Chapter 264: Descent
Clirey had little desire to delve into the cavern. This nest was profoundly eerie and completely different from those they had encountered before. For other nests, their current relentless excavation efforts would have emptied them long ago.
Yet this nest’s sheer expanse and the labyrinthine complexity of its underground tunnels far exceeded all expectations.
Dr. Balt, a biologist, speculated that this nest belonged to an unprecedentedly large swarm family, potentially housing an unimaginable number of organisms. This made any deep infiltration of the nest exceedingly dangerous.
One needed to remember the nest near Cross Base, which, even after suffering a pitfall trap that killed hundreds of thousands of its swarm, losing its food stores, had still managed to deploy 200,000 troops to overrun the base.
And this nest was even larger. That suggested the presence of millions, perhaps more, of the creatures inside. If they went berserk, even with advanced weaponry and seasoned troops, the invading forces would struggle to fend them off.
Thankfully, this operation involved substantial manpower. With coordination from General Masai and Major General Porter, the first wave entering the underground nest exceeded 100,000 troops.
The vast army divided into over a thousand teams, each entering the nest through different passageways, converging toward the location emitting the signal.
The paths within the cave were convoluted. The wider main corridors allowed three or four people to march side by side, while the narrowest passages barely permitted even the slimmest Riken soldiers to crawl through after removing all their gear.
Faced with such passages, the Riken dared not proceed recklessly. To pass through, they would have to use tools to widen the tunnels. However, this approach was highly inefficient and risked causing cave-ins.