Overlord: Rise of the Zerg

Although Zero's most important research, that is, the self-destruction of fire bugs, could not achieve immediate success, but about their other characteristic, Sass already had some ideas.

At present, the Zerg are indeed very powerful. At least there are no decent enemies on this continent and nearby seas, but they still have many problems.

With the current capabilities of the insect swarm, as long as they do not stop expanding, the problem of food or energy will forever trouble and restrict them. This has never changed since the ant era. Zero also thought about getting rid of this restriction, but the result can only be said to be a long road ahead.

At the same time, another issue is equally crucial: longevity.

The strength of the Zerg's appearance often makes their own problems ignored, as if they will always be at the peak and always maintain the combat power when they were first born.

But Zero is very sure that, except for Sars, all other bugs, including hatcheries, actually have a lifespan limit.

Today, it has only been two years since the first Zerg hatched. Although the first batch of hatched bugs had been basically lost in the constant fighting, Zero was still keenly aware that as time went by, they seemed to be weakening at a very inconspicuous speed.

Unlike other races, the Zerg are at their peak almost as soon as they are born, but they obviously cannot maintain this state forever. Even if they are never afraid of death and are always extremely fierce, it cannot change the fact that they have been going downhill since they were born.

The most obvious evidence for this is that even if they are all Zerg that have not been strengthened, in Zero's specially conducted combat test, the first hatched bugs were almost completely suppressed by the latest hatched bugs.

This is no accident, because Zero made a total of one hundred sets of controls, all of which were like this.

From this point of view, they seem to be no different from other creatures. They just skipped the infancy stage, or the infancy stage was extremely short, and went directly to the peak stage. Then every day after that, they were declining, and in just one year, they had already shown obvious symptoms. The difference in combat power.

Although time is short, Zero is still unable to determine the specific lifespan of the Zerg units, but judging from the rapid decline in their combat power, their lifespan should not be very long. Zero made a rough estimate, and it should be between five and ten. Years or so.

Under the most optimistic scenario, there is a high probability that he will not survive more than ten years.

Such a short life, most of the time is spent dormant, which is of course a waste.

Zero always feels that letting them go into hibernation when there is no war is actually a kind of chronic suicide.

Moreover, the Zerg's so-called hibernation itself is nothing more than a simple rest. In addition to reducing energy consumption, it does not reduce the Zerg's life consumption.

This is completely different from what Zero imagined.

He believes that the Zerg in this state should not need any supplies at all, nor will they consume any energy, nor will they consume their lifespan. They will be as if they are dead. They will be able to join directly when they are awakened again when needed. fighting.

This is the hibernation in his imagination, or in other words, dormancy.

Of course, this can only be regarded as a beautiful vision of His. Even He Himself knows that this is impossible, at least under the current conditions, it is completely impossible.

So far, all the animals discovered by the Zerg, including the lizardmen, all have such restrictions, as if the existence of life will eventually die. The Zerg, while very special, still haven't escaped this.

Ten years, ten years seems to be a long time for the Zerg who can destroy the Lizardman Empire in a few months.

But Zero can't just focus on the present. When the time scale is extended to the entire planet or even the deep space universe, this length of time cannot even be counted as a moment.

It was just too short.

However, this time the study of fireflies has led to a disguised answer to this problem.

In the past, the so-called hibernation of the Zerg was just to stop activities and reduce consumption. The passage of their lives would not stop because of this. It can be said that although the speed is very slow, they are indeed getting weaker every minute and every second. .

But this time, during his research on the fireflies, Sass discovered that when the other party was in this state of suspended animation, life passed very slowly, almost to the point of non-existence.

According to its estimation, in the state of suspended animation, the life force consumption of fireflies is only about 10% of that in the normal state!

This is an amazing discovery! It is as if they have escaped the limitations of nature on life to a certain extent, and use this method to greatly extend the time they can survive in this world.

It was not just Sass who came to a conclusion, this was also confirmed in experiments conducted by Zero.

He placed the two fire bugs in two caves opened by the Zerg. After the diggers appeared, it became quite easy for them to open the caves.

Afterwards, He allowed one of the fireflies to fall into a deep sleep, while for the other one, he used the swarm of insects to keep approaching to lure it, so that it would remain active half of the day.

Of course, they are provided with enough survival materials.

In this comparison, the difference in their lifespan becomes quite obvious.

The fire bug, which was often disturbed by swarms of insects, could no longer shine on the seventh day and eventually died quickly.

The other one was still alive and kicking when it was woken up a month later.

This is enough to show the superiority of their state in this state of suspended animation. In a sense, it can actually block the power of time to a certain extent!

Even if Zero currently has no way to solve the Zerg lifespan problem, if the Zerg always has this ability, by entering this state, he can extend the peak period of the Zerg in disguise. When they do not need to fight, they can completely enter this state. In this state, while reducing consumption, one can also seal one's combat power for a long time.

The only thing Zero is a little worried about is the characteristic of these fire-starting bugs that "die upon exposure to light". He is more worried that if this characteristic is applied to the Zerg themselves, it will directly turn the Zerg into nocturnal creatures, which would seem to be too much of a loss.

However, the answer given by Sass relieved Zero's worries.

It believes that this characteristic of fireflies is not caused by the state of suspended animation itself. In other words, fireflies fall into a state of suspended animation when they see sunlight. This has nothing to do with the characteristics of suspended animation. It is just a stress response to sunlight that they have produced during their long-term evolution.

Seeing strong sunlight will cause the fireflies to react, perhaps with fear, nervousness, or something else, which is unknown. But this reaction will cause it to instinctively enter a state of suspended animation.

In short, these two things are not essentially related. It is just the instinct of fireflies, like an unconditioned reflex that is born with it.

The Zerg have no such instinct at all.

Therefore, if the insect swarm uses this on themselves, it will not turn them into completely nocturnal creatures.

After confirming this, Sass has already begun to try to use it. It needs to comprehensively consider the impact of this ability on all aspects of the Zerg, which will take some time.