Chapter 85: Terrifying Expansion Speed
The giant Queen bowed its head to the petite Kerrigan.
And when facing the Queen, Kerrigan was no longer the docile child she was in front of Lucan.
Even with the appearance of a five- or six-year-old, at this moment, her queenly demeanor was on full display.
Looking at the Queen before him, Lucan felt that the StarCraft Zerg's appearance was more fitting for the name "insect race."
"From now on, you will manage this planet for me. You need to control the numbers of the Swarm, expanding its population without destroying this planet's natural ecological cycle.
Help the humans on this planet to capture those Mushroom-men and send them to the factories."
Kerrigan commanded forcefully.
"The Swarm will carry out your will!"
After receiving her orders, this Queen immediately got to work. She used her abilities to continue spreading the Creep outwards.
And as the Creep spread wider and wider, more biomass and energy flowed into the hive.
This biomass and energy then began to be converted into more, smaller Queens.
Without needing any more special management or control, the Swarm here would develop autonomously according to Kerrigan's will.
Lucan, having returned to the warship after leaving the planet, did not immediately leave this star system but continued to observe the Swarm's development. He was still somewhat worried.
More than ten days passed quickly.
And the actual development speed of the Swarm was even faster than in the game; there was no 200 supply cap here.
However, there were still units like Overlords, which provided the supply cap in the game.
These giant Zerg units, floating in mid-air, were covered in thick carapace.
They acted as node creatures, transmitting the Swarm's commands to every Zerg unit far from the hive.
At the same time, they also served a reconnaissance role. In the game, the Overlord was a living target.
But here, Lucan personally saw an Overlord's forelimbs effortlessly tear a Mushroom-man to shreds.
And Spawning Pools, carrying the genetic sequences of various StarCraft Zerg, were also constructed.
This gave the Swarm the ability to produce ground combat units.
One after another, combat units called Zerglings, with sharp claws and teeth and the size of large dogs, were hatched and joined the Swarm.
They were the most basic combat unit of the StarCraft Zerg. Not only were they cheap, but their biomass and energy cost was only half that of a Drone. However, their post-screening, integrated genetic sequence made them natural-born fighting machines, just like the Hormagaunts of the Tyranids.
As the hive expanded, more and more Zerglings were also produced.
Under the command of the Queen, the Zerglings began their hunt.
They swept across all living things like a plague of locusts.
Those Mushroom-men hiding in various places never expected that just after enduring the devastation brought by humans, they would immediately encounter monsters like the Zerg.
The weak had no room for survival in this cruel universe.
Once targeted, one either became a complete subordinate or was destroyed.
There wasn't even a chance to choose.
Regardless of whether they had done anything wrong, being weak was the original sin. During its expansion, the Imperium of Man had annihilated countless species of xenos; their technology, their people, all became grease for the wheels of the behemoth that was the Imperium.
Although their resistance could kill some Zerglings, the ever-increasing, countless number of Zerglings completely crushed their resistance.
Zerglings were meant to be consumable combat units in the first place; such losses were completely insignificant to the Swarm. And the corpses of the dead Zerglings didn't even need to be transported back; they could be directly absorbed by the Creep.
A large number of Mushroom-men were killed and broken down into biomass and energy. The characteristics of the Mushroom-men species meant that one Mushroom-man could produce more than a dozen Zerglings.
With a snowballing reproduction rate, more and more Zerg began to be active on the continent of this planet.
Watching the exaggerated expansion speed of these Zerg, Lucan even began to doubt if that Queen could truly understand Kerrigan's command. Wouldn't she get carried away and just devour all the Mushroom-men?
Lucan looked at Kerrigan beside him.
"Kerrigan, is that Queen really okay?"
"Rest assured, Father. This is an improved Queen. Her brain capacity is larger. She will autonomously choose suitable combat plans; there is no need to formulate a specific development plan for her."
Kerrigan was clearly very confident in her Queen!
Fortunately, however, when these Zerg reached a certain number, that Queen ordered the entire Swarm to stop breeding more Zerg.
The expansion speed of the Creep also stopped, preserving a part of the planet's original ecosystem for those Mushroom-men to reproduce and survive.
Furthermore, she began to command these Zerg combat units to start corralling and driving all the Mushroom-men towards a reserved ecological zone.
They no longer just killed and devoured these Mushroom-men, but completely confined their living range within specific areas.
And the ever-expanding Creep served as the eyes and ears of the Swarm.
The moment a Mushroom-man appeared anywhere, it would be immediately sensed by a nearby Overlord and the information would be transmitted to the nearest Zerglings.
Lucan now understood; that Queen was farming these Mushroom-men.
The Zerglings began to hunt in an orderly fashion, delivering the corpses of these Mushroom-men to the production factories built by Lucan.
Under Rebecca's influence (a typo in the original text, likely meant GSC influence or a general order), the Genestealer cultists stationed at the factories were not at all afraid of these creatures.
They began to revere these Zerglings as divine messengers, just as they had once worshipped the Purestrain Genestealers.
Seeing that the Queen could do her job so well, Lucan also felt relieved.
With these Zerg, production on this planet was now on the right track. With the passage of time, the entire planet would become an orderly food factory.
And the produced goods could be directly transported using the newly produced Gorgon-class Battlecruisers from Agathos.
After all, the cooldown time for the jump drive was very short, making transportation costs extremely cheap.
However, Lucan was also astonished by the development speed of these Zerg. The Imperium of Man, which had suffered greatly at the hands of the Tyranids, would probably be scared to death if they discovered such a similar race appearing within Imperial territory.
And this was just the development speed from hatching only Zerglings. If he were to completely unleash them, it probably wouldn't take long for this entire star system to be filled with Zerg.
However, the Zerg were not completely uncontrollable like the Tyranids, which were driven solely by the desire for biomass. These StarCraft Zerg were completely under Lucan's control; he could control the Zerg's reproduction and development speed.
The System would not deceive Lucan.
Even if Lucan were to expose the existence of some Zerg to the Imperium later on, he could say they were biological weapons developed by the Magi Biologis.
They were just accidentally designed to be a little scary, that's all.
And whether it involved heresy or blasphemy was even further out of consideration.
Which reputable faction didn't dabble a little in heresy? As long as your fist was hard enough and the final result was good, then even if someone called you a heretic, there was nothing they could do.
What's more, Lucan's very status as a Rogue Trader was a license to consort with xenos, and his status as a Living Saint, personally sanctioned by the God-Emperor, gave Lucan even more confidence.
What? You want to question me? If you keep this up, I'll go have a chat with the God-Emperor in the Warp and then send you a dream!
(End of Chapter)
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