The Marquisate

After she dipped her foot into the green slime, it did not feel cold, but soft and warm instead. Chloe had never been one to dither once she had made a decision. Holding her breath, she submerged her entire body in the slime, head and all.

"Executor, please open your mouth and eyes. The nutrient solution is harmless. Swallow it, and you will be able to breathe," the Basic Hatchery instructed Chloe in her mind.

Following the Hatchery's instructions, Chloe began gulping down the nutrient solution until it filled her stomach. Sure enough, she could soon breathe, and she could open her eyes and see the green liquid around her clearly.

"Now please relax your mind. The transplant procedure will begin shortly."

At first, Chloe was still a little worried, afraid that some terrifying Zerg would open up her brain or something. But after she waited anxiously for quite a while, nothing happened.

Only the green nutrient solution wrapped around her as though it were alive. She felt as safe and warm as if she were in her mother's womb, and in such comfortable surroundings, Chloe soon fell asleep.

The transplant procedure really was quick. When the Basic Hatchery's voice woke Chloe, she felt as though she had only taken a short nap.

After pushing herself upright, she could distinctly feel an unusual strand of hair on her head. It could move back and forth at her command and was tougher, too. It was also an extension of her consciousness, and she could clearly feel that her mental power had grown much stronger.

After Chloe left the Hatchery Pool, the green nutrient solution on her body soon vanished, absorbed through her skin. This high-grade energy left her feeling bright and full of vigor.

After just one session lying in the Hatchery Pool, Chloe had already grown rather fond of how it felt inside. It was warm and comfortable. The clothes she wore were luxurious, high-end garments befitting her status, but their texture came nowhere close to that of the nutrient solution in the Hatchery Pool.

The transplant procedure really had not taken long, only an hour. During that time, the Basic Hatchery had continued hatching Zerglings as ordered. Their numbers had now reached three hundred, and another two hundred would bring them to the Basic Hatchery's supply limit.

Fortunately, enough biomass had already been collected. The hundred-plus newly hatched Zerglings followed Chloe out to hunt, while the Hatchery converted large quantities of magical beast carcasses into energy and began evolving into a more powerful Hatchery.

Over the next few days, Chloe led five hundred Zerglings in a sweep along the route from the depths of Death Forest to its outskirts.

Bloody hunting grounds stretched along their entire route, and the ecology of the whole forest suffered immense damage.

Such large-scale hunting also set off a chain reaction. Large numbers of magical beasts living in the forest fled to escape the Swarm's slaughter.

The Border Marquisate, right beside Death Forest, bore the brunt of the disaster as large numbers of powerful magical beasts threatened its peace and stability.

Had the Altia Empire not established the Border Marquisate specifically to guard against the magical beasts in Death Forest, the marquisate would already have been overrun.

Large numbers of villagers living near the forest moved away. They could only seek shelter near the castles and hope this beast tide would pass quickly.

Their presence left every fortress in chaos. The crowds' clamor and excrement polluted the air around the fortresses. Public order was deteriorating as well, with robbery and theft occurring repeatedly, and even murder in recent days.

Even so, the commoners refused to leave the protection of the fortresses. After all, they still had a chance of surviving nearby. Encountering the beast tide in the wilderness meant certain death.

Carl Honsos stood atop the gate tower of Guardian Fortress, gazing worriedly at everything below. The beast tide had come far too suddenly, without the slightest warning. Some of the smaller, less defensible fortresses had already been overrun.

Letters requesting aid had long since been sent to the royal capital, in the hope that support would arrive soon. Weapons, food, soldiers-any of them would do.

It was not only these immediate problems that troubled him. He was also worried about Chloe. Keluosi Nuomannuofu was the emperor's youngest daughter. Because of court struggles and that strange prophecy, she had been betrothed to him, marrying beneath her station.

The princess's beauty had soon won over Carl, the handsome young knight. He waited confidently for her eighteenth birthday and looked forward eagerly to their marriage.

Although he could sense that the princess did not care much about him, that did not matter. As long as he courted her sincerely and treated her well after they married, he believed his warmth would surely melt the ice in her heart.

When Carl's father told him that the princess had led a hundred knights deep into the forest, Carl had even had a fierce argument with him. He knew nothing of the agreement between his family and the princess. He simply felt that his father had been far too casual about it, and the princess far too willful.

Was Death Forest a place for an outing? It was a gathering place for magical beasts, a realm of death for humans.

Was Death Forest not revealing its vicious face now? This terrifying beast tide was the largest and most threatening he had ever seen, and it had done the greatest damage to the territory.

If things were already this horrific outside, Carl could hardly imagine how terrifying the situation inside the forest must be. Could the princess and her hundred-plus knights really survive in such an environment?

Carl had seen the terrible state of people killed by magical beasts. Some had been torn to pieces, others burned to charcoal by fireballs or lightning. Worst of all, some had been eaten until only a few unrecognizable remains were left.

The thought of these things happening to his beloved princess made Carl's heart hurt as though a knife had pierced it. Though he had never been religious, he went to church to worship every day, hoping his princess would return safely.

The princess he worried about, however, was not concerned with whether anyone cared about her. She was immersed in commanding the Swarm's slaughter. With her vast force of Zerglings, she had even gone looking for trouble with the giant worm that had frightened her.

The clever worm tried fighting for a while, then realized that the Zerglings' bone blades might very well carve it to death bit by bit. It promptly lost its nerve, burrowed straight underground, and refused to come out again.

This infuriated Chloe. She had lost more than twenty Zerglings and gained nothing.

After that, Chloe stopped focusing on highly mobile, difficult-to-hunt species like the giant worms and simply marked them all instead. She would hunt them once she had a good way to deal with them.

On the tenth day, the mass of Zerglings had fought their way through Death Forest. It should not have been so easy, but the magical beasts on the forest's outskirts had all migrated away, perhaps out of fear of the Swarm. The final stretch was therefore as easy as an outing.

Through the Zerglings' eyes, Chloe saw the Border Marquisate beside Death Forest.

It left her filled with emotion. Leading more than a hundred powerful knights, she had taken over two months to reach the depths of Death Forest, yet the Swarm had fought its way out in just ten days.