Confirmed dead. Shen Cong let out a quiet breath.

He didn't like leaving things unresolved overnight. That kind of weight was exhausting to carry. This was better — the man had gone without prolonged suffering, and Shen Cong hadn't needed to spend significant effort on the problem.

What remained was straightforward. He rejoined the fighting and brought the last of the Dragon Hornets' resistance to an end. His presence made the difference measurable — the final holdouts, still driving themselves at the soldiers in the smoke, were dealt with in minutes.

When the Dragon Hornets were confirmed eliminated, the column began clearing the site. Shen Cong walked to the remaining portion of the queen chamber and told Li Kun:

"This section is mine."

He said it without inflection and without any indication that a different answer was available.

Li Kun didn't hesitate. "Of course."

Shen Cong loaded approximately one-fifth of the queen chamber material into Great Vajra's storage. No one blocked him. No one commented.

One final sweep of the colony confirmed no surviving Hornets. The column assembled for the return march.

Four jin person soldiers killed in action. Sixteen wounded.

"They are heroes of humanity." Major General Zhou Aoxuan faced the fallen and delivered a formal salute, his expression grave.

Senior Colonel Zhu Li, representing New Hefei, expressed the city's gratitude to everyone who had participated.

Crossing back over the Pishui River, Shen Cong watched the colony's smoke on the drone feed as it thinned and dispersed. The site was becoming unrecognizable — difficult to tell that anything had stood there, let alone a Super-Heavyweight colony.

Mass destructive capability, properly applied, had hard limits that even Super-Heavyweight organisms couldn't overcome. Individual entities could reach extraordinary durability. Colonial entities had different vulnerabilities.

He reoriented the drone camera south.

Endless jungle. How many jin beasts lived in it, impossible to say — the Dragon Hornets' territorial dominance had suppressed the surrounding fauna, but with that suppression gone, the balance would shift.

No sign of the Disaster Locust swarm. The same colony-type Super-Heavyweight insect that had shattered the Anhui Provincial Military District's…