In the Warhammer world, powerful psykers can warp time itself. For Rhodes, twisting the time of an entire planet is no longer a difficult feat.
If a Zoiger can grow to adulthood, its utility would be immense. Adult Zoigers are extremely strong; just a dozen can conquer a planet, and the local garrison would stand no chance of resisting.
After some thought, Rhodes decided to summon the Zoiger Queen. At present, he didn't lack male combatants, so a female capable of reproduction was even more important.
A flash of light appeared in the system space, and the Zoiger Queen, standing 60 meters tall and weighing 55,000 tons, was summoned.
Unlike male Zoigers, the Queen has no wings and cannot fly. Her abdomen is abnormally large and bloated—effectively a giant ovipositor—allowing her to lay tens of thousands of eggs at a time.
(The author took inspiration from the female MUTO in Godzilla.)
The Zoiger Queen is only strong enough to deal with ordinary monsters. Against any tougher creature, her bulky form ensures certain defeat.
The Queen must be guarded by at least ten adult male Zoigers. In the group, her status is akin to an ant or bee queen: the species' breeder.
After summoning the Queen, Rhodes checked her stats. To get her to lay eggs, he'd at least need to provide a male Zoiger as a mate.
Every year, a female Zoiger can produce over a thousand eggs, with each laying cycle lasting about ten years and producing over ten thousand Zoiger larvae.
Most of these larvae will never grow into giant lifeforms, remaining at a height of 2.2 meters and a weight of 110-120 kg for life. They are sexless, serve as worker drones in the group, and are essentially expendable or cannon fodder.
There's a one-in-a-million chance that a male Zoiger larva will be born. This larva's growth cycle is extremely slow, taking hundreds of years to reach adulthood. Once mature, it stands 55 meters tall, weighs 48,000 tons, and can breed with the Queen.
Rhodes was a little disappointed. With such odds, raising a whole army of male Zoigers would be extremely difficult.
But another introduction caught Rhodes's attention: beings with copious dark energy can inject it into ordinary Zoiger larvae, giving them a chance to evolve into adult Zoigers.
Powerful dark-energy beings can control these creatures. Zoigers are inherently evil, love darkness and destruction, and prefer to be around those with strong dark power. That's why they serve the evil god Gatanothor, and later the three Dark Giants.
That was the Queen's basic info. Rhodes then checked her enhancement options: her height can be boosted five times, and her weight six times. Once fully enhanced, she could reach 70 meters in height and 67,000 tons in weight.
She also has two other enhancement options. The first boosts her breeding/egg-laying capability, increasing the number of eggs per cycle. There are four levels: the first costs 5,000 coins, the second 10,000, the third 30,000, and the fourth 50,000. Each upgrade more than doubles the eggs laid per cycle.
After all four upgrades, she'll be able to lay around 200,000 eggs per cycle.
The second enhancement, costing 10,000 system coins (once only), upgrades the Zoiger worker larvae: they become 3.5 meters tall, weigh over 250kg, have improved combat power, can mimic human forms, and spit electric balls with the force of a high-explosive grenade.
At this level, these mini-Zoigers are formidable—on par with Tyranid basic units, at least able to take on Tyranid Gargoyles.
But for Rhodes, their use is still limited. These creatures can't be openly included in human forces; to humans, they're no different from Tyranids and would only hurt morale.
And, humans do have anti-air units.
However, he could dispatch these larval Zoiger units to attack Tyranids in the future. Even a 1-for-1 trade would be worthwhile.
Rhodes examined the summoned Zoiger Queen: extremely bloated, like a giant bug, with only the upper body resembling an insect, quite distinct from the male Zoigers.
Zoigers aren't very intelligent. Upon being summoned, the Queen bowed to Rhodes as her master, then lay motionless.
The Queen didn't have many enhancement points, so Rhodes didn't hold back—he spent 100,000 system coins to max out all her attributes.
Her egg-laying cycle remains ten years, but in that time, she can lay at least 200,000 eggs. These eggs hatch into larvae within days, and as long as there's food, they'll grow up.
If Rhodes doesn't provide food, he can simply release them on a wild planet to prey on local life; the mini-Zoigers can hunt for themselves.
Zoiger biology is unique—they're insectoid monsters. Rhodes suddenly realized sending them to fight Tyranids might not be wise.
In past battles with Tyranids, though they couldn't create a full Red King, the Tyranids used their genetics to produce a 20-meter-tall Tyranid Red King beast.
They even gained enhanced genes by devouring dark Eldar monsters, boosting their Tyrant Warriors, Lictors, and Hive Tyrants.
If Rhodes sent his mini-Zoigers for an attrition war against Tyranids, they'd rack up some kills initially, but their genetic data would soon be harvested by the Tyranids.
So, in the end, maybe these mini-Zoigers can't be used to attack after all!
Or maybe they should be used against other xenos species!
"Master, I sense a very powerful dark presence. Did you summon a dark-type monster?" At that moment, the Cosmic Water Buffalo's voice spoke to Rhodes.
Cosmic Phantom Beasts are beings of light, highly sensitive to dark energy. The moment the Queen appeared, the Buffalo sensed the overwhelming darkness.
"Yes, I summoned a dark monster from Earth's ultra-ancient era, though it's not an Earth-native—it followed the evil god Gatanothor to Earth," Rhodes explained.
"I see! What do you plan to do with this dark monster?" asked the Cosmic Water Buffalo.
"For now, I'll just raise it somewhere. This Zoiger species has immense reproductive power; I had planned to use them as a cannon fodder army."
"Reproductive power, huh? Pity it's dark-aligned. If it were any other attribute, that would be excellent!" the Buffalo said with regret.
"Oh? Why is that a pity?" Rhodes asked.
"Master, in the past, our Cosmic Phantom Beasts could only be born naturally. But you have special means to transform other monsters into Phantom Beasts. If this one's reproductive power is strong, then her offspring could also be miniature Phantom Beasts. These smaller Phantom Beasts wouldn't be as strong as normal ones, nor could they promote ordinary beings to super-lifes, but they could fuse with ordinary beings, making their training much more effective, and grant them unique attribute-based Phantom Beast martial arts. Phantom Beasts can also evolve; maybe they could eventually become super-lifes," the Buffalo explained.
"You mean, if I transform her into a Cosmic Phantom Beast, her larvae become Phantom Beasts too?" Rhodes clarified.
"That's right, Master, at least in theory," the Buffalo affirmed.
Rhodes pondered. Zoiger is dark attribute, but the enhancement system never said Zoigers can't be Phantom Beast-ified.
He checked the system shop and found he could spend a million coins to turn her into a Cosmic Phantom Beast.
In ten years, the Queen could produce 200,000 eggs—that's 200,000 mini Cosmic Phantom Beasts!
If these Phantom Beasts fused with his gene-descendants, their combat power would leap, plus they'd gain the Zoigers' flight ability.
Other Imperial legions could also fuse with them; every foe slain would convert to system coins.
If needed, Rhodes could buy more Queens and eventually fuse them with human armies to boost humanity's overall strength! The only snag: her attribute is dark. If only it weren't!
But beings from the Ultraman universe with dark attributes can sometimes be converted to light. Rhodes planned to ask the Emperor for help, and with Daram (now a Giant of Light), maybe together they could change the Queen's attribute.