Sub-dimension

Spider Cave.

The Zerglings were locked in fierce combat with a swarm of head-sized spiders... or rather, slaughter would have been a more fitting word.

Though cave spiders were smaller than jungle spiders, they had reached the level of magical beasts. Their strength, agility, and venom far surpassed those giant spiders. Yet to Zerglings, they were still hardly worth mentioning.

The spiders' venomous fangs could not even pierce the Zerglings' carapaces. On the front line, Zerglings were slaughtering spiders at a rate of nearly six per second.

The Dragon Dog's killing speed was even more outrageous.

To put it this way, when the Overlord was commanding, most of its attention went toward restraining the Dragon Dog's movements, preventing it from charging too far ahead and leaving the main force behind.

Severed limbs, bodily fluids, and shattered carapaces flew everywhere. The spiders at the front desperately retreated, while those in the rear that had yet to face the Zerglings surged forward. The spiders crowded together in a mass.

The only thing capable of affecting the Zerglings was the webbing that covered nearly every inch of the cave walls.

The spider silk possessed unbelievable stickiness and elasticity. Even after a Zergling had run more than ten meters away, the threads—originally as thick as a little finger—would stretch until they were as thin as hair, yet still cling tightly to its body.

The range of a Zergling's limbs was not enough to tear apart the webbing. Thus, while the restraint caused by a single strand was negligible compared to a Zergling's muscular strength, layer upon layer of webbing still limited their movements to a certain extent.

And whenever some Zerglings became separated from the group because webbing blocked their vision or slowed their movements, they would suddenly come under attack.

Something would pierce their carapaces, inject them with digestive fluid, and corrode them to death from within.

Several dead Zerglings had fallen this way.

Clearly, there were enemies in the cave besides the small spiders.

Because of its size, the Overlord could not enter the cave. Explosive Infested lacked the Zerglings' powerful muscles and would be restrained by the webbing. Everything known about the cave's interior came from the Zerglings' senses.

None of the attacked Zerglings had managed to spot their assailants. It was estimated that, apart from the Dragon Dog, no one present had the ability to detect them...

The Overmind attached his consciousness to a Zergling, intending to use it as bait and observe the attackers' true forms.

Thus, the Zergling, already at the back of the formation, paused briefly before putting on a show. It rubbed its eyes with its forelimbs, struggling in an exaggerated manner as if to say, "Oh no, I can't see~," while conveniently tangling more webbing around itself.

Even without the Overmind deliberately drawing upon it, Swarm units possessed by the Overmind would experience an increase in psionic energy. Though it was not enough to affect others' minds, it enhanced the Zergling's senses and neural reactions.

At that moment, the Overmind could clearly sense something lurking in the darkness quietly approaching from directly ahead.

Squelch—

A black shadow flashed, and a pair of sharp pincer-stingers thrust out from the darkness, viciously stabbing into the abdomen of a Zergling beside the Overmind.

The Zergling possessed by the Overmind stared brightly at its unlucky companion beside it. Good grief, after all that acting I did...

"Kreee—" The Zergling began screeching madly. Zerglings were known for their streamlined bodies; their regenerative abilities were not particularly remarkable, nor did they possess redundant organs for increased endurance. The only thing worth praising was their highly developed adrenal glands, which allowed them to retain plenty of vigor to screech and struggle right up until they died completely...

Unfortunately, those lurking monsters were even more vigilant than the Overmind had imagined. The Zergling screamed for over ten minutes, yet they never launched a second ambush.

His consciousness returned to his main body, and the Overmind stroked his chin in thought. He really had discovered something.

Just now, his psionic energy had been stirred.

The essence of psionic energy was void energy drawn into reality from "beyond the world" by the will of living beings. Thus, psionic energy was not merely a power inclined toward the mind; it also had a close connection to space.

In the Overmind's psionic perception just now, the instant the attacker's pincers appeared felt very similar to void energy entering the real world.

Hiding in another dimension? That's a little troublesome.

However, since his psionic energy reacted when they appeared, it meant that if the Zerglings' bodies were filled with psionic energy, they could detect the creatures the instant they ambushed them.

Just then, the Dragon Dog, which had been fighting amid the sea of spiders at the very front, suddenly paused. After biting down on a spider lunging at it, it withdrew.

It chewed twice, then ignored the spider legs caught between its teeth and suddenly threw back its head with a piercing shriek. "Cha—"

Along with the roar, psionic energy burst from the Dragon Dog's body, using physical space as an anchor to pour from the will of the Swarm into every Zergling present.

All the surrounding Zerglings seemed to go mad. Their speed and strength increased dramatically, and with their metabolism accelerated, they even broke free of the webbing much faster.

The frontline, whose advance had slowed after the Dragon Dog retreated, immediately began pushing forward at an even faster pace.

Shriek was a skill possessed by nearly all Zerg units with elite templates.

Psionic energy had participated in every stage of the Dragon Dog's cellular development. In turn, this meant that psionic energy passing through its body had extremely strong compatibility with units that shared its genetic expression.

Put simply: it could consume psionic energy to temporarily enhance the cellular activity of nearby Zerglings.

This was also the only way the Dragon Dog could use psionic energy—it was not, after all, a psionic unit, nor did it possess much complex thought. It would have great difficulty learning technical abilities such as mind reading, psionic lashing, or energy backlash.

The Overmind's original intention in having the Dragon Dog use Shriek was to temporarily grant all the Zerglings psionic energy and improve their neural reactions, allowing them to better guard against the ambushers lurking in the darkness.

But this unexpectedly brought an additional gain.

The fluctuations of spatial traversal came again. Three spiders slightly larger than Zerglings, their bodies marked with white stripes, sprang from shadows in different directions and rushed straight toward the Dragon Dog.

Clearly, if the Dragon Dog was merely charging into battle, even if its killing efficiency was four or five times that of other Zerglings, these spiders did not care much. But once the Dragon Dog displayed the strategic ability to enhance other Zerglings, the spiders hidden in the shadows could no longer remain still.

Ordinary Zerglings might not be able to detect the White-Striped Spiders' attacks, but that did not mean the Dragon Dog could not.

With one claw each, it pinned two White-Striped Spiders to the ground. Then it opened its mouth with a crunch and bit off one White-Striped Spider's head.

The third spider, which had attacked from behind, suddenly froze in place. A dim red light spilled from its eight eyes, and its body became as motionless as if it had been turned to stone.

The Dragon Dog slowly turned its head as it chewed the spider brain in its mouth. Its left eye emitted the same radiance now shining from the White-Striped Spider's eyes—the Dragon Dog could not use psionic energy for complex operations, but the Overmind could. Moreover, elite units' exceptionally high psionic capacity made them highly suitable vessels for the Overmind's will.

The Overmind did not allow the Dragon Dog to eat the immobilized White-Striped Spider as well. Instead, he sent over a dozen Zerglings to remove its eight limbs and venomous fangs, then escort it all the way back through the cave.

The Overmind was very interested in this method of traversing dimensions.

In the Koprulu Sector, for an individual unit to Blink even once, it not only needed special attributes and psionic power of at least level nine, but also specialized equipment for assistance. To this day, only some Protoss had mastered personal teleportation without relying on large-scale equipment.

Yet this spider, with a soul strength of merely level five, could travel through a subdimension. It was impossible to tell whether it possessed an extremely complex body structure by nature, or whether spatial warping was simply easier in this world...

Right, he could ask Elar. He couldn't forget that the Swarm had such an advisor.

Just as the Overmind tried to package the White-Striped Spider's information and send it to Elar, the Dragon Dog suddenly let out two low snarls.

Red light began to seep out from beneath the gaps in the Dragon Dog's carapace and scales. This was the sign of a Zergling evolving after absorbing external genes. The White-Striped Spider it had just eaten had clearly taken effect.

Before long, several petal-like white markings appeared between the Dragon Dog's brows.

Through possession, the Overmind discovered that the Dragon Dog seemed to have gained a new set of senses. It could vaguely detect creatures hidden within deeper shadows...

The Overmind took another look at the Dragon Dog's genetic chain, more or less ruling out the possibility that the White-Striped Spider's ability to pass through subdimensions relied on a complex body structure.

If nothing had gone wrong, this world's space was like a torn sack. Even without the White-Striped Spider's genes, once the Evolution Chamber unlocked the high-frequency filament glands unique to Eyeworms or Spore Crawlers, it would likely be able to uncover the secrets of the subdimension.

Although the Dragon Dog, now possessing subdimensional vision, was still far from being able to travel through subdimensions, its physical abilities vastly surpassed those of the White-Striped Spider. That alone was enough to counter them.

In any case, the Dragon Dog had evolved again. It was now a "Dragonkin · Subdimensional Carapace · Four Fangs · Zergling"...