Once the old man had been fully converted into a birthing factory, several other individuals were taken in the night, becoming one with a large bio structure. bio-materials were stored in special sacs, which would be distributed throughout the structure for any necessary purposes. Days passed and the drones had started spreading into the forest, bringing necessary bio-material not readily available in human subjects.
Once the towns citizens started getting suspicious of the disappearances, an infected individual rallied the citizens to the town center, showing a fake corpse of a drone, calling for the eradication of these creatures. Once enough individuals were gathered the man's stomach started to expand, engulfing the citizens in a large red cloud. Panic soon spread throughout the crowd, as extreme fear and confusion spread.
Several drones went throughout the town cleaning up any stragglers before bringing them into the large pile of bodies in the town center. After several hours the humans woke up with slight changes, before proceeding to dig into the ground. These humans stopped and assumed several positions, provided nutrients and oxygen through network tendrils that had been planted a day prior. Several structures and drones were formed over several days as the humans started growing and morphing.
The town's buildings were consumed, deconstructed into their base elements and formed into useful bio-materials. The towns grain and herb silos were consumed, added to the network to help grow the hive.
As for structures, they are grown underground, with distribution centers and sensor eyes on the surface. Distribution networks appear like black tumors, which sprout black tendrils to the surface which supply and take material from surface centers. Birthing chambers are likewise borrowed underground, their exterior was a smooth spherical black keratin material, while several birthing sacs make up the interior. Command nodes are burrowed incredibly deep underground, covered by large thick layers of multicolored bio armor. This bio armor was far more advanced then normal keratin exoskeletons, as it was created with limited metal reserves, providing large defensive abilities. Command nodes are connected throughout the hive, directing activities and storing hibernating drones incase of emergencies.
There were 500 drones in the initial town: 200 gatherers, 50 spitters, 100 melee, 25 scouts, 4 mobile networks, 100 infestors, and 21 misc.
Gatherers gathered material from different sources, usually in forests or with attack waves in towns. They are a meter tall, bidedal, four limbed, with large mouths used to break apart material. They have a large stomach for storing material, with a large orifice in the center for delivering or receiving bio material. One pair of arms can be used for gathering material, while the other pair was used to tear large creatures or objects apart. Their mouth was large and they have a pair of eyes in the front and back of the head, there was another orifice above the mouth that connects to a large air sac that distributes oxygen throughout the body.
Spitters walks on 6 limbs, compared to a gatherer their stomach was slimmer and full of an acidic mixture. Their mouth was narrow, and pressure was built up in the back of the mouth to propel the acid forward once opening their mouth. They have three large lungs next to the stomach, used to provide the air pressure necessary to propel the acid.
Melee drones can curl up and roll, they have 8 limbs used for crawling when necessary, the outer shell has sharp blade-like spines that curl up while rolling and unfurl at anything unfortunate to be in its way.
Scouts are large winged creatures with a large central eye in the front. They carry smaller scouts for closer investigation of areas, each scout drone can carry hundreds of smaller scouts ranging from 10-0.5cm in length. These scouts have large satellite-like appendages that can detect sound, microwave, or even electromagnetic waves.
Mobile networks are large 10 meter creatures that store large amounts of bio-material, these networks can distribute and gather bio-materials. They can also burrow and spread network tendrils for feeding hive structures.
Infestors infect creatures for better integration into the hive, or for consumption. These drones are small and bipedal, similar to a gatherer. They can evolve and grow viruses, parasites, bacteria, and more in a large sac where a stomach should be. They can spit clouds of gas similar to a spitter that can infect large groups of humans, or directly inject them with their two arm-like limbs.
To connect future hives a 40 meter long, 10 meter tall cylindrical transport was grown, this train-like structures would bore through the ground, laying tracks with the material gathered through tunneling. These transports would deliver drones to towns, and once occupied can be used for bio-material transportation until permanent pipe like structures could be established.
Due to the amount of individuals in the town, a disappearance of this size would stand out to the kingdom. The black swarm was still early in its development, so keeping humans intact to deal with suspicion and investigation would hamper development. The swarm also considered humans a low risk species, due to their primitive nature. The swarm didn't actively wage war on the humans yet due to the possibility that humans may be what crafted the lantern, and are more advanced then previously thought. Since they were immediately purged they believed investigation and surveillance of the humans was primitive, but they may have access to some method of advanced technology, possibly from another race.
The second town was 4 km away, taking 5 days at around .25 meters per second for the swarm transport to arrive. Scouting drones had been sent days prior to calculate the location and record vital structures. On the night of the 5th day a large 12 meter hole was punched into the floor of the guard camp, spewing out dozens of spitters, infestors, and melee warriors. The guards were taken by surprise and terrified, leaving an opening for melee warriors to pin them down as infestors injected a blood virus into them, incapacitating them.
The swarm swiftly secured the town entrances, encircling the residences and gathering them in a circle at the town center. A woman screamed in fear and a man near her pulled a dagger and charged a large spitter drone. Before the man could get within a couple meters of the spitter he suddenly felt a gaping hole in his chest. The man stumbled in fear before falling to the ground, dead. The remaining townspeople stared in horror, afraid of angering these horrifying beasts. A dozen infestors suddenly spit a strange red gas, causing a panic in the townspeople who tried to run but collapsed after a couple steps.
Before they would begin their evolution into burrowers they were interrogated while their brain still remained intact. Once an adequate amount of information was gathered they were sedated until they could morph and burrow. While they morphed into burrowers, two mobile networks distributed network tendrils to feed the humans until the finish their growth into hive structures.
Through gathering information through the infested humans in this second town the swarm learned of an event called the week of hell. During this week individuals would be forced to give their monthly quota to the tax collectors, any under performers or acts of rebellion would be punished by the accompanying guards. The black swarm planned on planting parasites into the brains of those who came during the week of hell, along with subtly genetically editing them. These individuals would gather information for the swarm, relaying it through encrypted electromagnetic communication. False memories would be implanted to reduce suspicions, and orders could be sent remotely. These orders would override normal brain functions, forcing the individual to perform these orders under any cost.
While preparations for the week of hell were underway, distribution pipes between different locations were formed, distributing vital resources. Until the necessary information could be gathered, cities and areas under direct watch of the kingdom were avoided. Future plans involved gathering the necessary material to form several fusion and fission structures. These structures could turn uranium to iron and hydrogen into gold. Not all elements would be common in the small rocky planet the swarm originated in, so necessary workarounds would be necessary.
Since metals and other more advanced elements were now available, the infrastructure became more advanced and individual drones were far more capable. There was still not nearly enough materials for any advanced structures, such as the elemental foundry structure that could combine or split elements, and even form artificial elements.
Such structures would require several metric tons of rare earth materials for even the smallest elemental foundry. Not only would the required materials need to be developed, advanced atomic structures would need to be constructed. Energy consumption would be immense, as subatomic particles would need to be formed through large atomic structures. To combine two hydrogen atoms would require a large atomic structure several thousand nanometers wide, each structure can produce atoms at a rapid rate, but it still takes a long time and a lot of energy to produce any substantial quantity of new elements. Subatomic particles used in construction are gathered from atoms consumed by the atomic structure, which can even be used to form subatomic structures with substantially larger particle foundries.
When scaled up the elemental foundry will become quite vital, as artificial and scarce elements will be incredibly useful for producing advanced infrastructure and drones. Particle foundries are only viable with several planets worth of energy and material, which can only form a pitiful amount of subatomic structures.