Elite Unit

Agatha's grafting process went off without a hitch. After all, grafting and repair were routine matters for high-tier zerg units; even though the Fission Pool had only just been established, it handled them with ease.

The Dragon Lion, on the other hand, proved troublesome. The zerg had never truly encountered an extraordinary power like the "soul," and knew little of its relationship to nerves and genes. None of their measures could be perfectly executed.

The Dragon Lion even woke several times. If not for the Overmind's currently available psionic power being at level eight, allowing him to suppress its consciousness again and again, they would inevitably have had to fight the Dragon Lion once more in the heart of the creep.

Only after working through the entire night did the larva finally become fully compatible with the Dragon Lion's central nervous system, gaining a certain degree of ability to influence its soul.

Only then did the Dragon Lion settle down once more.

Sitting cross-legged on the edge of the Fission Pool, the Overmind furrowed his brow slightly as he considered how the swarm could wield an extraordinary power like the soul.

To let a wooden bow unleash the power of an anti-aircraft cannon... just thinking about it made him salivate.

Unfortunately, units with powerful souls were far too rare. The swarm possessed too few samples—nowhere near enough to support experimentation.

Life force, or rather, the power of nature, was not nearly as troublesome. Even ancient trees whose souls were so faint as to be nearly undetectable—or which had no souls at all—could possess immense vitality.

Life force and the power of nature were different. According to Elar's explanation, life force was a pure, universal power: the manifestation of a living being's biological activity. The power of nature, however, arose from the elves' path of nature and was a power with particular inclinations.

By analogy, life force was equivalent to void energy, while the power of nature was equivalent to psionic power. Depending on the school, the power of nature could be divided into the Guardian school's power of nature, the Nature school's power of nature, the Feral school's power of nature... much like psionic power could be divided into void psionic power, hive psionic power, and purified psionic power based on different refining methods.

Perhaps he could build a specialized Evolution Chamber to experiment with and fine-tune biological structures related to life force.

Though research into Elar's body had yet to begin, biological tissues closely associated with "life force" had already been identified within him. These could serve as a benchmark for collecting "essence" from ancient trees and magical beasts.

But just after issuing orders to the worker drones to collect essence, the Overmind suddenly paused.

Even without Agatha whispering "Incubation complete~" in his ear, he sensed the birth of new individuals from the perspective of the hive mind—the first batch of Zerglings had been born.

Zerglings were not particularly large units. Including their tails, they were less than two meters long, roughly the size of a "large dog." Five Zerglings together did not even weigh as much as a single worker drone.

Combined with the Hatchery's continued growth underground and the Zerglings' tendency to hatch as twins from a single egg, this one batch produced more than four thousand Zerglings.

They were currently pouring out wave after wave from dozens of exits around the Hatchery, making clattering, chittering noises.

He finally had a respectable fighting force under his command.

Hm?

Observing the Zerglings from both the hive mind and the physical world, the Overmind suddenly froze.

He rose from the edge of the Fission Pool and beckoned. A Zergling noticeably larger than the rest of its kind bolted out from the crowd, something still chewing in its mouth. It looked like the severed limb of another Zergling.

The Overmind immediately recognized it as the twin that had hatched from the same egg. Unfortunately, it had lost the competition for nutrients to its sibling. Not only was it undersized, but it had been born dead—and its brother had wasted no time biting into it.

In truth, Zerglings resembled dinosaurs more than dogs. Their bodies were supported by two powerful hind legs, while their forelimbs and the pair of auxiliary limbs on their backs had evolved into scythe-like weapons. Their huge, blood-filled mouths were packed with fine, sharp teeth, and two straight horns jutted forward from either side of their cheeks—the same kind as Arrow Gulls. And because too many "weapons" had grown on the front half of their bodies, they had no choice but to develop long, heavy tails to serve as counterweights.

Compared with ordinary Zerglings, this one clearly possessed an unusual "arc of light." Not only was it far larger than the others, but the red glow in its eyes was also more conspicuous.

He hadn't expected an elite unit to emerge as well.

This was also one of the swarm's incubation mechanisms. There were always units that were more compatible with the hive mind from the moment of their birth. Psionic power became deeply involved in every biological activity throughout their development, making them stronger, tougher, and capable of bearing greater amounts of psionic power.

For example, Raptor among ordinary Zerglings; intelligent broodmothers such as Zagara and Niadra among ordinary Queens; and the Leviathan serving as the Queen of Blades' flagship among ordinary Leviathans...

Theoretically, if materials such as urajium and Terrazine, which naturally contained void energy, could be used as catalysts, the swarm could even mass-produce such elite units in a targeted manner. Unfortunately, the swarm had yet to find any similar minerals.

The Overmind reached out and stroked the elite Zergling's forehead.

Once he made up his mind, rows of piled-up sacs not far away burst open one after another. Driven by adrenaline that nearly made their blood vessels explode, sixteen boar-type aberrant combat forms instantly awakened.

At their head was the first aberrant combat form the Overmind had ever fine-tuned: the Four-Fang Boar. It was also the sole survivor among the first batch of boar-type aberrant combat forms under his command.

Having participated in nearly every battle the swarm had faced so far, its gene chain was close to collapse, even though it was forcibly put into hibernation after every battle.

The Overmind decided that once this battle ended, regardless of victory or defeat, he would upload its DNA to the swarm's gene bank as a memento.

Yes, having authority meant he could do whatever he wanted—even if, after a few more swarm iterations, such useless genes would simply be discarded.

The Overmind remembered clearly that when he had first fine-tuned the Four-Fang Boar, Agatha had given it the generous evaluation that "seven or eight working together might possibly defeat a single Zergling."

Since he was testing an elite Zergling now, the Overmind simply doubled the number: sixteen. Any more would have been pointless. The boars' size was what it was, and there was a limit to how many boars a Zergling could face at once.

Because the Fission Pool was occupied by the Dragon Lion, the wound on the head of the Overlord the Overmind had possessed last time had yet to be repaired. He found another Overlord to command the boars' side instead.

Calling over his throne, the Overmind stepped onto it and turned to sit down. Looking at the two sides poised for battle, he felt as though something was missing.

Probably because Agatha was not around. Without an adjutant to watch the show with him and provide commentary, he felt somewhat unaccustomed to it.

After a moment's thought, the Overmind linked up through the hive mind and shared the Overlord's field of vision with Elar.

"Elf, watch a gladiatorial match with me."

Because the Overlord had deliberately positioned its vision to block him, Elar could not see the Overmind's true body.

Elar was not under control at the moment, nor did he show the slightest sign of yielding to the Overmind.

Still, he did not entirely reject the Overmind's proposal. Through the tendrils in his brain, the Overmind could sense that Elar had already directed part of his attention toward the visual information...