Cost-Effectiveness

“As expected of magic beasts. With these numbers, it seems my sea of insects can only brute-force its way through by matching their numbers,” Xia Jin whispered as she observed the combat bug swarm on the front lines, which now exceeded 3.5 million units.

What did the magic beasts have left to fight with? After seven days of battle, the scale of the Zerg had actually increased by a million.

The current production rate of insects was indeed lower than before the upgrade, but now every unit started at Tier 9. Facing an endless horizon of Tier 9 creatures, the mythic magic beast side could feel nothing but despair.

...

The core region of the Border Forest.

“We have already lost nearly half?”

In just one short week, the first battle report he received was this news, leaving the Magic Beast King in stunned silence.

“With these numbers, even if I personally take action, it might not mean much.”

Tier 13 powerhouses were strong and could face many Tier 12 opponents at once, but against millions of high-tier insects, even they could not do much.

The Zerg were simply too powerful.

“How many more reinforcements do they have? They have been sending more creatures into the forest constantly over the last few days, but they can't be infinite, can they?” the Magic Beast King asked.

“Perhaps... it is unlikely,” the Tier 12 mythic king replied uncertainly.

There were truly too many, and he suspected there were even more behind them.

Among them, two Zerg groups were pushing forward with incredible momentum.

One consisted of 500,000 combat bugs, and the other of 200,000 combat bugs.

Both were accompanied by massive numbers of locusts. Positioned 300 kilometers apart, they were attempting to execute a massive encirclement on the southern offensive line.

This pincer movement, which was highly effective on open plains, posed an extreme threat to the magic beasts. They realized this and, two days ago, dispatched three million magic beasts at any cost to assault the 200,000-unit force. They successfully cut off the insects' retreat and trapped them in a pocket to be hammered.

However, even then, the enemy managed to break through.

Although fewer than 50,000 insects eventually escaped—meaning 150,000 combat bugs were wiped out along with 500,000 to 600,000 locusts—the magic beasts also lost nearly a million units.

“Every victory requires a staggering price.”

This was the current situation for the magic beasts.

Facing a strike force of 500,000 was enough to drive most low-tier magic beasts to despair.

Clearly, the mythic kings were now inclined to treat low-tier magic beasts as fodder for the enemy's fodder. However, in terms of long-range firepower, the Zerg held an absolute advantage.

If it were just long-range units like hydralisks and ravagers, their numbers certainly couldn't match the millions of long-range magic units the magic beasts possessed.

But they had far too many rocket bugs.

The elves no longer risked going to the front lines with their bows. Instead, they hid dozens of kilometers away, pushing unicycles. They could kill massive swathes of enemies without ever coming face-to-face with a magic beast.

The fires caused by the explosions turned the entire front line into a living hell.

“Rouse all the kings who are just lying around. Anyone who doesn't join will regret it,” the Magic Beast King said grimly.

“Very well.”

The Tier 12 mythic king nodded and left in silence.

Sure enough, a day later, the magic beasts launched an unprecedented grand counteroffensive.

The total scale reached 100 million.

Several armies of ten million pierced deep into the heartland of the Zerg lines. Relying on sheer numbers, they formed a massive encirclement, trapping over two million combat bugs and six million locusts in a pocket.

Due to the sheer numbers, the Zerg found that they didn't have enough rocket bugs and missile bugs.

Heavy cannon bugs, being expensive units, had not been deployed in large numbers and were not committed heavily to this sector.

Inside the encirclement, the primal brain bug commanded every single insect to resist to the death.

This tragic battle lasted for three full days. In the end, the 8 million insects were devoured until nothing remained by over 50 million magic beasts.

Although Xia Jin found the losses absurd, when she calculated the exchange ratio, the magic beasts' performance was a complete mess. Their final losses reached a staggering 13 million.

She didn't know what the enemy commander was thinking, but Xia Jin was watching the whole thing with the mindset of someone watching a movie.

The battlefield was simply too magnificent.

The fighting over these few days had clearly caused Zerg losses to exceed their production speed, but the calculation wasn't too outrageous.

After the two million combat bugs were wiped out, another 800,000 were immediately sent up from the rear.

And during those three days, over 8 million locusts had been continuously supplied to the front.

Considering that the front lines were like a bottomless pit, Xia Jin preferred to reduce the number of combat bugs produced over the last few days in favor of producing more swarm hosts and brood lords.

She produced 300 brood lords at once, even though their unit price was as high as 300,000 units.

These 300 units could provide an average of 180,000 Tier 7 broodlings every hour.

Because these broodlings could fly, they greatly reduced the pressure on the air force when fighting magic beasts.

Of course, compared to the sky, the main battlefield was still on the ground. In the air, the broodlings' performance was actually quite poor, so they couldn't be overly relied upon.

Under full-load production, after one day, these brood lords alone could produce as many as 4.32 million Tier 7 broodlings.

The unit cost for these broodlings worked out to be... approximately 1 unit of standard energy each.

Yes, with only 4.32 million units of standard energy per day, 300 brood lords could maintain full production. They were truly the king of cost-effectiveness.

However, the drawback was obvious: they had a lifespan of only one hour. They were produced solely to be sent to their deaths.