“Creep... looks like the queens are going to be busy.”
Aside from the Hive's own creep slowly expanding into the surrounding area, having the queens head out to lay it down was currently the most reliable method.
At the moment, a single creep tumor could only cover one square kilometer of land.
In truth, the Zerg's creep was divided into two sections.
One part was located around the Hive and its northern side, connecting to the Glowing Forest. This section consisted of intermittent patches of creep camouflaged as ordinary lawn.
It looked no different from grass, but it was actually part of the Swarm network. Insects on top of it could briefly replenish their nutrients.
Of course, the efficiency of the creep itself was relatively poor. Therefore, the primary purpose of its vast range was sustainability; it was impossible for the queens to personally attend to every insect returning from the front lines, so most of them had to settle for resting on the creep.
The second section of the creep was to the east of the Hive, extending all the way to the city-state area, also appearing in intermittent patches.
That was the original form of the creep, and its appearance was quite unnerving—to put it bluntly, it was disgusting. The reason she went to such trouble was that it was highly unlikely to encounter any powerful enemies in this region, and humans wouldn't be given the chance to get close. Consequently, she had simply given up on camouflaging it.
However, Xia Jin estimated that a mythic king might suddenly stumble upon it in the future. If she accidentally frightened them into thinking she and the Zerg were monsters that had to be eradicated, it would be problematic.
So, starting from now, she had already ordered this portion of the creep to automatically modify and evolve.
The most energy-efficient method would take a full day and night.
The queens were truly busy now. While producing larvae every hour, they also had to scurry around to place creep tumors.
However, laying creep wasn't something that could be done without a cooldown; it took time. A single queen could lay an average of twenty-four square kilometers a day without any side effects. Exceeding this amount would result in overexertion, requiring more energy to recover, which wasn't cost-effective at all.
Xia Jin's current count of incubated queens had reached 160, and she planned to increase it to 180.
It wasn't that she didn't care about the insects, but they truly could work twenty-four hours a day without stopping. The Zerg basically didn't need to sleep; most of them functioned like machines, relying on energy to maintain their vitality.
Especially after gaining immortality, every insect possessed a strong self-repair ability. Even if they worked themselves to the point of breaking down, they could quickly return to normal through energy consumption.
“Increasing to 180 queens means an additional 4,320 square kilometers of area per day. But considering the unevenness of the creep and the fact that some queens might be reassigned to important positions for other orders, the actual total will probably be around 3,000 square kilometers.”
Xia Jin felt that 3,000 square kilometers a day might not be enough, and the workload was still too much for the queens—after all, these creatures were already heavily burdened. Therefore, she was considering producing a batch of specialized queens that would do nothing but lay creep.
Once the amount of creep increased, these new queens could then transition into incubating larvae to speed up the mass production of troops.
In other words, as long as resources were sufficient, the subsequent growth of the Swarm would become terrifying.
“I'll just have to wait.”
Taking advantage of the Hive's recent upgrade, she prepared to redefine the Swarm's production plan, further increasing the proportion of zerglings.
These little dogs were undoubtedly the future mainstay of the Zerg.
Unknowingly, their production cost had become the lowest in the Swarm. In terms of cost-effectiveness, only the locusts could surpass them.
But the locusts' tier was too low after all, and their inability to pierce defenses was a serious issue, so they could only ever serve as consumables.
“Daily production: 2,000 scourges and 100 mutalisks.”
This would consume 360,000 units of energy.
In about two days, the daily production of zerglings would reach 15,000.
However, this required the number of queens to keep up, so the first step was actually to produce more queens.
After all orders were issued, Xia Jin waited calmly.
...
She walked onto the creep near the Hive. Several larvae had transformed into cocoons here, pulsing like hearts, and she felt very satisfied.
Thinking back to not long ago, she had only just produced her first Tier 1 drone.
Who would have thought then that in such a short time, the Swarm's production scale would become so massive?
Her consciousness swept across the entire territory.
At this moment, the insects had clearly discovered that the main forces of the Kingdom's army had begun their advance.
The speed wasn't very fast, but one of the legions had already begun attacking one of the cities in the area.
To achieve the maximum defensive effect, Xia Jin had left 200 hydralisks in this city, along with 100 zerglings and 5,000 locusts.
Ten lurkers were buried underground in front of the city walls.
These melee insects were intended for when the enemy scaled the walls.
The long-range hydralisks and lurkers were the primary killing force.
Spines could strike the enemy from several kilometers away, and the lurkers would launch sudden attacks from underground once the enemy closed within one kilometer.
Despite the small numbers, the 11th Legion found that this thing before them was a very tough nut to crack during the actual battle.
A direct assault meant having to endure the hydralisks' firepower to charge forward.
And there was no need to commit their precious air force to such a place. After all, the terrain inside the city was complex; if they weren't careful, some hydralisks hidden in the shadows might launch a lethal surprise spine attack.
They finally decided to deploy the magic crystal cannons.
Xia Jin's countermeasure was simple: when the enemy fired, she would have most of the hydralisks hide under the city walls, leaving only a few behind. This would make the probability of being hit much smaller.
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