A Commander?

Another day passed.

“What's the date today?”

Xia Jin rubbed her forehead in confusion.

Living like a savage, she had completely lost track of the date.

However, it didn't seem to matter. Once the war ended, she could just make the year the Zerg unified the planet Year One.

Over the past two days, the fleet had only encountered the navy of some unknown country. For intelligence security, the bugs had immediately moved to annihilate them.

Afterward, the fleet continued sailing for another day and a half. The combat vessels positioned to the southeast discovered an Imperial griffin knight eight hundred kilometers away.

A battle ensued.

Of course, since there were only two scourges, the griffin easily dealt with them.

That griffin didn't flee to report back, however. Instead, curious about the situation, it actually approached the Zerg fleet, closing the distance by two hundred kilometers.

Since it wasn't flying particularly fast, this gave Xia Jin enough time to immediately dispatch hundreds of scourges and four mutalisks. In a single wave, they killed the Tier 8 griffin, sending the knight on its back plummeting toward the water.

The bugs captured the knight alive and brought him back to the Zerg fleet.

Dangled by the scourges throughout the flight, suspended in mid-air and buffeted by the howling winds, the knight looked on helplessly.

He was clever; he knew he could kill the bugs carrying him in a single strike, but if he did, he would likely die instantly himself.

Not wishing to experience a meaningless death, he remained quiet, watching with his own eyes as the scourges flew him along.

Before long, a combat fleet consisting of three Carrier Bugs, over a dozen Escort Carrier Bugs, and twenty Kingdom-produced vessels came into view.

A portion of the scourges landed on top of the Carrier Bugs.

Having seen the Zerg's massive ships with his own eyes, the knight frowned.

He realized that these ships were already comparable in tonnage to the Empire's capital ships.

Although the Dawn Empire's carriers were enormous, they were designed to launch magic planes and required long decks.

But the Zerg were entirely biological. Even small vessels could exert their full combat potential.

The knight had originally thought he would be dropped onto one of the ships below, but he soon realized that wasn't the case.

As they slowly flew over the massive hulls, seeing them covered in bugs and the scourges taking off from time to time to scout the surroundings, his heart grew heavy.

Even a foreign race possessed the carrier tactics that the Dawn Empire's navy had painstakingly researched.

He noticed that the smaller ships nearby were equipped with anti-aircraft weapons in addition to launching scourges.

Two of the ships even had strange iron tubes mounted on them.

Just as he was wondering what those iron tubes were, a sudden burst of fire filled the air. A long bug shaped like a rocket spat out a tail flame from one of the tubes, letting out a piercing whistle as it soared toward the southeast.

“Hiss—a rocket bug?”

The knight's eyes widened.

How was this possible? Why would a living creature evolve into such a form?

He was certain he hadn't misseen it. That creature... really looked like a shell, and it even had two eyes that were darting around.

He strained his neck to look back, only to see the rocket bug quickly receding into the distance. A few kilometers away, it collided with a black speck that looked like a magic plane.

At the final moment, the magic plane clearly attempted an evasive maneuver, but the Zerg rocket bug made a turn in advance, tracing a white arc through the sky.

After the explosion, the plane was blown to pieces.

There was no parachuting. Because of the reliability of magic planes and the historical lack of any significant aerial threats, the Empire hadn't even considered things like emergency parachutes for air crashes.

Therefore, being destroyed was practically synonymous with death.

“I must not be dreaming.” After a long silence, the knight covered his face with his hand.

They had already left the Zerg fleet he had seen earlier; he didn't know where he was being taken.

Until twenty minutes later, a dense fleet numbering in the thousands appeared before him.

The combat vessels of this fleet were mostly distributed around the perimeter, and for the most part, they were small ships with a tonnage of only a few hundred tons.

The center consisted mainly of simple iron-clad ships and wooden vessels. Such ships were usually only seen among the civilians of those backward northern countries.

But now, these ships of various sizes were sailing in an orderly fashion, covered in powerful bugs.

In the sky, as far as the eye could see, at least hundreds of scourges were on patrol, with naturally even more in the distance.

He gradually began to realize something.

“This fleet doesn't seem to have much combat power, whereas the previous one did. Looking at it this way, the combat fleet from before must be the escort for this fleet?”

With the escort fleet so far away, could there be more than one? Perhaps they formed a circle, surrounding this main force in the middle.

Seeing this terrifying scale, the knight truly broke into a cold sweat. Were these the bugs heading to support the East Continent?

Just as he was thinking this, the scourges holding him descended.

On a small ship only forty meters long, the man was tossed down heavily.

A girl in a skirt and white silks sat on a chair.

“Mm, he's here?”

The girl yawned and gave him a serious look. “A Tier 8 knight, huh? That's quite rare.”

The Tier 8 knight remained silent.

The moment he saw the girl, he was truly stunned, his heart skipping a beat.

Pure and beautiful, with youthful legs, surrounded by a swarm of creatures bowing in submission... such a being... was a commander?