Expansion on the Sea

“It is all over.”

At the large table, the silver white haired girl closed the document and handed it to the elf bug beside her.

It was all just a formality.

Given the Zerg way of doing things, they would still purge anyone harboring thoughts of resistance.

Of course, they would also attempt to modify individuals of value to easily acquire all their genes.

Research on mages would continue, and perhaps in the future, more detailed information could be obtained from people like the Great Sage.

However, for now, the Zerg did not intend to modify anyone whose strength exceeded Tier 10, except for those like the Magic Beast King.

This was mainly because any resistance during the modification process would be troublesome; if a low tier hive were damaged, the loss would be significant.

At this moment, the main Swarm forces on the two fronts had been completely liberated. Xia Jin only left behind brood lord and swarm host units to produce insects to suppress riots.

A few cheap zerglings and some scourges were left in various regions to deal with emergencies, serving as local garrisons.

And as before, in some sparsely populated rural areas or mountain ranges, bandits with powerful martial force could still be seen.

These guys were the primary targets for the Zerg to eliminate. Xia Jin wished there were more rebels so she could take action against them.

With the war on land over, Xia Jin began to shift the focus of combat to the seabed.

Currently, the Swimmers were only Tier 4 and very weak. Although they were numerous, they could only resist enemies in coastal areas and found it difficult to enter the deep sea on a large scale.

The same was true for the Floating Hive Bug. Although their firepower was fierce and far exceeded their tier, their strength remained insufficient against the powerful Sea Race.

During the period of fighting the magic beasts and the Empire, the Zerg had been deploying about 200,000 aquatic organisms every day. In a head on confrontation, they would have long been unable to defeat the increasingly strong enemies. But by relying on weapons like torpedo bugs and exploding needles to create saturation bombardment, the enemies had never been able to do much against the Zerg.

In fact, the Swimmers fought very cautiously, turning the war into a bullet hell game, except the Zerg were the ones firing the barrage. If the enemy lacked long range attack methods, then even approaching the bugs was extremely difficult. They would be covered by attacks flying from all directions throughout the process, and they would be hit if they were not careful.

And as long as one shot landed and their movement was affected, they could be continuously hit by subsequent attacks.

The sea areas where the Zerg fought had become heavily polluted due to the constant secretion of venom. The Sea Race fighting here naturally suffered from a pathetic negative debuff.

Now that the Zerg land war had ended, Xia Jin began considering modifying the two current aquatic species to create a stronger one based on them.

Ultimately, she decided to completely phase out the Carrier Bug and Escort Carrier Bug, and instead modify and strengthen the Floating Hive Bug.

She finally developed a large Floating Hive Bug that reached Tier 8.

They were giant underwater carriers. Besides being able to carry and produce Swimmers, they also had a large number of torpedo bug launch slots in the front.

The new torpedo bugs incorporated the advantages of the rocket bugs from the land war, greatly strengthening their firepower. A single shot posed a fatal threat to Tier 8 and Tier 9 powerhouses, making them no worse than land weapons.

However, there was a drawback underwater: no matter what, the forward speed of these torpedoes was not very fast.

But as long as saturation bombardment was used, enemies who were equally inflexible underwater would find it difficult to dodge.

Once she had the large Floating Hive Bugs, Xia Jin began mass producing the new insects.

Each new Floating Hive Bug was a powerful production unit. To some extent, they relieved the production pressure on the main hive. By producing larvae inside them to hatch Swimmers, they saved a significant amount of main hive resources.

After the new insects were researched, Xia Jin began mass production.

The best part was that although the new Floating Hive Bug was larger than the original, it was not by much. According to Brain Bug No. 1, in the near future, this kind of bug had the potential to fly into space and become a small escort ship.

Especially at this stage, the front of this type of bug was equipped with a large amount of detection equipment. They used psionic scanning underwater to achieve the goal of discovering enemies from a distance. If this function were brought into space, it could be further enhanced, making it a prototype for future reconnaissance ships.

With the investment of massive resources, the daily production of Swimmers reached 3 million on that day alone. Combined with the production of Floating Hive Bugs, the total resources consumed were less than 1.5 million units of high energy crystals, which was 150 million units of standard energy in the past.

This result undoubtedly made Xia Jin feel excited.

The Zerg today were truly not what they used to be. With a production speed of millions of bugs a day, no matter how strong the Sea Race was, the Swarm could easily defeat them with its current scale alone.

The cost effectiveness of the Swimmers had reached the limit for an underwater Swarm. Xia Jin did not even need to consider producing stronger bugs to completely handle the battles on the seabed.

Not to mention, the new Floating Hive Bug was already capable of defeating Sea Race members above Tier 10 with its powerful firepower. Currently, those fighting the Zerg were all shrimp soldiers and crab generals, at most at the level of sharkmen, with even those above Tier 9 being pitifully few.

On the fourth day after the new bugs were developed, the Zerg navy reached 10 million. Countless bugs launched an all out offensive on the seabed. Compared to the past, the Zerg no longer needed to consume larvae to produce Swimmers, greatly increasing efficiency.

“It seems the rapid end of the underwater battles is inevitable. At our current speed, we can simultaneously attack the East Sea and the Great West Sea, bringing all the world's oceans under our control,” Brain Bug No. 1 said.

“True. Now I can focus my main energy on the demons. I thought it would take much longer. Now I have quite a bit of confidence in invading the Abyss. Compared to a month ago, the Zerg are truly invincible now. So, from now on, let's gradually increase our investment in the Abyss. We will start by sending 200,000 bugs over there.”

She did not dare send too many; a large number would easily be noticed by the major factions among the Abyss demons. The Swarm currently being sent was mainly to control the area around the portal. Having a basic base would make subsequent matters easier to handle.

Not long after Xia Jin made this decision, the bugs arrived in front of the only current portal.

Of course, this small device's efficiency was far too low. To speed things up, the Swarm began expanding into the surrounding areas, gradually seizing every portal they could find.

The Zerg learned how to open the portals from the mages in the occupied areas and then had the elf bugs complete the task.