Chapter 20: Unlucky Neighbors
Beside the shattered insect nest, Su Xiao leaped down from the back of an elite Demon Beast. The reason he chose to attack this nest was simply to test the combat effectiveness of over 500 Demon Beasts.
The result was obvious. Excluding the time spent traveling, the Demon Beast force crushed a second-stage nest in just three minutes, capturing the mother organism inside alive.
"Mighty being, I am willing to submit to you."
The captured mother organism prostrated on the ground. For some reason, although her rank was lower than Jila's, she stood a head taller.
"Not needed."
The moment Su Xiao finished speaking, Banishment detached from his sleeve, forming a hiltless rapier that pierced straight through the second-stage mother's skull.
Su Xiao didn't even want to use the nest to devour this mother and obtain her genetic memories. Doing so would be a waste of bio-energy.
As for why he refused the second-stage mother's submission, it was only natural. Not to mention that Su Xiao had no energy to develop a second nest, the resource issue alone was insurmountable. Moreover, strengthening the mother's loyalty through demonic energy would cost far more than the gains.
One nest was enough. Too many nests would not only require dividing insect troops to guard them but also create resource consumption problems.
Su Xiao began commanding the Demon Beasts to tear apart the enemy nest. Although this would lose some bio-energy, it made transportation easier.
Watching the enemy nest being torn into dozens of pieces by the Demon Beasts, Su Xiao felt an urgent need for transport-type insect units.
Now that he had powerful fighters like the Demon Beasts, the next step was simple: use the Demon Beast force to crush other second-stage or third-stage nests to obtain bio-energy.
The acquired bio-energy would continue to be used to cultivate more Demon Beasts, sustaining the war through battle. Su Xiao felt that if he wanted to defeat the Three Paradise Alliance with Demon Beasts, accumulating ten thousand of them would be a safe bet for stability.
After the last chaotic battle, the Three Paradise Alliance had 910 survivors: 142 from Death Paradise, 259 from Holy Light Paradise, and 509 from Apocalypse Paradise.
Two days had passed, and there should have been casualties among these three factions, given how dangerous this war world was. But the losses wouldn't be too severe. Contractors were best at surviving and joining some faction.
Su Xiao's side only had 520 Demon Beasts, still far from ten thousand. However, there were many nests in the nearby area. If he wiped them all out, the bio-energy gained would be enough to cultivate several thousand Demon Beasts.
Moreover, as the number of Demon Beasts accumulated, Su Xiao's efficiency in attacking other nests would increase. When the Demon Beasts reached a thousand, he could even consider attacking several second-stage nests simultaneously.
Su Xiao leaped back onto the elite Demon Beast's back. This beast had practically become his personal mount.
Leading the Demon Beast force, Su Xiao didn't immediately return to his base camp. Instead, he opened the virtual map to search for other second-stage nest locations.
Looking at the battlefield littered with insect corpses, Su Xiao gained a new understanding of this world's chest drop rate. This war world was very special, so special that there was only one landing coordinate.
Fortunately, this world wasn't completely devoid of chests; the drop rate was just extremely low. So far, Su Xiao had only obtained one gold-quality chest.
Compared to chests, he had gained quite a bit of Reincarnation Paradise merit. The initial chaotic battle of the world earned Su Xiao 672 merit points, all from killing enemy contractors. If the world war was won, this would be an exaggeratedly large gain. Of course, if they lost, there would be nothing, and they would lose their lives.
The victor gets everything; the loser gets nothing. Reincarnation Paradise fully embodied this principle.
Somewhat boring travel began. Fortunately, this boredom didn't last long before Su Xiao arrived at the second second-stage nest.
Without any pre-battle negotiation or even a signal, the 520 Demon Beasts charged straight in.
This second-stage nest was about 26 meters tall. Judging by the mere hundred or so insect units around it, this nest's strength was average.
At night, green energy veins flickered on the nest's surface. Caught by surprise, this insect clan showed decent reaction speed. However, this couldn't compensate for the gap between second-stage combat insects and Demon Beasts.
Green blood splattered. The enemy combat insects let out piercing shrieks, while the enemy mother organism was like a delicate girl cornered in an alley by a group of burly men. At most, she could shout a few cries of "Ya|mie|die" before being dragged out of the shattered nest by Demon Beasts.
The battle ended in less than two minutes. The gap between the two sides' combat insects was too large. Only one Demon Beast was killed by a sneak attack.
This time, the enemy mother didn't even get a chance to see Su Xiao before being engulfed by the Demon Beast force.
Easily destroying the second nest, the Demon Beast army began advancing toward the third second-stage nest.
When the morning sun slowly climbed over the horizon, inside a thirty-meter-tall nest.
Drip, drip...
Green bio-energy dripped along the broken nest veins. This nest was in a state of complete closure. At the innermost part of the nest, a second-stage insect mother lay fallen among the biological tissue. There were obvious bite marks on her neck, and one arm had been severed by a sharp weapon.
Terrifying sounds of tearing and cutting came from outside the nest. Half a minute later.
Pfft!
A sharp tail spike pierced through the nest's inner wall. The severely injured mother curled up, hiding in a corner. There was no fear in her heart, only thoughts of how to survive.
This mother, named Redtail, knew she had encountered the most terrifying type among her kind: the predation clan.
The so-called predation clan meant an insect clan that completely abandoned hunting other creatures and instead developed by devouring other nests.
Just as Redtail was thinking about how to survive, a Demon Beast squeezed half its body through the nest's breach. The thinking ended there.
Outside the nest, Su Xiao was checking the virtual map. This was the twenty-seventh second-stage nest he had destroyed. The pile of nest fragments he had obtained was already mountainous. Any more, and transportation would become a problem.
The battle ended. After looting the spoils, each Demon Beast carried or dragged several large pieces of nest fragments. It was time to return to base camp.
The return trip was somewhat slow. Transport-type units were urgently needed.
At 8 a.m., Su Xiao returned with 503 Demon Beasts. Casualties among the Demon Beasts were inevitable. Even though the enemies were all second-stage nests, their death throes were fierce.
After a night of bloody battle, Su Xiao noticed that these 503 Demon Beasts had significantly improved combat effectiveness. Not in terms of attributes, but in their adaptability during battle.
Initially, the Demon Beasts only knew how to charge in and claw or bite. But after a night of fierce fighting, these Demon Beasts had learned to flank, cooperate with each other, use their hard tails to block attacks, and even trick enemies into self-destructing with simple methods when facing explosive foes.
This wasn't just a change in one or two Demon Beasts; all of them showed this transformation. This indicated that the combat instincts of all Demon Beasts were interconnected. This was a group accumulating combat experience together.
Su Xiao's base camp was still the same as before. As a third-stage nest, its surface already had a thin layer of biological armor.
Nineteen Mantis Armors, fourteen Poison Stingers, and 503 Demon Beasts all got busy. They transported the nest fragments into Su Xiao's nest, which began processing.
Su Xiao didn't immediately use the bio-energy to cultivate more Demon Beasts. Instead, he first let his nest grow to increase its consumption speed.
The nest grew visibly taller. In the end, the sixty-plus square meter open space was completely filled by the nest, forcing the nearby Demon Beasts to stand in the forest.
Expansion work began. The Demon Beasts felled surrounding trees, while the Mantis Armors cleared away dead leaves and debris.
After about half an hour, the Mantis Armors and Demon Beasts cleared out a flat area of over a thousand square meters.
The nest surged, continuously absorbing bio-energy to strengthen itself. Soon, it reached the third-stage limit, standing sixty meters tall with a horizontal diameter of about a hundred meters, becoming a behemoth.
A third-stage insect building, the Fungal Carpet, was laid beside the nest. It was five centimeters thick and covered over seven hundred square meters.
When the Mantis Armors, Poison Stingers, and Demon Beasts lay on the Fungal Carpet, they could not only accelerate wound recovery but also replenish bio-energy.
After Su Xiao's nest devoured all the captured nest fragments, its bio-energy storage reached 50,000/50,000. The excess bio-energy was converted into 112 Life Stones (Medium Purity).
One Life Stone (Medium Purity) equaled 1,000 bio-energy points. Life Stones could be divided into low, medium, and high purity.
Life Stone (Low) equaled 500 bio-energy points, Life Stone (Medium) equaled 1,000, and Life Stone (High) equaled 10,000.
Only a fourth-stage mother nest could convert high-purity bio-energy. Jila could only convert medium purity.
It was time for the second wave of mass production. With a sufficient number of Demon Beasts, Bubu Wang and Baha could also lead Demon Beasts out to plunder.
The development speed of an insect clan, as long as resources were available, accelerated the later it got. Currently, Su Xiao's insect clan was only at the mid-stage of development.