Chapter 55: It Was Too Late Already

Chapter 55: It Was Too Late Already

The dark blue laser rays cut through the scorching air and blasted toward the bugs that were surrounding and slaughtering the Xenomorphs.

“Squeak!!”

As if sensing the lethal threat, the bugs started screeching one after another.

A small number even broke away from the circle surrounding the Xenomorphs, scattering and charging toward Fatty Lei’s direction.

However, the bugs that left the main group were only a small portion, just a few hundred in total. Their main focus was still on the Xenomorphs.

From the Hive’s perspective, her thinking was quite similar to that of the already eliminated Alien Queen. Neither believed that the little bugs watching the show from over there were very powerful. Their real enemies were only each other.

Therefore, the Hive was not very vigilant, which gave Fatty Lei an opportunity.

Fatty Lei had brought out a total of 100 soldiers.

Excluding the five Artificial Humans who needed to drive the vehicles and twenty-five Artificial Humans who needed to operate the Laser Cannons on top of their respective Armored Vehicles, only seventy Artificial Human soldiers actually got off the Armored Vehicles to set up a defensive position. Still, Fatty Lei wasn’t too worried for the time being.

“Boom～～～ Zzz～～ Zzz～～～”

In the blink of an eye, the fire from the Laser Cannons had already covered an area of several hundred square meters inside the Basin.

Under the first wave of cannon fire, the bugs that were crowded together to surround the Xenomorphs suffered heavy losses. Because they were packed so tightly, four to five hundred were instantly wiped out by the Laser Cannons.

Now, the total number of bugs in the entire Basin was less than three thousand, and the number of Xenomorphs was under three hundred.

After Fatty Lei’s attack, the number of bugs drastically decreased again.

“Soldiers! Fire!”

Facing the less than one hundred bugs scattering and rushing toward them, Wangcai immediately gave the order to fire.

“The Laser Cannons need one minute for energy cooldown. You must hold off the bugs’ attack and maintain defense until the Laser Cannons can fire again!” Wangcai kept waving his hands and shouting at the Artificial Human soldiers.

The Artificial Human soldiers responded in unison and then quickly spread out further to the flanks. They increased the distance between each soldier and re-established the defensive line.

Seventy fully armed Artificial Human soldiers were more than enough to deal with less than one hundred bugs. Moreover, the Artificial Human soldiers held the advantageous high ground, shooting downward and making things difficult for the bugs.

On the other hand, the bugs had to climb uphill from the bottom of the Basin to attack upward, which slowed their charge speed. For them, this was fatal.

The Artificial Human soldiers aimed their Laser Rifles and fired one after another. The bugs charging upward from the Basin were hit one by one.

“Squeak! Squeak!”

They waved their sharp blade-arms, charging while flaunting their might and trying to intimidate Fatty Lei and the others on the Sand Dune. But this couldn’t scare the Artificial Human soldiers; they were essentially manufactured cold-blooded Cannon Fodder.

The Artificial Human soldiers knelt on one knee in the sand, holding their Laser Rifles and continuing to shoot.

After two volleys, this batch of bugs was completely wiped out.

…

…

The number of Xenomorphs remaining in the Basin was a few hundred, while the number of bugs was now less than two thousand. The Hive now did not dare to send more bugs to deal with Fatty Lei and could only focus all efforts on commanding the Warrior Bugs to eliminate the remaining Xenomorphs.

Only after eliminating the remaining Xenomorphs could the Hive free up its resources to deal with the creatures on the Sand Dune that it viewed as little bugs (meaning Fatty Lei and his group).

So, for the time being, Fatty Lei’s side was relatively safe.

The Hive’s disgusting, tumor-like body wriggled rapidly, emitting waves of Bio-electrical Waves.

After receiving the Hive’s command through the electrical waves to eliminate the Xenomorphs, the Warrior Bugs completely ignored Fatty Lei and the others on the Sand Dune, turning instead to launch an all-out assault on the remaining few hundred Xenomorphs.

Perhaps because of the threat posed by Fatty Lei and his group, and because the Hive’s command was absolute, the Warrior Bugs’ attack was extremely ferocious. In just one charge, they wiped out quite a number of Xenomorphs.

However, the Xenomorphs’ counterattacks also made things difficult for the Warrior Bugs. Under the desperate resistance of the Xenomorphs, the Warrior Bugs paid a heavy price.

“The consumption ratio between those bugs and the Xenomorphs is roughly 1:4. Even if the bugs eliminate the Xenomorphs, they won’t have many troops left to deal with us,” Wangcai said to Fatty Lei after observing the situation from atop the Armored Vehicle.

“Ha!” Fatty Lei exclaimed happily. “This situation is the best. It means our chances of winning are very high.”

Wangcai thought for a moment and then asked quietly, “Shouldn’t we take care of that Hive? As long as it exists, the bugs’ numbers can still increase. Although it takes time for the bugs to be produced, leaving this variable is always a problem.”

Wangcai had seen the Hive produce another batch of about twenty Warrior Bugs just now, which made him very uneasy about the Hive. Even though the current situation was very favorable for their side, Wangcai felt that not destroying the Hive could lead to unexpected changes.

That’s why Wangcai made the suggestion to Fatty Lei in the form of a question.

Fatty Lei himself understood that the Hive definitely could not be left alone.

Although the Hive needed about ten minutes to produce a batch of Warrior Bugs, which wasn’t much of an advantage time-wise, Fatty Lei didn’t think he could eliminate the remaining Warrior Bugs in a short amount of time.

So when he heard Wangcai’s words, he turned to him and said, “I know that perfectly well, but we can’t destroy the Hive while those Xenomorphs haven’t been eliminated yet. We need the Hive to command the bugs to kill those Xenomorphs. Only after all the Xenomorphs are wiped out can we move against the Hive.”

“Oh～ So that’s your plan, Commander Master?” Only then did Wangcai understand what Fatty Lei had in mind.

“Soldiers! Don’t stop shooting. Keep attacking the bugs that are slaughtering the Xenomorphs. Try to reduce their numbers as much as possible, because once those Xenomorphs are dealt with, we’ll have to face those bugs,” Fatty Lei shouted loudly to the Artificial Human soldiers at this moment.

“Zzz～～～ Zzz～～～～”

Since the Commander had spoken, there was no reason not to obey.

Artificial Human soldiers were fundamentally built to follow orders; this was programmed into them during their creation.

So even before Fatty Lei finished speaking, his command was promptly carried out.

Seventy Artificial Human soldiers fired one after another at the rear of the Warrior Bugs surrounding and killing the Xenomorphs. In a short time, they reduced the number of bugs by a large margin.

“Reporting, Commander! Laser Cannon energy cooldown complete! Maximum power is ready at full capacity!”

“Vehicle Two Laser Cannon ready!”

“Vehicle Three…”

At that moment, the five Armored Vehicles reported one after another that their Laser Cannons were ready again.

“Aha!” Fatty Lei rubbed his hands together happily. “It looks like we’re the biggest winners today. The Xenomorphs are finished, and the bugs are about to be finished too.”

“Shall we attack now, Commander?” Wangcai, seeing Fatty Lei so excited, asked.

“No!” Fatty Lei shook his head. “It’s not time yet. Let’s wait a bit longer. Once the Xenomorphs are completely wiped out, I expect the number of Warrior Bugs will have decreased a lot more.” Fatty Lei turned his gaze to the Basin.

“At that time, when the bugs are at their weakest, that will be the best moment to fire the Laser Cannons. After all, the Armored Vehicles probably don’t have much energy left. We should save as much energy as we can.”

Actually, Fatty Lei also wanted to fire the Laser Cannons immediately, but now really wasn’t the best time.

Moreover, if the Armored Vehicles ran out of Energy, Fatty Lei had no way to replenish it.

That meant if the Armored Vehicles’ Energy was depleted, they would become piles of scrap metal. They would be completely useless, just taking up space and blocking the view if left at the Military Outpost.

Additionally, the weapons on the Armored Vehicles relied on the vehicles’ Energy for power output. If the Armored Vehicles had no Energy, the weapons would become useless as well.

“Sigh～, we have no Energy,” Fatty Lei thought, and his mood immediately turned from sunny to cloudy.

But then again, it wasn’t just the Armored Vehicles facing this problem. Even the Laser Rifles held by the Artificial Human soldiers were the same; the Laser Rifles also relied on Energy conversion for attack output.

However, Fatty Lei knew that during this period, he and Wangcai had already used up the Energy of more than twenty Laser Rifles to eliminate the Xenomorphs and bugs that occasionally appeared around the Military Outpost.

And once the Energy was depleted, those Laser Rifles became utterly useless. They were just decorations, worthless metal sticks.

Now that Fatty Lei had three hundred Artificial Human soldiers under his command, the weapon stock in the Military Outpost’s Supply Depot had sharply decreased by one-third.

Although there were still five to six hundred Laser Rifles that could be kept as backups, if all three hundred Artificial Human soldiers really used them, the Energy of those Laser Rifles would probably be exhausted very quickly.

Thinking about this problem gave Fatty Lei a massive headache.

But fortunately, he had some Credit Points on hand recently. According to Fatty Lei’s thinking, if absolutely necessary, he could only buy weapons from the Trading System. But Fatty Lei worried that the few Credit Points he had simply wouldn’t be enough.

Moreover, buying weapons from those guys would also require Energy support. If he encountered some unscrupulous sellers, he would have to spend a large amount of Credit Points to buy Energy as well.

So unless it was absolutely necessary, Fatty Lei really didn’t want to buy weapons from the Trading System.

“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”

The seventy Artificial Human soldiers continuously fired at the Warrior Bugs in the Basin, causing them significant damage. In just two to three minutes, over two hundred Warrior Bugs were killed by the laser rays.

This also gave the remaining Xenomorphs a slight chance to catch their breath.

Of course, the Xenomorphs definitely couldn’t survive; they simply had no chance.

Facing attacks from the Artificial Human soldiers on one side and fighting desperately against the remaining Xenomorphs on the other, the Warrior Bugs were under pressure from both sides, and their numbers kept decreasing.

“It’s almost time to decide the victory. Have all the Laser Cannons prepare. We need to eliminate that Hive in the first moment, and then finish off those Warrior Bugs.”

The battle in the Basin was nearly at its end; only a few Xenomorphs remained.

The Warrior Bugs began to quickly leave some of their own to handle the remaining Xenomorphs, while the rest all started running toward the direction where Fatty Lei was.

“Hmph! Only now do you think of attacking me?” Fatty Lei looked down on these brainless creatures. “It’s too late!” he said softly.