Wow! The item-dropping rate is really high!

"Rose, be ready," Bai E whispered, his eyes also locked on the entire battlefield. Rose, who was monitoring the situation as well, reacted immediately.

"Got it."

She didn't know what she, who had not received battle orders and was at the very end of the march, might encounter, but she knew Bai E was never wrong. That was enough for her.

Under Bai E's gaze, the "ground" rose slowly in Rose's view.

...The ground, of course, wouldn't move; the only things moving were the bugs.

The grey-brown swell that everyone had thought was part of the terrain and looked like a small hill from a distance began to move. It was only then, from their various monitoring channels, that everyone could see the true form of the target—

A monstrous beast as big as a small hill was revealed, possessing a pair of biological cannons even more ferocious and terrifying than those of the Gun Bugs, and it was evidently double-barreled.

Its position was even farther away than the Gun Bug horde, but its size, visually, was still several times larger than that of the Gun Bugs.

Like a mountain, the giant bug "struggled" to lift the massive biological cannons on its back, aiming them in the direction of the human army...

Information capturing on the battlefield couldn't be interrupted. The armies of unmanned surveillance drones brought down by the Gun Bugs were replenished by new drones, and the observation screens that had lost signal automatically connected to the newly risen drones.

The changes occurring at the farthest reaches of the battlefield naturally fell into the view of the officers in the command vehicle in real-time.

"It's huge..."

"What is that thing?"

"Is it the Dominator?" An officer slammed his hand on the tactical table beside him, suddenly rising in excitement.

"It doesn't look like it..."

"Another new type of bug..."

The Dominator behemoth previously encountered was entirely red, starkly different from the grey-brown behemoth in front of them.

Moreover, as the giant bug gradually rose, the differences in its overall structure were completely revealed—

Its body was flat like some kind of ground dragon and was covered by vicious bone spurs formed of chitin bone armor, looking incredibly thick and heavy.

The biological cannons it carried on its back were nearly half the size of its massive body. The behemoth's head, now resembling that of a lizard with backward-pointing horns, was bowed low to the ground, as if struggling to support the unbearable weight of the cannons on its back.

The contraction of the biological cannons was clearly observed by all officers through the camera feeds of the drones.

Seeing this, the supreme commander of the allied army's expression turned solemn as he gave a heavy command, "All units, prepare for the impact!"

They knew nothing about this new type of bug, but there was a recognized fact in their understanding of the Bug Race: the most dangerous ones aren't necessarily the biggest, but the biggest ones are always powerful.

No matter what type of bug it was, its sheer size meant it was another unknown strategic weapon that humanity had yet to understand.

Humans might have been progressing, but the bugs had never stopped evolving...

As the new type of bug was amassing its attack, a brief moment of despondency flashed through the minds of many officers as they awaited the unknown assault.

Then, two black orbs suddenly burst from the pair of biological cannons.

Primal muscle power gave these orbs an extraordinary velocity that even exceeded what rocket boosters could provide, leaving only a grey-black afterimage in all observation tools as the two orbs shot out almost simultaneously.

The target was...

Themselves!

The speed of the orbs made them hard to track, but Bai E, who had received pre-emptive information through the Bug Race network, knew they were coming right for him... or rather, for the area he was in.

"Scatter!" Bai E's voice had already spread through the Mecha squad's comms, echoing out almost the moment the giant bug appeared and while its attack was still brewing.

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However, everything happened in the blink of an eye.

The team member's reception and analysis of Bai E's commands occurred almost simultaneously with the launch of the spherical "shells."

Teammates who did not fully trust Bai E did not act immediately to escape to the periphery, and even those who did react found their mecha, with its not-so-agile armor, could not achieve the dexterity of the human body.

"Pfft!"

Like a water balloon filled to the brim suddenly bursting, a liquid like water exploded from the lower leg of a mecha in an instant.

The trajectories of the two spherical "shells," not arriving in sync, were almost indistinguishable.

But they were close.

With the "water balloon" bursting, a liquid like water instantly coated everything within a large area with a layer of highly adhesive oil.

Following closely behind, the latter spherical "shell" also struck precisely the area coated with the oily film.

"Snap!"

The mecha's lower leg, manufactured from the top-grade material currently used by humans, octonium alloy, was instantly penetrated, and the "seed" with terrifying penetrative power burst out of its casing in an instant.

The rapidly swelling seed exploded violently inside the mecha, and its internally compressed shell, unimaginable in strength, burst open with a roar.

The mecha standing on the spot had its left lower leg shattered like a blown-up model, and the nearby right leg joint deformed under the sudden impact. The fragments from the blasted octonium alloy structure shot outwards in a spherical distribution without losing momentum.

"Crack crack crack crack!"

The nearby servant mechas, supply vehicles, combat vehicles, infantry, and so on were instantly shattered under this indiscriminate barrage, plunging a large swathe of the battlefield into chaos.

When fragments from the "seed" exploded landed on the oil from the burst "water balloon," another round of explosions and flames began to rise... Stay updated through My Virtual Library Empire

"Bang bang bang!"

Bai E, who had reacted in advance by rolling away and hugging the ground, heard the sparse sounds of the fragments striking the alloy bodies.

Even mecha not hit by the first wave still endured significant impact force, with sporadic warnings alerting inside the cockpit through sharp alarm sounds. Having observed the stricken battlefield through panoramic cameras, Bai E also clearly recognized the horrific destructive power of the Bug Race's new breed of insects.

"What is that!?" Rose's response was no less quick than Bai E's, except that she did not understand the existence of this new type of insect.

Bai E's eyes swiftly scanned across the screen in front of him.@@novelbin@@

The two stationary spherical "shells" were no longer difficult to observe, and since the moment of impact, everything that had unfolded was faithfully captured by the cameras—

The first terra-cotta colored "shell," shaped like a water balloon, was filled with an oily fluid teeming with certain tick-like creatures, not water.

In the liquid that burst from the oily fluid, one could see these creatures writhing and moving distinctly.

The second "shell" was a hard-shelled seed.

After striking the mecha's lower leg, it did not penetrate instantaneously, but instead penetrated after a delay when the tick-like creatures quickly covered the contact surface and dissolved the outer shell, releasing the internal pressure.

One could guess the explosion inside the mecha, which likely occurred when the tick-like creatures quickly dissolved the "seed's" outer shell, allowing the unimaginable internal pressure to burst everything apart instantly.

Just like the most traditional fragmentation grenade.

Even the most primitive form of kinetic impact can cause unimaginable terror if the intensity is sufficient.

The Bug Race, in the most primitive way, showed their "talent" in weaponry.

And then, it was humanity's turn to respond…

"All rocket vehicles, fire a volley at the newly emerged targets!"

```