“How are the preparations going?”

Having left the game plaza, Li Ang went to the Door World to check on the preparations of the Zerg hive.

He stepped onto the invisible staircase, ascending to the sky above the Door World's imperial capital. Surrounding him were numerous giant manta ray-shaped Zerg cerebrates—these cerebrates were the executors of the Door World expansion plan, and they were now reporting the work situation to Li Ang.

“The Zerg hive has established fifty city-megastructures on different continents of this planet, each accommodating between forty and fifty million residents, totaling over 2.267 billion people, accounting for 99.1% of the planet's total population.

The remainder are indigenous residents living on isolated islands overseas who have never integrated into civilized society.

Due to their excessive dispersion and high integration difficulty, the Zerg hive has not collected them—the Cerebrate Council believes that allowing a portion of indigenous residents to live outside the Zerg hive's control can increase the mutation rate of intelligent creatures on this planet and maintain the vitality of intelligent civilization, making it worth observing.”

The one reporting was the Zerg hive Lord, Kerberos.

In the Zerg cerebrate sequence, Leviathan had always followed Li Ang, staying in the automated pet feeder to manage the internal ecological environment.

Behemoth, Jormungandr, and Gorgon were the mother-ship-level cerebrates of the three Pacific seabed Zerg hive fleets.

Fenrir and Double-Blade Turkey managed the gene-stealing project in South Asia, India, and other continents of the world.

Chimera, Kraken, and other cerebrates were responsible for maintaining the operation of the Pacific seabed Zerg hive.

The current scale of cerebrates was five hundred, approaching saturation.

Kerberos, as the Zerg hive Lord and the Lord of Flesh and Swamp, comprehensively managed an entire Door World.

Li Ang overlooked the scenery below.

The cities that were originally in the Victorian style of the nineteenth century had now transformed into entire steel buildings—this design naturally imitated the city-megastructures of the real world, capable of supporting the largest population within a limited space.

Kerberos continued, “Under the unified management of the Zerg hive, all residents live in honeycomb-like communities as families. The houses are made of steel and plant materials, and can change shape according to the residents' daily habits, so they do not appear crowded or empty.

The megastructures have ample sunlight and suitable temperature and rainfall. Residents only need to spend a little effort cultivating the vigorously growing crops in their courtyards to harvest sufficient staple food, and no one will go hungry or freeze to death.

Compared with the previous era, the happiness of most people has been improved.

And if residents want to eat more diverse food, they only need to apply to the community managers (the Zerg hive does not directly manage the humans in the honeycomb communities, but selects human representatives to manage them) to obtain a wide variety of crop seeds.”

“Using labor to activate the residents' souls?”

Li Ang nodded. In fact, with the Zerg hive's current technological strength, let alone raising 2.2 billion ordinary people, even if the Earth's seven billion population were added, they could use outstanding biotechnology to provide massive amounts of food and nutrients every day, even if they ate and drank to their heart's content.

The main purpose of making ordinary people persist in labor and planting crops in their yards was to activate their minds, so that they would not become decadent and rigid in a lifeless environment, unable to provide high-quality faith power.

“Yes, he who does not work shall not eat.”

Kerberos said, “The basic unit of the honeycomb city is the honeycomb community, and the specific management work in each honeycomb community is the responsibility of human representatives.

Zerg hive cerebrates only need to check the overall situation of the floors composed of thousands of honeycomb communities.

Since the ground of the honeycomb community is the lower-level creep,

the flow of resources and materials in the honeycomb community cannot be concealed from the Zerg hive cerebrates.

Any human manager who tries to be lazy will be discovered and punished immediately.”

“Mm.”

Li Ang radiated divine power, observing the giant megastructure, which accommodated fifty million people, through the honeycomb city's thick steel dome.

From the perspective of ordinary people in the Door World, life now was undoubtedly happy.

In the honeycomb city, the grass was lush, the birds sang, and the climate was suitable.

Everyone was equal, and there was no difference in status—even the humans who managed the community did not enjoy better treatment or have more privileges.

The soil here was fertile, and some seeds could be sown at will, and they would soon take root, sprout, blossom, and bear fruit.

Everyone planted their own food, and the main activity every day was prayer.

Every corner of the honeycomb city had churches of the Lord of Flesh and Swamp, and everyone had to go to the church regularly to listen to the sermons of priests or broadcasts, praying devoutly to the statue of the Lord of the Swamp, thanking the gods for the beautiful life they had been given.

The Zerg hive would add a number to their accounts based on the power of faith contributed by each person every day, and this number was their “contribution point.”

Residents could use these points to obtain better treatment.

For example, delicacies cooked by chefs from the old era, more colorful and gorgeous clothes (rather than uniformly distributed uniforms), and more advanced furniture and appliances.

There were buildings such as schools, theaters, and hospitals among the people, as well as entertainment activities such as dramas, operas, concerts, and art exhibitions, as well as entertainment and consumption venues such as bars and restaurants—

These consumption venues had to be paid for with personal points. The Zerg hive cerebrates believed that appropriately opening up some entertainment activities would help maintain the activeness of the people's minds.

Li Ang casually asked, “Ordinary residents shouldn't run out of faith points, right?”

“They rarely run out.”

Kerberos replied, “You have given the residents of this planet a better life, so most of the indigenous residents have eternal gratitude to you.

Only a very few, who were indigenous residents as the ruling class before the arrival of the Zerg hive, harbor hatred for you and provide little or no faith power every day.”

“What is the fate of these people?”

“They can still live in the honeycomb city. Although the honeycomb city is rich in products, ordinary people can survive even if they don't work at all and only eat creep weeds, in an environment where the collective has a fanatical worship of the Lord of Flesh and Swamp, those residents with very few faith points will be collectively despised, scorned, and subjected to cold violence by the community they are in.”

Kerberos said, “The Zerg hive Council believes that appropriately retaining some of these people can serve as a warning in the honeycomb community environment.”

Li Ang nodded, “Like a catfish in a school of fish?”

“More like, in the school environment of human society, a weak individual who is collectively isolated and bullied in a class. Because there is a weak individual who can be bullied by anyone, that class will be more united...”

As Kerberos spoke, he suddenly realized that the Lord of Flesh and Swamp seemed to have been isolated by the class before. He stopped abruptly, his sweat glands secreted cold sweat frantically, and his whole body trembled subconsciously, feeling infinite regret and panic for his unconscious offense to the great master.

“Heh, don't be afraid. I wasn't isolated, but isolated everyone else.”

Li Ang smiled casually, not caring, and continued to ask, “Besides entertainment consumption, what else can they use these accumulated faith points for?”

“There is also the promotion to become a Transcendent.”

Kerberos replied carefully, “There were also Transcendents in this indigenous world before. Although their power cannot be compared to any Zerg hive Lord, at most they are close to Zerg hive guards, but they are still commendable in some aspects.

The Zerg hive Council has retained the promotion methods of these Transcendent paths, and some sufficiently pious fanatic believers can spend faith points to purchase promotion methods and become Transcendents.

If they are pious enough, then even if their aptitude is very poor, the Zerg hive cerebrates will provide assistance to improve their talents.

And these Transcendents, because their faith is recognized, can go with the Zerg hive's insect armies to the dangerous environments of the indigenous world to perform tasks.

For example, collecting gene samples of wild creatures, investigating geological environments, and recording natural phenomena.”

“Is that so.”

Li Ang nodded. He released the divine power restriction and instantly heard thousands of prayers.

Most of them were grateful for the Lord of Flesh and Swamp's gift, praising his greatness and extolling his achievements.

A few were lost in life and begged for divine guidance.

Only a very few prayed to the gods for some miscellaneous things—for example, they found their neighbors annoying, or they felt that they were not popular enough in the community.

These low-level prayers could not contribute much faith power, but would interfere with Li Ang's thoughts.

Therefore, the Zerg hive would tirelessly promote in the honeycomb city, so that residents could only recite the name of the Lord of Flesh and Swamp when they went to the church to pray.

Otherwise, if they shouted “Oh my God” whenever they encountered something, God would be overwhelmed by a flood of meaningless information like spam messages.

“The power of faith of 2.2 billion residents, even with the loss of ultra-long-distance transmission, and the exploitation of the Door,

as long as the Door is kept open at all times, it can still provide me with a huge amount of divine power recovery.”

Li Ang calculated and asked, “Are other aspects ready?”

“Ready.”

Kerberos replied, “After the War of Destiny begins, the honeycomb city will enter an automatic hosting state, reducing entertainment activities to a minimum, and all residents will take turns day and night in families to pray in the community church. Ensure that the power of faith will not be interrupted.

As for the Zerg hive army...”

Kerberos turned his head to look at the cerebrates behind him. The other cerebrates nodded, releasing psionic energy and connecting to the giant thought network formed by countless Zerg hive units in the Door World.

Rumble—

The earth trembled, and the mountains and rivers shook.

Tens of thousands of insect units of various levels drilled out of the ground, countless Zerg hive ships rose from the oceans, lakes, and rivers, and Zerg hive fleets that covered the sky sailed in the sky.

“As of now, the Zerg hive has collected gene samples of 3.6 million species on Earth.

Gene samples of 700,000 species from the Slaughter Game (including but not limited to script worlds, vending machine worlds, and species acquired from other players).

Gene samples of 5.78 million species from the Door World.”

Kerberos reported, “All gene samples are either permanently frozen and sealed, analyzed and utilized, or异化 modified by the [Abyssal Mirror], and finally made into new types of insect units by the cerebrates using the synthesis beast production station of the alchemy workshop.

The Zerg hive's insect unit sequence is still divided into servitor-level, beast-level, heavy-armor-level, fortress-level, special-ops-level, guard-level, warden-level, and lord-level.

In addition, there are ship-level and mother-ship-level.

The number of servitor-level and beast-level insect units is more than three billion. Any Zerg hive base can mass-produce them with sufficient nutrients. The technical content is low, and the combat power and speed of action are equivalent to motorized troops on Earth.

The number of heavy-armor-level insect units is 5.18 million. Because the gene samples of wild creatures in the Door World are particularly rich, the Zerg hive cerebrates have made more types of heavy-armor-level insect units based on these genes, which are suitable for battlefields in different environments.

The number of fortress-level and special-ops-level is 170,000—making insect units of this level requires the 异化 ability of the [Abyssal Mirror], and there will be gene collapse, so the number is relatively small.

The number of guard-level and warden-level is equivalent to the former.

Since transmitting arms across the Door consumes the energy of the user, that is, you,

the Cerebrate Council believes that the most valuable and worthwhile to transmit first is the lower-level Zerg hive base that can be quickly spread;

the worker insects attached to the Zerg hive base;

special-ops-level insect units that can spray creep and assist the Zerg hive base;

reconnaissance insect units that can move at high speed and have psychic perception abilities;

Secondly, there are guard-level and warden-level, which are used to protect your safety.

Finally, there are heavy-armor-level, fortress-level, and ship-level insect units.”

Kerberos said, “The current guard-level and warden-level insect units are equivalent to high-level Transcendents on Earth.

In order to improve transmission efficiency, the cerebrates in charge of genetic engineering have installed new functions for them based on a gene of mosquito larvae that can hibernate for a long time.

Dehydration.”

Kerberos turned his head to the side. A Zerg hive airship mother ship floating in the sky immediately opened the rear deck, revealing a hundred warden-level insect units neatly arranged under the deck.

As the Zerg hive Lord released psionic instructions, the holes on the armor of these warden-level insect units immediately began to spray blood.

A large amount of body fluid flowed out, causing the bodies of these warden-level insect units to wither at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Even the solid metal armor on the surface, which was enough to defend against machine gun strafing, became soft and brittle.

“The principle of dehydration is to drain body fluids and synthesize a large number of osmotic pressure protectants in the body to replace water, allowing the body to enter a vitrified state, thereby gaining extreme tolerance to high temperature, high pressure, low temperature, and low pressure.

In the dehydrated form, the guard-level and warden-level insect units will fall into suspended animation hibernation.

At the same time, their energy level will decrease, and the energy ‘toll’ required to cross the stargate will be reduced.

The same energy share can transmit more insect units.

And after arriving on the other side of the stargate,

these dehydrated insect units only need to be immersed in the high-level nutrient solution of the Zerg hive base for a period of time to restore their combat state.

Fortress-level, heavy-armor-level, and other insect units can also undergo the same dehydration treatment.”

After listening to Kerberos' report, Li Ang scanned the Zerg hive army that covered the sky in his vision and nodded, “Then, start dehydrating.”