In the following days, the intensity of the battles on the Kingdom's side remained at a stable level.
Although fighting a two-front war didn't place much pressure on the Zerg, being able to concentrate forces to quickly annihilate the weaker side would certainly benefit the war's progression.
The result of this was that, on the Kingdom's front, the north lost one to two main legions and approximately 20,000 to 30,000 reserve troops every day on average.
On the southern line, the enemy advanced several dozen kilometers each day.
This speed was clearly the result of the Swarm holding back, as even while the scale of the Kingdom's main legions remained large, they continued to follow the Queen's orders, diverting all available troops to the city states region.
The 80,000 Swimmers beneath Clearwillow Lake had controlled three-quarters of the lake in the shortest possible time, and the final portion would be fully occupied within ten hours.
The poor giant squid suffered attack after attack and was forced to flee repeatedly, eventually being killed on the shore.
This large creature, with strength as high as Tier 8, was transported to the hive for overnight analysis.
The next day, most of the gene parsing was completed and directly applied to the Swimmers and Floating Hive Bugs.
A Swimmer only needed to consume an additional 10 units of standard energy to be upgraded to Tier 4, gaining a skin modeled after the squid monster's resilient outer hide.
In fact, the Zerg were already capable of directly replicating Zerg creatures similar to the giant squid, but considering the cost, they held off on producing such insects for the time being.
Those things were too large and the cost per unit was high; if one died, the loss would be greater than losing thousands of Swimmers.
Conversely, the same number of Swimmers could kill an unknown number of giant squids.
However, some of its genes were directly used on species that didn't require much melee combat, such as swarm hosts and infestors, resulting in a significant strengthening of their defense and regenerative abilities.
Some locusts developed squid-limb variants, which are currently undergoing combat testing. If they prove effective, corresponding modifications might be immediately applied to certain swarm hosts and deployed to new battlefields.
As for other applications, that would have to wait for the brain bugs to decide.
After all, the Zerg's current genes were already excellent, though "excellent" didn't necessarily mean they were incredibly powerful. In truth, the Zerg could already give birth to even more powerful insect species, but why weren't they producing them? The reason was cost-effectiveness; if the same amount of resources could produce low-tier insects that could overwhelm multiple high-tier insects produced with those same resources, then such an action would be inefficient.
In the future, when the Swarm possessed its own high-end forces that were both resource-efficient and powerful, it would be different, but for now, it was clearly unnecessary.
...
City states region, western lakeshore.
Splash—
As one zergling after another poked its head out, the gnolls fleeing along the shore immediately let out screams of terror.
In fact, they had just suffered a massive defeat in the north. The Swarm emerging from the water had pursued them all the way, causing tens of thousands of gnolls to die unnatural deaths in a short time.
The surviving gnoll chieftains immediately led the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled, along with their defeated remnants, fleeing toward the south.
At this point, they already knew that the tribes on the opposite shore had suffered heavy losses due to battles with the Zerg and humans.
They just hadn't expected those creatures to actually swim across the vast waters and appear right before them.
Fleeing all the way south, they thought they would be safe for a while, but they never expected the insects to arrive again so quickly.
As one zergling after another came ashore, quickly spreading across the entire beach, the gnolls were instantly spooked and began running in groups toward the land to the east.
Unfortunately, it was useless. Once the number of zerglings on the shore reached over a thousand, the charge began.
At that moment, hydralisks also began to emerge from the water, firing powerful spines toward the area.
Boom!
Boom! Boom!
Life was incredibly fragile. The Swarm quickly engulfed thousands of gnolls as a continuous stream of zerglings emerged from the water, launching a charge along the entire lakeshore. They quickly formed several spearhead formations, cutting off and surrounding the chaotic gnoll creatures.
After a meat-grinder battle that lasted over twenty minutes, the insects, which had reached over 3,000 units on land, began their assault toward the interior.
The beasts deep in the ancient forests and the city states nestled between them would all become their targets.
These terrifying creatures galloped across the land, creating a safe environment for the queens and drones that landed afterward.
Not long after, massive creep tumors were dropped onto the land. The eerie and horrifying creep swallowed the soil, eventually growing into tender green grass.
No one could have imagined that beneath the blades of grass lay surging flesh and colonies of fungi.
...
City states territory.
Following the fall of Lope City, the leaders of several city states had migrated their populations all the way to the Heart-Seeping Valley region, over 300 kilometers away.
A city even more magnificent than those of the past stood here.
However, everyone knew that this city alone could not possibly stop those terrifying creatures.
“Quick, quick, move faster!”
The crowd surged into the city.
More refugees were still arriving in lines.
Rate on N.U.
