Of course, the Swarm did not keep these guests waiting long either. The surprise soon appeared.
Hundreds of Venomspiders lunged out of the white webs. First, they sprayed large amounts of silk to entangle the magical beasts near the webs.
Then they used the completed webs to move swiftly. Once they were close enough, purple acid sprayed from their mouths, scalding and corroding the trapped magical beasts.
The black-furred gorilla reacted quickly. It had stayed alert ever since it saw the severed limb in its hand clearly. Looking at it now, hadn't that limb come from one of these spiders?
The freshly sprayed silk was not strong enough yet. It violently tore apart the threads binding it and dodged aside.
It avoided the deadly acid, but the magical beasts beside it were not so lucky. A rhinoceros was sprayed with acid by three Venomspiders.
The acid hissed as it burned into flesh. Just a tiny amount of that terrifying acid could burn through skin and flesh, reaching straight to the bone. Soon, the rhinoceros had been corroded into a tattered rag.
Sensing something unusual overhead, the black-furred gorilla lunged forward again and rolled across the ground.
A Venomspider descended from above, swinging over on a strand of silk and landing precisely where the black-furred gorilla had just stood.
The Venomspider drove its tail hard into the soil, leaving a clearly visible section of steel needle exposed.
Fear enraged the black-furred gorilla. It charged with a roar, clasped its fists together, and hammered them down.
The Venomspider failed to dodge in time and was smashed to pieces. This was also the Venomspiders' weakness: their many functions left their bodies relatively fragile.
More and more Venomspiders crawled out of the white webs. The stronger magical beasts at the front were instantly locked in combat with them.
Based on past experience, one magical beast could fight roughly two to three bugs. A High-Level Magical Beast could fight six to ten. Against the Venomspiders, this gap narrowed.
Their silk not only restricted the magical beasts' movements, but also made the Venomspiders more agile. Fur and armor plates that had once effectively resisted bone blades and steel needles were slowly corroded by the acid.
Even magical beasts with extremely strong defenses would have Venomspiders nimbly climb onto their backs and treat them to several point-blank steel needle strikes. The highly concentrated acid injected through those needles could kill troublesome magical beasts from within.
A roar from the Frost Serpent echoed through the underground passage. The beasts, initially terrified by the Swarm's sudden appearance, were cowed by the Legendary Beast's tyranny and had no choice but to charge at the terrifying Beast Horde.
With the ordinary beasts joining in, casualties among the magical beasts finally began to decline. But more than two thousand Venomspiders had now rushed out of the Swarm and were fighting an equal number of Beast Horde members.
Although the underground passage was exceptionally wide, it still seemed narrow and crowded for a battle of this scale.
At the front line, both the Swarm and the Beast Horde could commit only limited forces.
The Swarm had a greater advantage in small-scale combat, especially the Venomspiders, which were suited to complex battlefields. In the underground passage, they could climb the walls and use their silk to maneuver in three dimensions, making them even more effective in battle.
Compared with the previous combination of Zerglings and Needle Crawlers, the Venomspiders performed even better in combat.
The entire battle line of the Beast Horde was being pushed back. The Venomspiders could do more than advance the line.
They could also rebuild their positions with webs as they advanced, while the corpses of the slain Beast Horde members were dragged away as spoils.
Such excellent results were not solely due to the Venomspiders' combat strength.
Another factor was that the Beast Horde was afraid. During the first day's fighting, the Swarm had seemingly been repelled every time, but the Beast Horde had paid dearly for those victories too.
Not only had large numbers of the Beast Horde's fighting forces been wiped out, but their courage had also been destroyed. The bestial ferocity that had initially driven them to clash with the Swarm and fight to the death had been worn away.
They could hardly be blamed for losing their courage. Any intelligent life would probably feel afraid when faced with enemies like the Swarm, which would struggle with all their strength to bite you even after being disemboweled.
Gradually, the Beast Horde's lives were continually whittled away, and their battle line was compressed. Since the two sides had made contact and begun fighting fiercely, the entire line had been pushed back nearly fifty meters.
Unable to watch any longer, the Frost Serpent shoved aside the Beast Horde ahead and entered the battle itself.
Looking at the Venomspiders filling the passage, the Frost Serpent wasted no time. It opened its great mouth and unleashed its signature Frost Breath.
Soon, the white breath filled the tunnel opening. Silk, tunnel walls, and corpses on the ground all iced over beneath it.
Yet the seemingly powerful breath made the Frost Serpent frown. Something felt wrong. Its breath seemed to have missed.
It soon closed its mouth, then swung its enormous tail, raising a fierce wind to disperse the mist.
Once its view cleared, the Frost Serpent discovered to its surprise that its breath had frozen only five Venomspiders to death. Almost the entire attack had missed.
The bugs had clearly been packed so tightly, and the passage was so narrow. How could the results have been so poor?
The Swarm would not answer that question for it. Upon seeing the Frost Serpent take action itself, the Venomspiders had withdrawn into the white web maze under orders from the Swarm Network.
Chloe was extremely pleased with the Venomspiders' performance in their first battle. Leaving aside their combat strength, this unit's ability to weave webs and construct complex, favorable terrain alone had already been outstanding.
After the surprise attack eliminated large numbers of immensely strong magical beasts capable of clearing the silk, these white web mazes could already be called invincible. The Beast Horde no longer had any chance of breaking through them.
Chloe had originally expected to lose more than half the Venomspiders before inflicting heavy damage on these magical beasts. After all, in simulated combat, Venomspiders had only been on the same level as Zerglings.
She had not expected the gap between simulation and actual combat to be so large. The magical beasts that had posed such a tremendous threat were now hardly any harder to deal with than ordinary wild beasts.
At the front, Stars felt the disparity in combat strength particularly keenly. She saw the Beast Horde's fear, as well as the Swarm's improvement in combat skills.
Together, these two factors created an enormous disparity in combat strength. Instances of a few Venomspiders swiftly hunting down a magical beast were everywhere, and the ordinary wild beasts had become even less threatening.
It seemed possible that these few thousand Venomspiders alone could rout the Beast Horde.
In fact, the Swarm Network had already thoroughly studied the Beast Horde. Every Swarm unit clearly understood the magical beasts' habits and weaknesses.
For example, when the Frost Serpent had charged up its breath just now, a Venomspider had seen one of its muscles move and swiftly relayed that information to the Swarm Network.
The Hive Mind would then infer from experience that it was about to use Frost Breath and calculate the direction and area of the attack.
Once the calculations were complete, the Swarm Network would immediately warn the Venomspiders within range, then tell them which way to retreat and guide them.
Moreover, the Venomspiders already possessed excellent three-dimensional mobility. When prepared, dodging an attack was not difficult.
In the end, the result of this brief clash was that the Swarm lost only five hundred Venomspiders while killing or wounding nearly five thousand members of the Beast Horde, two thousand of which were magical beasts.
This was the best exchange ratio since they had begun fighting the Beast Tide. With an exchange ratio like this, it was already possible to declare that the Beast Horde was not far from annihilation.
Behind them, out of the Beast Horde's sight, a vast army of Zerglings and Needle Crawlers had already returned and begun entering the underground passage.
After their long-distance dash, they needed only to lick some nutrient fluid from the Creep to recover their stamina.
Because of the disparity in civilization between the Swarm and the Beast Horde, the two had never been on the same level to begin with.
Before you continue