Submerging

After selling the luxury goods from the ships and loading the cannons along with a hundred boxes of shells, Xia Jin and her party departed.

Before leaving, however, she took a tour of the local city to gauge the state of the country.

Despite its proximity to the Empire, its level of development was far inferior to that of the Kingdom of Clear.

Imported goods were reserved for the upper class, while the living standards of the commoners were quite low. It was nothing like the Kingdom, where even those at the bottom could manage several dishes for a single meal.

Of course, both nations practiced slavery, so the lives of the slaves at the very bottom were tragic regardless of where they were.

Once the ships set sail, the soldiers on board began to study the few cannons they had acquired.

Naturally, no one expected these men to truly grasp the weapons' full potential; the primary goal was to bring them back, fire them at the bugs, and test their actual effectiveness.

If possible, it would be best for the Kingdom to learn the technology behind them.

Once they mastered it, Xia Jin would order the Kingdom's workers to replicate the cannons.

Given their power, bringing some to the front lines to serve as long range fire support during battle would be a good way to bolster their numbers.

After all, while the Zerg reproduced quickly, their development time had been far too short. Native nations had heritages spanning thousands of years or more. If they were to reveal some sort of ultimate weapon and her side was unprepared, they would suffer for it.

...

It took the fleet a full day to return to the shores of Clearwillow Lake.

To speed up navigation, large groups of zerglings began digging into the river channel, widening it enough for larger ships to pass through.

One sample of each cannon type was delivered to the Kingdom's technical department for research, while the rest were hauled to an open field to be fired at the bugs to test their specific destructive power.

At roughly the same time, on the West Coast, the Zerg had seized the initiative in the underwater battle.

Over the course of nearly 24 hours, more than 576,000 locusts had been deployed into the water, along with 100,000 Swimmers. Additionally, at Xia Jin's direction, 200 Floating Hive Bugs had been produced to assist in carrying the Swimmers and enhancing long range firepower.

A scale like this had completely dazed the shrimp soldiers and crab generals.

By this morning, faced with the ubiquitous, seemingly endless locust attacks and the continuous barrage of exploding needles from a distance, the Sea Race vanguard had been utterly routed. Under the constant contamination of venom, this stretch of sea had become extremely unsuitable for the Sea Race's survival.

Even the sharkmen, who possessed high poison resistance, were forced to retreat under these conditions.

They roughly estimated that the shrimpmen had left 150,000 corpses on the front line, while the crabmen had lost over 60,000. Furthermore, several thousand sharkmen who had arrived as reinforcements midway through were also nearly all dead after being targeted by concentrated attacks.

As they retreated, the high density of locusts in the area began to spread out in all directions.

Although the locusts had suffered losses of about 200,000, the remaining numbers were even greater.

Added to this were the 170,000 Swimmers deployed over the past day. Aside from the 60,000 or so lost during the initial disadvantageous state, they had only lost about 20,000 more in the time that followed.

This meant that 90,000 Swimmers were still capable of combat.

90,000 Tier 4 units, and elite ones at that—once this torrent broke through the enemy's defense line, the enemy's collapse became inevitable.

However, at Xia Jin's request, the Swarm's advance was steady and cautious.

The ocean was a three dimensional battlefield. Although the number of bugs in the water seemed large, they were actually quite small compared to the boundless sea.

Therefore, they had to hold every direction and advance steadily during their expansion.

One of Xia Jin's projections stayed here almost constantly, snacking on crab meat whenever she was idle.

By now, a control zone 20 kilometers long and nearly 6 kilometers deep had been established along the coast. Feeling that the situation was stable enough, she stood up, patted her dress, and walked to the water's edge.

Splash!

She jumped in.

A Floating Hive Bug was already waiting for her.

An opening appeared, and she slipped inside.

"Good heavens."

She saw the interior immediately—it was filled with fleshy bits everywhere. Touching them gave her a strangely peculiar sensation.

After being carried for several kilometers by the creature, Xia Jin swam out and floated in the water, looking toward the battlefield ahead.

Bugs were moving back and forth, many of them locusts carrying corpses.

Squads of Swimmers would fire exploding needles from a distance as soon as they spotted an enemy.

In reality, the needles did not travel very far.

After observing for a while, she could not help but ask, "Can we make the exploding needles act like torpedoes, so they can propel themselves forward automatically?"

Brain Bug No. 1 responded directly: "It is possible, but doing so would require increasing the needle's size, turning it from a needle into a rod. This is not very cost effective and does not match the current Swimmers. I suggest diverging a specialized type of Swimmer, specifically gene modding a projectile similar to a biological torpedo. However, the number of such projectiles a Swimmer can carry will be significantly reduced, and the larger the projectile, the less its relative power per unit of mass."

"Find the value that offers the best cost performance, if necessary."

"Yes!"