Ten hours later, the Ranger base.

The earth-shattering artillery fire is incessant, capable of deafening the ears of any fool who dares to open his mask. As one of the few troops that managed to gain a foothold in Char in the past ten hours, the Ranger unit under Jim Reynolds was violently attacked by insects.

Every second, massive amounts of ammunition are poured around the base, suppressing the insects that are pouring in from all directions.

The ground around the base had been cut down by several meters by the incessant artillery fire, and the ash up to half a meter thick had been mixed with the flesh and blood of the insects, turning into a muddy swamp. The allosaurus shot down by the anti-aircraft missile also rained down.

In a bunker in one corner of the base, Jim Renault controls a heavy cannon and suppresses a frenzied influx of insects.

"Sir, you'd better come and have a look!"

At that moment, the voice of the radar controller sounded over the communicator.

Jim Reynolds called a Marine to take over the heavy cannon, quickly left the bunker, and ran to the command center.

This is a fortress assembled and spliced by dozens of SCVs using the preset building modules dropped by the airdrop, because many building modules were shot down during the airdrop process, now only the frame structure is complete, and the interior of the building is exposed and cannot be sealed.

Every time the Ibx guns on the top fired, the entire command center visibly tilted in the opposite direction.

It's not that the structural frame is not strong enough, but the ground is too soft - it is not easy to choose a location that is far away from the fungus blanket and easy to defend and difficult to attack - there are still a few SCVs under the base support.

Amid the deafening artillery fire, the communicators in the command center were shouting at the communicator with their necks pulled by their necks. Seeing Renault's arrival, one of them quickly took off his headphones and handed them to him.

Renault turned on the mask, and he couldn't hear clearly when he pressed the headphones into his ears, so he had to ask the communicator to plug the signal into his combat uniform, and closed the mask to hear General Warfield's voice.

"I'm General Warfield, and my ship has been badly damaged and is about to ......"

Renault frowned, and the correspondent said at the right time: "Sir, General Warfield has made a forced landing seventeen kilometers to the northeast!" In the nearby combat area, only we can support him, but there is a whole group of insects in the middle. ”

With that, he brought up an image that had been captured by a ship in planetary orbit a few minutes earlier.

A flagship Minotaur-class battlecruiser dragged a long stream of black smoke down from the sky and plunged headlong into the depths of the alien nest, plowed deep furrows in the ground, and split them apart.

Surrounded by a large number of insects, they were temporarily repelled by the cruiser's laser cannon crew, and then a large number of marines left the ship to cover the SCV and built improvised fortifications with hull fragments, and stood in place for reinforcements.

However, the footage shows that hundreds of thousands of insects in the nearby area are moving there, and it depends on the situation that General Warfield will not last long.

"Gather all the mobile troops, plan a route for me, we have to save them." Renault quickly made a decision, and walked over to the radar operator, "What's the matter with me?" ”

The operator pointed to the large number of red dots on the display and said, "Sir, through the signs of the anomalous activity of the insects, I believe that there is a combat unit here that has not been entered into the identification system of friend or foe, and their information system seems to be damaged, and they have been fighting alone for the past seventeen hours, trying to break through the encirclement and join us. This force has killed tens of thousands of insects and attracted almost all enemies in several nearby combat areas, greatly sharing the pressure for us......"

"Seventeen hours?" Renault was amazed.

Holding on to the sea of worms for so long, this force is really tenacious.

"Can you confirm their numbers?"

The operator shook his head, "Sir, the intelligent lieutenant can only narrow down the scope to seventeen Imperial Army units based on real-time death data, but none of them can have such a strong combat power. ”

"Can you figure out what's going on over there?"

"It's difficult, it's a circular valley with a lot of radiation sources, and the mountains and the metal deposits it contains are seriously interfering with the scan signal. The unmanned reconnaissance notes I sent before were all shot down by insects, and the fleet denied my request to call in the reconnaissance satellites, which were all occupied. ”

Renault stared at the radar screen and fell silent.

Seventeen hours......

What kind of troops can hold out in the sea of worms for seventeen hours?

"How far are we from them?"

"Nine kilometers."

……

Unbeknownst to Reynolds' rangers, it was not an army but a man who had slaughtered tens of thousands of insects in the past seventeen hours, attracting a lot of attention to friendly troops.

Oryx.

At this time, nine kilometers north of the Ranger base, in a circular valley. The corpses of the insects filled almost the entire valley, and rivers of blood flowed.

There are jumping worms, stinging snakes, infected, and even a large number of thunder beasts, basically common alien insects, all of which are here.

And there are different types of deaths, including those who have been fired into sieves by a large number of bullets, those who have been crushed into pieces of meat by a huge force, and those who have been scorched by high temperatures.

Underneath the piles of corpses are a variety of machines—the thickened armored SCV, the "Heck" melee mecha and the "Wolf Warrior" multi-functional mecha modified from the SCV, the storming siege tank that was trampled into a discus by the thunder beast, and the Thor "inlaid with" a large number of broken limbs of insects like a jewel base......

The reactor cores of these machines were mostly badly damaged, and the heat emitted boiled the piles of corpses and meat puree into a bubbling hodgepodge, and the air was filled with a sickening, complex smell.

Suddenly, a mountain of corpses moved.

With the sound of clattering machinery, a demon modified Odin on the verge of being scrapped popped up. The battered cockpit canopy popped open, revealing a bruised Oryx in the driver's seat.

"Uh...... Ah......h

Oryx weakly pulled out a stinging snake spine needle from his chest, then pulled out a bottle of hemostatic spray and sprayed it a few times, pressing on the wound in his neck, and lying in the tattered driver's seat, gasping for breath.

"Ahem, ahem......"

During this time, blood continued to pour out of the broken throat - a jumping worm that burrowed into the cockpit nearly cut off his head, but thanks to his timely dodge, he was able to avoid injuring the carotid artery, but the throat was opened.

His left leg was broken, and the broken tibia pierced the skin, leaving it exposed. The wound was also treated as an emergency response to the first aid system of the CMC-300/400 powered combat suit he was wearing. Nine hours have passed, and now the entire calf is completely necrotic due to the lack of blood supply.

The same goes for the right arm.

He tilted his head slightly, and the severed arm lay quietly at the end of the cockpit of this magic modified Odin that had been exchanged for thousands of merit points, still holding the [Imitation Solarion] in his hand. The Holy Spear, which had become extremely void and no longer possessed the slightest trace of high-level heavenly power, was inserted into the only remaining head of a poisonous explosion insect after it exploded.

Oryx now gets it.

That's what the trial mission is all about.

Fighting, constant fighting, constantly bringing the task-bearer to the brink of death, being tested and baptized in a desperate situation.

For the past seventeen hours, he had been fighting, trying all sorts of methods, but he couldn't escape the sea of worms no matter what.

When the equipment is exhausted, use merit points to exchange for new equipment, fight again, wear it out again, and exchange it again...... But it didn't take long for him to be forced into this valley by the insects all over the mountains, and he couldn't escape.

After that, the rate of merit points consumed increased several times, and the merit points earned through kills could not even meet the consumption, and it became a luxury to exchange them for better ultimate equipment.

He couldn't remember how many insects he had killed.

I only know that the merit value consumed alone is already more than 100,000 points.

"Warning ......"

"Heart rate 21......"

"Blood oxygen content 45% ......"

"Blood pressure ...... undetectable"

"First Aid Module Fails, Please Inject First Aid Booster ...... Immediately"

The red light flashed, and the driver's characteristic combat suit on his body made his final contribution before being scrapped.

With his remaining left hand, Oryx tried his best to open the book of time on his waist, turned to the page where the reward was exchanged, clicked [Repair Body] on the page, and then tilted his head and passed out.

The golden yellow sand swirled up, slowly enveloping him.

At the same time, a transport plane with a long tail flame came at a high speed and hovered over the valley. The Ranger Marines, who were standing at the hatch waiting for the airborne orders, were shocked by the scene below.

Including their leader, Jim Renault.

"My God, this is ......" Tyketh Finley on the side was dumbfounded.

"Sir, look, there's a survivor in the cockpit of that mech!"

"Fly over and get ready to rescue!"