These black insects, like a huge black curtain, slowly covered the entire ground and surged towards base number three.
As the distance closed to three metres, Hawke gave the order to fire.
At base three, facing the direction of lake two, dozens of huge flame-throwing guns erupted in flames at the same time!
Dozens of fire dragons swept across the ground. At once, the otherwise quiet black waves began to boil, and under the huge searchlights, Hawke saw that the black insects swept by the flames immediately burst their bodies open and rolled over dead. Even where the flames didn't sweep through, the bugs died in droves from the heat coming through the air.
It was too easy to kill them. It was even possible to kill them by taking a piece of the thousand-year-old ice from the coldest region of the Antarctic and throwing it at them. Not because of the cold, but because the ice is too hot.
The coldest part of the Antarctic region is only minus seventy degrees, which is indeed too hot compared to these creatures that live at minus one hundred and sixty degrees.
Almost instantly, thousands and thousands of black worms were killed, the liquid methane in their bodies heated to boiling point, instantly boiling to burst their bodies open and then evaporating away, leaving a trail of dry bodies on the ground.
But there were just too many of them! Almost endless. Moreover, they were like moths fluttering to the flame, and the hot flames not only failed to scare them away, but made them gather in a frenzy towards the hotter areas, as if they were lining up and couldn't wait to claim their deaths.
This spirit of defiance really shocked Hawke for a moment. But it was only for a moment. Looking at the gradually increasing number of insect corpses on the ground, Hawke was extremely excited. Because these were all excellent materials for building interstellar ships, where could one find such good radiation-proof materials?
"Humph, you are not afraid to die, I will not be afraid to kill? Come on, kill as many as you can!"
Hawk laughed loudly, his heart very excited.
The robots lined up in front of the base seemed to sense Hawk's excitement as well, and the flames spewed even more fiercely. Every instant, thousands of bugs died, and every instant, thousands more replenished themselves.
The war, then, continued in this brutality.
Three hours after the war had taken place.
Hawke's excitement had vanished. In that time, Hawke had destroyed at least billions of black bugs, but the black wave continued unabated and unabated.
The flame-throwing robots' muzzles had to stop for a while because of the heat, and the two hundred or so robots became a hundred or so on the front line of defence, with the remaining hundred or so behind the line, waiting for the muzzles to cool. Once the guns had cooled, the droids stepped up to the front line and replaced the original droids.
And so on, these robots held strong, keeping the wave of black bugs from advancing an inch.
In front of them, black bug corpses had piled up a metre high. At least tens of billions of bugs had been sacrificed here, but behind them, there were still a continuous stream of bugs coming, and even one robot was drowned by the rising mountain of bug corpses because it was too late to dodge, and instantly lost its signal.
With no choice but to direct the droid defence line to retreat slowly.
Hawke's mood began to gloom, and began to really think of these bugs as opponents. For he realised that if he could not come up with an effective way to deal with the situation, he really risked losing Base Three to the onslaught of bugs.
The tide of insects continued to advance, over the mountain of insect corpses, which was more than a metre high, and onwards.
Gradually, after the defences had fallen back five metres, the mountain of corpses once again accumulated in front of the robot defences.
Hawke began to cry out in secret.
"There is not much fuel left, it can last for three hours at most." Hawke received a warning.
Previously, the fuel was taken directly from the number two lake, and the oxidizer was delivered by Wind God One. But now, naturally, Lake Two was out of bounds, and the fuel source became a problem.
"Damn, you guys are forcing me." With a fierce heart, Hawk immediately commanded Wind God One to return to its flight, loaded it with ninety tons of fuel, and set off towards base number three.
This round trip consumed an hour of time. Within that hour, the robot defence line had fallen back three more times. A couple of other times, five of the robots lost their signals because they were too late to dodge because of the collapse of the insect mountain.
Together with the one at the beginning, Hawke had lost seven robots.
Hawke steered Wind God One towards Lake Two.
Base three was about twenty kilometres away from lake two. Hawke flicked on his searchlight and looked at the ground. The sight he saw made Hawke's heart secretly shocked.
There were ... too many bugs!
The endless wave of insects formed a huge torrent that was one kilometre wide and twenty kilometres long, connecting one end to lake number two and one end to base number three.
There at the No. 3 base defense line, every instant a huge amount of insects died, which meant that every instant, a huge amount of insects crawled out of the micro blue lake.
"Holy shit!" Hawk exploded and immediately maneuvered Wind God One back to the ship. After spending half an hour, Hawk created some methane incendiary bombs with enough oxidizer and loaded them on top of Wind God One.
An hour later, Wind God One returned to the black tide and then, without hesitation, dropped the bombs.
There was a roar! Flames shot up into the sky, and the hot flames caused by the special incendiary bombs covered off at least dozens of square metres, while the killing range reached several hundred square metres!
In that instant, Hawke estimated that at least ten million bugs had died, but more were coming!
They were so brave, so harsh, that they were willing to give their lives in the pursuit of heat.
Hawke kept throwing incendiary bombs, and the bugs kept coming.
Hawke had to admit that Wind God One couldn't stop the bugs from advancing.
"Damn, this is crazy too ..." Hawke muttered.
Just within that time, the robot defense line was forced back ten more times, backing up almost fifty meters. A hundred metres behind them was the field where the machinery was placed at base three.
"This won't work, something has to be done." Hawke gritted his teeth and thought quickly.
One solution was thought of.
A huge digging machine was modified and some steel plates were added to the sides of the machine, then the excavator was launched at full power and roared into the swarm.
The robot defences duly pulled out of the way to allow the huge digger to pass through, and then the huge digger roared through.
The mountain of insects, which had accumulated to nearly two metres high, was destroyed with a single crash, and just as soon as the impact occurred, the excavator was covered by insects and Hawke lost its signal. But under the optical detector, Hawke could clearly see that the excavator, under the effect of inertia, still ran forward for several hundred metres before it stopped.
The excavator, at least, had crashed into a section of the bug mountain that was several dozen metres long.
In fact, these insects did not pose too much of a threat to Hawke. The biggest threat to Hawke was the bug mountain that formed after the insects died. As soon as the mountain of insects formed in front of him, Hawke had to retreat. Because the mountain of insects could collapse and cover the robots instantly. Even if it doesn't cover the droids, the height of the bug mountain will make the flamethrower much less powerful.
Seeing that the excavator impact method had worked, Hawke's heart rejoiced and he steered the rest of the excavators out, completely destroying the mountain of insects in front of him, before his mind settled down a little.
But Hawke immediately realised that this method would only delay the process. There were only a few dozen excavators in the whole of Base 3, and what would happen when they ran out?
"We have to think of another way." Hawk began to think bitterly about it. Gradually, a crazy idea popped up in Hawke's head.
"Damn, you guys are forcing me to do this." Hawke muttered, "Can't kill all of you? Then we'll take out your lair!"
Hawk's plan was simple, build a hydrogen bomb and throw it directly into Lake Two. One large yield hydrogen bomb would be enough to vaporize Lake Two!
The third base was 20 kilometres away from the second lake, so the impact would be within acceptable limits. Even if there was some damage, it was better than being swamped by the insect tide.
Hawke gritted his teeth and began to plan the whole thing.
There was enough fusion fuel at Base Two, the fusion institute. Although controlled fusion had not yet been developed, building a hydrogen bomb would not be a problem. On top of the old ship, there was enough uranium two-thirty-five to build an atomic bomb, which could be used as a trigger munition for a hydrogen bomb.
When he did, Hawk steered Wind God One and delivered Uranium Two Thirty-Five to Base Two, where controlled fusion research was suspended and full steam was put into building a hydrogen bomb.
A hydrogen bomb requires a trigger munition to detonate, and normally an atomic bomb is used as the detonating explosive. The power of the hydrogen bomb can also be seen here. The famous atomic bomb is a mere detonator in front of the hydrogen bomb.
It took Hawke half a month to build the hydrogen bomb. Within that half month, Hawke had lost another twenty robots and the insect tide had advanced its position by another ninety metres, and with another ten metres of advance, it would have truly touched base three.
But the bugs from Lake Two continued to flow incessantly. Hawke didn't even dare to estimate how many bugs were still there.
"Hold on, hold on for five more days ..." Hawke muttered. The hydrogen bomb had been built, but it could not be launched yet. A hydrogen bomb of this yield had to be launched with a rocket, not with Wind God One, otherwise, Wind God One would be taken out as well, which was something Hawke could not accept.
There were still five days to go before the rocket was caused.