Skimmer Bugs

Lin Miao quietly looked down at the battlefield, thinking to himself that interesting things truly never ceased to appear.

In his eyes, the foundation of the Elven Empire was indeed incredibly deep.

Even though their proud Light Barrier had been brutally destroyed by long-range bombardment, they did not collapse or retreat. Instead, they quickly reorganized their forces and actively launched a counterattack.

At this moment, a massive host of elves took to the sky, revealing another trump card they had kept hidden.

“Winged Squad, deploy! We must not cede the sky to them!”

The crisp, sharp commands of the elves echoed through the sky as countless soldiers mounted large leaf-shaped gliders and auxiliary wings, taking off to join the battle.

These were no ordinary gliders; they allowed the riders to control the wind at will and fly with incredible agility.

The elven warriors secured themselves to the frames, freeing their hands to fight with all their might. Relying on their extreme flight speed and masterful aerial combat skills, they quickly engaged the Great Devourer's aerial forces in a fierce dogfight.

The tiger hornet ants, responsible for ground assaults, and the dragon ants, specializing in aerial bombardment, immediately clashed in a brutal struggle with this elven Winged Squad.

Lin Miao sighed, “It seems even air superiority is something we must take seriously now.”

In his field of vision, the elven Winged Squad fired volley after volley of precise, deadly arrows. One by one, tiger hornet ants were pierced and fell from the sky, and even the much larger dragon ants could not escape the onslaught.

Clearly, this was an elite force custom-tailored for aerial combat, boasting rapid movements and precise offense and defense.

The Great Devourer colony, which had rarely faced strong aerial opponents for a long time, suddenly found itself on the defensive, struggling to cope with the situation.

In terms of basic aerial combat potential, the tiger hornet ants' and dragon ants' original templates—tiger-head hornets and dragonflies—were by no means weak. However, the combat power of the elven Winged Squad was far beyond what ordinary wild insects could match.

More importantly, after countless combat iterations, the tiger hornet ants had evolved into ground-assault units clad in heavy exoskeletons, while the dragon ants specialized in precise bombing. Aerial combat was no longer their core strength.

The colony urgently needed a faster, more powerful new aerial unit to fill the gap in dedicated air-to-air combat.

Once the elves secured complete control of the sky, all subsequent operations—including scouting, surprise attacks, and advances—would become extremely difficult.

【Elise is troubled by the strength of the enemy's aerial forces】

Lin Miao quietly waited for Elise's decision. Even with her superhuman computational power, her self-evolving core mind, and the collective consciousness of the entire hive, she could not immediately formulate a perfect counter-strategy against the elves' elite aerial combat system.

Seeing this, Lin Miao decided to provide her with new "evolutionary materials" for the first time in a long while, helping the hive break through its bottleneck.

Relying on Elise's ultimate analytical capabilities and the extraordinary power of the magic hearts, the colony was able to continuously break through its limits. However, in many cases, directly using high-quality, ready-made materials was far more efficient and convenient than trying to evolve from scratch.

He always only provided the choices and opportunities for evolution, leaving the final decision entirely to the hive itself.

Rather than blindly commanding them, he preferred to trust the hive's evolutionary potential and survival instincts, which had been proven through countless battles.

And so, Lin Miao contacted his long-term supplier.

“Robber flies already possess extremely formidable aerial combat capabilities. In addition, I have prepared everything else you requested.”

The insect dealer had made a fortune through his cooperation with Lin Miao. Every time they met, his face was filled with enthusiasm and smiles.

This time, Lin Miao had tasked him with finding two types of materials: robber flies, which possessed top-tier aerial combat capabilities, and insectivorous bats, which possessed unique leathery wings.

Lin Miao inspected the items. “You really managed to find all of them.”

The supplier replied, “Bats aren't particularly rare to begin with; they're often seen around the outskirts of cities. With my connections, I could even get rare vampire bats, and small specimens are absolutely no problem.”

Lin Miao understood. Large, mature specimens of rare species were difficult to obtain, so he had to settle for the next best thing: collecting some of their tissue samples for evolutionary simulation.

As he gradually became more familiar with his divine authority, Lin Miao finally figured out why his interference force was so abundant.

The reason he possessed a stronger ability to interfere with the physical world compared to ordinary deities was not because he was deliberately hoarding his authority. Rather, it was because he had been subtly consuming it all along:

Providing food for the hive, transporting magic stones—all of these rearing actions continuously consumed his divine interference force.

Elise's predatory evolution was not without limitations; her evolutionary direction could only unfold based on the materials Lin Miao provided.

The reason his interference force had never run dry was, first, because the daily breeding consumption was negligible, and second, because his territory and servants on the Terra continent constantly fed ample authority back to him.

【Elise understands the Great One's will】

This time, instead of providing his usual magic stones, Lin Miao delivered live creatures as evolutionary food for the colony for the first time in a long while.

Elise immediately commanded her forces to slaughter all the robber flies and bats, decomposing and extracting them into pure nutrient solution to be devoured and absorbed. She then gently twitched her antennae, clearly understanding Lin Miao's intention.

She knew very well that this gift was by no means useless.

The robber flies would serve as the blueprint to grant the colony ultimate aerial combat power, while the bats would provide a completely new flight system for the Great Devourers, who had never possessed leathery wings before.

Lin Miao thought to himself: The choice has been given to you. Next, let's see how you fuse and transform them.

Looking back, he had already provided the colony with a massive amount of evolutionary materials.

Feeding them sparrows had forged the hive's feather armor.

Feeding them various insects had allowed them to iterate diverse membranous wings.

Now, feeding them bats unlocked a completely new leathery wing structure.

The final new mutated unit type that would be born depended entirely on Elise's fusion and simulation.

Before long, within the colony's production units, completely new mutated individuals slowly detached, quickly spinning cocoons to undergo their metamorphosis.

【Elise has created a new mutated species】

Lin Miao's eyes narrowed slightly as he thought: Skimmer Bugs?

The newly emerged mutated bugs had silhouettes resembling robber flies. In front of the hard head armor unique to mutated ants, a pair of sharp, terrifying mouthparts protruded, looking extremely menacing.

Their body structure was incredibly exquisite, with two pairs of wings each serving a distinct purpose: the larger pair was the flexible leathery wings unique to bats, allowing for high-altitude gliding and agile turning, while the other pair was high-frequency vibrating insect membranous wings, capable of propelling the lightweight body into a sudden, explosive ascent.

Lin Miao nodded slightly, feeling confident: This level of combat power is more than enough.

The extreme speed and precise, agile aerial maneuverability of the Skimmer Bugs was already on par with the elves' proud Winged Squad.

With just a few days of iteration and adjustment, they would be able to completely crush the opponent in the very airspace the elves were most confident in. When that happened, the blow to the elven army's morale would be devastating.

Not far away, Celia stared blankly at the Skimmer Bugs darting and weaving through the sky, muttering softly to herself.

No one knew better than her how terrifying the colony's evolutionary and adaptation capabilities were. After all, she was the only one who had deeply contested and profoundly feared Elise as an arch-rival.

【The servants plan to dispatch a portion of their forces to attack the enemy's coastline】