What appeared on the screen was not a technological creation, but a creature of bizarre appearance.
Its lower half was plump and somewhat rounded, with its body covered in countless long tentacles.
“What... is that?”
The woman... the one who had been playing the role of the Goddess of Dawn, stared at the screen with a blank expression.
What kind of creature could fly in space and launch attacks from such a distance?
One of the men suddenly thought of something, his face turning pale. “Could it be the Zerg?”
“What?”
In an instant, the people present descended into panic.
The Zerg had appeared out of nowhere, growing stronger bit by bit, their numbers seemingly coming from nowhere.
They were clearly similar to the demons that had once invaded this world—of unknown origin and fraught with danger.
Boom!
Just as everyone was feeling uneasy, a violent tremor shook the vessel.
The massive impact sent the few people inside stumbling as the interior swayed.
From a distance, one side of the fat rocket was struck by green plasma. The exploding liquid caused a section of the hull to detonate.
The outer shell was breached, and a passive force field shield activated. Unfortunately, with a lack of energy, it was crushed almost instantly.
“They can't even fight back. Hmm... this ship is quite valuable. In that case, I should seize it and take a look.”
The Small Leviathan approached its target.
After ten minutes of flight, the distance closed. A side hatch opened, and several Devourers flew out into space.
Two elf bugs were carried by the Devourers toward the target's hull.
Arriving at a hatch, the elf bugs gave a light hop and entered the interior.
Although there was no air in space and the radiation was intense, it wasn't impossible for the current Zerg to survive.
After entering, the elf bug moved toward a side door.
She raised her bow and fired an arrow, destroying the door. A powerful gust of air rushed out as the pressure dropped.
She stepped inside and continued deeper.
Moving further in, she reached the innermost door. Through a translucent wall, she saw the scene inside.
Corpses.
Clearly, the ruptured hatch had caused the air to leak out. The people inside had been exposed to the vacuum and were all dead.
“How tragic.”
Xia Jin, witnessing this through the elf bug's vision, could only sigh in lament.
The drones that followed immediately picked up the corpses and devoured them on the spot.
The elf bug walked around the compartments and confirmed that most of the ship's functions were still intact.
“Judging by the technology, it seems relatively primitive. Under normal circumstances, it would be extremely difficult for a civilization at this level to fly to a neighboring planetary system. Their presence here suggests they must have encountered something unusual,” Brain Bug No. 1 explained.
“So, shall we salvage it? How should we handle it afterward?” Xia Jin asked.
“We can try to analyze the technology. It might provide inspiration for our genetic evolution.”
Under the elf bugs' operations, the fat rocket was hitched to the back of the Small Leviathan and began its journey toward Insect Guard 1.
The greatest risk had been eliminated.
From now on, Insect Guard 1 would undoubtedly serve as the springboard for the Zerg's outward expansion. Of course, before that, they needed to develop all the exploitable planets within the Insecta Solar System.
“I need to allocate some resources to produce more queens.”
The rate of creep spreading had to be accelerated.
Fortunately, there were already quite a few queens and Overlords. Most areas of Insect Guard 1 had already been covered in creep during this time.
It was estimated that it would be completely finished in five days at most.
As for the spreading speed on the home planet, it wasn't particularly fast.
Xia Jin's idea was that since the home planet was the Zerg's home, it still needed to look beautiful.
While the creep expanded, the environment would be preserved, with its appearance modified to look no different from normal vegetation.
Of course, if one were to dig beneath the surface, they would see viscous, fleshy matter.
But that didn't matter.
The energy of the creep itself could be transmitted over long distances through the Swarm network. Although instantaneous, the energy would still attenuate if the distance was too great.
The best solution was to establish at least one Hive on every planet.
And the Hive Carrier would undoubtedly be the core of the Swarm in the future.
They held the entire genetic reserve of the Zerg, allowing any single unit to hatch an entire Swarm from scratch.
In the early stages, space vessels were primarily leviathans. However, as combat ships, the number of insects they could transport was limited until they reached a certain size.
Relying solely on these to launch insects would likely result in their forces being exhausted before the enemy was even defeated. Therefore, the idea of modifying large Floating Hive Bugs into space escorts or transport ships should be put on the agenda as soon as possible.
“I'll leave this task to you,” Xia Jin said, handing it over to Brain Bug No. 1 without hesitation.
“Understood.”
Despite handling so many things at once, Brain Bug No. 1 still managed it with ease. It truly lived up to its role as the current brain of the Zerg.
Of course, the current primal brain bugs were also much more formidable than in the past. While the number of insects one could command remained at ten million, their rank had increased, their psionic strength had grown, and their control over details had become much finer.
Rate on N.U.
