The Swarm is Upgrading

Compared to ordinary bugs, the Leviathan has another advantage: its self healing ability is extremely strong. Its thick, powerful shell provides incredible protection, which is exactly why this creature can fight enemy fleets in space.

Of course, with a cost of 100 million units of high energy crystals—equivalent to 10 billion units of the old standard energy—one can only say it truly is an interstellar creature. This price is practically beyond consideration during the planetary stage unless resources are exceptionally abundant.

In contrast, the cost to upgrade the Hive is much lower, requiring only 1 billion units of standard energy, which is about 10 million units of high energy crystals.

This amount of resources could be supplied by the magic beasts in just a single day.

She also noticed that reaching the Hive Carrier stage required at least a Level 12 Hive.

Unlike the Leviathan, which can only produce a few types of bugs, the Hive Carrier retains all the functions of a Hive.

In fact, those 1 billion units of standard energy simply added interstellar adaptation and space flight capabilities, though its flight speed is inferior to that of a Small Leviathan.

But this was within expectations. A Hive Carrier is not suited for personal combat on the front lines; for the Zerg, it is more like a mobile home base.

“Time to upgrade today.”

With this wave, the entire Swarm gained space adaptation. Although it was only the most basic level, it meant they could permanently leave the planetary environment and survive in the harsh vacuum of space.

After waiting for half a day, Xia Jin saved up 1 billion units within the Hive and began its evolution.

Once the evolution was complete, she would not be in a hurry to let the Hive take flight. Instead, she planned to spend some time upgrading the entire existing Swarm.

This process would take about two or three days.

Reality was indeed different from fantasy; any species had to obey the basic laws of the universe, such as the conservation of energy and energy transfer. Otherwise, it would have been wonderful to instantly distribute billions of units of energy to complete a collective evolution.

But looking at it another way, if the Zerg could not do it, then other swarms certainly could not either.

Furthermore, just because high speed evolution was impossible now did not mean it would be impossible in the future.

Her true body floated in the water, watching with her own eyes as this massive Hive began to undergo some external changes.

First, the sanity draining fleshy arms slowly retracted, and many of the fleshy areas on the surface grew hard shells.

The overall shape became something like an ellipsoidal shuttle, slightly flattened, resembling a common warship. The shells on both sides could extend into wing like shapes to assist in atmospheric flight. While in space, these wings could be retracted.

The Hive Carrier currently possessed no firepower; even the original massive spines had disappeared. However, Xia Jin noticed that several special openings had appeared at the front that were currently vacant. She suspected that if the Hive continued to upgrade, these would become launch tubes for some kind of device.

Additionally, the Hive Carrier at this stage had no energy shield, but Xia Jin discovered that its shell was covered in a thin layer of luminescence. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was actually magic power.

“I see. If magic shields can be used on elf bugs, they can naturally be used on the carrier as well.”

This kind of shield was actually quite fragile; otherwise, it would be impossible to provide to ordinary units.

The reason it was used on the elf bugs was primarily because their natural defense was too low.

But because the carrier was so massive, the strength of the magic shield would be much higher. Its purpose was to ensure that the shell would not be damaged when the Hive encountered dangerous meteorites in the sky.

And if it encountered enemy fire, the magic shield would first form a buffer layer, greatly weakening the power of the attack so that the shell would not be directly destroyed upon impact.

This modification did not last many minutes. When it ended, the Hive had already become a Hive Carrier.

A biomass fusion organ had already formed within its interior.

It could only be described as miraculous. It was generally believed that biological life was composed mainly of organic matter, but within this biological organ, metallic substances seemed to be used to form a powerful internal magnetic field to constrain nuclear fusion.

Yes, a creature capable of performing fusion within its own body.

Before Xia Jin transmigrated, humans on Earth had not yet fully mastered controllable nuclear fusion technology.

“Upgrade complete. We will prepare for liftoff after a short wait.”

Massive numbers of bugs lined up to jump into Clearwillow Lake for their upgrades.

The first wave to upgrade were the aerial bugs. Once finished, they flew directly into the southern skies to suppress the Dawn Empire's air force.

In fact, with the Empire's current strength, they were already unable to let any aerial units break through to the skies above Clearwillow Lake. Therefore, they had no way of seeing the scene of the Swarm lining up to enter and leave the lake.

Three days later, the entire Swarm had finished upgrading.

Tier 6 locusts began to replace Tier 5, but this upgrade for the brood lords did not make the broodlings any stronger; the evolution itself seemed to only unilaterally increase the strength of the brood lords themselves.

After three days, the Hive Carrier started its engines and slowly surfaced.

Relying on the powerful propulsion of ultra high temperatures, the moment it suspended above the water, the biological vector nozzles at its rear erupted with blinding blue light. The carrier then accelerated and surged toward the sky.