Star Iron, building an empire starting with game development

—The horde of Grammer cavalry charged forward relentlessly, employing every means at their disposal to kill the insectoid swarms in their path, until they came to a stop at a high cliff.

"Whoosh~" A giant True Zhe Insect slowly moved forward from the cliff, and behind it was an even larger number of insects than before.

One Grammer Ironclad was smashed to pieces by the swarm of insects in a single encounter, and several other Ironclads were also instantly killed by these insects.

[Player: Wow, that was impressive, they wiped out an Iron Cavalry unit in a single encounter]

[Player 2: These bugs are really ugly]

[Danheng: Insects don't care about beauty or ugliness]

[Player 3: Hey, hey, hey, this bug is way too big!?]

Player 4: Yeah, how are we supposed to fight such a big bug?

[Black Tower: This is still a small command and transport unit. Before the Star God of Procreation fell, its messengers could use their abdominal limbs to string together several planets and offer them to the Star God of Procreation.]

Kiana: It seems that even after the death of the Star God of Procreation, the remaining insects are enough to destroy an ordinary civilization.

[Ying: I just don't know if insecticides will be effective against so many bugs.]

[March 7th: This can't possibly work, can it?]

[Jadeite: It's useful, but the amount produced is often less than the number produced by the swarm's splits, not to mention that the swarm can also perform targeted evolution.]

Kiana: Since you're an interstellar civilization, how about continuous fire support?

[Topa: The swarms leave desolate wastelands in their wake. Your suggestion is good, but there are still larvae present. Sometimes, destroying the target planet directly is better than letting the swarm sweep across the world again.]

"—Who else is alive? Cover my approach to the mother insect!"

"Yes."

The two survivors stood back to back, and the other, also wearing SAM armor, handed a controller to Firefly.

"Take it!"

"What is this?" Liu Ying looked at the controller in her hand and asked with a slight hesitation.

"Activate immediately upon seeing the signal!" With that, the person in front of him charged towards the mother insect.

Without the slightest hesitation, he charged alone toward the massive mother insect in the distance.

A swarm of insects attacked him, but he dodged them all. After finding a breakthrough, the thrusters beneath his feet emitted a strange light.

With the help of the thrusters, he soared into the sky, reached a position above the mother insect, and descended. However, just as he was about to touch the mother insect, sharp limbs suddenly pierced through the approaching Grammer cavalry.

"Ah!" Upon seeing this, Liu Ying's pupils involuntarily contracted, and a look of horror appeared on her face.

The green liquid stained the mother insect's limbs, but even with its abdomen pierced, it could not stop the fight.

[Ying: This warrior reminds me of the last seat of the Fools.]

[Star: Putting aside the background, based on the understanding of the game, this huge swarm of bugs wouldn't even be enough for one of his skills.]

[Black Tower: Oh? There are such talents?]

Reaching out, he pulled the mask off, his hand trembling slightly as he raised it and, with his last ounce of strength, threw it towards the mother insect.

"...Agreement passed, execute...Scorched Earth Operation!" The nameless iron cavalryman ripped off his mask and threw it at the mother insect.

Now, only a few wires and other wires were swaying in the wind above the helmet's face. As the mask was about to reach the insect's body, he shouted with all his might:

"For Her Majesty the Queen!"

"For Her Majesty the Empress..." Looking at the coordinates displayed on the projection screen, Liu Ying shouted along with him and pressed the launcher in her hand...

A slender beam of light shot towards the sky, and the next second, a thick beam of light descended from the horizon.

Flames rose from the location of the mother insect, and the energy expanded at an extremely fast speed, leaving streaks of yellow light in the sky.

Everything around them vanished under the impact of the orbital strike. Several surviving Iron Riders lost their armor first, then their clothes, and then... themselves, due to the explosion.

Under such a powerful attack, even the armor of the Grammer cavalry could not stop the expansion of energy.

The world has fallen silent...

[Walter: Orbital Bombardment!!!]

[Qiong: Orbital Bombardment!!!]

[March 7th: Wow! Uncle Yang suddenly got excited]

[Walter: I %~@”@……]

[Star: What is Uncle Yang saying? Danheng, do you know?]

[Danheng: Hmm, Uncle Yang is too excited right now.]

Kiana: By the way, what does "scorched earth" mean?

[Danheng: A suicidal tactic, in which everything the enemy needs along their path, such as supplies, land, and resources, is completely burned while resisting an enemy's attack, leaving nothing for the enemy. However, the cost is that one's own side will be unable to use the land for a long period of time.]

Kiana: Oh~ the self-destruct strategy, huh?

As Firefly gradually awoke, she opened her eyes and stood up. Beside her were the other Sam pilots, who were already dead but could not close their eyes.

"I... am dead? Who... died?" Liu Ying looked at the devastation on the battlefield, where countless insect corpses and the remains of her companions lay.

Firefly stood there until another short-haired girl, draped in red cloth and dragging her own body, approached her. Then, she weakly uttered one of the Grammer Knights' military regulations—

"Born to fight... is the glory of the Grammer Knights, for... the Empress... Her Majesty..."

The girl knelt on the ground, and then, she stopped breathing...

[March 7th: So many fireflies! By the way, what are those red cloths on their clothes?]

[ScrewGumm: Conclusion: An artistic treatment, a way of covering up the fragmented remains scattered on the ground with a red cloth]

March 7th: Huh? Why?

[Star: March, think about it, if the ground was covered with mutilated corpses, would you still dare to look?]

March 7th: Let's forget about it then~

[Star: After all, games are for the general public, and animated shorts are for everyone to watch. I don't want to upset some "parents" because of overly realistic scenes.]

—The fireflies said nothing, they just silently shed tears.

Why...die? Why...live?

The scene shifts to countless "fireflies" inside the incubation chambers.

"Continue to transform" was the slogan all the "Fireflies" shouted during their training camp: "For Grammer, for Her Majesty the Queen!"

“But Grammer… it’s long gone…” Firefly looked up at the sky.

[Broad Knowledge Society: It seems the timeline of this animated short film is set after the fall of the Republic of Grammer]

[Black Tower: Battlefield communications are chaotic, with no unified command. Based on the communications, it can be inferred that only individual squad leaders are commanding their own subordinates.]

[Walter: If the Republic of Grammer still existed and its inhabitants had been properly settled, its territory would certainly be much larger now. Unfortunately, it perished because of its own cleverness.]