The plan proceeded just as the Swarm Consciousness had predicted. Although the power of the Mutant Zoanthrope's psychic outbursts exceeded its expectations time and again, sheer numbers were gradually overwhelming the Mutant Zoanthrope's limits.
Powerful, oppressive psychic power gathered above the Mutant Zoanthrope's head. The Swarm Consciousness was familiar with this, too.
It had seen it in its old adversary, Slick, the Boss of the Screw Clan. The Great Devourer had watched the waaagh energy unleashed by his punch wipe out nearly two hundred thousand ships of the Tyranid Fleet...
A sphere of purple psychic power erupted outward from the Mutant Zoanthrope.
The Tyranid Bio-ships, which had evolved specifically to counter this, sprang into action. With the Planetary World Devourer as their command core, they concentrated their psychic power to resist the force unleashed by the Mutant Zoanthrope.
The Tyranid Swarm's purple psychic power collided with the Mutant Zoanthrope's black psychic power, each resisting and compressing the other.
The Mutant Zoanthrope's enormous brain turned red under the pressure. From smallest to largest, the Tyranid Bio-ships burst into clouds of pulverized flesh as they failed to withstand the strain. Even a World Devourer exploded into dust.
The prolonged confrontation inflicted devastating losses on the Swarm Consciousness. When the Tyranid Fleet's losses exceeded a hundred and fifty thousand, the Mutant Zoanthrope finally buckled.
A huge cloud of blood burst from the back of its strange brain, spraying blood over a thousand meters high.
What gushed out was not merely the Mutant Zoanthrope's blood, but its life force...
The Swarm Consciousness had won. The Great Devourer enjoyed delicious food and savored unusual genes.
Yet the results purchased at such enormous cost... could not satisfy the Great Devourer. There was little special about the Mutant Zoanthrope's flesh, and its genes were utterly ordinary.
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