Hundreds of zerg drop pods, sacs, smashed into the ground around the Xel’naga temple.

All three races had the ability to almost instantly deploy their ground units into battle. Terran had drop pods. Protoss could warp units into power fields. Zerg were similar to terran in that they used drop pods as well. Of course, there was some small difference in terms of how things actually worked.

When the zerg sacs hit the ground, the soft tissues acted as buffers and saved the units inside from being turned into jelly by the sheer impact. The inertia could still kill an unarmored terran, but every zerg unit, including drones, could withstand the blast with their bodies.

All sort of zerg units, roaches, hydralisks, zerglings, banelings, and even a few ultralisks, ripped through whatever sac tissue that were intact and broke free into the open. As soon as they were out, they spread out and surrounded the entire shrine. Nothing could get in or out without going through them.

When the scene was cleared, a large, orange sac hit the ground and punched a large hole as soon as it made contact. The Queen of Blades emerged from the dust.

As she moved, Kerrigan looked down on her dust-covered body and frowned in dissatisfaction. She held her fist tight, and a psionic wave emitted from her body and turned whatever dust or mud into basic atoms.

“My children, prepare entry to the shrine...”

Suddenly, she sensed one of the overseers being taken out. She connected to the last image the overseer saw and immediately realized what was going on.

“Get ready, my underlings. We have companies.”

Zerg screeches echoed through the temple.

A distance away, a wall of Tal’darim approached. They were fresh and ready. Their blades and particle disruptors yearned for combat. Their enhanced plasma shields made those of normal zealots seem childish.

They were the supplicant army, and all of them would give their lives for Nyon.

The two armies clashed without a single word. There was no compromise. There was not a single chance of peace. Nyon needed to keep the artifact. If he lost it, his road to ascension would pretty much be gone. Even if he could live through the Swarm, Ma’lash would show him what was the price of failure.

Kerrigan wasn’t yielding either. She didn’t know of Amon’s presence, but she did sense an entity controlling her, manipulating her. She would never admit it, but the Queen of Blades was scared. She was scared of the power strong enough to control her actions without even showing its face. She would do anything to take that entity down, and the xel’naga artifact was her best hope. She would do anything to seize it. If she was given a chance to exchange every single zerg ground unit on Xil for the artifact, she would gladly make the trade.

“Die, zerg scum!”

Nyon growled and beheaded a hydralisk, but when he look up he saw Kerrigan rip apart a zealot with her wings, snap the neck of another zealot, and dismember three slayers with the chain reaction of a psionic blast.

Neither plasma shields nor phasing armors saved these Tal’darim. At some point weapons and equipment at the personal level no longer mattered.

“Kerrigan!” The Sixth Ascendant yelled while sending another psionic orb into the zerg flanks. The destructive energy ripped two dozen hydralisks, zergling, and banelings to pieces before disappearing. When banelings died, the acid they carried were sent flying into zerg units around them, causing further damage.

Hearing the screeches of her underlings, Kerrigan wasn’t intimidated by her opponent, who just slaughtered over thirty zerg with a single move. Instead, she bent her knees and suddenly kicked down on the ground. The impact sent her flying toward Nyon.

With her body in the air, Kerrigan pointed her spine wings down at Nyon. The purple psionic energy on the tip of the wings added to the already deadly limbs. Just the spines themselves could punch rip through a CMC armor without the slightest delay. With the help of the Queen of Blades’ psionic energy, they could punch through almost anything.

Nyon crossed his red blades above his head and pushed forward as soon as the wing spines made contact. Kerrigan rotated in the air and landed in the Tal’darim formation, stepping on and crushing a havoc.

A ring of zealots couldn’t believe what they saw, but when they saw an opportunity to strike down one of the strongest being in the sector, they took it.

Kerrigan swiped her bone wing around and severed the ring of zealots across their waists, killing all of them instantly. She didn’t even look as the warriors collapsed and faded away.

“Face me, Kerrigan!”

To Nyon, twelve supplicant zealots cost more than fifty normal zealots. He was fine with them dying in combat, but seeing them get slaughtered like sheep by Kerrigan without any contribution at all was painful.

A mind blast formed in Nyon’s palms and the ascendant smashed it into Kerrigan.

“If you wish, protoss.”

The Queen of Blades heard Nyon’s demand and sensed the void energy converging on her. She immediately responded by deploying her own psionic energy. Purple energy met with red energy between the two powerful psionic users.

Both Kerrigan and Nyon focused their energy on each other. A few zealots tried to strike down Kerrigan when she was busy dealing with Nyon, but Kerrigan’s wings moved around and punched through plasma shields and protoss bodies alike.

This didn’t intimate the protoss. Another dozen of zealots charged forward, and they were slaughtered one by one without their blades even reaching the queen. Slayers opened fire on Kerrigan from a safe distance away, but their particle disruptors were ineffective. Whatever damage they did was reduced by Kerrigan’s carapace, and whatever damage that remained were canceled out by her mending abilities.

The Tal’darim zealots and slayers did very little real damage, but they did occupy some of Kerrigan’s attention.

Even so, Nyon could barely maintain his position. The Sixth Ascendant was shaking inside as the battle dragged on.

The strongest entity he has seen was Highlord Ma’lash, but even Ma’lash was no match for Sarah Kerrigan. Nyon has heard of the power of the Queen of Blades, but a part of him didn’t believe an infested terran could be this powerful. He thought the only reason she made her name was because of her swarm. Now he believed all the tales he heard with all his heart.

His plan of slaughtering Kerrigan in the field and using her blood to show his warriors his might was nowhere to be seen. Even with a constant flood of zealots, he could barely match Kerrigan in terms of psionic energy.

Sensing Nyon’s fear, Kerrigan smirked and pushed forward. Immediately, the already thick wave of purple psionic energy became twice its former size.

The queen was crushing Nyon and murdering his elite supporters without using her full power.

“Wrathwalkers, now!”

Nyon screamed as he felt his psionic input being quickly overwhelmed.

He had no choice but to call for help. It wasn’t exactly an honorable decision, but Nyon knew victory was the only truth that mattered. If he died, it wouldn’t matter if he played it fair. If he won and slaughtered all that opposed him, the world would shut up about his dishonor.

Three balls of red came in from a distance away and smashed into where Kerrigan was.

The Queen of Blades groaned and jumped into the air, dodging all three shots. Wrathwalkers could take down ultralisks and blast support ships out of the sky. She should be able to deflect one, but three...even in the best scenario she would be wounded. It would be a pointless loss.

The three blasts hit the ground and exploded into a wall of fire, engulfing a couple unfortunate zealots that were too close.

Kerrigan landed in the midst of another Tal’darim horde. A blood hunter blinked and jumped behind her, attempting to take her by surprise, but she, almost without much effort, grabbed onto the warrior by her throat with one arm and brutally ripped her head off with the other hand. The scythe of the blood hunter, powered by the warrior’s willingness to fight until the last breathe, cut across her chest and left a small mark, which quickly disappeared.

Despite being forced back, Kerrigan wasn’t worried. In the air, the zerg fleet was gradually overrunning the Tal’darim ships.

Plus, a while ago, she has already sent a squad of elite zerglings, banelings, and hydralisks into the temple. Their mission was to slaughter the terran strike team and retrieve the artifact.

All she needed to do was hold her ground, and the artifact would be delivered to her.

A Warden reaper slammed a grenade onto a blood hunter and fell back and dodged his scythe swing. The Tal’darim tried to pursue, but the next second the anti-building grenade exploded. He collapsed with a hole in his chest.

That was the last of the supplicant blood hunters.

“All protoss units terminated. Awaiting for further command.”

The blood hunters overestimated their power. They knew the terran had detectors, but detectors couldn’t make them omniscient. These elite warriors lurked in the shadows as the Warden lines approached. When they saw an opportunity, they blinked into the middle of the terran units.

The plan was brilliant. Even the elitist troops would be taken by surprise when nine invisible enemy protoss combatants suddenly appeared right next to them. The blood hunters could easily mow through the ranged terran units with their melee scythe. Even if they couldn’t massacre every single terran unit, they could take down most of them and render them useless to the approaching Tal’darim reinforcements.

The leading blood hunter was acting on experience. He has followed Nyon and fought through protoss, zerg, and terran alike, and he knew even supplicant zealots would be taken by surprise for at least a brief second. That was all his warriors needed to cut them down.

Unfortunately, the blood hunters didn’t know the reinforcements they were so desperately counting on were being intercepted by the swarm. The only ones entering the temple would be zerg. Equally unfortunately, they also didn’t realize they weren’t going against anyone they’ve faced before. Their decision based on experience was stabbing them in the back.

As soon as the blood hunters blinked in, they weren’t facing a group of shocked troops as they planned. Instead, they were being hailed by a hail of bullets and grenades.

Every blood hunter was knocked off his or her feet the moment their bodies materialized. The scythes that were so easy to swing around suddenly became painfully heavy. The effect of the concussive shells only lasted no more than a second before the blood hunters fought them off with void energy and sheer willpower, but that was enough.

“Dadadada”

Marines opened fire and every single bullet that came out of their gauss rifles found their way into one of the blood hunters. Warden reapers acted according to their programming and backed off to a safe distance away after dropping a few chargers next to the blood hunters. Marauders stepped back and kept on sending grenade after grenade into their enemies.

Jean moved behind five Warden marines as soon as the blood hunters appeared. She was human and her reflexes were limited, but the Combat Assistant warned her as soon as the blood hunters appeared. Without hesitation or fear, she went behind cover as quickly as possible.

The blood hunters were ripped apart. Blood hunters weren’t designed for a frontal assault. While the warriors themselves had the experience to conduct such a mission, the light plasma shields they were equipped with were designed to allow maximum agility while providing some protection. They were not nearly enough to fight off the Warden units.

Following a series of pained screams, the Tal’darim blood hunters collapsed and died. The blood hunter leader managed to severe a Warden marine in two with one quick swipe, but that was it. With one grenade explosion, his body faded away, along with any sense of glory or faith.

“Warden units, get the artifact loaded.” Jean made contact with Raynor. “Sir, I have retrieved the artifact. I just need a way out.”

“That might not be easy.” Raynor looked down from the Hyperion at the two clashing armies. “The way you went in is being turned into a battlefield. You’ll need an army to push through.” His eyes twitched as he saw a yellow figure below. He knew who it was.

“I don’t have an army.”

“But, lucky for you, we have something better.” Horner still held a tiny grain of salt against Jean. He knew her action was justifiable, but it was one thing to understand and it was another to act as if nothing happened. Jean disobeyed a direct order, and to someone who valued disciplined as highly as Horner this was difficult to forget. Still, he did the best he could to help her. His grudge didn’t stop him from doing his job.

Nyon pushed Kerrigan back once again. His heart was sinking deeper and deeper with every minute that passed. Report just came in that another carrier and two more destroyers were taken down. Every second several zerg drop pods came down from the air and deployed fresh zerg reinforcements. With every second the battle dragged on the zerg were growing stronger and stronger.

His supplicant army, on the other hand, was being picked apart. His warriors were brilliant combatants, but they were getting exhausted and wounded, and their shields were being depleted. He didn’t have any reinforcements to replace the fallen warriors.

Beside him, an ascendant sent a psionic orb he spent three minutes into the general direction of the zerg. An entire line was opened up in the dense zerg lines and over fifty zerglings and banelings were fried instantly.

The next second twenty spines hit the ascendant and killed him.

A distance away, a sea of green charged at one of the wrathwalkers.

“Protect the walker! For Nyon!”

Supplicant zealots and slayers tried their best to cover the precious strider. A few slayers blinked into the middle of the banelings and attempted to set as many of them off as possible. One of the slayers blinked inside and activated his phasing armor, and the next second ten banelings rolled in and exploded. His phasing armor allowed him to survive approximately two more seconds.

Zealots charged into the banelings one by one. At first their shields were the ones trading with the banelings, and then it was their bodies. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of the supplicant zealots.

The supplicants fought well, but they didn’t have the numbers. Their sacrifice reduced the sea of bane to half its former size, but the rest were still able to slam into the wrathwalker.

The sound of the dozens of meter tall wrathwalker hitting the ground brought Nyon back to reality.

The Sixth Ascendant looked around. A few glances at the entrance to the Xel’naga temple told the ascendant the party he sent to retrieve the artifact has almost certainly failed. A small zerg army, over two hundred units, has streamed inside. It wasn’t much because Kerrigan needed every zerg unit possible against the protoss, but it was still more than enough to take down ten blood hunters.

At this point Nyon was regretting sending a small party to retrieve the artifact, but even the Tal’darim didn’t have the technology to go back in time.

“What are you looking at, ascendant?” In contrast to Nyon’s frustration, Kerrigan was satisfied. She had already under control, right? As her mood improved, she decided to use words to distract his opponent. A worried ascendant was easier to be defeated than a patient one.

The words weren’t the Queen of Blades’ only weapon. Her spine wings slashed down and was followed by another psionic blast.

Nyon took a step back and barely fended off the attacks. Now that the artifact was surely gone, he toyed with the idea of pulling back and cutting the losses. He would still pay a dear price, but losing the seven hundred or so supplicant warriors left wouldn’t help his case.

It turned out the decision was made for him.

Nyon suddenly noticed a large piece of shadow on the ground in front of him. Slightly confused, he looked up and saw a giant ship descending.

It was terran.

“Raynor!” Kerrigan immediately recognized the decision, but she didn’t understand her former lover’s decision. He had a group of operatives in the temple. So what? They should be long dead by now. Kerrigan was too busy fighting the Tal’darim to check out the units she sent into the shrine, but she didn’t feel the need to. There was no way a small group of rag tagged terran infantry units could survive over two hundred elite zerg units.

Did Raynor really think risking every man under his command for a small squad of units was a good trade?

Kerrigan quickly realized it didn’t matter. What really mattered was the fact that James Raynor was slamming his capital ship onto thousands of combatants, zerg and protoss alike.