"Dear God, You Mean We Have to Lure That Crazy Woman Out?"

"Lure her out?"

In the pitch-black abyss of space, a suffocatingly dense torrent of Zerg surged forward.

Tens of thousands of bio-ships writhed through the vacuum, their purple-black carapaces coated in slime that reflected a nauseating oily sheen beneath the starlight.

Even more terrifying were the Flying Mantis swarms, Zerg aerial units numbering in the millions or even tens of millions, forming a "dark cloud" outside the atmosphere that blotted out the sky and sun.

Inside the bridge of the Bucephalus, the air seemed to freeze once more.

Valerian's left fingernails dug deeply into his palm, while his right hand left several pale scratches across the alloy surface of the tactical console.

Warfield's helmet display continuously adjusted its focus. The red dots representing the Zerg on the tactical screen had become so dense that they merged into a sea of blood, and the old general swallowed with difficulty—

According to the original plan, their fleet was supposed to serve as bait and draw the Zerg's main fire. Then, they would deploy large numbers of Marines alongside Jim Raynor and Tychus Findlay's Raynor's Raiders, escort the Artifact down to the surface, activate it, and thereby Purify or kill the Queen of Blades.

But now, the Zerg vanguard alone looked capable of drowning the entire Terran fleet.

"All ships, assume combat positions!" Valerian's voice rang through the comm channel. "Until we receive orders from the Imperium of Man, form a defensive formation and hold the line!"

Just as every gunner in the Terran fleet received the order and prepared to lock onto targets, a dazzling blue light suddenly flared in space—

Ri~whoosh—!!

A lateral "pillar of light" over three thousand kilometers in diameter, nearly a third of Char's diameter, erupted from the bow of the Black Templars' Sojourner-class vessel and instantly swept