What Frederick hadn't expected was the astonishing efficiency of the Helldivers once they received a formal order from him.
One moment, they were arguing over trivial matters; the next, they transformed into standard paragons from an Imperial military textbook.
Communications specialists clearly relayed instructions to every squad, and the roar of engines rose and fell throughout the camp.
Soon after, several Hellhound Flamer Tanks drove out first, their treads grinding the barren ground with heavy creaks.
They were closely followed by platoons of infantry carrying flamers, who marched at a swift pace, completely devoid of their previous laziness.
Frederick sat inside a Chimera Armoured Transport, following the troops into the target area.
Although the main forces had already purged the large Tyranid bioforms, the Xenos ecosystem remained stubbornly entrenched in the land.
The native flora had been completely consumed and assimilated, replaced by a bizarre and grotesque Xenos jungle.
Huge, fungal-like "trees" rose from the ground, their caps covered in pulsating, vein-like patterns; on the surface, twisted vines coiled like purple pythons, bearing fleshy flowers that opened and closed as if breathing; and semi-translucent blister plants swayed gently in the breeze, with unidentified liquids seemingly flowing inside.
This place was undoubtedly sickening. Frederick frowned, eager to issue the order to destroy it.
"Open fire!"
As the command was given, the Hellhounds' heavy flamers unleashed their fury first, the orange-red napalm instantly blanketing a large area like the breath of an angry dragon.
The infantrymen then pulled their triggers, and tongues of flame licked every corner of the bio-mats and drilled into the plant structures.
Flames surged, black smoke billowed, staining the sky an ominous grey-black. The tenacious Tyranid bio-matter crackled under the high temperatures.
The translucent blisters swelled and burst in the fire, splattering boiling bodily fluids. The bio-matting curled and carbonized with a sizzling sound, filling the air with an indescribable stench of scorched protein mixed with chemical fuel.
Frederick watched the scene through the Chimera's observation slit. The fire consumed all traces of the Xenos, returning the polluted land to scorched earth.
A pure sense of gratification rose within him—this matched his innate image of a human military force; this was the proper stance of the Imperium, the most thorough and ruthless cleansing of all Xenos filth.
However, after the satisfying emotion passed, Frederick quickly tasted something amiss, and his brow began to furrow.
He was a man who had received a formal military education, with knowledge spanning biology and engineering. It was basic common sense that plant roots would dig deep underground to draw nutrients.
If ordinary plants behaved this way, then surely the "roots" of the Tyranids, an aggressive Xenos collective with a hive mind, must burrow deep into the planetary crust?
Burning just the surface layer, as they were doing now, was at best "cutting the weeds above ground." It couldn't touch the core.
Once the flames died out, these things would soon regrow from the subterranean depths. This was treating the symptom, not the cause, and was a pointless waste of fuel.
With this doubt, Frederick contacted the trio in the command vehicle via the comm-unit.
"Regimental Commander Freeman, I have a question," Frederick's voice came through the static. "Can we really eliminate the Tyranid biomass by just burning the surface? Haven't their root systems already penetrated deep underground?"
Freeman's relaxed laughter came through the communicator: "Commissar, don't worry. Tyranids won't root too deeply; that would draw up too many deep-seated nutrients.
Although the surface of the planet looks like a death world right now, after a few hundred or thousand years, the poison gas and radiation will slowly dissipate.
The native life forms dormant deep underground will gradually crawl back up during this process, allowing the planet to become vibrant again."
Frederick was stunned, failing to grasp the logic at first. By this rationale, shouldn't the Tyranids, with their drive to devour a planet completely, be even more determined to root deeply and squeeze out all biomass?
Freeman's voice continued, carrying the tone of someone explaining game lore: "By then, the Hive Fleet, which has already moved on, will be just about ready to return. And that means another round of feeding, doesn't it?
A few thousand years is just the blink of an eye for a Tyranid Hive Mind. They understand 'Pump and Dump schemes.' So, the Tyranids won't even actively seek out the deep-seated creatures, let alone eat them."
After hearing this explanation, Frederick fell into a long silence.
This theory... sounded utterly absurd, yet it possessed a chilling ruthlessness, treating an entire planet as a repeatedly harvestable farm. The more Frederick thought about it, the less jarring it seemed; it fit the image of the Tyranid Hive Mind quite well.
Moreover, he was merely a Commissar fresh out of the Academy, and all his knowledge of the Tyranids came from intelligence summaries compiled before his arrival.
The Helldivers before him, however, were hardened veterans who had been trading blows with the Tyranids on Plantidium for years. In no way could he claim to know the Tyranids better than them. Perhaps the theory Freeman just outlined was already a consensus among the Helldivers regarding the Tyranids' habits.
With that thought, Frederick asked no further questions, tacitly accepting Freeman's statement.
He did not know, of course, that this "lore" casually spoken by Freeman was a secret truly known to very few people in the entire Imperium.
Although the Tech-Priests of the Mechanicum far away on Mars had also noticed the strange phenomenon that the Tyranids seemed to intentionally avoid deep-level planetary biomass when analyzing battlefield data, this was the Imperium's first large-scale war against the Tyranids, and everything was still in the exploratory phase.
For the Tech-Priests, this was merely an anomaly requiring more data for confirmation.
An isolated case proves nothing. No one could be certain that this was the Tyranids' inherent behavior pattern, much less deduce such a grand and terrifying strategic policy from it.
This wicked intelligence, which regarded an entire planet as a recyclable farm, exceeded humanity's current conventional imagination of the Tyranid threat.