First, all Swarm combat units were elevated by one tier, including the locusts which were not shown on the panel.
This meant that even the weakest locust unit had Tier 9 strength, only one tier lower than a drone.
The zerglings went without saying—at Tier 13, they would be a source of terror even for civilizations in the Starsea Alliance famous for their psionic cultivation.
The ultralisks reached Tier 16. In terms of pure melee capability, they were already comparable to the starships of some ordinary civilizations.
Of course, an ultralisk was a ground unit after all, and its volume was far smaller than a starship, so destroying a vessel would take considerable time and breaking through shields was nearly impossible. However... by any measure, it now possessed the strength to go head-to-head with a battleship. As long as the enemy fleet didn't raise their shields, their alloy hulls could not withstand an ultralisk's destruction.
Not to mention, there were Tier 15 individuals like defilers and corruptors below them, each possessing unique strengths.
The most significant change in this evolution was the emergence of antimatter synthesis technology.
This meant the main Swarm fleet no longer had to rely on nuclear fusion.
Antimatter has the opposite charge of normal matter. When antimatter comes into contact with normal matter, annihilation occurs, transforming into massive amounts of energy, primarily in the form of photons.
The destructive power of antimatter is terrifying; the annihilation of just one gram of matter and antimatter is equivalent to releasing over 40,000 tons of TNT. This energy can provide incredible thrust, allowing starships to reach speeds over 90% of the speed of light.
Currently, the Swarm's most powerful weapons have essentially all transitioned to antimatter weapons.
For instance, force field shields are no longer powered by fusion, increasing their protection level by at least tenfold.
Antimatter curvature missiles are essentially missiles propelled by antimatter. They are extremely fast, and when combined with curvature flight, they become too rapid for enemies to counter. Furthermore, the power of their explosion is generated entirely by matter-antimatter annihilation.
Laser weapons directly utilize the photons produced by antimatter annihilation.
Gamma ray cannons, naturally, utilize the gamma rays produced by antimatter annihilation.
Antimatter radiation spheres allow antimatter to annihilate in a relatively constant manner, producing a wide range of intense light and forming an artificial antimatter sun.
With antimatter technology, the efficiency of orbital bombardment has improved significantly. The Swarm now effectively possesses the capability for "glassing," able to destroy all life on a planet in a short period.
“Very good. Now, prepare to upgrade the Swarm.”
Since the resources required for the next level had expanded many times over, Xia Jin was in no hurry to continue accumulating. Instead, she planned to quickly promote the current Swarm.
This process was longer than imagined.
She lacked energy, and the current scale of the Swarm was absurdly large, so it would take quite a long time.
Fortunately, the Swarm was now producing many low-cost consumable bugs, greatly increasing the speed of energy collection.
Thus, almost every moment, bugs were participating in the upgrade process.
One day later, on the home planet where Xia Jin's true body resided alone, there were already over a hundred million Swarm members that had completed their transformation.
In space, on average, one Small Leviathan completed its evolution every day.
“Previously, to prioritize the upgrade, the production of Small Leviathans dropped severely. It’s time to focus on the fleet scale now.”
Xia Jin decided to focus on shipbuilding once the upgrades were complete.
Although construction had continued over the past two months, producing one or two ships a month was considered good. This was mainly because she hadn't invested many resources, spending almost everything on the upgrade.
With the Swarm's current production capacity, she could actually build four ships a month, even considering that the upgraded ships were more difficult to construct.
This meant that in just one short year, she could add forty-eight more leviathans.
However, building only Small Leviathans wasn't cost-effective; the production of other various bugs could not stop.
She allocated 25% of the resources to other ships and Hive Carriers, planning to build eighty small escorts every month, upgrade five Hives into Hive Carriers, and produce a batch of standard transport ships (referring to the non-consumable kind).
Poor-quality temporary transport ships were only for short-term use, so a batch of standard ships was still necessary.
As for the main Swarm, she planned to manufacture 500 million units daily, primarily consisting of various zerglings.
With the preparations beginning, the overall strength of the Swarm started to expand rapidly.
In just two short months, almost the entire Swarm had finished their advancement.
Next, Xia Jin began to consider sending ships to the other side of the Low-Point Jump Gate.
However, for this gate to be activated stably, it needed to be in outer space, far from any large celestial bodies.
She specifically had the Swarm excavate it and then used Small Leviathans to slowly tow it into deep space.
At a distance of 200,000 kilometers from the planet's surface, the massive black gate finally existed stably.
“If the other side is a planet's surface, the air there will probably all rush into the vacuum on this side the moment I open it,” Xia Jin whispered.
She had Brain Bug No. 1 input energy and slowly activate the device.
Accompanying a faint blue light, the black Low-Point Jump Gate began to rotate slowly. The space within its ring suddenly underwent unstable fluctuations, and then an invisible channel gradually emerged.
An overseer floating twenty kilometers away discovered that the area behind the gate had actually turned into a different, unfamiliar starry sky.
“It’s a success.”
Seeing the image from the other end, Xia Jin knew it was stable.
The other side was also deep interstellar space. More importantly, the environment there was about as stable as this side, and she didn't sense any dangerous auras.
“Brain Bug No. 1, is there a way to determine the relative distance and direction of the two locations?” Xia Jin asked in her mind.
“We only need to fly to the other side, observe the interstellar environment there, and lock onto some familiar star systems. After all, judging by the current energy intensity of the device, the distance between the two regions is approximately 420,000 light-years. Through observation, there is currently only one star system at this distance.”
Brain Bug No. 1 transmitted a star chart into Xia Jin's mind.
“Only one? Then it looks like that's the one.”
This star system was far smaller than the one they were currently in, but it still contained over five billion stars. It should be a satellite galaxy of the local galaxy, with a more irregular shape, like a twisted iron bar that was thick in the middle.
“Send a bunch of overseers to the other side to check the situation and lock onto the specific location.”
Under Xia Jin's command, many overseers were deployed from the sides of the small escort ships, flying toward the other end.
By now, the overseers possessed strong interstellar observation capabilities. The scanning ability of a single unit was enough to detect all celestial bodies with a diameter greater than one meter within ten light-years, though it would take time.
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