At this moment, all the Hosts on the periphery of the Black Thorn Grove were being rounded up by the Theft Disk. The Spore Broodlings hatched by the Red Stripe Tribe were now scattered everywhere outside the Black Thorn base. Once a Host could not enter the protective range of the Hydralisk, which could strike against air units, it would be killed alive. As mentioned before: Hosts possess no offensive capabilities but provide necessary nutrition to the hatched Zerg creatures, so they could not be allowed to be sacrificed for nothing.

By this time, the Black Thorn Overmind had hatched quite a few Hydralisks capable of anti-air attack, and they began patrolling around the base. Strictly speaking, if the Hydralisks reached a certain scale, they would not fear the Spore Broodlings, and the cost of a Hydralisk… especially the amount of rare minerals consumed was far cheaper than that of a Spore Broodling. However, it must be noted that the vision and mobility of airborne Spore Broodlings were ten times that of the Hydralisks. Thus, over ninety percent of the Hydralisk patrols returned in vain; conversely, several squads of Hydralisks were even wiped out and killed alive when the Red Stripe Tribe's Spore Broodlings gathered superior forces for encirclement and annihilation.

The situation instantly fell into an extremely passive state.

It was at this critical juncture that Fang Senyan found the Black Thorn Overmind. The man and the creature gathered together for ten minutes; no one knew what they were conspiring about, and then they separated.

Not long after, at least forty Hosts gathered together, escorted by two squads of Hydralisks, and charged west, apparently heading toward the Original Fluid base to carry out some action. If these forty-odd Hosts were killed, the entire Black Thorn base's food supply would face a shortage, and even the Embryo Larvae could not be hatched due to a lack of food despite sufficient energy, forcing them to focus only on hatching a new batch of Hosts! This would undoubtedly greatly delay the base's rate of development!

Under such enormous [pressure/temptation], the surrounding Red Stripe Tribe Spore Broodlings converged and launched a frantic assault. If they wanted to eliminate these forty-odd Hosts, they first had to kill the two escorting squads of Hydralisks. Otherwise, the Hosts' defense and vitality were also quite formidable; if they attacked the Hosts with full force from the start, even if they managed to kill them all, the Spore Broodlings would inevitably suffer heavy casualties under the simultaneous spitting attacks of two Hydralisk squads—a scene the Red Stripe Overmind absolutely did not wish to see.

The situation indeed developed as anticipated: the two squads of Hydralisks ultimately could not withstand the onslaught from the surging Spore Broodlings coming from all directions! Within a few short minutes, they were decimated, and the few remaining ones posed no threat at all. The forty-odd Hosts quickly and shamefully retreated towards the main base. Over a hundred Spore Broodlings pursued relentlessly, slaughtering them madly; before they had even flown two or three kilometers, at least half of the Hosts were killed alive.

However, in the process of pursuit, the Red Stripe Tribe's Spore Broodlings arrived at a wide-open area not far from the Black Thorn Tribe's main base. At this point, they did not notice that the pursued Hosts had been constantly descending in altitude while flying, almost skimming the ground. To kill these Hosts, the Spore Broodlings also had to fly lower for easier targeting.

The Red Stripe Tribe's Spore Broodlings continued to gather, giving chase tail-to-tail, concentrating fire to kill the Hosts one by one, appearing determined to annihilate them completely! But just as the majority of the Red Stripe Spore Broodlings were grouped together launching their attack, a figure suddenly leaped out of the sac of a particularly massive, dark Host—it was Fang Senyan, holding a seemingly inconspicuous cylindrical object: the prototype Electromagnetic Cloud Explosion Bomb he had more or less snatched from the humans!!!

A dazzling blue light instantly flashed! The Spore Broodlings’ combat habit was to favor grouping together for concentrated fire attacks, and Fang Senyan had emerged directly from the core of the Spore Broodling cluster when he jumped out of the "Deep Whisker" sac! This single detonation stunned at least half of the Spore Broodlings in mid-air, throwing them into a dizzy state! Simultaneously, from the ground surrounding this open area, at least six squads of Hydralisks and five squads of Zerglings burst forth with booming sounds. The Hydralisks simultaneously spewed venom madly toward the sky! Moreover, most of these Hydralisks and Zerglings still bore the markings of the Fluid Tribe that hadn't faded yet!

When Fang Senyan ambushed the Fluid Tribe before, he was tricked by the Elite Zerglings lying in wait at the Fluid Hive Queen's entrance. If he hadn't possessed the Electromagnetic Cloud Explosion Bomb—a great weapon against the Zerg—he might have really died on the spot. This demonstrated that the Fluid Tribe had specifically studied this Zerg technology and enhanced this genetic capability in their troops. After the thirty Host decoys went out, the Black Thorn Overmind took advantage of the Red Stripe Zerg's reconnaissance lull, concentrated the Hydralisks previously produced from the Fluid base, and then sent them to this open area not far from the base to burrow and lie in wait. . . . . .

There were at least fifty or sixty Spore Broodlings stunned by Fang Senyan's Electromagnetic Cloud Explosion Bomb.

They relied on flapping their wings to float in the air; once their auditory organs were severely damaged by the bomb and they were stunned, they naturally fell straight out of the sky. The Zerg's formidable physique meant they wouldn't die merely from the fall—at most, they sustained minor scratches. But upon hitting the ground, the Zerglings, which had been sharpening their blades, charged forward with frenzied roars!

A full ten seconds was enough for the Zerglings to pounce on a single Spore Broodling, lock onto it, and prevent it from taking flight! The Hydralisk swarm focused its spitting on the Spore Broodlings that hadn't been stunned. Under the corrosive liquid sprayed down like dense rain, the remaining freely moving Spore Broodlings instinctively regrouped and flew high into the sky again! This way, even if outer comrades were sacrificed—like merely peeling the skin off an orange—the lives of most of their kin could be protected.

It was precisely at this moment that a strange figure flashed out from behind a distant rock like a ghost—it was the Elite Mutated Queen Jiani! Although a single Spore Broodling could have killed her directly, at this juncture, this powerful Elite Mutated Queen Jiani could play a huge role!

She sprayed a small cluster of green mucus towards the large mass of grouped-up, high-flying Spore Broodlings.

Then, that green mucus surprisingly split into two in the air, two into four, and four into eight... By the time it reached the group of Spore Broodlings ahead, it had already formed a huge, pale green, faintly glowing net! It enveloped them completely!

Entrapment!

It was the Queen's powerful area-of-effect deceleration ability—entrapment!!

If these Red Stripe Tribe Spore Broodlings previously needed only five or six seconds to escape the Hydralisk range, that time was now extended by nearly double! And this extra time was the boundary between life and death...

Three minutes later, the battle concluded.

Black Thorn Tribe losses: thirty-one Hydralisks, thirty-three Hosts, six Zerglings, plus one Electromagnetic Cloud Explosion Bomb. Total loss: 37.75 million units of Pandora Crystal Ore, and 775 units of Rare Associated Mineral GA.

Red Stripe Tribe losses: one hundred and seven Spore Broodlings. Total loss: 10,700 units of Pandora Crystal Ore, and 10,700 units of Rare Associated Mineral GA as well!

This attrition ratio was a complete victory for the Black Thorn Tribe!

It must be understood that losing Pandora Crystal Ore was insignificant; the Rare Associated Mineral GA was far scarcer. An average of 6–8 portions of Crystal Ore had to be mined to yield one portion of Associated Mineral GA. Furthermore, the Red Stripe Overmind's strategies and tactics were almost flawless. Even if it had underestimated the entrapment ability of the Elite Mutated Queen Jiani, the maximum loss should have been limited to about thirty Spore Broodlings. What truly led to its crushing defeat was completely failing to account for the abnormality that was Fang Senyan, who could instantly render more than half of the Spore Broodlings incapable of flight and cause them to crash to the ground! This led to the tragedy of total annihilation!

Simultaneously with the ambush, the Black Thorn Tribe completed its evolution from a Level Four base to a Level Four Base! The two opposing factions finally stood on the same starting line. The first advanced organ structure built by the Black Thorn Overmind was... the Spore Pinnacle! This structure looked like a gigantic mushroom, but more than ten thick vessels hung down from the umbrella canopy beside the mushroom cap, directly connected to the slime on the ground. The genetic code it provided could cause the Embryo Larvae to develop into two types of units: the first was the Spore Broodling that had previously plagued the entire Black Thorn Tribe, and the second was the suicide bat known as the Exploding Mosquito.

The Black Thorn Overmind naturally seized the excellent opportunity presented by the enemy's sharp reduction in air power, operating dual mineral production at full capacity to churn out units of Spore Broodlings and Exploding Mosquitoes, returning the enemy's own tactics against them. Numerous air battles occurred in the interim, but ultimately, due to the hundred-plus Spore Broodlings annihilated by Fang Senyan’s setup, the Red Stripe Tribe suffered a massive setback, ending in a crushing defeat.

It could only abandon air superiority and switch to producing the cost-effective and versatile Hydralisks for a shrinking strategic defense. However, it was anticipated that the annihilation of those hundred-plus Spore Broodlings would only cause the Red Stripe Tribe a major loss, far from crippling them! At this time, the military strength ratio between the two sides remained at a terrifying figure of at least [ratio value missing/implied]: Black Thorn Tribe: Red Stripe Tribe Three. Once the Red Stripe Tribe amassed sufficient troops to break out, it would inevitably be the decisive moment for a life-or-death battle!