Abathur: Please Respect Copyright

The Cerberus Leviathan floated silently above the clouds of the Burial Ground, casting an enormous shadow below. It truly was a mythical behemoth, far larger than any human vessel. Its spined, hardened hide inspired dread at a glance, its purple-black carapace rising and falling like organic mountains. Even its gentle breathing seemed capable of bringing hurricanes.

Across the Leviathan's colossal body, layered with keratinous ridges like overlapping mountain ranges, every passage stood open to the outside world. Most were folds, depressions, and cracks in its skin, covered by tough hide lined with sensory hairs and feelers, like the mouths of dark, fathomless caves.

Others were even larger, their entrances ringed by muscles that continually tightened and relaxed, allowing them to open and shut more freely. Countless Zerg flying creatures and human spacecraft passed in and out through them. Their function was perhaps closer to the semi-open hangar decks or vast observation windows of human warships.

Every entrance led to darker, narrower passages, cavities, and transport tubes resembling Nydus Worms. Beyond them lay enormous hollow chambers, gas-filled sacs, and enclosed pits warmer and more humid than the outside world—far more numerous than the rooms in Augustgrad Palace.

Even if human scientists managed to understand the entirety of a Leviathan's physiology, they would never comprehend how organs so vast and so complex worked in concert.

Some viewed Leviathans as Zerg biological warships of astonishing scale, possessing every function a warship ought to have. Their composite biological shells surpassed refined steel armor; their biomass particles, Bile Swarms, and swarms of Scourge were enough to suppress an Imperial Navy squadron. They could make hyperspace jumps at will, leaving both humans and Protoss helpless against them.

Pulaier had dealt with the master of the Cerberus Swarm more than once, but he had never before been