Not long after, with the burst of a cocoon, the first roach was born.
Xia Jin was very satisfied to see this creature with its spiked carapace and sturdy, slightly goofy appearance before her.
At 3.5 meters long and just over 2 meters tall, it was large, but not excessively so when put into perspective.
Since the upgraded zerglings had been reduced to a height slightly under 2 meters, the roach was significantly larger by comparison.
Xia Jin had the roach swing its scythes.
Whoosh... whoosh...
The movements were so fast they were difficult for an ordinary person to track.
“Not bad.”
In terms of melee, it seemed to surpass the zerglings.
Indeed, it was a tier higher and consumed much more energy. It would be disappointing if such an expense didn't yield appropriate power.
After letting the roach run around for a bit, Xia Jin had it spit a mouthful of acid at a large rock in the distance.
Sizzle...
In an instant, the massive rock and the earth beneath it were corroded. Within seconds, a shallow pit appeared in the ground.
The pit was over 3 meters in diameter, filled with liquid bubbling with green gas.
Even after the initial corrosive force was spent, anyone jumping into it would still suffer damage similar to being soaked in concentrated sulfuric acid.
Splat...
Two more bursts followed as the second roach and a swarm host were born in succession.
In reality, the production speed of roaches was far higher than the latter.
By simple time calculation, about five roaches could be produced in the time it took for a single swarm host to hatch.
This one was much more imposing in height, standing at least five or six meters tall, with a very distinctive, massive mushroom-like cap on its back.
However, looking through the eyes of a few insects that had climbed to the top of the Zerg Hive, once she saw the pitted, uneven shape on its back, Xia Jin still felt an indescribable sense of discomfort.
“Sure enough, my trypophobia hasn't been completely cured.”
Seeing it in person was a completely different experience from seeing pictures.
Xia Jin stroked her chin and closed her eyes, her consciousness quickly sweeping through the entire Swarm until her gaze settled on the gnoll front.
At this stage, the battle on the front line had actually reached a bit of a stalemate.
The number of reinforcements sent by the Swarm hadn't increased significantly. Although many gnoll tribes had been wiped out, they still only represented a small fraction of the entire Clearwillow Lake coast.
Right now, provoked by the Swarm's actions, the gnolls were on high alert and had even clashed with human forces from various surrounding factions.
This way, they might end up fighting on all fronts.
If that happened, Xia Jin wouldn't need to waste too much energy here and could focus on the war with the kingdom.
At this moment, most of her insects were actually in the Border Forest, the vast territory west of the Glowing Forest, where they had come into conflict with several newly encountered magic beast kings.
The insects were no longer what they used to be. Upon meeting these kings of the outer regions, they crushed their morale immediately.
Many kings hadn't even figured out what was happening.
Out of nowhere, an army of tens of thousands of insects had come like an overwhelming tide, slaughtering their subjects.
While this slaughter was cruel, it wasn't rare in this forest.
In fact, these were the rules of the Border Forest and the rules among magic beasts.
As long as you beat your opponent into submission, you could occupy their territory.
“For now, I can continue to reduce the number of insects in the main force. Hmm, I'll produce a batch of swarm hosts specifically for the gnoll front and hatch a large number of locusts to support them.”
A single swarm host cost 2,800 units of ordinary energy.
The first batch would be 100 units.
280,000 units of ordinary energy... the consumption of high-tier insects was truly terrifying.
This also explained why the Swarm desperately developed low-cost cannon fodder.
A zergling cost only 50 units. It took more than 50 of them to match the cost of a single swarm host.
Of course... it couldn't be viewed quite like that.
In the long run, as long as the swarm host didn't die, the number of locusts it produced would be astronomical, eventually grinding down those zerglings by sheer force of numbers.
With her command, the swarm hosts finally began to hatch in large numbers.
The process was a bit slow.
The first one had already begun heading toward the target area.
Though its pace was slow, its sheer size meant that if it traveled day and night, it would arrive by the next day.
An hour later, through the vision of a zergling, Xia Jin saw the creature's back burst with a bang, ejecting 20 sacs covered in green slime onto the ground.
The sacs trembled for a moment before bursting open to reveal the locusts inside.
The appearance of these locusts was somewhat hideous, with a plump, rounded feel. Their black carapaces shimmered with a faint red hue, and the weapons on either side of their front were sharp, hooked spines, providing strong melee capabilities.
Of course, these locusts primarily relied on spitting damaging saliva to attack. Combining melee and ranged capabilities allowed them to contend with some weaker Tier 2 creatures.
The locusts were only a meter long and could unfold wings from their backs to jump high with the help of air currents, though they preferred to crawl on the ground most of the time.
As they were rapidly catalyzed, they would exhaust their lifespans within three days, making them an excellent choice to be thrown into battle as cannon fodder.
Once these 20 locusts hatched, they immediately overtook their mother at a much faster speed and headed for the shores of Clearwillow Lake.
By the next morning, the first batch of 20 locusts had arrived on the scene.
Following them, more and more locusts arrived in succession.
Before long, all 100 swarm hosts had been born.
With a daily production of 48,000 locusts, even if they were all only Tier 1, it would be quite a handful for the gnolls.
Rate on N.U.
