The second wave of subterranean tanks bored another fifty kilometers downward, incurring losses numbering in the hundreds, though the Galan were utterly unconcerned by this level of attrition.

The crews piloting these burrowing war machines were combat bio-synthetics, occupying the same status as the combat automatons generally utilized by other races: expendable commodities churned out on an assembly line, ready for replacement. To the battle commanders, they were merely figures on a ledger.

As artificially created life forms, combat bio-synthetics possessed cognitive abilities, imagination, and degrees of freedom far superior to most automatons, granting them greater tactical flexibility—a significant battlefield advantage. In the Orion Arm, only the combat robots manufactured by the Cycrow were considered comparable to the Galan's bio-synthetics in these aspects.

In a certain sense, the Trann people under Yang Ying were akin to combat clones, sharing the designation of combat weapon alongside bio-synthetics and automatons, though Yang Ying himself did not view them in that light.

Returning focus to the conflict, the subterranean tanks had now bored to a depth of eight hundred kilometers. The immense subterranean pressure slowed their advance, and by this point, the relentless wave of Lurkers began to exceed the limits of what they could effectively combat. Under a siege of spikes coming from all directions, their rate of loss accelerated dramatically.

Two minutes later, the entire force was annihilated deep underground.

However, the Galan were prodigiously wealthy; such losses were beneath their notice. The second contingent of subterranean tanks swiftly landed on the planet’s surface and immediately plunged into the depths through the tunnels excavated by their predecessors.

Simultaneously, the third, fourth, and even more waves of subterranean tanks were en route to the planet.

Deep below, the Lurkers had exacted a heavy toll to eliminate the second wave, yet several tanks from the third wave managed to penetrate to a depth of one thousand kilometers.

A Zerg hive cluster entered the visual range of the Galan reconnaissance.

Subsequently, massive numbers of subterranean tanks converged on the hive’s location—from hundreds, to thousands, then tens of thousands. The Galan designated this small hive as their primary breach point, dispatching all subsequent waves of burrowing vehicles directly to this location.

The battles fought underground were stealthy, ferocious, and swift. The subterranean tanks pressed forward, and after paying a heavy price, they ultimately used their overwhelming numbers to shatter the Zerg defenses and break into the hive structure.

However, when the tanks that breached the interior activated their lights, they found the hive reduced to ruins. Every Zerg unit capable of retreat had already withdrawn, and the structures had been completely demolished during their departure. What remained was a vast, pitch-black cavern saturated with gore and the stench of blood.

Soon, a distinctive subterranean tank arrived inside the cavern. Its hatch hissed open, and a squad of heavily equipped combat bio-synthetics emerged, surrounding a Galan in command regalia—the supreme commander of this landing operation.

Treading on a slick pool of ichor, the commander frowned slightly. Unlike the surrounding bio-synthetics who wore environmental masks, the low oxygen and pervasive toxic gases of the deep underground posed no threat to him; he was a Third Tier Echelon Psionicist.

“Collect more samples; send them back to the fleet for study,” the commander instructed his subordinates, adding, “And pay close attention during collection. Intelligence suggests these organisms are cunning. Do not relax your vigilance even for a moment while transporting the specimens.”

“Yes!” a combat bio-synthetic acknowledged, shouted orders, and quickly led a group away to gather samples.

The Galan had already acquired substantial intelligence regarding the Zerg: their blood was highly acidic, capable of corroding nearly everything; they possessed parasitic traits that triggered an avalanche effect, where infection spread exponentially, turning the afflicted into highly dangerous explosive entities.

To avoid being consumed entirely, skin and bone, as the Hyzen Flotilla had been, the Galan undertook extensive preparations before engaging the Zerg. They specifically engineered a form of bio-armor highly resistant to acid, coated all weaponry and armor surfaces with an anti-acid compound, and strictly implemented infection control protocols to minimize biological attack vectors. For the Galan, masters of bio-sciences, achieving this was not difficult.

The combat bio-synthetics were currently wearing this bio-armor; without it, stepping into the blood pool would have dissolved them into pools of thick fluid within seconds.

The sampling proceeded in an orderly fashion. The Zerg seemed to have completely abandoned this outpost.

The commander surveyed the area, then suddenly felt a wave of alarm. He looked up to see more than a dozen Hydralisks erupting from the fifty-meter-high cavern wall. They opened their mandibles and spat over a dozen stingers toward the commander!

These stingers traveled at velocities rivaling Gauss rounds, accompanied by streams of concentrated green acid that cut a straight line through the air, reaching the commander in an instant!

Sshhh! Sshhh! Sshhh!

The stingers pierced straight through the commander's silhouette.

Yet, no sign of penetration appeared on his body. In the next moment, the silhouette dimmed and then vanished—it was an illusion!

Powerful biological instinct allowed the Hydralisks to instantly perceive this deception. They immediately began scanning the surroundings for the commander’s true position, but they only perceived a flash of lightning-fast golden light, followed by the chaotic tumbling of severed limbs.

The golden light settled on the ground. The Galan commander stood there, grasping a golden light-sword, entirely untouched by blood.

That single strike had dispatched most of the Hydralisks, leaving three twitching wrecks lying at his feet.

He summoned a squad of combat bio-synthetics and ordered them to return these three carcasses as specimens to the fleet.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the subterranean assault continued. The Galan intended to uproot the entire Zerg presence on the planet with their landing forces. This way, while acquiring sufficient research samples, they could also gain a habitable world—killing two birds with one stone.

And in the planet's outer orbit, a Blade Master remained concealed within the rifts of space, coldly observing the proceedings.

Everything unfolding on the surface was precisely within Yang Shu's foresight, including the schism within the Coalition Fleet and the Galan landing.

Yang Ying knew the root of their division lay in several races coveting the hundred-plus Zerg-occupied habitable worlds and intending to claim them. Furthermore, Yang Ying foresaw that these factions held significantly more sway in the command structure than the dissenting faction.

Soon, an internal meeting at the Joint Command Headquarters would approve their demands, allowing them to select planets to purge. Whoever cleared the Zerg, both on and within the planet, would gain full ownership.

That would be the moment the real war began. Given the Zerg’s resilience and stealth capabilities, even ten millennia of extermination would fail to eradicate them completely.

As for the Zerg samples taken by the Galan, let them study them at their leisure. After all, with the Galan's current technological level, they were still millions of years away from cracking the secrets of the Protoss genetic biology. The Blade Master shifted his gaze toward the Coalition Fleet, watching as the Galan deployed wave after wave of landing forces. He thought to himself, "Whether the Galan or any other race in the Orion Arm, they have severely underestimated the Zerg. They believe that with all the Orion Arm races united, eliminating the Zerg occupying a mere star sector is child's play. But reality will provide them the harshest answer. Among these races, only the Shalo seem to have perceived the future trajectory with any clarity—lucky for him."

The predictive ability of a Fourth Tier existence was not omniscient. Seeing a single individual's future was easy, but discerning the future of an entire race proved exceedingly difficult.

It was akin to the limited field of vision of a normal human eye; objects too distant appeared blurry. The Higher Psychic Sight was similar: the larger an event, the broader its impact, and the further its projection into the future, the harder it became to foresee clearly.

If Fourth Tier beings were capable of knowing everything, the True Human Empire would not have suffered its cataclysm over ten millennia ago.

Throughout that entire day, the Galan successfully purged four Zerg hives, eliminating hundreds of thousands of individual Zerg, predominantly Lurkers, Hydralisks, and Zerglings, with a smaller number of Scourge.

Scourge excelled at spreading plague and virus, and could even convert the flesh and blood of other Zerg units into the specialized microbial bodies they required. Thus, with a supply of Zerglings to sustain them, the Scourge could maintain their viral propagation indefinitely. During the Galan advance, numerous combat bio-synthetic soldiers were infected.

However, the Galan's counter-disease measures were swift and absolute. Any infected soldier was immediately detected by the life monitoring devices implanted in their bodies and executed on the spot. The corpses were then sterilized and incinerated completely, eliminating any possibility of further viral transmission.

The next day, the Coalition Fleet Command convened a full meeting and ratified the joint proposal from several dozen races. They approved the strategy of using landing operations to eradicate the Zerg from the occupied planets in this star sector. Any race executing the operation would gain full ownership of the planet upon clearing it of all Zerg forces.

After all, habitable worlds were a precious resource, and most races agreed that wantonly destroying a habitable planet was a shameful waste—let alone over a hundred across an entire star sector.

Another day passed, and the Galan planetary clearance proceeded smoothly, having cleared over a dozen Zerg hive clusters.

This success greatly encouraged the various races, who resolved to implement their plans immediately. That very day, the Coalition Fleet split into more than ten detachments. Each detachment was either composed of a single powerful race, such as the Galan or the Loa, or formed by a coalition of several races.

They dispersed toward the various Zerg-held planets across the star sector.