Chapter 401: Justice in Numbers! The War Ends — Psionic Shockwave!
"Interesting."
The Queen of Blades could sense that everyone present carried a different kind of powerful aura—clearly, this was a special task force assembled by the Universal Megacorp specifically to deal with her.
But to her, this level of threat was far from sufficient.
In the next instant, Level 12 psionic energy erupted from her body in the form of a tangible shockwave, forcing everyone nearby to stumble back several steps.
Then, the Queen of Blades stomped the ground. Countless bone spikes suddenly burst from below, and the terrain around them was instantly engulfed by a forest of towering bone pillars that blocked out the sky.
Paul and his team found themselves lost in this forest of bone thorns.
Upon seeing this, Paul immediately realized the Queen's intent. He quickly issued a warning through the comms channel:
"Everyone, regroup now! Stay together, or she'll pick us off one by one!"
The Queen of Blades, after all, was the ultimate fusion of physical and psychic evolution. With a semi-divine body, she was undeniably a boss-tier threat on par with beings like Megatronus.
Heeding Paul's command, the others quickly linked up with the nearest teammates, forming tight, back-to-back defensive formations.
However, Adam "smasher," proud and headstrong as ever, didn't follow suit. He charged recklessly through the forest of bone spikes, and this rash move naturally made him the Queen's first target.
A second later, she leapt out from the dense bone woods, spreading the razor-sharp wings on her back and flashing in front of Adam with lightning speed.
With a sharp schlik sound, one of her wings pierced straight through his chest.
"Just another mortal," the Queen of Blades sneered coldly.
But just as she thought she had easily eliminated her first opponent, to her surprise, the impaled Adam suddenly burst forth with terrifying power.
His cybernetic eyes glowing red, Adam grabbed hold of the Queen and hurled her away with incredible force—fluid and precise, showing no signs of being mortally wounded.
The Queen quickly stabilized herself mid-air and landed smoothly. Glancing at the hole in Adam's chest, she saw the wound was already closing up.
The metal components of his body seemed to be made of some kind of liquid metal!
"Self-repairing liquid metal? Has human technology really reached this level?"
She was visibly shaken. In her view, biological evolution had always followed the path of the flesh and mind—but this Adam was a humanoid creature made entirely of advanced metals.
Still, she had to admit… it was a valid path to power.
Seeing that the Queen wasn't as overwhelmingly strong as he had thought, Adam charged forward again, attempting to shatter her wings and subdue her completely.
But the Queen of Blades wasn't foolish. If physical combat didn't work, she'd just use her psionics!
This time, she unleashed a powerful psionic shockwave that sent Adam flying through the air.
He had no idea how to counter this type of psionic attack and was helplessly flung away. Although the blow didn't inflict serious damage, it completely neutralized his brute force advantage.
While she kept Adam locked down with sustained psionic blasts, rendering him almost immobile, the Queen's hyper-sensitive senses picked up a new danger.
In a flash, a blade of light streaked through the air. Even though she reacted quickly and dodged, one of her wings was still severed cleanly at the base, leaving only a smooth stump behind.
"Fast reflexes. Too bad they weren't fast enough."
Luke Skywalker came to a graceful halt nearby, his lightsaber glowing brilliantly. That last strike had been his doing.
Had it not been for the Queen's heightened instincts, that blow could have easily taken her head clean off.
The Queen of Blades said nothing. A new bone wing swiftly regenerated from the severed base—this level of damage was nothing to her.
Now having witnessed the strength of both Luke and Adam, she began to grow more cautious. These warriors Paul brought weren't just ordinary fighters—they actually posed a real threat.
Even among the many Zerg combat units, none possessed the kinds of abilities these two had.
But when it came to psionics, the Queen of Blades still held absolute dominance. As Luke rushed in again, she immediately responded with psionic force—an invisible pair of giant hands materialized and grabbed him midair.
If it weren't for the Force shield surrounding him, she could have crushed him on the spot.
But at that critical moment, an equally formidable energy surged within Luke, allowing him to effortlessly break free from her grip.
This foreign energy left the Queen visibly stunned. The flow of Force within Luke completely upended her understanding of the universe's laws.
Back when she was still human—Sarah Kerrigan—she had already been a tenth-level psionic talent, the very peak of human potential.
After being transformed by the Overmind into the Queen of Blades, her psionic level had risen even further, reaching an unprecedented Level 12.
Under normal circumstances, no one in this universe could escape her psionic grasp—not even Master Zeratul of the Dark Templar.
Anyone hoping to break free of her power would need considerable effort and time.
Yet now, this seemingly ordinary young man had shrugged it off with nothing more than the strength of his own mysterious energy!
"Incredible…!"
The Queen of Blades couldn't help but marvel. She fixed her gaze on Luke's unremarkable face as if she had just laid eyes on a priceless gem.
"Psionic talent stronger than even the Protoss, and it appears here of all places… You people clearly aren't ordinary."
At that moment, Paul stepped out from behind her. Beside him stood Chani, the Master Chief, and the rest.
"Why keep fighting? The outcome's already been decided."
Every one of these Megacorp warriors was the pride of their respective universes. When it came to roaming the multiverse, everyone here had a few tricks up their sleeves.
"Stop resisting. Join the Universal Megacorp. You and the Zerg could usher in an entirely new era of evolution. It's a win-win."
Paul began, as usual, by offering terms—trying to persuade the Queen to surrender.
Ever since the death of the Overmind, the Queen had become the de facto leader of the Zerg. But she still carried the lingering psionic imprint of Amon and could be controlled by him at any time.
If she ever hoped to ascend—to become a new Xel'naga and fight Amon—she would first need to undergo purification by the Keystone.
"How laughable. You think you are worthy to lead the Zerg into evolution?"
The Queen replied with a haughty sneer, clearly unmoved by Paul's proposal.
If words wouldn't work, then fists would have to do.
With a single command from Paul, the team attacked again.
With Luke Skywalker using the Force to restrain her, the Queen of Blades found it difficult to act, despite her towering Level 12 psionic power. She could no longer fight as freely as she had when overwhelming Adam earlier.
Each time she tried to release her psionic might, Luke would counter with his own Force energy. Both were master-class spellcasters with top-tier talent—locked in a duel where neither could overpower the other.
At this point, the Queen of Blades could rely only on her physical strength, launching attacks using the sharp bone wings on her back.
Though her combat skills were formidable, without the critical advantage of psionic shockwaves, she quickly found herself overwhelmed by the Megacorp warriors' encirclement.
This was exactly why you need numbers on your side in a fight!
The gap between them wasn't just in headcount—there was also a massive difference in how many skills and abilities could be deployed.
Crowd control, shielding, damage absorption, and offensive strikes—all unleashed in coordinated combos—left the Queen of Blades struggling to hold her ground.
Meanwhile, Megatronus held the outer perimeter, taking down Zerg forces trying to break through and assist the Queen, allowing Paul and the others to carry out this beatdown in the name of justice.
Paul and Chani worked together seamlessly, continuously launching spherical lightning blasts and looking for flanking angles to strike from the edge of the battlefield.
High above, the Leviathan sensed the Queen's distress signal and began moving toward her location.
Its long tentacles turned into divine whips, lashing fiercely toward Paul's position.
But before those tentacles could even fully extend in mid-air, they were severed by a barrage of hardlight cannon fire and fell to the ground.
The explosive Banelings launched by the Leviathan were intercepted by countless CIWS turrets and AI drones, and the biomass plasma from its main cannon hadn't even finished charging.
Right now, the Leviathan had no way to support the Queen of Blades.
The battle had already dragged on for more than 20 hours. Given that this wasn't their first encounter, the Megacorp's forces were already well-versed in the Zerg's combat rhythm.
They knew exactly how to counter every move.
At the same time, the Megacorp's forward command center had released all available AI drones, launching a full-scale harassment campaign against the Leviathan.
At that moment, the Zerg truly experienced what industrial supremacy looked like—a total systems-level domination of biological production.
Massive numbers of bombers and AI fighters surged from all directions, clashing fiercely with the Mutalisks and Corruptors in brutal, drawn-out dogfights.
Without the Behemoths to back them up from the rear, the Zerg reinforcements could only rely on localized creep for hatching. Meanwhile, the Megacorp's AI drones were being mass-produced and deployed Infinityly through star gates.
Under constant assault from hardlight cannons and drone strikes, the number of Mutalisks covering the Leviathan dwindled rapidly.
Soon, portions of the Leviathan's massive body were exposed, and Megacorp missiles and artillery landed with precision, leaving charred black scars across its hide.
Just like the Behemoths before it, the Zerg's flagship Leviathan let out pained, heart-wrenching howls.
[Keystone Charging Progress: 98%, 98.7%... 99%!]
Seeing the charging percentage on the screen, David Martinez's tense expression finally eased, just slightly.
This war was about to be over.
Even now, the Queen of Blades continued her desperate resistance. Deep down, she knew it was a futile struggle, a cornered beast's final fight—but she refused to back down.
After throwing Adam Smasher off with brute force, she locked onto Luke as her new target. But instead of retreating, Luke charged forward, buying Paul the perfect opportunity to land a critical blow.
Multitasking under pressure, Luke simultaneously used the Force to suppress the Queen's psionic shockwaves while clashing with her head-on using his lightsaber.
For just a second or two, the Queen had to focus all her attention on Luke—and that window was all Paul needed.
Schlik—!
The sneak attack landed.
With a crisp slicing sound, Paul's psionic energy blade stabbed straight through the Queen's chest. Immediately after, a spherical lightning blast detonated at point-blank range, sending violent currents surging through her body.
For a moment, the Queen of Blades nearly blacked out.
The electric shockwave tore through the eerie forest of bone, toppling the towering pillars like vanishing illusions. Her power was draining fast.
Though she managed to launch a desperate counterattack, sending a bone spike directly into Paul, the blow was absorbed by his symbiotic armor.
Such a purely physical strike couldn't hurt Paul anymore. At most, it left a few faint scratches.
After the battle, the symbiote's liquid metal would repair the damage anyway.
Watching the Queen's life force fade, Paul felt no sorrow. He knew her physical body could always be regenerated.
Only the Keystone's psionic shockwave could deliver a final, lasting cure.
"The war is over."
Paul looked down at the Queen with icy detachment and drove his foot into her chest, yanking out the psionic blade as he did. The internal comms channel had just confirmed what he was waiting for—the Keystone was fully charged.
It was time to bring this all to an end.
[Activate: Psionic Shockwave!]
At the front-line command base, all five Keystone fragments had merged into one—forming a complete Xel'naga artifact.
The charge bar on the holo-display finally hit 100%. After more than twenty hours of brutal combat, the Megacorp had held out long enough.
With a single order from David Martinez, the Keystone, powered by a planetary-scale energy engine, was triggered to unleash its ultimate directive—psionic shockwave.
A small halo appeared above the Keystone. At first, it was just a pinprick of light—but brilliant—and then it rapidly expanded outward in all directions.
In just 0.5 seconds, the entire forward base was engulfed. Then the shockwave spread across the entire planet, and continued pushing into outer space.
This was the Keystone's psionic shockwave—capable of annihilating all Zerg.
The Keystone surged again and again, sending wave after wave of purifying energy across the system.
In the blink of an eye, its immense energy reached every orbital zone in the star system. Every Zerg in its path disintegrated into dust, completely obliterated.
David kept his eyes glued to the holo-screen feed, unwilling to miss a second of this historic moment.
It was a sight uncannily reminiscent of the Halo Array's activation—but unlike Halo's indiscriminate destruction, the Keystone's energy was selective, targeting only the Zerg.
There would be no friendly fire here.
It seemed the Zerg's creators, the Xel'naga, had left a backdoor after being betrayed by the Protoss.
With the Keystone's shockwave, they could cleanse the Zerg swiftly—ensuring their own creations would never rise up against them again.
(Show your support and read more chapters on my Patreon: [email protected]/psychopet. Thank you for your support!)