Chapter 250: Chapter 155: Sneaking Underground, a Bizarre Journey into the Hive
They stealthily followed the Tiger Spine Zerg Swarm from dozens of meters away.
As the patrol route extended deeper underground, Lin Feng and Ling Yi grew increasingly expectant.
Soon, after the group had descended two hundred meters underground, a Tier Two Hive finally appeared before them.
When the Tier Two Tiger Spine Zerg patrol squad suddenly halted, the group immediately dropped to the ground, hiding amongst the Red-Armored Beetle Swarm to carefully observe the scene in the distance.
Some kind of phosphorescent slime mold grew on the nearby cave walls. Its eerie green glow, like will-o’-the-wisps of white phosphorus burning in a graveyard, illuminated the pitch-black underground tunnel.
Although the light was dim, all ten of them were Tier Two Awakeners and could naturally see with perfect clarity.
At the Hive entrance not far away, two pairs of Giant Mandibles poked out and made contact with the patrolling Tiger Spine Zerg Swarm.
It was as if they were exchanging an intimate greeting.
This was how they exchanged information, using the pheromone-releasing organs beneath their Giant Mandibles to confirm the surrounding area was safe.
Every Tier Two Hive had its own dedicated guards.
The deeper they went, the tighter the Zerg Race’s security became.
After the two sides finished exchanging information and the patrolling Tier Two Tiger Spine Zerg Swarm departed, the group, led by Ling Yi, continued forward, keeping their heads down to avoid being discovered by the Tiger Spine Zerg guards hidden on either side of the entrance.
After passing the entrance while crouched and hidden within the Red-Armored Beetle Swarm, Lin Feng reached out and put a hand on Ling Yi’s shoulder.
She turned around and saw Lin Feng gesturing with his hands, asking if this was the objective of their mission.
Lin Feng had used his Mind Sensing to detect an immense light source within this Second-Level Hive.
It was just like the last time they had entered a Hive through the Biological Melting Furnace at the Riverfront shipyard.
The Second-Level Hive also contained a massive biological factory, which registered in Lin Feng’s mind via his Mind Sensing as a vast, bright light source.
This meant it contained an extremely high amount of Life Energy.
However, Ling Yi simply shook her head.
Then, she continued forward.
Only after they were nearly a hundred meters from the Hive’s entrance did she finally speak to the others in a low voice.
"There aren’t any Tier Two Zerg Eggs in there. It’s a centralized hatchery for Tier One Zerg Eggs."
"Basketball-sized Zerg Eggs, gestated inside the Mother Empress, are sent to the Hatching Nest. With sufficient food, it only takes about three to four days for a Tier One Early Stage Black Spine Zerg to be born."
"Because this is a catalyzed, accelerated growth process, the Biological Nest requires a high-temperature, high-heat environment to complete the metamorphosis from Zerg Egg to adult so quickly."
"A single Hatching Nest incubates nearly ten thousand Black Spine Zergs at once, maturing a third of them each day. And an ordinary Swarm contains about a dozen such Second-Level Hives."
Lin Feng’s expression turned grave, and the others behind him were utterly horrified. Such a rapid hatching speed, combined with the total number being incubated at any given moment...
The war potential of a single Mother Empress in the Zerg Race was greater than that of a mid-sized nation on Blue Star.
’No wonder it always feels like we can never kill all the Low-tier Zerg Race.’
Seeing their reactions, Ling Yi shrugged and continued her explanation.
"Although a Tier Three Early-stage Zerg Race Mother Empress can lay one Tier One Zerg Egg every second, not every egg will successfully develop into an adult."
"After culling the weak with insufficient innate abilities, as well as some mutated or deformed rejects, only about sixty percent of the Zerg Eggs grow into Tier One Early Stage Black Spine Zergs."
"So the Zerg Race’s active screening and culling process begins right from gestation. Though the Low-tier Zerg Race may lack intelligence, they offer absolute obedience."
"This quality makes them several times stronger than ordinary human armies. A large-scale rout will never happen unless the Mother Empress is already dead."
As she spoke, the Red-Armored Beetle Swarm around them continued its advance, the chaotic SCRITTERING of their legs masking Ling Yi’s quiet explanation.
After hearing her first few sentences, Lin Feng fell into deep thought.
He was assessing the overall strength of the Zerg Race under the command of a Tier Three Early-stage Mother Empress.
As a Mother Empress Avatar, the intelligence Ling Yi provided was undoubtedly the most accurate.
Based on that, one Zerg Egg per second meant about eighty-six thousand a day. Even with only a 60% success rate, it would still produce over fifty thousand Tier One Black Spine Zergs after three or four days.
This was the maximum output of an ordinary Swarm.
However, a Zerg Race Mother Empress generally wouldn’t focus all her resources on hatching larvae, so most Low Tier Zerg Eggs weren’t incubated to completion right away.
Ling Yi had mentioned before that a Tier Three Early-Stage Perfection Mother Empress, a level 33, could control about two hundred thousand Low-tier Zerg Race.
Factoring in the attention diverted by the Tier Two Tiger Spine Zerg Swarm, the scale of a Low-tier Zerg Swarm was usually maintained at just over one hundred thousand.
A Zerg Race Mother Empress was like a massive computer, maintaining the Swarm’s expansion while also allocating appropriate processing power to every part of her brood.
From that perspective, each Hatching Nest could produce about three to four thousand Black Spine Zergs a day, for a total of forty to fifty thousand.
This meant that in a single day, the Zerg Race could instantly swell their Swarm’s numbers by 50%.
It was just as Ling Yi had described before.
A Tier Three Mid-Stage Perfection Mother Empress, a level 36, could command a Low-tier Zerg Swarm of six to seven hundred thousand, and after a burst of production, could expand it to a million strong within a single day!
As long as they successfully defeated an enemy and plundered their biological resources, this rapid reinforcement could continue indefinitely.
And if the battle dragged into a second day, they would have reinforced their numbers by 100% of their initial strength!
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