However, considering their situation, the three of them knew they had no choice.
Thus, the senior swordsman was the first to pick up the bowl, drinking it with grim determination.
“Ugh...”
He nearly gagged.
“Good. You may leave,” Xia Jin said with a slight nod.
The two beside him watched him. After waiting half a minute to confirm there was no poison, they also drank the liquid.
The young mage then asked in a small voice, “Can we really leave now?”
“Yes,” Xia Jin nodded.
Inwardly, however, she was scoffing. If only it were that easy for you to leave.
As expected...
Only a few minutes after they left the hive area, they felt a wave of dizziness and lost consciousness one after another.
“Adding Zerg paralyzing toxins to the nutrient solution was a good idea.”
Xia Jin immediately summoned an infestor and pointed at the two men. “Infect them.”
A moment later, the terrifying infestor approached the two and released strange toxins into their bodies.
Before long, the two men were completely controlled. They curled into balls and were swallowed into the infestor's body.
They could be released at any time to be sent out as combat units whenever needed.
“It seems controlling individuals who are weaker than me and unconscious is relatively easy.”
However, Xia Jin also noticed that there was a limit to infection; generally, two individuals were the maximum per infestor.
“Now for this girl.”
She was dragged directly into the hive for Assimilation Transformation.
After consuming a small amount of energy, the girl was integrated into the mental network.
Xia Jin focused her senses and could even tell what the girl was thinking.
Due to the interference of the swarm's will, the girl's loyalty had already reached sixty to seventy percent.
In thirty days at most, this person would completely become a part of the Zerg.
Yes, it was just that ridiculous.
“It's a pity that Assimilation Transformation also consumes resources. It can probably only be used to train spies.”
In terms of pure combat, other races were fundamentally inferior to the Zerg.
With this upgrade, the swarm would achieve a massive leap in combat power.
The first step would be the total conquest of the Goblin Kingdom.
Afterward, she would use the resources of the city states to rapidly mass-produce units and then wage war against the Kingdom of Clear.
With this in mind, Xia Jin began queueing upgrades for the Tier 3 zerglings and Tier 4 hydralisks.
At her current level, she could refine 2,000 Zerg units for upgrades per day.
In terms of production, a LV5 hive could hatch 12 Zerg units per hour.
Of course, she couldn't ensure every hive reached LV5 at this stage, so she could produce weaker versions from Tier 4 hives first and then bring them to the main hive for upgrades.
Relying solely on the hives' speed, she could only produce 864 Zerg units a day.
However, Xia Jin had now accumulated 10 queens.
Relying on the eggs they produced, she could add an extra 30 units per hour.
In other words, over 1,500 new Zerg units could be born each day, all Tier 4 or higher.
Considering that her capacity for military expansion had strengthened and her resources had increased, Xia Jin felt she could expand her production capacity further. She needed to produce at least 2,400 new Zerg units a day to be satisfied.
“The speed of military expansion must match the speed of resource collection.”
Thus, on the following day, the swarm began its upgrades.
Including the new production, by the next day, Xia Jin had over 3,000 Tier 4 zerglings and 600 Tier 5 hydralisks.
She also produced about 100 banelings.
The reason she didn't overproduce them was that these units were single-use consumables. Unless facing an exceptionally strong enemy, there was no need to use them. The current 100 were just for emergencies.
“I'll produce 100 lurkers as well.”
The lethality of their long-range underground piercing attacks against land armies was absolutely terrifying.
She immediately tested the first lurker she produced. In a 500-meter straight line in front of the monster, blood-red blades over ten meters long erupted from the ground.
The zergling used as a test subject was instantly skewered through.
One could only imagine the devastating effect a cross-fire network formed by just 10 lurkers would have on an enemy army.
“That should be enough. I can partially replace the units at the Goblin Kingdom now.”
Xia Jin immediately deployed 120 Zerg squads there and rotated the 120 unupgraded squads back.
When the goblins saw a group of Zerg withdrawing, they thought the swarm was retreating.
They launched an offensive on the scale of a ten-thousand-man legion, deploying every catapult they could muster for the attack.
For a moment, thirty to forty massive boulders flew through the air, blotting out the sky and causing a bit of trouble for the swarm.
But...
Less than half an hour later, as the new batch of Zerg units filled the ranks, Xia Jin immediately launched a counterattack.
1,000 zerglings led the charge, diving straight from the flanks and crashing into the unprepared goblin formation.
The acid from the 200 Tier 5 hydralisks didn't just corrode; it exploded upon impact, splashing across a ten-meter radius. Its corrosive efficiency was more than double what it had been before.
When a Tier 4 goblin officer was killed instantly, these unfortunate creatures finally seemed to realize something and immediately fell into a state of collapse.
Following that, over 3,000 Zerg units split into several small legions, weaving through, cutting off, surrounding, and annihilating the goblin army. In just one short hour, six goblin legions were wiped out.
Thirty thousand goblins were reduced to corpses.
Rate on N.U.
