Hunting the Stars

Zerg Infighting

As a self-proclaimed "otaku," Elian Hawk had also played Starcraft before. So, he was very familiar with the Zerg's combat capabilities. Furthermore, he'd watched the Western film Starship Troopers, where humans were brutally overwhelmed by the bugs. He still remembered the scenes vividly. At this moment, Elian Hawk's face turned pale, his lips turned purple.

"What the hell?!" Elian Hawk thought to himself, feeling a deep sense of unease. He even wondered if he had done something wicked in his previous life and this was his punishment—being sent to this godforsaken place. After thinking it over, he couldn't recall anything particularly bad he had done. If anything, he was one of the rare good people in a world full of selfish, shallow people.

"This shouldn't be happening…"

Elian Hawk stared at the bugs fighting each other, his expression changing several times. If you didn't know better, you might think he was performing some kind of face-changing trick. The bugs were split into two factions, fighting each other more ruthlessly and disgustingly than when Elian Hawk first arrived.

Crack! Crack!

Hiss! Hiss!

The sound of insect bones shattering and their eerie screeches echoed through the desert air. Elian Hawk gritted his teeth, his body tense with fear. His muscles were so tight they felt almost stiff. The battle between the two insect factions didn’t last long before they were utterly wiped out. Not a single insect remained from either side.

Elian Hawk couldn’t help but laugh. After carefully observing the area for a long time, he fired a few shots with his laser gun at the corpses of the insects, ensuring they were all truly dead. Once certain, he stood up cautiously.

"A planetary storm is probably about to start. I need to get back to the base quickly. These damn bugs have wasted too much of my time. I need to hurry."

He looked at the sky. It was getting late. The planetary storm was unpredictable, with about a three-hour time discrepancy, so Elian Hawk had no idea exactly when it would start. All he knew was that it could start at any moment within the next three hours. He glanced back at the sand beast that was bound up tightly, tightening the rope around his waist, then turned and started heading toward the base. He didn’t dare linger here, not only because of the threat of the bugs but also because of the impending storm.

Bravely, Elian Hawk crossed the battlefield littered with insect corpses, firing a few more shots at the dead bodies as he passed. After traversing the gruesome battlefield, the military base finally appeared in his sight. But Elian Hawk’s expression didn’t brighten; instead, his pupils constricted, and his body froze in shock.

"What’s going on? Why does it look like this?"

On either side of the base's main gate, about a hundred meters away, stood two writhing flesh columns. Beneath these columns were several dozen tubes, and at the ends of the tubes were circular flesh membranes about a meter in diameter. The two flesh columns were different colors—one was black, the other was reddish-purple.

Elian Hawk could hardly believe his eyes. His mouth opened in disbelief.

"A mother nest!!!!"

At that moment, Elian Hawk's heart turned to ice. He never expected to encounter such a deadly force on such a barren planet. This was a mother nest, the source of insect warriors, an ultimate existence for the insect race. To think that there were not one but two of them right in front of him...

"God help me! What kind of joke is this?!"

His whole body trembled with fear, and beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. At this moment, the once desert-like landscape around the base had vanished, replaced by the characteristic dark ground of the insect mother nests. Since there were two mother nests, each needed to spread this type of ground to nurture its insect warriors. Elian Hawk could clearly see the purple-red ground on one side and the black ground on the other. These were the territories of the two mother nests.

There were no more insects around; it seemed that both sides’ warrior insects had been wiped out in their internal battle. This, for Elian Hawk, was the best possible outcome.

Elian Hawk quickly assessed the situation. "Hmm... I'm about three hundred meters away from the base. If I rush now, the mother nests might not have produced any warriors yet, so I can make it to the base. I just need to get inside quickly, then I’ll be safe."

Looking up at the sky, he quickly formulated a plan. Although Elian Hawk had once been a passive "otaku" in his previous world, this was only one side of his character. Now that he was in this hostile world, he had learned to adapt. Survival was his top priority, and he would do whatever it took.

"I, Elian Hawk, will survive no matter what!"

With a roar, Elian Hawk began to sprint toward the base gate. Of course, before sprinting, he had already pressed the control device to open the base’s door. The base gate slowly started to open.

However, Elian Hawk wasn’t moving very fast. After all, he was still dragging a hundred-plus-pound sand beast with him. Normally, at this point, he would have ditched the sand beast to lighten his load. But Elian Hawk couldn’t bring himself to abandon the creature—it was his source of water and food for the next week. So, despite the extra weight, he continued to drag the sand beast toward the base.

Three hundred meters wasn’t a long distance, but given the circumstances—two insect mother nests on either side—it might as well have been an eternity. Elian Hawk knew this was a life-or-death situation and pushed himself harder than ever before. In just ten minutes, he had covered the distance and rushed into the base’s main gate. He dragged the sand beast inside, and once the gate closed behind him, he immediately ran up to the lookout tower.

From his vantage point, he saw the black mother nest’s membrane explode open.

“Fizzle!”

A creature resembling an alien emerged with a horrible screech. Across from it, the reddish-purple mother nest also produced a warrior insect. The two bugs, looking almost identical, immediately began to fight.

Elian Hawk’s face changed as he observed from the lookout tower. "This is bad. Normally, it’s a good thing when the bugs are fighting each other, but once one of them wins, it might attack me."

He tightened his grip on the laser gun, aimed at the fight below, and debated whether to take action. Just as he was weighing his options, the winner was decided.

The black insect sliced the purple-red one into three pieces. But the victory wasn’t without cost. The black insect was badly wounded—its upper limbs barely remaining intact, and its body covered in large gashes, leaking green fluid.

The black mother nest, seeing its victory, began to shake with excitement. Its massive veins throbbed as it sent more nutrients down the tubes to produce more warriors. The purple-red mother nest, on the other hand, seemed to be retreating, its veins pulsing faster.

Elian Hawk’s eyes were fixed on the scene. "It’s starting. Once the purple-red nest is destroyed, I’ll launch my full assault on the black one. But before that, I must stop it from creating more warriors."

As the last remaining insect crawled toward the purple-red mother nest, Elian Hawk was ready. He aimed his laser gun at the black mother nest.

With a hum, the laser gun powered up to its maximum output, and a spiraling, blue beam shot toward the black mother nest.