One week later...
Perhaps the expansion had been too frenzied. Over the past week, thanks to the absurd strength of the Swarm, the combat bugs fighting in the outer regions had suffered almost no losses to their main force. Instead, it was the suicidal locusts charging at the very front that took heavy casualties.
However, the low cost of the locusts meant that the actual resource consumption of this war was incredibly low. On the most ridiculous day, the bugs killed over 10 million various creatures. Most of these were wild beasts from the forest's ecosystem, with magic beasts only accounting for about twenty percent.
Of course, when converted into biological energy, it averaged out to about 1 billion per day.
Naturally, that alone was already terrifying.
Xia Jin's Swarm size had remained at its original level during this time, basically replenishing whatever was lost. The energy gained daily from the creep was no longer as significant as the energy brought in by the Swarm's slaughter.
Combined with the energy harvested from the war with the Dawn Empire, the battle in the Border Forest, the fighting on the West Continent, and the various battlefields and creep, the daily increase reached 1.1 billion units of standard energy.
It was still a bit far from the 20 billion required for the next level of the Hive.
As for mithril, through scouring the entire Clearwillow Lake and the occupied areas, the resources obtained were barely enough for the next level.
The amount needed for subsequent upgrades would be difficult to manage. Perhaps it could only be obtained when she was close to global unification.
The situation this week was somewhat eerie. Intelligence gathered from the Dawn Empire indicated that a more important ritual was being prepared at the Empire's statue plaza.
This time, it clearly wouldn't be as ordinary as before. It seemed their deity was preparing to send down an even more powerful being.
This gave Xia Jin a deep sense of urgency.
Driven by this pressure, more bugs were deployed to the front lines of the Border Forest.
The numbers were insane. There was no doubt that such an expansion speed would eventually attract the attention of the core region.
Fortunately, over the last two days, as they pushed deeper into the battlefield, the overall tier of the magic beasts increased. Tier 5 and Tier 6 magic beasts began to appear, and a few kings even reached Tier 7 or Tier 8.
This caused the resource harvest rate to double from the original 1 billion per day.
With more new bugs being deployed daily, the war continued for another two weeks... A massive encirclement, 300 kilometers wide, now surrounded the entire Border Forest.
The vast amount of resources finally gave the Zerg enough to upgrade.
“Good, I thought I wouldn't make it in time.”
After all, she had delayed for so long.
Hiding at the bottom of the lake, Xia Jin's true body hugged her knees and unhesitatingly ordered the Hive to upgrade.
Once the command was given, the massive Hive began to expand and surge at a speed visible to the naked eye, bit by bit.
Seeing its size about to exceed her current position, Xia Jin could only reach out and swim further away to avoid it.
Eventually, the Hive turned into an absurd thing 300 meters long, 50 meters wide, and 25 meters high.
“It's too big.”
Fortunately, Clearwillow Lake was deep enough; otherwise, it wouldn't have fit.
After the upgrade was complete, the new Hive was undoubtedly more powerful than before, and the variety of bugs it could produce had increased.
The details were as follows:
【Zerg Hive LV11】
【Recruitable (Land/Air): Tier 6 drone, Tier 6 scourge, Tier 9 zergling, Tier 9 elf bug, Tier 9 baneling, Tier 9 hydralisk, Tier 9 infestor, Tier 10 roach, Tier 10 overlord, Tier 10 ravager, Tier 10 lurker, Tier 10 swarm host (new Type II added), Tier 10 mutalisk, Tier 11 nydus worm, Tier 11 queen, Tier 11 defiler, Tier 11 ultralisk, Tier 12 primal brain bug.】
【Tier 10 devourer (evolved from mutalisk for 10,000), Tier 10 impaler (evolved from lurker for 10,000)】
【Overlord can evolve into a new species: Tier 10 overseer (costs 20,000)】
【New species added: Tier 11 corruptor, Tier 11 brood lord】
【Recruitable (Aquatic): Tier 4 swimmer (three types), Tier 5 floating hive bug, carrier bug, escort carrier bug】
【Recruitment Costs: swimmer 40 units/each, drone 60 units/each, scourge 180 units/each, zergling 800 units/each, floating hive bug 800 units/each, baneling 3,000 units/each, hydralisk 6,000 units/each, infestor 8,000 units/each, elf bug 12,000 units/each, roach 20,000 units/each, overlord 25,000 units/each, ravager 30,000 units/each, lurker 40,000 units/each, mutalisk 50,000 units/each, swarm host (Type I & II) 100,000 units/each, queen 240,000 units/each, nydus worm 200,000 units/each, defiler 240,000 units/each, corruptor 280,000 units/each, ultralisk 300,000 units/each, brood lord 300,000 units/each, primal brain bug 1,000,000 units/each, escort carrier bug 150,000 units/each, carrier bug 2,000,000 units/each.】
【Optional Evolution: Infestor and lurker genes can be merged to form a new species.】
【Zergling Evolution: Frenzy state duration extended; can be used once per day for 18 hours, providing even greater strength during combat.】
【Hive Evolution: Hive's flight capability enhanced; larva production increased to 2,000 per hour.】
【Overlord Evolution: Overlord size increased to 30 meters in height, allowing it to carry more bugs.】
【Ultralisk Evolution: Ultralisk size increased to 20 meters in height with a stronger structure.】
【Swarm Host Evolution: Locusts produced by swarm hosts upgraded from Tier 4 to Tier 5; cost per batch (20 units) increased from 4 to 5 units of standard energy.】
【Elf Bug Reinforcement: Magic arrow power, penetration, and range increased.】
【Upgrade Cost: 60 billion units of standard energy, 80 million units of high-energy crystals, 10,000 units of mithril, 200 billion tons of minerals.】
【Description: A nascent Zerg Hive. Although it has evolved, it remains very primitive; it is the reproductive center of the Swarm that replaces the Queen.】
...
“It seems almost everything has been tiered up... no, wait, the mutalisk hasn't.”
Looking at it this way, it was extremely formidable.
Even the scourge had been promoted from Tier 5 to Tier 6.
But the consequence of the tier increase was a massive surge in required resources.
Fortunately, the current consumption was still primarily standard energy.
“Let me see the specifics this time.”
The option that confused her was the merging of the infestor and the lurker.
It cost roughly 42,000 units to produce a bug with merged genes. Its size was slightly larger than a lurker, and it could perfectly integrate all the functions and strengths of both bugs.
Xia Jin checked: an infestor was 8,000 units, and a lurker was 40,000 units.
In the merged state, it seemed the total cost was 6,000 less.
Moreover, it felt like the one-plus-one effect would definitely be greater than two. It could use infestation and parasitic combat up close and fire spines from afar. She didn't think twice and immediately agreed.
【Merged into infested lurker.】
“What a plain and simple name.”
The new bug looked like a fused version of the two creatures, but its versatile combat power satisfied Xia Jin immensely.
After all, while specialized bugs were powerful, they could be very useless in their areas of weakness.
For instance, a ground-attack creature with no anti-air capability would be completely at the mercy of aerial enemies.
This was something Xia Jin disliked very much.
And the two new bugs that appeared this time were exactly what she needed.
The corruptor was very large, with a head so hideous she didn't know how to describe it—somewhat rounded, with a tail that was a bunch of things like octopus tentacles. It could fly in the sky.
Describing it as a flying octopus wouldn't be an exaggeration.
This creature could only attack air targets. It was the Swarm's aerial ace. It could spray attacks containing super strong acid and parasitic spores, causing heavy corrosion to warships.
“But come to think of it, the Zerg's attack methods are really singular.”
It was always spores, viruses, and strong acid. Xia Jin was speechless.
But at this stage of gene unlocking, as long as it worked, it was fine.
The best part about the corruptor was that it could breed scourges inside its body. It could hatch 2 of them every 10 minutes using its own energy. Of course, since it really wasn't suited for ground targets, using the scourges against the ground would be redundant. Perhaps they could be used as a powerful anti-air supplement.
“The current scourges are too weak; maybe they'll be stronger in the future.”
The next was the brood lord.
This was a flying creature resembling a flying fish. Its massive mouth was terrifying; when opened, it revealed several rings of spines, looking very much like the mouth of the Slit-Mouthed Woman from some people's nightmares.
Brood lords actually had no direct attack power, but they could continuously hatch an incredible number of broodlings.
The current speed was 10 every minute.
A broodling was a creature even smaller than a locust. Its lifespan was very short, lasting only a day, but its combat style was even more frenzied than a locust's, fighting to the death against any enemy.
Broodlings could also fly and fight on the ground. They had wings and were relatively fast, focusing on melee combat.
According to the brain bug, a single broodling's combat power could reach the peak of Tier 7.
Therefore, if one were to judge its tier, it should be considered a Tier 7 bug.
In terms of production cost, a batch of 10 broodlings cost only 10 units of standard energy.
They were practically free.
It was probably because they were so energy-efficient that they were so cheap. This kind of creature was only suitable for mass production right before a battle; its preparation time was even lower than a locust's.
The brood lord itself wasn't strong in combat, meaning it couldn't personally go to the front lines, but its advantage was its production speed.
Hatching 600 per hour justified its expensive cost.
Furthermore, according to the brain bug, this was only the hatching speed for the newly born version. In the future, as the Hive upgraded further, the brood lord's production speed would only get faster.
Rate on N.U.
