Twisted Node

The creep wrapped layer after layer around the Spider Matriarch, yet showed no intention of killing it.

This was a spider capable of mass-producing magical beasts. Killing it outright would be far too wasteful.

The Overmind intended to strip away its ability to move, suppress its neural activity, and maximize its reproductive capacity. It would turn the creature into a living "building" that could continuously produce aberrant combat organisms for the Swarm, or even further-modified spider units.

Of course, the Spider Matriarch was an epic species, but not the kind of epic species that dragons were. Its race did not possess the innate talent to reach the epic rank upon adulthood; it was merely one of the very few exceptional individuals among its kind. Thus, the Overmind had no intention of incorporating the species known as Demonized Spiders into the Zerg genetic chain and turning them into true Zerg units.

Unless it captured another epic-grade Spider Matriarch, the Overmind would not construct a second "spider nest."

The battle had largely entered its final stages. The other Lesser Spider Matriarchs were dealt with one after another, while all surviving Long-Legged Giant Spiders had already been infected. The bottom of the shaft, along with more than a hundred meters of rock walls extending upward, had been covered in creep. No more Zerglings were dropping from above; instead, they had climbed to the entrances of every cavern connected to the shaft, where they held back and infected the spiders returning as reinforcements.

Yet the various Swarm units remained busy.

They gathered all the corpses on the battlefield and piled them in one corner at the bottom of the shaft.

Most of the corpses were infected small spiders. Some had fallen to their deaths from high above after the web spiral staircase collapsed; some had been trampled when the Zerglings dropped down and they failed to dodge in time; but most had been caught in the collateral damage and crushed when the Spider Matriarch and several Lesser Spider Matriarchs struggled under siege...

Although they had all been accidental casualties, considering the density of small spiders in the spider nest, the number of corpses was considerable—enough to nearly cover the shaft area in two layers.

Under the Overmind's command, the creep did not immediately decompose or revive these corpses, which still retained a certain degree of biological activity. It merely covered their uppermost surfaces roughly, then continued to thicken.

Then, tangled strands of mycelium rolled down from above like earth dragons.

They eventually stopped beside the pile of corpses at the bottom of the shaft, forming a smooth, irregular tumor the size of a van.

This was the "skill" Agatha had mastered: Hatch Creep Tumor.

Unlike ordinary creep nodes, Agatha's psionic energy participated throughout the entire process of the tumor's development—yes, Creep Tumors were essentially elite creep units, and they were also the only elite units in the Swarm that could be produced without requiring materials naturally containing void energy as catalysts.

Like Dragon Dogs, Creep Tumors also possessed the ability to consume psionic energy and enhance the activity of the surrounding creep.

Combined with the immense amount of nutrients brought down by the earth-dragon-like rolling mycelium just now...

The creep atop the corpse pile visibly began to thicken, differentiating into tough skin and bone armor. Empowered by psionic energy, it was nearly as thick as Hatchery-grade creep.

At the same time, a familiar psionic reaction gradually intensified, while the corpse pile rose and swelled like dough.

In the end, it formed into an enormous Many-Legged Monster with soul strength at level seven and a body comparable in size to the Spider Matriarch.

But it was restrained from the moment it was born. The carapace and thick hide differentiated from the creep bound it to its body like iron shackles.

With the support of the Creep Tumor, it was completely suppressed.

Thus, the battle came to a complete end.

Several hundred Drones slowly floated down from above the shaft. Under the Overlord's command, they scattered in all directions.

Most of the Drones floated toward the rock walls of the shaft, where they began digging and corroding the stone to widen the space, while also excavating walkways to make travel up and down easier.

One Drone floated to the center of the shaft floor, transformed into a cocoon, and began developing into a Hatchery. From this point onward, the Swarm's developmental focus would shift underground.

One Drone floated to the Spider Matriarch's location and began hatching a Spawning Pool on the spot, centered around the Spider Matriarch, to facilitate its modification.

Another Drone floated above the Many-Legged Monster and began developing in the direction of an "Extractor."

Yes, watching the organic matter reserves steadily decline, the Overmind had finally turned its claws toward these monsters that disregarded the law of conservation of energy.

In this otherworld, there were no vents endlessly spewing high-energy gas, but there were premium "mineral deposits" capable of continuously producing flesh and blood. That made the genetic-chain space occupied by the Extractor far from wasted.

In truth, for the Swarm, minerals were not better resources simply because they contained more energy.

One only needed to look at a Drone's flotation sac to understand. Zerg organs could easily create energy fields that interfered with gravity, and generating magnetic confinement fields was no great challenge either. Nuclear fusion posed no difficulty to the Zerg. Deep within the Zerg genetic chain, there was even black technology that folded in cell-level cold nuclear fusion to release energy.

Therefore, the Swarm did not lack energy. The only things limiting its expansion were raw materials and basic production capacity.

For the Swarm, the finest resources were all kinds of organic matter, such as flesh, blood, vegetation, and wood. They contained every major element needed for the Zerg to build bodies and could be directly converted into Zerg units. High-energy gas also fell into this category, as its primary components were hydrocarbons, making it nearly equivalent to organic matter.

Next came crystal minerals. These miraculous minerals contained nearly every common element, all in relatively active states that were easy to extract. The Zerg could draw carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and other major biological elements from them to construct organic bodies; humans and Protoss, meanwhile, refined metals such as iron, cobalt, and titanium from them to build starship hulls.

Lastly, there was extracting the required elements from inorganic environments—carbon dioxide, rock layers, mineral deposits, water, and the like—then synthesizing organic matter. The sources of raw materials were broad; wherever there were stones, there was practically everything the Swarm needed. But the efficiency was the lowest, and it required vast stretches of creep to serve as the foundational factories for synthesizing organic matter—The Swarm truly could chew rocks and grow flesh, but relying on rock-chewing to sustain rapid expansion was best forgotten.

Just one such soul-twisted monster, once transformed into a Twisted Node through the combination of creep and an Extractor, could produce as much organic matter as the baseline output of creep covering ten Dragon Lion Territories. This was also the confidence that allowed the Overmind to shift its developmental focus into the relatively cramped Great Labyrinth.

It was just a pity that Many-Legged Monsters could only be transformed from the corpses of sentient beings in specific areas. They could not reproduce independently, nor did they possess independent genes. Twisted Nodes could only be established through battlefield slaughter or captive breeding and slaughter; they could not be directly hatched by Drones.

No matter what, with this additional source of organic matter, the Evolution Chamber could finally be built without restraint (｀▽).

As for modifying the Spider Matriarch, that would have to wait until the underground Spawning Pool was complete.

The Overmind's consciousness returned to the body beside the cavern entrance. It turned to look at the Venom Devourer beside the throne, which had only just been completed yet had already lost its status as the "creep core" due to the establishment of the underground Hatchery.

Perfect. It could use the next few days to test an idea.

The Overmind reached out and flicked the Venom Devourer's storage sac.

A Heart Tree was formed from the most active tree in an area brimming with vitality.

If it inserted the genes of a large number of trees into a Zerg structure, causing its carapace to become woody... could it cultivate a "Heart Tree" that was, in essence, a Zerg building?