Such bizarre scenes were not confined to Tark-III.
Similar sights played out on hundreds of planetary battlefields along the first defensive line at the edge of Segmentum Tempestus, where mortal troops met the enemy.
Iax silently coordinated the entire operation, constantly adjusting the situation on the ground and in space.
The defensive line was not merely intended to stop the swarm, but to wear it down as much as possible.
Nor were the fortress cities built with such vast quantities of materials merely fortresses.
Every second, these fortresses recycled materials from enormous quantities of Tyranid Swarm carcasses.
Their efficiency even surpassed the Tyranids' own biomass reclamation pools.
The nano-swarms stripped them down with extraordinary efficiency, leaving not a single useful molecule behind.
Throughout the fighting, these cities continually processed the swarm's remains to increase their stockpiles, gradually expanding the Mechanical Legion forces stationed there.
Meanwhile, the living mortal troops needed no additional supplies from outside.
Ordinary Tyranid corpses were lethally toxic to humans.
But the normal organic matter synthesized after the Men of Iron broke them down into their constituent atoms was not toxic.
Although their source sounded rather strange, compared with corpse starch and protein bars that might actually have been made from human bodies...
Eating bugs was better than eating people.
Unless the great devourer discovered the secret and immediately smashed through in a single wave, the defenders on these planets would keep increasing seemingly out of nowhere.
And the swarm could not simply ignore these fortress worlds, whose defensive coverage overlapped completely, and bypass the line.
Even if it crossed the first defensive line, a second and third awaited it.
Moreover, to ensure the swarm could not easily bypass the defenses, Iax had made special deployments on several key nexus worlds.
On a salient two light-years from