The moment the fleet of the Skrull Empire collided with the forces of the Insect Race, the situation was completely out of control.
No one expected that the hooks of the insects, which seemed no different from carbon-based life forms, could directly tear the hulls of the battleships constructed from the advanced materials of the Skrull Empire.
The shields designed to withstand the first wave of energy shocks weren't pierced by lasers, but were instead ripped to shreds by the specialized giant legs of the flying scythes. The ensuing beam of light completely destroyed the Annihilus battleships behind the shielded escort ships. The charging laser weapons had no chance to fire; they were destroyed along with their turrets.
Dorek VII roared in the command room, "Have more escort ships take their positions, we must guarantee our fire output and repel their onslaught!"
More and more escort ships rushed forward, their dense formation nearly filling the vast universe space. However, the swarm tactics of the enemy were clearly superior to those of the Skrull Empire, or rather, it was as if these tactics were specifically formulated to counter the Skrull's way of warfare.
Magneto, who was then viewing everything as a magnetic field, detected this earlier. Born in an era of war, he had richer experience, so he immediately sent a message to Mystique who was disguised as Lilandra.
"These insects probably have stolen the battle reports against the Skrull Empire from the Kree Empire. They have analyzed the basic techniques of the Skrulls from these reports and devised a strategy. They are smarter than we imagined."
Mystique slowly furrowed her brow, looking serious but not overly surprised; if the Destroying Worms weren't formidable, the Kree Empire wouldn't have suffered such a setback. She immediately sent a message to Dorek VII, saying, "Change your strategy at once, your combat methods have been completely figured out."
At this point, Dorek VII realized it too, he cursed under his breath and said, "The fall of the Kree Empire's capital star zone had a bigger effect than we thought, we miscalculated."
"General Ando, immediately pass on my command, abandon the line of defense, switch to three-dimensional mobility and strengthen side fire. Kill these damn worms before they can fire!"
The Skrull known as General Ando immediately carried out the emperor's orders with precision. Dorek VII was not exactly a good emperor and could be described as a tyrant, but he was no less experienced in warfare than anyone else. Any emperor who spent ninety percent of their life at war would develop an instinctive grasp of tactics.
The soldiers of the military state were also highly trained, they switched tactics in no time, and the new tactics quickly took effect. When the fleet of the Skrull Empire no longer focused on defense but began a full-fledged encirclement, the vulnerable abdomen of the worms hiding behind was exposed and quickly eliminated, reversing the tide of the battle momentarily.
Watching the worms splattering juice all over the projection screen, Dorek VII's expression didn't ease, he knew any new tactic would be effective the moment it was implemented. But this was only an advantage from taking the initiative, if you wanted to assess the enemy's command level, you had to see their countermeasures.
The more Dorek watched the battle on the projection screen, the more he frowned. After a while, he cursed lightly and said, "It's another goddamn brain-link command. It's just like those idiots from the Kree Empire!"
In interstellar warfare, there is a specific form of combat command called 'brain-link command', implying that the command center can directly control the brains of each individual soldier to carry out tactical orders. Clearly, the command style of the Kree Empire was a typical example of brain-link command.
The Supreme Wisdom, as the supreme ruler of the Kree Empire, had superior calculating power that allowed him to precisely control every Kree soldier in a large-scale interstellar battle, something that the Skrull Empire found quite bothersome.
The Skrull Empire had developed many tactics against this command style during the thousand-year war, the most famous of which was the Brainwave Blocker.
However, all the Blocker devices of the Skrull Empire targeted the brainwaves sent by The Supreme Wisdom, it was completely different in case of the Insects. Due to time constraints, the Skrull Empire could not even collect enough frequency transmission data from the enemy for decryption, let alone blocking.
Watching as the Insect Race once again constructed an arc-shaped defense line through exquisite cooperation, Dorek VII furiously hammered the operation panel, yelled into the communicator, "The Supreme Wisdom, can't your damn brain be of some use?! Aren't you good at decrypting all kinds of frequencies?!!"
The Supreme Wisdom replied in his usual cold tone, "The terminal for the enemy's brain-link command exists in a form different from mine, they should be the most powerful biological computer in the universe so far."
"The super biological computer's biggest advantage is that apart from providing commands, it can also provide special energy for swarm organisms. This is similar to the new type of energy used by the Nova Corps on Sando Star."
"My invasion cannot currently break through their energy barrier, I need to gather more data for decoding..."
"Useless!" Dorek VII muttered. The Supremacy didn't retort, only went silent. Mystique, acting as Lilandra, said on the communication channel: "This is not the time to argue. The warriors of the Ferocious Feather Tribe have already placed two thousand small jump devices and tens of thousands of dimensional traps within the scope of the star system. Let's compress their formation and reduce their numbers!"
Mystique cut off communication. Charles wheeled his wheelchair to her side, looking at the frontline situation on the screen, and frowned: "I am confident I can directly invade their command center through brainwaves, but I don't know what countermeasures they have. I believe that such a race would definitely have psychic defenses."
"That's too risky," Mystique shook her head: "Professor, your role should be more about gathering intelligence and understanding the enemy beforehand. While attacking the command center has high rewards, the risk is huge. The mutants can't take such a risk."
Just as Charles was about to respond, he furrowed his brows slightly. Mystique looked at him and asked, "What's wrong, Professor? What did you find?"
"Their super units are making their appearance," Charles's tone dropped, and by this time, Mystique had already noticed something from the screen projection.
Few giant figures mixed in with the incoming wave of the Insect Race army attracted everyone's attention. They were not the kind of insects that won by numbers. They didn't bring the oppressive force of a dense swarm of insects, but they brought a different kind of fear.
An insect giant with an upper half resembling a humanoid but a lower half like a crab punched an escort ship away with one hit. Then it dragged the wreckage of a nearby battleship and threw it towards a dimensional trap. After setting off the trap, it lunged towards the warships providing firepower in the back. It was in enemy territory in an instant.
Mystique's eyes widened, she said in disbelief, "These insects are choosing to go the full-scale route?! Our previous estimations were completely wrong!"
She immediately connected to the emperor of the Skrull Empire. He too had noticed the problem, Dorek VII spoke hastily, "They're not entirely a swarm race. They're not winning by numbers. By Infinity Eternity, they also evolved super individuals!"
In the cosmos, the development of war civilizations generally follows two routes. One is the overwhelming numbers strategy, including mechanical armies and clone troops, or simply the race's mass reproduction—these are part of this route. The Kree Empire and Skrull Empire both follow the swarm route of the mechanical civilization.
The other is the super life route, where the race's population is not large but each individual is very powerful, capable of facing thousands or even tens of thousands of enemies. They continuously produce various weapons to enhance the fighting power of these strong individuals. The entire civilization puts focus on individual prowess, with Asgard being its representative.
So far, no civilization in this universe has chosen to follow a full-scale route, because the resources in the universe are limited. The resources a civilization can occupy and develop within a certain amount of time are also limited. Development inevitably involves give and take.
But the situation in the Antimatter Universe is special. There is only one civilization in that whole universe, and it doesn't exist in the same time scale as the positive matter universe. They might have developed for trillions of years in their universe before invading the Positive Matter Universe.
The evolution of the Destroying Worms has already reached its end, whether it's the swarm route or the individual route, they've all reached the end of their technology tree. Compared to them, the civilizations in the Positive Matter Universe have just started out.
This leads to why the Insect Race from the Antimatter Universe wants to invade the Positive Matter Universe. The mass of a universe is constant. The development of the Destroying Worms over so many years has consumed more than half the mass of the Antimatter Universe. The Antimatter Universe can no longer accommodate their race, they must find another way.
This is not just an invasion war, it is the ultimate battle for survival between races from two universes.
Either, more than ninety percent of the Antimatter Universe Worm Race will be exterminated to allow them to continue surviving on the remaining resources even if they return to the Antimatter Universe, or the Positive Matter Universe will be occupied by them and the resource-rich Positive Matter Universe will continue to provide the resources for their development.
The actions of the destroying worms have made most of the leaders of civilizations understand one point—The result of this war is not victory or defeat, but survival or destruction. It's a zero-sum game of life and death—either win, or die.
Therefore, Mystique, disguised as Lilandra, immediately told Dorek, "Form the defense line, you guys are responsible for holding the front. We'll handle the super units."
"You plan to send the Twin Gods of Xiea into the field? Don't forget, the enemy also has gods," Dorek clearly disagreed. In this situation, whoever reveals their cards first will inevitably lose.
"Gods? Hmph... Mutants, get ready to step onto the field!"