I Am The Swarm

The stingers hidden within the hooks of the Modified Spider Combat Bugs had silently injected venom into the small bird-like dinosaurs during their brief contact.

This venom was not the same as Luo Wen’s own toxin. Its primary component was an extremely concentrated digestive fluid.

Since the spider combat bugs stored their venom in small glands within their legs, the limited space meant these glands held only small amounts. Naturally, the venom capacity was insufficient for Luo Wen’s standard digestive toxin, which required large quantities to be effective. This toxin wasn’t purely a poison—it primarily served to digest food externally. Paralyzing and killing prey was merely a secondary effect.

Thus, small doses of Luo Wen’s toxin only caused intense pain without delivering fatal results. As the prey’s size increased, its effectiveness further diminished.

Given these limitations, the spider combat bugs couldn’t rely on such a toxin.

Instead, Luo Wen had combined the genetic traits of various venomous organisms—snakes, spiders, insects, and even a type of snail—to create a new, potent toxin.

This innovative venom acted as a powerful anesthetic while being highly lethal. Its mechanism was simple and effective: once injected into prey, it immediately blocked the transmission of nerve signals. The prey’s heart would stop beating, and its breathing would cease shortly after.

The time required for the process varied depending on the prey’s size and the amount of venom injected. For the small bird-like dinosaurs, it would take no more than two or three minutes.

Once the venom was injected, the spider combat bugs avoided prolonged confrontation. After evading a sharp beak attack, they used their eight legs to push off forcefully, leaping backward to disengage from the bird-like dinosaurs.

One of the dinosaurs, enraged at the audacity of these thirty-centimeter-long bugs, was about to pursue when its body suddenly went numb.

Simultaneously, a concentrated barrage rained down from above, halting its advance.

The small projectiles struck its body, causing a searing pain akin to being burned. The dinosaur felt its body grow increasingly numb and unresponsive as the pain subsided.

The other bird-like dinosaurs suffered a similar fate. Most were paralyzed on the spot, becoming helpless prey. A few, however, chose to flee rather than counterattack after being struck.

Their escape was short-lived. The Type II Flying Bugs intercepted them with precision, ensuring they lost control of their bodies within moments.

The battle had barely begun, and in just a few minutes, it was already over.

Perhaps the opponents were simply too weak. The swarm’s combat forces had barely demonstrated the effectiveness of their coordinated air-ground tactics before the enemy fell.

In fact, only about a dozen spider combat bugs had participated in the fight, while the rest merely observed.

Luo Wen felt somewhat unsatisfied; the battle had ended before he could fully engage. It was like preparing for a game, warming up with stretches and finger exercises, only for the opposing player to quit immediately after the game started.

No sense of fulfillment!

Still, he was thrilled by the swarm’s initial victory, which validated his current strategy.

However, upon examining the prey, Luo Wen felt a bit frustrated. Though these bird-like dinosaurs were only about a meter long, their lack of tails meant their bodies contained a considerable amount of meat.

By Luo Wen’s estimation, each one weighed around fifty kilograms.

The problem was that in developing the combat units, he had completely neglected the logistics units.

The Modified Spider Combat Bugs, though originally capable of transport as earlier versions, required assistance from other insects to do so. They lacked the limbs necessary for efficient loading and unloading.

The flying bugs, as aerial units, prioritized shedding any unnecessary limbs, making them unsuitable for transportation.

If the new version of soldier ants were available, they could have temporarily served as laborers. However, their production was far down the sequence, with not even a single egg laid yet.

With no time to rectify this oversight, the task of moving the prey fell to Luo Wen himself. His clawed limbs were well-suited for gripping, and his exoskeletal armor endowed him with immense strength.

After a long day of hard labor, he finally managed to transport all the prey back to the base. For the time being, they were buried in a pile of decaying leaves near the base. The Burrower Ants were assigned to work overtime, constructing a massive storage chamber. Leaving the prey exposed outside was too risky.

Meanwhile, an order was placed for the first batch of ten heavy-armored soldier ants, each a meter long. These would require several dozen days to mature, undergoing a pupal stage for their final development.

Once ready, the heavy-armored soldier ants could temporarily serve as transport workers. Until then, Luo Wen would have to handle the job himself.

Fortunately, this hunt yielded substantial gains. The few hundred kilograms of food would sustain the swarm for a while—assuming Luo Wen didn’t consume it himself or venture out to find his own food.

The combat units were ordered to retreat. With sufficient food on hand, continuing the hunt would only result in unnecessary killing and waste.

A small contingent was assigned to maintain vigilance and patrol the area, while the rest entered temporary hibernation. Luo Wen, meanwhile, didn’t linger at the base, heading out alone to forage.

In this forest, Luo Wen’s ability to obscure his presence—including his scent, pheromones, and heat signature—meant that only a few apex predators posed any threat.

Moreover, with his superior detection abilities, even those few titans were no match if Luo Wen chose not to provoke them.

As a result, Luo Wen now occupied a position at the top of the food chain in the forest. Hunting alone posed little danger, and he enjoyed a comfortable life, eating whatever he pleased.

However, barely two days into his escapades, an urgent call came from the base. Two Queen Ant nodes began flashing. Luo Wen, perched on a tree branch, immediately locked onto the signal and projected his consciousness.

The mental exchange was swift, and Luo Wen quickly grasped the situation.

The prey, stored outside temporarily while the storage chamber was under construction, had attracted trouble. Covered in decaying leaves and killed without visible wounds, the prey initially seemed secure.

Yet, with the recent surge in larval production at the base, the underground plantation could no longer meet their needs. The Queen Ants had naturally dispatched worker ants to cut pieces from the prey to supplement the base’s resources.

While the worker ants made only small incisions, their sheer numbers gradually expanded the wounds. Inevitably, the scent of blood began to spread.

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