoss tech, including Phase Disruptor Cannons—the primary weapon used by Immortals in their battles against Ultralisks.
These disruptor cannons had been upgraded to twice their original caliber, making them far more powerful than before.
The Phase Disruptor Cannon fired concentrated energy wrapped around antimatter—resulting in annihilation-level energy bursts capable of vaporizing any armor.
It had always been the go-to weapon for the Protoss when dealing with Ultralisks.
The cannon's only flaw was that the antimatter field would begin to decay over distance, causing a significant drop in destructive power.
Thus, for maximum effect, it had to be fired at close range.
Additionally, the cannon's recoil was enormous—requiring tremendous weight and stability to handle.
Weapons with such distinct strengths and weaknesses—like the antimatter cannon—could only be truly wielded by Jaegers of this colossal hundred-meter scale.
At that very moment, Crimson Typhoon, Tango Wolf, Chernobyl Alpha, Gipsy Danger, Striker Eureka, Saber Athena, Bracer Phoenix, and Avenger Jaeger all entered the battlefield in full force!
One by one, they marched with thunderous steps toward the Ultralisks, closing the distance. Then, at point-blank range, they leveled their super-heavy Phase Disruptor Cannons right at the Ultralisks' heads.
In a heartbeat, the antimatter reactors let out a deep, resonating hum that made blood boil—the sound of industrial miracles primed for battle. The Jaegers were about to show what true power looked like.
"You… you actually managed to integrate Protoss weapon tech this quickly? That's insane!"
Jim Raynor stood frozen, stunned beyond words. He had certainly dreamed of using Protoss gear to fight the Zerg.
But that had always been just a dream. It wasn't a matter of will, but of capability. Raynor's Raiders were a ragtag militia with no industrial backbone or advanced scientific infrastructure. Even the best labs of the Terran Federation hadn't achieved what he was seeing now.
Yet here was the Megacorp—in just three months—already deploying weapons reverse-engineered from Tal'darim Protoss technology into their military forces.
They had taken "freeloading" to a godlike level.
"We don't sit around waiting to die," Paul replied calmly. "Psionics is a key scientific field for us. What you're seeing is just an early-stage success."
The Megacorp had assembled a massive research team of top-tier scientists in reverse engineering—some from the Star Union, others even from Cybertron, like Decepticons, and many from other advanced civilizations.
Every Jaeger had a trained psionic operator assigned to its cockpit. These pilots had undergone specialized training to control the Phase Disruptor Cannons.
Once the Megacorp cracked the basic theory of psionics and developed methods to stimulate it using vespene gas, these weapons became completely viable for human use.
Unlike purely psionic weaponry, which required inherent talent and control, the Disruptor Cannons were much more accessible. Their core damage came from antimatter annihilation—the pilot simply needed psionic energy to fire them.
Sure enough, the Ultralisks reacted in panic the moment they recognized the cannons, desperately thrashing to destroy them before they could fire.
But it was no use. The Jaegers, with their overwhelming size and weight, locked down the Ultralisks completely. Against such raw, immovable force, resistance was utterly futile.
Avenger Jaeger, piloted by Tang Weilong, directly braced against an Ultralisk's charge, then drove the cannon muzzle into its skull and fired.
BOOM!
The antimatter cannon fired at point-blank range. The energy enveloping the projectile instantly destabilized, followed by a split-second matter-antimatter annihilation.
The Ultralisk's once-impenetrable armor disintegrated instantly.
That was the terrifying power of antimatter annihilation.
No matter how tough the plating, it couldn't override the fundamental laws of physics.
Once the carapace was gone, the explosive force of the cannon's energy release obliterated the creature. Its internal organs, backup systems—everything—were torn apart in an instant.
A gory rain splattered from above. Chunks of flesh and stinking entrails pelted the streets, contaminating vast stretches of the battlefield.
Avenger Jaeger shook the gore from its frame, raised its Phase Disruptor Cannon once more, and turned to face the next target. Its auxiliary weapons lit up, spraying down the incoming Zerg with pinpoint fire.
The arrival of the Jaegers spelled total disaster for the Ultralisk division. These Zerg titans were completely outclassed by the mechanical giants forged from industrial might.
With the front-line Ultralisks neutralized, the Zerg advance began to falter.
If even their most heavily armored elites couldn't withstand the Jaegers' Phase Disruptor Cannons, the rest of their units didn't stand a chance.
Standing tall like guardian deities at the heart of the base, the Jaegers were immovable—each one a fortress of destruction.
The Hydralisks' spine volleys were like toothpicks against the massive metal frames. Totally ineffective.
Roaches' acidic bile could corrode armor slightly, but their brittle bodies were torn apart by a single round of suppressive fire.
Thanks to the AI turret array's rapid targeting algorithms, any acid-based unit like Roaches and Banelings were prioritized for elimination.
See it, tag it, kill it. Instantly.
Elsewhere, Drill Beasts assisted ground operations. Any Zerg units caught above ground were quickly dragged below and ground into mush by their serrated spinning saws.
The battle had now entered a white-hot phase, but surprisingly, the Zerg offensive was beginning to lose momentum.
However, the Queen of Blades was not about to let this stand.
Refusing to allow her offensive to stall, she ordered another massive wave of aerial drop pods—loaded with new Ultralisks, Roaches, and Mutalisks—to rain down from orbit.
By now, the total number of fallen Zerg units across the outer space battlefield, base defense zone, and orbital sectors had easily surpassed 300 trillion.
The warzone was choked with mountains of Zerg corpses and seas of blood.
For the Zerg, the sunk cost of this operation was astronomical. No matter the cost, the Keystone must be taken.
In response to this renewed assault, the Megacorp launched another counterstrike. Missile silos across the base roared to life, firing wave after wave of metallic hydrogen bombs.
As the new Ultralisks and Roaches plummeted through the atmosphere, a large portion were intercepted mid-air and incinerated before landing.
Mushroom clouds bloomed like fiery lotuses across the sky. The brightness of the hydrogen bomb detonations looked like they could tear the heavens apart. The shockwaves swept across the battlefield like thunderclaps from the gods.
From a distance, it looked like a divine palm was slamming into the earth—the shockwaves a testament to the Megacorp's industrial might.
To ensure the Ultralisks were completely neutralized, a second wave of carpet-bombing followed the initial strike.
Entire clusters of Zerg—still trapped in their drop pods—were vaporized before they ever hit the ground.
Meanwhile, field commanders and engineers, having completed evacuations from other sectors, returned to base HQ.
Paul gave them a nod and said, "Everyone—excellent work."
If it weren't for their brave efforts fine-tuning the AI turret arrays and maintaining the defense grid under fire, the Zerg resistance would've crumbled long ago.
Still, this was not the time to relax. The Zerg would return, and the Megacorp had to repair critical defenses and reclaim lost ground.
And just when Megacorp leadership believed the Zerg might finally pull back to regroup—
An unexpected development struck.
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