Chapter 683: Story Summary: An Action Doomed To Fail

Wang Xiaobin continued to look at the drafts of these main characters.

The protagonist to be played by the players was Qin Yi, the Captain of Team AS-371-45.

His Skylark combat uniform had special patterns as well, but it was different from the others’ fancy style. He painted ‘Justice’ on the right shoulder of his combat uniform.

The archaic character of the word was made up of a ‘goat’ on top and an ‘I’ below.

The serial number of the team meant that he belonged to the Asian Fleet (abbreviated AS), Starship 371, Squad 45.

There were four other members in the squad other than Qin Yi; their characters were all different.

Xu Kaile, optimistic and positive; he was a young man with delicate emotions. He had 2D, animated girls all over his battle uniform.

Meng Yu was short and quiet but very reliable at critical moments. He had camouflage patterns all over his battle uniform.

Zhao Yongxiu, who sometimes made people feel that he was very childish, was frivolous, a little prideful, and very good at adjusting the team’s atmosphere. The painting on his battle uniform looked like mecha, which was rather handsome.

Wu Shaojun, tall and big, straightforward, and the eldest. He was the most trustworthy teammate. There were no special patterns on his combat uniform, but many tears which were not mended.

The outline of the story was clearly written in the general plot flow, but some details were not perfect enough. That included lines, etc. which were not given.

It was only the first edition after all. Further improvements were needed. Wang Xiaobin’s opinions were also important.

The structure of the plot was very simple. It was divided into five parts. Each part was composed of real-time cutscene CG and in-game battles.

This was the only downloadable content attached to Ocean Stronghold. Time was very tight so there was no need to do that kind of particularly detailed cutscenes CG, just use real-time calculations.

The first part:

Team AS-371-45 successfully infiltrated the Zerg’s nest to clean up the larvae and workers.

There was not a lot of Zergs because it was located in the periphery of the worm nest and the number of Zergs was not a lot. It would not matter to kill all of them directly if it was found by larvae or worker bees so the battle was relatively simple.

During the mission, all team members could communicate in real time through voice chat. They would discuss their actions and look forward to killing the Zerg queen to end the war.

Artificial intelligence would continuously give orders to the protagonist, analyze the battlefield situation, and guide the protagonist to make correct decisions.

The second part:

After entering deep into the nest, they began to encounter more and more powerful Zergs, including hatching spring worms and self-exploding worms. The difficulty of the battle in this stage was gradually increasing. Most of the time, correct strategies must be adopted. For example, the handling of self-explosive insects carefully; otherwise, the splashing of acid on a large scale after the insect were to explode would cause serious damage to the players.

At this point, the players began to encounter some troubles and needed to help each other out. However, their overall mentality was still relatively positive.

Artificial intelligence would still be guiding the protagonist to make the best decisions and follow the suggestions of artificial intelligence, which would significantly reduce the difficulty of combat.

The third part:

The Zergs continued to populate, gradually exceeding the squad’s ultimate combat capability. They found the limbs or pieces of other teams’ combat uniforms while going deeper into the nest. The breathing time after the battle would become precious.

Some team members began to lose their state of mind. They did not find any traces of the queen after wandering at the bottom of the worm’s nest for a long time. On the other hand, they saw many dead teams. They began to question the rate of success calculated by artificial intelligence without logistics. They felt that they would be buried here.

However, the players pushed forward after cheering each other up.

The artificial intelligence was still analyzing data as usual, directing battles, and adhering to its original calculations in the face of doubts from the players.

The fourth part:

The actions of the squad had alarmed the Zergs. The main force of the Zergs might not be in the nest, but as long as there were enough worker bees, spring worms, and self-exploding worms; it would be enough to pose a huge threat to the squad.

Countless Zergs were coming in from all directions. Their escape route had been completely cut off and could only continue advancing. A severely injured member broke off and detonated the miniature reactor in his chest to block the swarm of insects behind them.

Qin Yi found out that there were very few teams who had survived the mission after gaining a breather.

What was even more frightening was that the team accidentally found fragments of combat uniforms in the depths of the worm’s nest. Those were fragments of the Skylark II combat uniform. It showed that humans had already tried decapitation operations previously without success. The information was withheld by artificial intelligence.

The members were in complete despair.

The protagonist questioned the artificial intelligence but could not obtain an answer. The team members found that there was no retreat and could only move forward. They decided to complete their mission at all costs.

The fifth part:

The squad followed the analysis of the artificial intelligence in desperation. Team members died one after another while trying to cover the other team members.

The protagonist wanted to fulfill the wishes of his teammates even if it cost him his life. However, in the end, he and his remaining teammate were still overwhelmed by the endless sea of insects.

The strange thing was that these insects did not kill them but brought them deeper into the worm nest.

The protagonist finally met the Zerg Queen. It’s bloated, large body was revolting.

The two of them wanted to detonate their reactors, but for some reason, the artificial intelligence seemed to be disconnected or was affected by a strange interference, making them unable to control the detonation.

The surviving team members were brought to the side of the Zerg Queen. He did not know what the Zerg Queen did to him, but he immediately let out a sharp scream and died two minutes later.

The protagonist was also brought in front of the Zerg Queen. He screamed as if his brain was being pierced by countless needles. However, he persevered stubbornly, unlike his other team members.

He insisted on removing the pistol from his Skylark combat uniform and wanted to shoot a bullet from the crack in his breastplate from battles earlier to cause an explosion and completely destroy the reactor.

However, that was also unsuccessful. The Zerg’s thorny claws penetrated his right hand, and the pistol fell to the ground.

The protagonist felt as though everything was white in front of him while he was dying. The sharp pain in his brain that made him scream in a high pitch slowly became a low moan.

At the last moment, he felt a sudden and violent vibration around him, the roof of the underground cave suddenly collapsed. It seemed like he saw many soldiers wearing Skylark combat uniforms breaking in, as well as large-scale ground drilling machinery.

The story ended here, with an open ending.

In addition, the outline of the story also emphasized that there must be a lot of lines in battle or in the state of rest and everyone’s lines had to conform to their personality.

The characters’ lines would change as they experience the five stages of emotional changes. At first, everyone thought that they could complete the task, but over time, they began to become pessimistic or even desperate.

In addition, the outline of the story also specifically emphasized a key message:

In the beginning, the information that all the team members had was… this was the first time that humans had executed a decapitation plan on the Zergs. At the same time, there were hundreds of teams performing this task. The main force was in a decisive battle with the main force of the Zergs on the planet, ready to support.

Therefore, the team members believe that the success rate of this mission was very high. Once the Zerg Queen was successfully beheaded, dawn would be ushered in from the war between humans and Zergs.

However, the faith of the team members was shaken as the battle continued.

They had encountered members of the other squads during their battle. Some only had pieces of armor remaining while some died together with the Zergs in desperation.

They found some fragments of Skylark combat uniform in the nest. Many of which were obviously not left from this operation. That showed that it was definitely not the first time humans had tried to perform the decapitation operation.

The players gradually felt that they might not be able to continue on anymore and fell into deeper despair. However, there was no route back and could only move forward.

The team members chatted about this creature’s life form in brief periods of rest while killing the Zergs:

There was almost no singular consciousness in the Zergs. They did not care about the life or death of an individual Zerg and might be sharing information through large-scale telepathy. The Zerg Queen had a high level of intelligence so the Zerg’s combat level did not lose out to humans.

In addition, the weapons of the Zergs were their organs. Their logistical requirements were extremely simple, and their reproduction was very rapid so it was meaningless to go on a siege.

They could only obtain an advantage in the current unfavorable situation by beheading the Zerg Queen.

Therefore, even though most team members were in despair in the latter stages and felt that it was impossible for them to return alive, they still performed their tasks with firm conviction. The only purpose of their lives was to kill the Zerg Queen.

The war could end as long as the mission was successful. Their deaths would not be in vain then.

However, obviously, this mission was doomed to fail. Otherwise, it would not be called ‘Destiny and Choice’.

…

Wang Xiaobin roughly knew what he had to do after reading the complete story outline.

The summary clarified the entire game flow, character settings, and even some dialogues. They only need to refine the entire process and fill in the dialogues.

However, there were still a lot of mysteries surrounding the story. It even had an open ending.

Did the Zerg Queen die in the end?

Did the protagonist survive?

It was obviously not the first decapitation mission; why did artificial intelligence hide this fact?

What was the relationship between the protagonist in this downloadable content and the protagonist in ‘Destiny and Choice’?

Obviously, these contents were related to the future plot of ‘Destiny and Choice’, but Zhu Xiaoce did not want to disclose it at this point in time.

The downloadable content of ‘Ocean Stronghold’ was to warm up the new game. It was an introduction, and these questions would make players continue discussing and maintaining its popularity.

They could only wait for the plot of ‘Destiny and Choice’ to be revealed if they wanted to know the answers to these questions.

Wang Xiaobin suppressed his curiosity and immediately began preparations for the development.