Phantoms of the Void

Phantoms of the Void is the third and final Skygeirr Station mission in Heart of the Swarm.

Sarah Kerrigan and Alexei Stukov continued their drive to take down Dr. Emil Narud, nestled in the lowest level of the station, atop xel'naga temples and surrounded by Tal'darim warriors who also worshipped Amon. On the way down to the lower levels Kerrigan found several ultralisks and added them to her swarm and cleared the Tal'darim base to build up a hive cluster. However, Narud used a null zone to try and destroy Kerrigan. Kerrigan retaliated, causing both to be locked in a beam battle, while Stukov was left to lead the zerg against Narud. The xel'naga towers fed Narud's energies, allowing him to slowly push the null zone towards her. Without them, he could not overpower Kerrigan.

Stukov led his troops to the temples, deactivating them. As he did so, the Tal'darim and hybrids tried but failed to stop him. Eventually the temples were deactivated, leaving Narud weakened. Kerrigan resolved to pursue him and kill him herself.

Gameplay and Walkthrough
Kerrigan is unusable throughout the level, being locked in combat with Narud. Instead the player has access to Stukov. Like Kerrigan, he will regenerate at the player's hatchery if he is killed. the level, Narud will slowly force Kerrigan's beam back, and when his beam reaches her, the mission is lost. The player must bring Stukov to the xel'naga temples around the map, where he will stop them from feeding Narud so Kerrigan can overpower him. Deactivating each temple also buys Kerrigan time as she momentarily pushes Narud's beam back. Rather than the Dominion, the player must contend with the tal'darim protoss as their main opponents, and they will be accompanied by a handful of hybrids. When the player moves Stukov to a temple, they must defend him from attacks while he deactivates it. He cannot move at this time, but can use abilities to help defend.

There is an expansion directly east of the player's base, the player should seize it early on to help with the construction of their forces. The new unit of the mission, the ultralisk, is very powerful, but also very costly to produce, so the extra resources will be of great aid if the player wishes to mutate ultralisks in numbers. The tal'darim strike in both ground and air forces, and will use archons, carriers, and void rays, so the player should be diligent in creating a varied army and upgrading them. The player should stick near Stukov when deactivating a temple, as his Corrosive Blast reduces the target's armor and aids greatly in bringing the hybrids down. Corrosive Blast is also useful for quickly weakening powerful protoss units. When all the xel'naga temples are deactivated, the mission is won.

As optional objectives, the player can find and destroy three xel'naga crystals Narud is storing psionic energy in. The first crystal is located near the expansion east of the player's starting base. The other two are near the temple in the far north-west corner of the map, one crystal is south of it, the other further east, near Narud's position on the map.

Note that though the player can see the hybrids spawning in the tal'darim bases in the north and south-east, destroying these bases will not affect the defenders that arrive to defend the temples when Stukov approaches them. These two bases are heavily defended, and destroying them is a waste of time in regards to completing the mission objectives.