Biological Carrier

“The Empire is more formidable than I imagined. Why haven't they just steamrolled the continent?”

Filled with doubt, Xia Jin slowly made her way to the south of Kelu alongside an elf bug.

Unfortunately, due to her current identity, she couldn't directly enter the Empire's borders.

She realized that the enemies she would face in the future were no longer on the same level as a mere kingdom. If she wanted to establish an advantage in intelligence, she would need to use some special methods.

After consulting with the brain bug, the Zerg ultimately adopted a new method of biological intelligence gathering.

This involved producing Zerg units that mimicked the appearance of mosquitoes, flies, ants, and fleas, then deploying them on a massive scale into the Empire's territory.

Of course, these creatures wouldn't be able to infiltrate areas protected by magic arrays, but spreading them through towns and villages would be relatively easy. With enough numbers, they would eventually gather all the useful intelligence needed.

Naturally, these ordinary biological insects couldn't be produced through the standard larva-to-cocoon process. Brain Bug No. 1 spent a long time working on it and finally created a specialized operations swarm.

【Scout Bug: A specialized insect evolved from the drone's appearance. Tier 4. It is roughly the same size as a drone but lacks combat capability. Its body contains a massive reproductive chamber that can continuously produce four types of small insects: mosquitoes, flies, ants, and beetles. Each of these insects is synchronized with the Swarm network, allowing the information they gather to be summarized and processed by the Scout Bug's brain.】

The cost of this creature was not low because the tiny insects produced within its body were extremely precise. Consequently, both its production and subsequent maintenance costs far exceeded those of most other Zerg units.

However, the demand for these Scout Bugs was small. Dropping just a few in different locations to multiply stealthily would be enough to spread an entire intelligence network.

After the birth of this new species, Xia Jin also began focusing on the primary units for future naval warfare.

【Carrier Bug: A Tier 6 giant aquatic platform insect. It is 180 meters long and 25 meters wide, with an appearance similar to a ship. By naval standards, its standard weight can reach 13,000 tons. The creature's exterior mimics a ship's hull, and it moves forward by expelling a powerful jet of air from its rear, reaching speeds of up to 30 knots. This creature lacks combat power but possesses high defensive capabilities and can sustain long-range travel. It can carry at least 2,000 scourges or several hundred mutalisks. It is equipped with 20 hydralisk spine launch slots, each containing 6 launch ports. Each port can fire anti-air spines into the sky up to 3,000 meters at a rate of one spine per second.】

Although it was nowhere near as large as a true aircraft carrier, this was undoubtedly the largest Zerg organism to date.

Every possible corner had been cut to save resources, yet the cost of building even one at this size was staggering.

In truth, Xia Jin had initially thought it unnecessary to waste so many resources on such a thing. After all, relying on the Kingdom's craftsmen to build small boats could also provide platforms for flying Zerg units.

However, small boats were indeed too fragile and slow. Adding magic devices or producing jet-propulsion bugs for them wasn't cost-effective. Building a large Carrier Bug was much more stable than messing around with hundreds of small boats.

Xia Jin's final decision was to combine the two approaches. The Carrier Bug would ensure capacity, defense, and speed.

As for ordinary wooden boats, she wouldn't bother with jet-propulsion bugs; they would rely on manual rowing. Those over 30 meters could consider magic propulsion or insect propulsion. These would serve merely as maritime platforms to act as takeoff points for air raids.

Given the Empire's level of development, once their magic technology advanced, their navy and air force would certainly be powerful. Scourges were low-tier units and wouldn't have an advantage without overwhelming numbers.

And mutalisks would undoubtedly be the mainstay of future air combat.

As the first Carrier Bug—a creature utilizing genes from many massive biological species—began production, Xia Jin watched as her stored energy reserves were visibly drained by a significant margin.

“So expensive... 2 million units of standard energy.”

After all, it was a biological mass weighing over ten thousand tons.

No matter how much she saved on every ton, the physical Zerg flesh was still real. Not to mention that to ensure uniform Tier 6 defense and chitinous shell reinforcement in certain areas, 2 million units of energy was already the absolute minimum compression.

If converted into an equivalent weight of zerglings, it would be equal to over 20,000 units, costing over 3 million units of standard energy (with a current zergling weighing 450 kilograms).

And the zergling was currently the lowest-cost Zerg unit (excluding locusts).

Of course, this creature's anti-air capabilities were minimal at best. 120 spines per second sounded like a lot, but they wouldn't necessarily be accurate against high-speed enemies flying at high altitudes. Unless the opponents were Falcon Knights flying at low altitudes, its utility was limited.

But from Xia Jin's perspective, this was already a massive leap forward for the Zerg.

Even if they became stronger in the future, the Carrier Bug could continue to evolve or be recycled into resources, wasting nothing.

...

A larva had already formed a cocoon and begun to absorb energy, pulsing as it expanded.

Naval development was slow, and the same was true for the newly developing Swarm.

Two days later, through Xia Jin's deep investigation of the Kelu region, she confirmed that the Empire had deep trade ties with countries on the other side of the ocean.

A massive number of ships were launched every year, and they improved with each passing year.

The Empire had even fought multiple wars with nations from other continents to seize maritime supremacy.

As for the Empire's land borders, they weren't entirely secure either. To their south lived a very troublesome enemy—the demons.