Inside the Command Center, the atmosphere was heavy.
Watching the screen, General Randy frowned as the Shadow Marine Unit, even after sacrificing three warriors, still couldn't effectively contain the Mutated Zombie.
"Conventional tactics have failed."
He slammed the command console, a look of decisiveness flashing in his eyes.
"Its speed and reaction time have exceeded the physiological limits of our warriors."
"Order."
Without hesitation, he turned and issued an order to the dispatcher behind him.
"Immediately go to the armory and send in the complete set of the newly equipped Hive Attack Drone System. Have the Endermen in the base carry them in for support."
"Yes."
The personnel immediately sprang into action.
The Hive System—this was one of the cutting-edge technologies of the military industry.
It consists of a Mother Hive Launcher and thousands of fist-sized attack drones.
Each drone is equipped with a high-frame-rate camera, an advanced AI targeting module, and a Miniature Electromagnetic Cannon capable of firing Special Alloy Needle Rounds.
They are the Grim Reapers of the sky, born for beyond-visual-range, high-mobility, Saturation Strikes.
Soon, sealed alloy boxes were quickly transported to the Portal.
Inside the Outpost Base in the World Zeta, the native Endermen responsible for construction received the order, immediately put down the blocks in their hands, picked up the heavy alloy boxes, and with a flash, turned into purple smoke, rushing toward the battleground engulfed in gunfire...
"Captain, backup has arrived."
On the battlefield, the excited voice of a squad member came through Morris's earpiece.
He looked back and saw dozens of tall Endermen teleporting in from the rear, each carrying a silver-white box.
"Open them."
The boxes were quickly opened, revealing the densely packed Micro-Drones arranged like a honeycomb.
"Everyone."
A sharp light burst forth in Morris's eyes, and a bold and insane tactic instantly formed in his mind.
"Abandon conventional attacks. Switch to carrying the Hives and performing Blink Airdrops."
"Use your Teleportation to breach the beast's location with these little things, and release them at the closest range."
"Yes."
All Shadow Marine Warriors immediately took action.
They stopped firing futilely and instead teleported to the Supply Point, each grabbing a dozen or so drones and cradling them.
The next moment, an unprecedented three-dimensional hunt began.
Whoosh!
A Shadow Marine Warrior, carrying drones, instantly teleported to a spot fifty meters in front of the Mutated Zombie.
The moment he appeared, the dozen or so drones in his arms were activated. Like a disturbed swarm of bees, they buzzed, shot out of his grasp, and turned into a dozen streaks of black lightning, heading straight for the target.
The Mutated Zombie reacted extremely quickly, turning almost the instant the drones left the warrior's hands, preparing to repeat its old trick and kill the warrior.
But the warrior's mission was already complete.
He teleported away again, reappearing in a safe zone hundreds of meters away.
Meanwhile, those dozen or so drones had completely locked onto the Mutated Zombie.
The high-frame-rate cameras mounted on the drones operated at thousands of frames per second.
They frantically captured every movement of the Mutated Zombie, and massive data streams instantly poured into their internal AI modules.
[Target Locked]
[Performing Dynamic Trajectory Prediction...]
[Prediction Complete, Sharing Information to Swarm Network]
In an instant, these dozen or so drones, along with the thousands of drones released by other Shadow Marine Warriors nearby, simultaneously received the shared predicted trajectory information.
[Fire]
Without any delay, thousands of drones opened fire simultaneously.
Thousands of alloy needle rounds, almost invisible to the naked eye, rained down like death, but they did not shoot toward the Mutated Zombie itself.
Instead, they shot with extreme precision toward all possible locations where it would step or evade next.
The Mutated Zombie's instincts made it sense the fatal danger; it frantically twisted its body, trying to dodge.
The first time, relying on its abnormal reaction speed, it managed to find a minuscule gap in the predicted trajectories and narrowly dodged the attack.
But.
[First Attack Missed]
[Data Model Correction...]
[Enemy Evasion Pattern Recorded...]
[Initiating Second Round Evolutionary Inference...]
The speed of AI learning and evolution was terrifying.
The second time, as another wave of Blink Airdropped drones swarmed in, their attack patterns became more bizarre and cunning.
This time, the Mutated Zombie failed to completely dodge.
Pfft! Pfft!
Two needle rounds fiercely embedded themselves in its shoulder blades, drawing two puddles of black blood.
"Roar!"
The intense pain plunged it into complete frenzy, but what awaited it was the third, fourth, and endless rounds of optimized, conclusive strikes from the Skynet, derived through countless inferences.
Once the AI's big data model had thoroughly analyzed its every movement, every evasion habit, and even every muscle twitch, the outcome of this battle was no longer in doubt.
Its movements seemed slower and slower in the eyes of Skynet, and its evasion routes were predicted with increasing accuracy.
Finally.
During the fifth round of Saturation Strikes, thousands of needle rounds precisely covered every space it could possibly move into.
Pfft!
Dozens of needle rounds simultaneously struck its body.
And the most fatal shot, with absolute precision, entered through its eye socket and pierced its brain.
The arrogant Mutated Zombie's body suddenly stiffened, its frantic running ceased abruptly, and finally, with a loud crash, it fell heavily to the ground, completely silent.
Around it, hundreds of Shadow Marine Warriors slowly emerged from the shadows.
They silently looked at the corpse, which had been riddled like a sieve, their eyes devoid of joy.
"Quickly, transport the sample back to the base."
Inside the Command Center, Steve immediately issued the order.
Several Shadow Marine Warriors immediately stepped forward, jointly hoisting the heavy mutated body, preparing to transport it back.
Just then.
Clink! A crisp sound.
A fist-sized, Rhomboid Crystal Stone, emitting a faint white glow, rolled out of the mutant's pierced skull and fell onto the ground.
The nearest warrior immediately stepped forward and cautiously picked up the crystal stone, which was still warm.
In the Command Center, Steve clearly saw the crystal stone through the warrior's first-person view.
Inside it, liquid light seemed to flow slowly, filled with a mysterious energy aura.
"There is something, indeed."
A look of realization flashed in Steve's eyes.
This must be the root cause of the zombies' evolution.
He immediately turned to General Randy beside him and said.
"Randy, it seems our research work needs to be moved up."
"Immediately summon personnel to prepare a complete set of the highest-standard biological laboratory equipment and transport it all to the Outpost Base in World Zeta."