The Venomspiders did indeed look very much like spiders. Their eight jointed legs gave them greater mobility in three dimensions and made them better climbers, but their ability to cover ground at speed fell far short of the Zerglings and Needle Crawlers.
Their eight legs were covered in steel bristles and mucus, allowing them to cling easily to rocks, trees, or gigantic beasts. This made them better suited to grappling with giant magical beasts at close quarters.
The Venomspiders had two types of offensive organs. The first sprayed corrosive acid from their mouthparts, the same kind used by Roaches, with eighty percent of the original's effectiveness. This acid was highly corrosive and could burn its target continuously.
The second was a steel needle at the Venomspider's rear. Thanks to the reinforced muscles there, this needle had tremendous penetrating power. According to the data collected, piercing the Frost Serpent's scales would pose no problem at all. Its drawback was that it could only be used in melee, somewhat like a bee's stinger.
The steel needle was also hollow, allowing the Venomspider to inject highly concentrated acid into its target through this channel.
In terms of utility, Venomspiders could spin webs just like ordinary spiders. Their silk was as tough as iron wire, as supple as thread, and sticky as well.
The price Venomspiders paid for all these functions was terrible melee combat ability, a brittle chitinous shell, and relatively weak regeneration.
In a one-on-one fight on open ground, an experienced Zergling would have even odds against a Venomspider.
A Zergling's agility allowed it to dodge the acid a Venomspider spat with ease, and its bone blades could kill a Venomspider in a single strike.
But in complex terrain, a Venomspider could use its three-dimensional mobility to utterly crush a Zergling. Its silk, acid, and steel needle offered control, midrange damage, and close-range killing power.
Each of the Swarm's unit types had its own strengths.
Venomspiders were nowhere near as cost-effective as Zerglings and Needle Crawlers in a battle of attrition, but they could not only produce remarkable results in complex terrain, they could also counter large, heavily armored magical beasts.
Besides hatching a new unit type, Chloe also strengthened the Hatchery's outer defenses under cover of darkness, erecting over a dozen closely packed Creep Tumors in one go.
This new type of Creep Tumor had reduced Creep secretion capabilities in exchange for improved regeneration, attack, and defense. The number of enormous spiked tentacles had increased to five, and a large Needle Crawler's needle sac had been added to the middle of each tumor, improving its ranged and armor-piercing capabilities.
After a night of recovery, the Swarm's numbers had returned to twenty thousand, including three thousand Venomspiders. With the newly built fortifications as well, Chloe believed that as long as the Beast Horde dared to attack, none of them would return alive.
However, after a day of fighting, the Legendary Beasts leading the Beast Horde should have witnessed the Swarm's combat strength. Chloe worried that if she displayed her full strength before them again, she would frighten the Beast Horde out of attacking.
She would have to plan another tactic to lure the enemy deep into her territory.
Out of caution, Chloe checked the Hatchery's energy reserves. She would never have known without checking, and what she found gave her a shock.
Before the fighting began, the energy stored by the Swarm could support her mass-producing as many as 150,000 Zerglings. This had originally been the foundation of the Swarm's confidence in facing the beast tide.
Now, after all this fighting, that figure had reached an astonishing 570,000, and that did not even include the vast quantities of fallen Swarm corpses reclaimed through biomass recycling technology.
After a night of digestion by the Creep, the vast numbers of slain beasts had mostly been converted into energy. As long as the fighting continued on the Creep, the Swarm would grow more numerous and stronger with every battle.
It truly lived up to that saying: your troops suffer casualties every moment, while my Swarm is endless.
In contrast to the Swarm's excellent situation, the Beast Horde's side had become a miserable scene filled with wails. First, on the Frost Serpent's side, a night of rest had not restored much of the Beast Horde's fighting strength. It had declined instead.
After the excitement of battle faded, many severely wounded magical beasts and ordinary beasts lay down to rest, only to never stand up again.
Others had been terrified by the Swarm and slipped away under cover of darkness.
Still others were hampered by the hardened Creep mucus, unable to stand or move, while gnawing away at the white solids bit by bit was far too inefficient.
Of the original thirty thousand-plus beasts in the Beast Horde, only a little over twenty thousand could still fight.
Things were slightly better on the Behemoth's side, since its battles with the Swarm had mostly been head-on engagements.
At the time, the Swarm had not possessed a particularly deep understanding of the magical beasts' fighting strength and had lacked experience, so across those few clashes, the casualties it inflicted on the Beast Horde had been fairly unremarkable.
Thanks to these factors, the Beast Horde led by the Behemoth still numbered over thirty thousand. However, they too were now troubled by the hardened Creep mucus.
Fortunately, these beasts still retained plenty of stamina, and there were quite a few creatures with brute strength like the Behemoth. Spending some time pounding and gnawing could still solve the problem.
For the first two hours after dawn, the Beast Horde did nothing but gnaw at the white solids. Only after another three hours did the two groups of beasts finally join up.
Luckily, there was already a large clearing free of Creep on the Frost Serpent's side, or the Beast Horde would have had to start gnawing again.
The combat-unit scouting teams surrounding the Beast Horde faithfully relayed this information to the Swarm Network, and watching it all made even Chloe anxious.
In truth, she also wanted to launch another attack while the Beast Horde was weak and further reduce its fighting forces.
But considering that victory would not be complete unless she killed the Legendary Beasts, Chloe held herself back.
Even if two more Swarm raids completely routed the Beast Horde, if the Legendary Beasts escaped alive, who knew whether another beast tide might come some time later?
Of course, by then, the Swarm would have grown even stronger, and it would surely crush the beast tide when it faced one again.
Chloe still did not want to drag things out until then. If she could settle the matter once and for all, that would be preferable.
Besides, killing one or two Legendary Beasts would be excellent as well. The Hatchery needed precisely such high-quality samples to expand its gene pool.
The three thousand Venomspiders she had gone to such great lengths to breed also needed a chance to put their abilities to use and test their effectiveness.
Because the Beast Horde was too weak now, Chloe feared that even the Swarm units sent to lure them in might scare them away. With no other choice, she could only continue waiting patiently at the Hatchery.
On the Beast Horde's side, the three Legendary Beasts once again could not agree.
The Behemoth led the larger group of beasts. Its view was that these bugs were too powerful, and fighting on the mucus put the Beast Horde at a severe disadvantage. Despite its mind being filled with violence, it was the one that suggested leading the Beast Horde in a temporary retreat.
The Frost Serpent, which had originally favored a cautious approach to battle, instead strongly advocated pushing deeper, destroying the bugs' nest, and killing their mother.
Its reasoning was that after so many fierce battles, the Beast Horde had suffered heavy losses, but the bugs were not much better off. Many of their combat units had been wiped out too.
And today, despite the Beast Horde leaving so many openings, not a single Swarm force had seized the chance to launch a surprise attack. That had to be because the Swarm, too, was already on its last legs.
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