This is also the reason why the Goddess of Hope could complete the design and production in such a short period of time.
Aside from its bizarre attacks, the eye worm is nothing but garbage in the wars of the Interstellar Civilization.
And those strange methods of attacking are utterly meaningless against drones, these non-living units.
The production lines were even ready to go; all that was needed was to retrofit some modules and parameters.
Right now, everyone was staring intently at the screen atop the hive container, because drones had already arrived at the battlefield!
That's right, it was just that fast.
The drones slowed down purposefully, prowling through the city.
At this point, the entire city was completely deserted.
Most residents had completely evacuated; all you could see now were warriors with their eyes covered, making careful moves, occasionally escorting a handful of civilians who, for various reasons, hadn't yet left.
They didn't dare linger anywhere for long, not even allowing too many people to gather together.
Once enough eye worms are attracted and form a "zone of despair", covering your eyes is useless.
Suddenly, all the commanders at the airport could, through the drones' eyes, clearly see several drones speeding toward a certain area as if locking onto a target.
There, three warriors were escorting a child.
And the fastest drone had already darted to within five meters on their right, extending two metal tentacles from its edge to deftly dissect an eyeball lying on the ground.
"When did it get shot down?" a commander exclaimed, wide-eyed.
Indeed, it was an eye worm.
They could confirm that none of them had blinked, and yet there was a clear blackened mark right in the center of the eye worm's main eyeball.
Enough to prove it had been attacked!
"Micron-scale high-energy particle beam, invisible to the naked eye," interstellar world Shen Yu explained at this moment. "Plenty more have been shot down, here's the count."
Only then did everyone notice the red number in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, rapidly ticking upward.
It displayed 1158.
In just a few seconds, it leapt to 1312.
"That many killed already?" another commander couldn't help but ask.
More than fifty thousand eye worms—sounds like a lot.
But given their size and flying ability, scattered through the city, it's no more than a drop in the ocean!
All their combat results over this period, added together, barely exceeded two thousand!
And even that came at a high cost.
It's not disbelief in these powerful interstellar civilization weapons, just shock at their terrifying efficiency.
The drones had only been on the battlefield for less than two minutes!
"This is one of our most targeted upgrades," interstellar world Shen Yu continued slowly. "Our scientists discovered a unique biomechanical energy inside the eye worms, and according to its parameter signatures, developed a micro scanning sensor installed on every anti-eye worm drone. The scanning range isn't very large yet, but the master AI automatically gathers intel and finds the most efficient search mode—which is, around humans in the city."
The commanders watched as the drones zipped toward their warriors, swiftly dissecting eye worms nearby and collecting energy organs—suddenly, everything made sense.
But they still couldn't escape an overwhelming sense of shock.
Only now did they fully recognize this weapon's design concept.
Precise detection systems, overwhelming mobility, efficient attack methods, rapidly optimized combat tactics...
No exaggeration: the instant this weapon is produced, it becomes a merciless, efficient eye worm slaughter machine!
The name "anti-eye worm" is well-deserved.
This isn't war.
It's more like harvesting from a breeding farm!
The only purpose for human warriors is as "bait"—just cover your eyes and stroll leisurely.
If you deployed a hundred of these hives… no, ten would be enough.
The end of the eye worms has arrived!
The commanders glanced at each other; on everyone's face and in every gaze there was joy, excitement, shock, and other complex emotions.
Some even had eyes growing faintly red.
Thinking of comrades who'd been lost during these times.
Suddenly, this war against the eye worms had become shockingly easy, as if in a dream.
But if possible, they wished every war could be this effortless!
"Let's go, time to give our warriors an explanation and adjust our battle plans," Jiang Hui finally spoke up, his expression equally complicated. "Look at the front lines—some of our warriors are clearly bewildered."
Yeah—in fact, not just soldiers at the front line, even the commanders in the rear were absorbed by the raucous uproar.
"What are these things?!"
"The eye worms are being slaughtered!"
"Attacks you can't even see!"
"Is this the strong support command promised? This is totally alien tech!"
"It's too fast! Way faster than the eye worms!"
"They're using our warriors as bait, but there's no sign of attacking us."
"..."
Frankly, the arrival of creatures like eye worms had already shattered people's understanding of the old world.
But the eye worms' origin at least had an explanation.
But these mechanical-looking little gadgets offered no explanation at all, appearing on the battlefield out of nowhere with absolutely overwhelming power!
The impact was, naturally, enormous.
Soon, Jiang Hui's voice rang out across the entire command channel.
"What you see now are anti-eye worm drone combat units brought in by our allies—this is only an experimental battle. All units, do not panic, obey orders, coordinate tactics, and in the shortest possible time, clear every eye worm from the city and reclaim our home!"
Allies!
Those two words made everyone even more confused inside.
To be fair, under the threat of the Meteorite Crisis, Human Civilization was indeed trending toward a full-unification alliance, and that was accelerating fast.
But no one believed these things were produced by any nation or force on Mother Star.
"These allies… could they be from the stars too?" someone murmured.
We know monsters came from the stars—so if "allies" did too, would that really be so strange?
But whether or not it's true…
As they watched eye worms fall, one after another, their defenses ripped open rapidly, every witness became aware:
The whole world is about to be shaken!