Faced with glaciers and bitter winds, not a single Venomspider backed down. The orders conveyed through the Swarm Network were clear: kill the giant serpent before them. Hordes of Venomspiders charged at the Frost Serpent from every direction.
With one vicious sweep of its enormous tail, several huge chunks of glacial ice came flying toward them.
Despite the Swarm Network's warnings, the Venomspiders were packed a little too closely together. Many failed to swing clear on their silk in time and were crushed beneath the ice.
More than thirty Venomspiders were flattened into pulp. To reduce casualties from area attacks, Chloe ordered them to widen their encirclement and spread out into loose lines. Their prey could no longer escape anyway; they could wear it down slowly until it died.
Blinded by rage, the Frost Serpent gave no thought to any of that. It wanted only to use its strength to kill these little bugs that dared offend it.
It unleashed one physically draining psionic spell after another: Blizzard, Frost Spell, Ice Spikes, Frost Breath. The Frost Serpent's attacks seemed to change not only the underground passage's terrain, but its climate as well.
The crystalline underground seemed to have become a polar world of ice and snow.
Against such an onslaught, the Venomspiders had no chance of getting close. They could only keep retreating, constantly dodging the terrifying destructive power of the frost magic.
Despite their best efforts to evade it, large numbers of Venomspiders were still frozen to death in the ice and snow like preserved specimens. Their casualties were enormous.
Fortunately, the Hatchery was very close, making it easy to replace their losses.
Chloe watched the live feed from the Venomspiders with a grave expression. The power of a legendary magical beast was truly unparalleled.
When it unleashed its full strength, the bugs could not even get close.
"Keep it surrounded and wear down its strength. Have the Hatchery keep hatching Venomspiders to maintain our numerical advantage." With no other choice, Chloe could only issue this passive order.
Unlike the unfavorable battle against the Frost Serpent, the Beast Horde had already been routed.
The Beast Horde actually still had the advantage in numbers. If they had fought desperately, the seventeen thousand combat bugs would have suffered near-total losses even if they managed to finish them off.
But now it was a complete rout. In their struggle to survive, the beasts were killing and trampling one another.
The combat bugs that had returned as reinforcements lost only three thousand while reducing the Beast Horde to fewer than twenty thousand. The survivors were completely surrounded, trapped in a relatively narrow stretch of underground passage.
Many of the wild animals and magical beasts no longer dared resist. Perhaps they were exhausted; perhaps they had despaired. They huddled together in a daze, waiting for the Swarm to raise its butcher's blade over them.
Their multicolored blood coated the cavern floor like a rainbow. But this rainbow was not beautiful. Instead, it filled those who saw it with dread and horror.
The Beast Horde's corpses piled into mountains, layer upon layer. Some Zerglings had hacked away until their bone blades broke, while the Needle Crawlers had emptied their needle sacs.
The final ten thousand members of the Beast Horde huddled together silently, awaiting death.
The Swarm's brutality, efficiency, and cruelty had slaughtered every trace of the Beast Horde's wildness and pride.
When these scenes reached Chloe's mind, she too was shaken. The magical beasts and wild animals of the Death Forest were the wildest and hardest to tame.
At noble banquets, the hosts often displayed a preserved beast from the Death Forest to demonstrate their valor, sparing no expense for the privilege. Hunting the Beast Horde in the Death Forest had always been a profitable business in the Border Marquisate.
Sometimes banquets also featured live beasts, kept in cages for guests to view from a safe distance.
A snarling, menacing beast could earn its host considerable prestige at a banquet. A magical beast was even better.
The once-imposing Beast Horde had been beaten into submission by the Swarm. Zerglings and Needle Crawlers lay on the creep, replenishing their strength and weaponry through the nutrients delivered to them. Bone blades were regrowing, and the steel needles in their needle sacs were gradually being replenished.
Even under these circumstances, the Beast Horde still did not dare resist, like lambs awaiting slaughter while the butcher sharpened his blade.
Taking a moment to check the Digestive Cavity, Chloe suddenly discovered something rather awkward. Because they had killed so many members of the Beast Horde, its energy reserves were approaching their limit.
After all, it was only natural to harvest vast amounts of biomass energy after annihilating a Beast Tide more than a hundred thousand strong.
She was now like an estate owner with a bountiful harvest, looking happily at fields laden with grain only to discover that her granary was not large enough.
Looking at the remaining Beast Horde, Chloe felt torn. It did not seem right to pass up meat already within reach.
Humans could tame wild animals. Could the Swarm tame magical beasts? A fanciful idea occurred to her.
"Hive Mind, can the Swarm raise these magical beasts?" Chloe asked.
"Of course, but there is no need. Their bodily structures are too poor. Most evolved under the influence of their environments over millions of years. Without precise genetic manipulation, their genes contain too many meaningless redundant sections, so there is no benefit in raising them."
After thinking for a moment, the Hive Mind continued, "If you merely wish to raise some to sample their meat, Executor, you can tell me which varieties. I can have the Hatchery hatch specially designed varieties. They will taste better and consume less energy."
The Hive Mind was an excellent and considerate assistant, but sometimes it seemed rigid, unable to understand what she meant.
Chloe sighed and explained, "I don't want to eat them. Look, the Digestive Cavity is almost full, and there are still so many beast corpses on the ground. So I want to keep these members of the Beast Horde alive for now and eat them once there's room in the Digestive Cavity."
"I understand. That is possible. I can produce a type of microscopic bug and inject them into their brains. Although they cannot control their thoughts, they can influence their behavior by secreting chemicals." The Hive Mind paused briefly.
"However, from the perspective of energy intake, it no longer makes much difference whether the Hatchery eats them. Consuming flesh was only ever a means of getting the Hatchery through its early development."
"The energy accumulated at this stage has already reached a threshold. From here on, our primary energy sources will shift to natural sources such as geothermal heat, minerals, and wind."
"Compared with the energy nature can provide, what living creatures offer is hardly worth mentioning. They are merely helpful for research into genetic diversity." The Hive Mind sounded every bit the pure researcher.
In truth, when it came to concepts such as energy and matter, Chloe was still that medieval princess. She could not understand them very deeply. She had always believed that the Swarm needed to devour things to develop and grow stronger.
Now it sounded as though that was not quite the case. Unfortunately, the knowledge the Overmind had left her contained nothing on this subject. All she could grasp was that the Hive Mind apparently meant the Swarm would no longer need to obtain energy through hunting.
In that case, whether the Beast Horde lived or died no longer mattered.
Unable to work out the reason, Chloe could only order, "Then use the method you mentioned to bring them under control for now. Killing them would be a waste anyway. Of course, any members of the Beast Horde that resist are still to be killed without exception."
Before you continue