Now there is another class of bug I left out of the previous report, that's because thinking about these things upsets me, so I try to supress my own knowledge of their existence. But if you're talking about the bugs you cant really ignore these guys.

By now you should understand that the bugs adapt in response to threats, this includes growing wings to fight flying things and the like, essentially becoming like something to kill or survive it, well the greatest threat to the bugs is not my armies, it is not my,if I may brag, mighty defenses, not is it me. No, the single greatest threat to the bugs are also arguably my greatest creations, the minds. And the bugs will become like something to kill it or survive it.

Yes, that does mean the bugs have mind equivalents, I call them 'command bugs' and it's more accurate to say they are bug versions of Balistraia or occasionally Bulwark.

These creatures are highly intelligent, capable of advanced strategy, and they learn. These things will single handedly turn the tides of any fight they participate in, and it's not because they are utterly massive power houses. Ordinarily bugs figure things out through trial and error, probing every possible attack vector they can, these guys instead deduce the best way to attack, actually allowing the bugs to make intelligent use of their numbers and myriad of abilities.

If a normal bug has an adaptation to spit a concrete like glue substance they will try to use it to build rudimentary walls or to trap enemies. A command bug will instead use the substance to armor all other bugs, with either just the glue or various objects glued on as armor. Turning a minor annoyance into a devastating force multiplier.

If a bug can explode and another can fly ordinarily they would fight separately, one preforming a suicide charge and another preforming diving attacks, with a command bug the flyer will instead use the exploding bug as a bomb, usually on a fragile or important piece of equipment.

An invisible bug will sabotage and open the gates rather than just mindlessly destroying everything, a durable bug will stay back to shield weaker bugs, a tunneling bug will collapse sections of wall or burrow flanking attacks, bugs will in general become more efficient and deadly with their abilities.

Bugs led by a command bug are known to retreat or prioritize more valuable specimens' lives, they react to changes in the battlefield faster, they in general make everything significantly worse.

Now there isn't a single form for command bugs, but generally they are the largest of the bugs and they hand out near the rear of attacks, only pressing forward when victory is assured or their strength will decidedly turn the fight in their favor, otherwise they just sit and launch ranged attacks or do nothing at all.

As of writing the largest of the known command bugs is over 44 meters long and 28 meters tall, while the smallest is 28 meters long and 12 tall. Though if my suspicions are accurate there is a significantly larger tunneling command bug, or at least a massive worm like bug.

Ordinary bugs don't immediately adapt, instead the hives spit out new versions that are adapted. As you can guess this is not true with command bugs, who visibly adapt to the environment or attacks. You light it on fire and it grows heat resistant chitin and cells that consume heat to grow, causing the beast to swell in size and strength, you then use a beam that saps heat thinking the adaption for extreme heat will make it work better, and the bug starts breathing that same beam at you using the energy it stole from your fire.

You hit it with kinetics and it grows disposable layers of shell that break to disperse the energy, you use lasers and it deflects the light or gets chlorophyll and eats it, you zap it with lightning and it grows an insulating shell, you dump acid on it and its shell becomes a non reactive substance, you send tiny drones to burrow under its shell and it grows tiny bugs within itself to fight them in an admittedly dope war, you poison it and its body begins synthesizing the antidote, but your smart and the antidote is also toxic but then the bug just sweats the toxic sludge out.

You rip the damn thing in half and you get two of them, one of which is still running around, note the smallest command bug.

That is not to say that command bugs are unkillable, they don't adapt immediately and no one has yet proven to me that sufficient firepower cannot overcome all resistances. Hit them with a wide variety of attacks and don't let up till the sludge you reduced it too is long gone, then incinerate the dirt where it died, just in case.

Also nukes, but do make sure to use as many as it takes to kill it, preferably launch them in batches of 5 or more. I have been very careful to ensure that no command bugs have survived a nuke long enough to adapt to it, my main trump card cannot be negated by something as base as negligence.

Now onto the standard plan for dealing with these guys, if a command bug is spotted heading towards any important facility artillery barrages are to begin to ward the thing off, lighter shells to ensure effectiveness, this is mainly just to make the command bugs aware that I am fully capable of killing them if they don't turn back, this tends to work and on the few occasions it didn't the larger shells, or nukes, served to kill the command bugs before they could reach anything important.

That's in the event of a command bug attacking though, and with my proactive stance on such large and valuable targets walking into range the command bugs don't often engage in attacks unless they are performing a major attack.

Instead most of the engagements with the command bugs are missions to hunt them down, Balistaias main mission is to proactively destroy major threats to the factory before they reach or defenses, and the command bugs qualify, so around half of her operations are exterminations of particularly annoying hives, and the others are assassinations of bug leadership.

This is not an easy task, as the bugs are capable of growing new weapons to attack, or growing new means to hide or flee. But after a major attack in which 3 of the command bugs attacked together? Their numbers are routinely pruned to make such a thing a significantly lower possibility.

Essentially these things are the bugs main adaptation to fighting me, and I hate them nearly as much as they presumably hate me.

Still better than the ocean though, you can't hate that thing, it's only fear and dread.

AN-

the tts thing has stalled at 1k words, and I will instead go back to writing the mainline story, the tts thing might be finished at some point but I'm not currently happy with how its going so it'll stay in draft form till that gets better.

updates have been shorter and slower because I have been fairly busy, but that should only be for a few more weeks... hopefully.

... though I do really want to write about a dungeon core in RWBY hmmmm..., I could just turn the engineer into a dungeon core and isekai him to rwby for an omake! great idea me your the bestest.

but yeah these 1k word shorts are simple enough to post and still help with the world building, so they are what I'm doing, or short interludes from the mainline.

but hopefully short chapters are temporary.

once again if you have noticed any errors or mistakes please point them out

reviews are appreciated!