Faced with this situation, the momentum of the beast tide instantly surged! Just as the Viper Wolf packs were about to furiously breach the Zerg base due to a gap in the frontline firepower, more than ten colossal entities unexpectedly emerged from the wormhole. These things looked strikingly familiar; they were the beetles whose genes Fang Senyan and his team had personally provided to the Black Spine tribe for incubation!

These enormous beetles were swiftly transported by the Host to key defensive junctures. Assisted by swarms of Zerg Zerglings, they acted as massive floodgates, forcibly halting—and crushing—the incoming tide of Viper Wolves!

The Viper Wolves' claws and fangs were utterly incapable of threatening the chitinous exoskeleton of the beetles, which boasted a formidable thickness of nearly thirty centimeters. Merely by virtue of their sheer size and weight, the beetles crushed the wolves. Furthermore, if the number of Viper Wolves became too dense, or if aerial threats appeared, the beetles would unleash a terrifying, fan-shaped spray of acid, instantly charring their targets into coke.

Meanwhile, the cunning Zerglings watched from the periphery. The moment a Viper Wolf was isolated, several would pounce, using local numerical superiority to tear the solitary predator apart in a frenzy of biting. Logically, the Viper Wolves' individual strength surpassed that of the Zerglings, but engaging multiple enemies simultaneously minimized that advantage to near nothingness.

For the Viper Wolves, their true strength lay in coordinated tactics and cunning maneuvers, not in this kind of suicidal, frenzied charge. Their proper battleground should have been lurking in the dense forest at night, observing the enemy, waiting for a weakness to exploit before striking—not employing brute force against a solid front line.

Conversely, the Zerglings were precisely the shock troops honed and tempered by tens of thousands of years of Zerg evolution, perfectly calibrated for frontal assaults. When compared side-by-side, the inherent flaws in the Viper Wolves' strategy became starkly apparent.

The comparatively few Pterosaur Stingrays engaging the Lurkers were quickly targeted by the dozens of Spore Fliers dominating the skies. Individually, the Pterosaur Stingrays possessed an overwhelming advantage in combat prowess against the Spore Fliers; even in a group engagement, the faster, melee-focused Stingrays did not fear the Spore Fliers at all…...

----However, this held true only under one condition: that the numbers on both sides were roughly equal, and no other external forces assisted in the battle.

The actual situation was…... Below them, a full twenty to thirty ground-based Spore Anti-Air Turrets had been rapidly incubated and were tirelessly spewing forth corrosive green spores. With the Black Spine Brain Bug achieving Silver-tier status, the entire tribe’s evolutionary capabilities had naturally soared, accelerating the incubation speed of their organ structures several times over.

Because the Zerg's spore turrets had an astonishing rate of fire, the emitted green spore projectiles crisscrossed the air, weaving a practically impenetrable net!

After the second wave of attack: the beast tide was completely annihilated. Zerg losses amounted to: seventeen Spore Fliers, nine Lurkers, one hundred sixty-seven Zerglings, two Ultralisks, four Overlords, one structural organ, and twelve Spore Cannons.

Yet, the third wave of attack transmitted by the Host was something Fang Senyan hadn't anticipated. Perhaps Mother Nature Eva perceived that the Zerg base’s defense relied too heavily on local advantage and that its troop deployment was stretched thin. She dispatched a mixed force composed mostly of ranged Slingers, supplemented by a small contingent of Viper Wolves…...

This countermeasure was certainly not flawed; when possessing an overwhelming numerical advantage, the attack efficiency of purely ranged units truly surpasses that of melee units. The previous scenario—where wounded frontline units couldn't retreat and fresh melee reinforcements were blocked from engaging—was indeed frustrating to witness.

If the enemy concentrated fire using ranged units like the Slingers, even the Ultralisks couldn't withstand it; the stalemate where a single defender held off thousands would certainly be broken.

The reason Eva didn't send waves 1, 2, and 3 all at once could only mean one thing: her spiritual energy was insufficient to compel that many creatures to launch a suicidal assault! Alternatively, coordinating too many creatures would incur too heavy a price for Eva to pay.

After all, every creature she controlled was not a naturally calibrated war machine like the Zerg; they possessed individual consciousness, felt pain, desired survival, and experienced fear. Suppressing these innate instincts demanded an astonishing amount of spiritual energy. Even divine power, according to legend, had its limits!

"This is a tremendous opportunity for you, my friend!" Fang Senyan suddenly murmured to himself with a faint smile.

The Black Spine Brain Bug began flapping its wings, laboriously dragging its corpulent body off the ground. After craning its neck to survey the distance, it wheezed and landed. Fang Senyan quickly transmitted the various data he had gathered on the Slingers to it. The large, fat insect immediately issued a flurry of commands.

Subsequently, seventeen or eighteen Drone-bees rushed out, beginning to incubate Spine-Thorn Ground Towers in the main axis of the attack, deliberately creating an appearance of insufficient forces as they seemingly retreated to defensive positions.

Soon, the third battle officially commenced.

Slingers, as beasts equipped with ranged capabilities, could not continuously fire poison quills like human machine guns sputtering "rat-a-tat-tat." Their individual attacks possessed higher impact, but the intervals between shots were longer, necessitating recovery time. With the Black Spine Zerg base upgraded to Level 3, and the Black Spine Brain Bug having received an infusion of power from the Zerg Queen, the Spine-Thorn Turrets enjoyed significant boosts to both health and regeneration rates.

Thus, when the third wave of the beast tide struck, it initially shredded through the defenses, destroying seven or eight Spine-Thorn Towers in rapid succession. Afterward, the assault bogged down into a stagnant war of attrition that lasted well over an hour. The Black Spine Zerg lost only a few non-critical structural organs and about a dozen Spine-Thorn Towers. Naturally, the Zerglings, used as cannon fodder, suffered heavy casualties. However, the Zerg's reproductive capacity was formidable; a single egg could hatch two Zerglings, provided there was enough Pandora Crystal energy, allowing for remarkably swift replenishment.

As the battle wore on and the breakthrough progress stalled, with the Black Spine Brain Bug immediately replacing any destroyed Spine-Thorn Tower, the prospect of breaking through the defense line still seemed distant. Meanwhile, the Zerg base structures were rapidly taking shape, and the number of Drone-bees in the mining sectors alone now exceeded a hundred, working diligently and continuously—truly giving the impression of sustaining war through production!

Furthermore, the base itself had already advanced from the original Level II to Level III, fully developing into the most magnificent central organ structure, awaiting the consciousness of the Black Spine Mother, Deep Palace, to inhabit it.

By this time, Mother Nature Eva had clearly sensed that something was amiss and began controlling the remaining Slingers to slowly pull back. But in that moment, the Black Spine Zerg had bought themselves crucial time! He certainly wouldn't allow the enemy to escape unscathed! From the chilling depths of the wormhole, indistinct shadows flickered wildly, and then, like a surging tide, massive numbers of Zerglings poured out in a frenzy!!

The width of the wormhole was at least thirty meters, and the Zerglings were highly agile; at least two or three could dart out simultaneously from a passage only one meter wide. This meant that at least a hundred Zerglings were erupting from the wormhole every second, immediately forming a relentlessly charging black tide, thirty meters wide, colliding head-on with the slowly retreating beast tide.

The Slingers were not inanimate objects; they clearly understood that the creatures furiously charging toward them were not coming for a friendly handshake. These lean, slender-looking creatures made not a single sound as they advanced and ran! Only the faint, rustling sound of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of feet striking the ground converged into a wave of terrifying resonance. Silent in their advance, silent in their charge, silent in their attack!!

Upon entering the effective range of the Slingers, every available ranged unit unleashed its venomous quills at full power! Millions of quills shot forth simultaneously, truly dimming the very light, as if the sky had been shrouded by storm clouds.

From an aerial viewpoint at that moment, the vast Zerg tide appeared as a wide, black ribbon rushing toward the fan-shaped beast tide. Following this assault, the leading edge of the bitter-black ribbon representing the beast tide suddenly had a substantial segment sheared away!

However, this was a sight the Black Spine Brain Bug had witnessed countless times before. In warfare, the Zerg had always used Zerglings as the vanguard, literally piling up a victory smeared with blood and gore right before the enemy's eyes!!!

The Slingers continuously sprayed their quills; the leading edge of the Zerg ribbon could be seen being repeatedly severed. Yet, Fang Senyan, watching from afar, saw clearly…... the distance between the Zerg tide and the beast tide was visibly, steadily shrinking!

Time seemed to stretch on for an eternity in that moment, though it had only been about ten seconds! That black ribbon formed by the Zerg tide—

----crashed directly into the formation representing the beast tide!!!

Upon impact, the Zerg tide spread out and flowed around the beast tide like water, appearing ready to completely envelop them like dumplings being sealed.

Then piercing screams erupted. The melee-specialized Zerglings had slammed into the ranged-attack-specialized Slingers. At such close quarters, the melee combatants clearly held the advantage!!