Chapter 1 The Black Tide

The insectoid hive fleet, scattered like stars on a chessboard, slowly advanced, like dark clouds pressing down on the city, obscuring the long sky.

The Ant King stared dumbfounded at the swarm of insects covering the sky. His neck seemed to be gripped by an invisible force as he shrieked, “It’s you!

I knew it was you!

You’ve been the mastermind behind the scenes since the Doorway Scramble!”

“I’m more inclined to describe it with adjectives like ‘calculation, operation, planning, promotion,’ and so on,” Li Ang said casually with a smile.

Ju Tianfu, standing beside him, took a deep breath. A chill ran down his neck once more, and painful memories of being captured, interrogated, and abused by the hive flooded his mind.

But he felt little grief or resentment in his heart.

Or rather, these emotions that should have been present were replaced by absolute shock.

What floated in the high altitude were not bloated, useless lumps of flesh, but war machines armed to the teeth.

They lacked the inherent flaws of ordinary creatures on the winding path of evolution, and were the ultimate products of the flesh and blood technology route.

Every organ, every part, even every strand of DNA, existed for the same goal—war.

Land warfare, aerial warfare, naval warfare,

Mobile warfare, positional warfare, guerrilla warfare,

Blitzkrieg, defensive warfare, conquest warfare, colonial warfare...

All hive units were born for war.

Love, hate, good, evil, mercy, compassion.

These emotions, unique to intelligent beings, could not be seen in the slightest on the hive. They only obeyed one will, one voice,

Following one principle—efficiency.

The killing efficiency of war, the efficiency of using resources to convert biomass, the efficiency of collecting gene samples to develop new types of arms, and even the efficiency of raising planetary residents.

The psionic energy that Li Ang bestowed upon the Overminds, and the hive’s biological computer brain that used nucleic acid molecules as "data" and biological enzymes and biological operations as information processing tools,

Provided the hive with massive computing power.

And the hive's low-level units had no self-awareness, relying on mental power and pheromones to communicate information.

This provided the hive with extremely strong execution.

In addition, the hive itself had rich and varied transformation abilities, and extremely strong adaptability to the surrounding environment.

Computing power, execution, and adaptability accumulated together to form absolute efficiency.

In other words, the hive's enemies faced not only the sky-covering insectoid fleet,

But also a unified, coordinated, and efficient system.

This system originated from the wisdom of Li Ang and the Overminds,

From the biological blueprint, from psionic energy, from the Venom Dagger, the Swamp God’s Power, the Alchemy Workshop, the Pet Breeding Box, the Abyssal Magic Mirror, the Cthulhu Clay Figurine, the Terminal Vending Machine, the Doorways, and a total of ten million eight thousand kinds of biological gene samples...

It was thanks to a series of miracles that could closely cooperate,

And the accumulation of years and countless time and space,

That the hive had its current explosive development.

And now, it was time for the hive to tear off its disguise and show its fangs.

*Whoosh—*

From the distant forest, a dense and noisy rustling sound rang out,

Red and black creep spread wildly, surging like a tide through the woodland, covering grass and trees.

Towering trees were eaten away by fungal spores, but they did not fall, instead turning into spore chimneys on the spot, continuously spewing out dense smoke to the outside world.

The entire forest was transformed into the hive's home field with extremely high efficiency.

Mountains, canyons, rivers, lakes,

As far as the eye could see, the entire vast space of the Heart Room was quickly stained with the hive's red and black.

And in the unseen underground, the intricate and meandering mycelial roots, stretching for thousands of miles, had even begun to automatically weave and intertwine, forming incubation factories,

Using the ubiquitous biomass to hatch millions of insectoid eggs.

*Sha-sha—*

*Sha-sha—*

Ten million noisy whispers intertwined, melting into a symphony called "War."

Li Ang listened to this music with a cold expression.

Behind him, countless hive motherships hovered, surrounded by tens of millions of flying insects,

On the surface, eight million heavy-armored insects, along with nine hundred thousand fortress-class and special-class insects, were neatly arranged and in position.

As for servant-class and beast-class?

They filled every corner of the view, like drops of seawater in a red and black ocean.

A hundred million? Five hundred million? A billion?

Or, even more...

Gabriel still maintained the posture of holding the Sword of Flames, pointing it at Li Ang.

The hive in front of him was constantly emitting life energy to the extreme,

As well as a cruel, bloodthirsty, indifferent, and cold aura.

Most fatal of all, the dome, walls, and blood river entrances of the entire Heart Room space were still constantly pouring in new swarms of insects.

They were like darkness itself,

In the face of absolute numbers, even the holy light emitted by the angel army paled in comparison.

*Thump, thump, thump!!*

Heavy footsteps rang out in the fungal forest.

Tens of thousands of bipedal guard and elite-guard insects, wielding bladed forelimbs and holding heavy weapons, stepped out of the forest and stopped behind the players.

And those individuals named "Hive Tyrants" in the formation were even more conspicuous.

They were all over five meters tall, and every organ from head to toe existed for combat, exuding terrifying psionic fluctuations all over their bodies.

We meet again.

The Hive Tyrant Kerberos looked down at the shocked players from above, his gaze lingering slightly on Ju Tianfu's face.

Back in the Doorway Scramble, it was Kerberos who presided over Ju Tianfu's interrogation.

But that was not an important matter. Ju Tianfu did not recognize the appearance of the hive lords at all—after plundering and absorbing new gene samples from the Titan's body, the Hive Tyrants' strength collectively soared once again.

Every time they breathed through the exhaust ports under their back armor plates, they would emit a muffled roar.

The unintentional psionic aftershocks even distorted the air.

Each Hive Tyrant was comparable to a four-winged angel... No, they were stronger than four-winged angels.

Much stronger.

Gabriel looked down at Li Ang from above, the Sword of Flames burning silently. The self-awareness belonging to intelligent creatures in his sight was gradually fading.

Almost instantly, Gabriel had a full understanding and understanding of the situation.

The war potential and threat shown by the hive was far higher than other blasphemers.

Even more than the betrayed Michael and the woman next to Michael.

“...”

Without any warning, Gabriel disappeared from the spot, flashed to the front of Li Ang across a distance of thousands of meters, and heavily swung down the Sword of Flames.

Hohenheim and others nearby did not react at all.

Su Ni Shang also flashed to Li Ang, but was blocked by the other four archangels who also teleported.

Those archangels blocked the weapons in Su Ni Shang's hands with four flame swords, not hesitating to exchange injuries for injuries.

To defeat the enemy, first kill the leader.

Gabriel stared indifferently at the Sword of Flames, cutting towards Li Ang's throat.

The light he emitted seemed to have the ability to slow down the flow of time.

Within the range of the light, the dust suspended in mid-air floated slowly,

The Sword of Flames inched closer to Li Ang's neck.

However.

*Clang!!!*

The sound of metal clashing resounded continuously.

The ground beneath their feet instantly shattered.

Li Ang blocked the Sword of Flames with the Xin Yuan staff, and smiled as he looked at the incredulous Gabriel, completely unaffected by the holy light.

"Is that all you've got?

Then, it's my turn."