Temporary Disadvantage

The Dawn Empire's strength was indeed still very formidable.

By the second day of battle, the enemy's tactics had already shifted. They began deploying large numbers of magic planes to seize air superiority from the Swarm.

Subsequently, the enemy also began using some of their artillery for pinpoint precision strikes.

Zerg losses immediately began to mount.

However, the ubiquitous locusts, arriving at the front lines in swarms of millions, also dealt a massive blow to the enemy.

In fact, Xia Jin had considered equipping the locusts with ranged weapons, but Brain Bug No. 1 pointed out that the locusts' strength lay in their low production cost and their expendability. If these creatures were equipped with ranged weapons, the unit price for each would likely exceed 1 unit of standard energy, and their fragile bodies would be unable to carry high-intensity firepower. It simply wasn't cost-effective.

Tier 3 locusts came with their own venom. Even if they couldn't kill the enemy outright, the toxin had a weakening effect on human experts who came into skin contact with it.

Truthfully, even if these bugs were only the size of a fist, they would be deadly enough, let alone when each one was nearly a meter long.

That afternoon, six legions from the Dawn Empire arrived at the front lines.

This increased the number of enemy troops at the front by over a hundred thousand in a short period.

The addition of these hundred thousand men dealt a heavy blow to the Swarm across the hundreds of kilometers of the battlefield.

Xia Jin dispatched a large number of troops to launch heavy assaults from the flanks. Since the Empire's numbers were still relatively small, they couldn't cover the entire defense line at once. This left many areas very weak due to a lack of Imperial soldiers.

These weak points were perfect areas for Xia Jin to launch encirclement tactics or perform pincer movements to split and penetrate the enemy lines.

However, when she dispatched 20,000 main units and concentrated 200,000 locusts to encircle one of the enemy units, the battle proved exceptionally difficult.

Instead, another enemy legion launched an attack from the south of the encirclement, forcing Xia Jin's containment to collapse.

The locusts suffered heavy losses while covering the retreat of the main units, with nearly 100,000 dying in an instant.

The main units lost 5,000 bugs.

A loss of this scale was merely the result of a single battle in one sector. Despite having a tactical advantage, they were actually repelled by a mere ten thousand or so Imperial soldiers.

Xia Jin's side analyzed the reasons for the failure. First, the enemy's air superiority was too overwhelming.

The powerful air force conducted reconnaissance while fighting, identifying the movements of the ground Swarm and directing the rear artillery to provide fire coverage. Their kill rate was significantly higher than before.

Another reason was that the enemy had too many tanks and armored vehicles.

These things, which the Empire called fortress vehicles, were actually not much different from the tanks of her previous life.

When they charged in mass, especially when even a standard twelve-man squad might be accompanied by one, it could truly be called a torrent of steel.

Moreover, the people of the Dawn Empire seemed to have a particular fondness for innovation.

Multi-turret vehicles, combined wheeled-track vehicles, repair vehicles carrying only spare parts, and so on—though few in number, it was clear that the Dawn Empire was using the Zerg to test their weapon data in order to make effective improvements.

Yes, they were constantly developing their own weapons.

The problem on Xia Jin's side was that the growth of total resources was constant, but the demand for new bugs was high.

Crucial aerial units like scourges and mutalisks certainly couldn't be reduced in production; in fact, even greater numbers were needed to counter the Dawn Empire's exaggerated aerial threat.

As for the ground forces, it was impossible to produce only artillery. The result of having no melee units would be disastrous.

Locusts could only be said to draw the enemy's fire. Without the main Zerg swarm, it would be very difficult to defeat the enemy.

Because the enemy's torrent of steel was too powerful, the Zerg basically couldn't stop the enemy's impact without a large number of ultralisks. However, the cost of ultralisks was too high. Consequently, Xia Jin reduced the production of bugs like infestors and began large-scale production of Armored Heavy Cannon Bugs.

After optimization, the unit price for each Armored Heavy Cannon Bug was now lower than in the past, having been reduced to 10,000 units of standard energy.

This meant that for the price of one ultralisk, she could produce six of these bugs.

This wasn't to say that ultralisks were ineffective, but rather that they couldn't attack from a distance. In the process of charging toward the enemy, they were likely to be killed by concentrated fire.

By switching to six Armored Heavy Cannon Bugs, she could reinforce more weak areas and prevent the enemy from breaking through at certain vulnerable points.

During this battle, Xia Jin began deploying nydus worms in areas where the enemy's mage units were detected to be weak, repeatedly dropping ultralisks and large groups of roaches into the enemy's rear.

Once, a group of banelings even managed to rush out and self-destruct, catching the enemy off guard and killing over a hundred people on the spot.

The Dawn Empire was also left at its wits' end facing such elusive creatures as the nydus worms.