Want to get involved in Hellraiser 2’s latest main quest? You better hurry, because it’s about killing a billion bugs, and over a hundred million are already dead.

Oh no, you better run to Hellstalker 2 ASAP. There’s another major command about killing a bunch of stuff, and it looks like it’ll be over before you can say “slow down, Super Earth, you should savor this slowly or you might get indigestion.”

If you don’t know what I mean, the Helldivers 2 playerbase has worked very hard to develop a reputation for being able to kill dead creatures at an extremely fast rate. The first time this happened, people were so confused that they started trying to do the math. Recently, they finished the entire MO in a single night, and then started wondering if Arrowhead accidentally set the required kill total too low. These people don’t play – well, they play, but you know what I mean.

After getting some temporary free mech ride tickets from their last victory, the next move was to give them a well-deserved break from fighting for planetary control and battling robots. “After the Helldivers’ quick support for the Terminid research program, the Ministry of Science requested a second, larger research trial,” it reads. “A key finding from the first phase of research was that if Terminid E-710 is harvested after a period of extreme stress, the yield increases significantly.

“In order to determine if there is a relationship between extermination methods and the production of E-710, the Science Department has requested that the Terminids be exterminated using a variety of means. High Command has authorized a series of enhanced strategies to be rotated during this experiment to support scientific progress. The amount of Terminid biomass required for meaningful data from this experiment is equivalent to 1,000,000,000 dead Terminid bugs.”

Oh, and if you hadn’t guessed it already, the dispatches have provided a helpful warning: “As a result of these efforts, Terminid’s aggressiveness and expansion may increase”.

As of this writing, it seems that only about two hours have passed since the task began, and how is it going? Oh my. Of the 1 billion bugs needed to complete the order, about 168 million (about 16%) have died.

So, unlike my last order, I can’t count on receiving it a few days before your arrival, even though there are currently about four days and six hours left.

Seriously, stop dreaming about playing 16-bit Hellraiser on your spaceship and get moving, soldier!