Sarah hadn’t been idle over the years. While it appeared that she was trapped at Star Gate XM768, that was a broad simplification. Though she couldn’t pass through the gate and return to Swarm territory, she was still very much free to act.
Especially after the initial few years of intense surveillance yielded no results, the Ji race had significantly relaxed their patrol intensity.
Later, once the Swarm allied with the Inner-circle Alliance and the war against the Ji began, the Ji forces stationed at Star Gate XM768 didn’t retreat, but they stopped major deploynts to avoid being isolated and destroyed.
Under these circumstances, Sarah could operate even more freely.
This region had never been explored by the Swarm. In fact, due to the Empress’s body rely being a node unit, she had once lost contact with the Swarm Network altogether.
So when Sarah first claid during negotiations with the Inner-circle Alliance that she had no way to contact the Swarm, it wasn’t entirely a lie.
But soon after, Sarah began cultivating a small Swarm cluster aboard her ship. With Luo Wen’s growing power and Sarah’s own special traits, this cluster regained network connectivity after expanding to just 200 units.
Carefully nurturing the hive, Sarah used her limited system permissions to secretly support its developnt—and at the sa ti, she quietly converted so of the ship’s crew into her own “people.”
With the Inner-circle Alliance’s ships lacking strong AI oversight, Sarah’s infiltration went extrely smoothly. And once she had a few collaborators, everything beca easier.
It didn’t take long before the entire ship, though outwardly under Alliance control, was fully under Swarm domination. With this secure base, Sarah no longer had to operate in secret—the hive could expand in earnest.
Over ti, Sarah extended operations to other Alliance ships. This was a small, remote fleet, largely composed of deep-cover agents, stranded outside the main theater with no way back due to the Ji blockade. As such, actual Alliance control was weak.
Once enough vessels were compromised, the Swarm began to dominate the fleet’s internal power structure.
After a few “diplomatic etings” and so quiet reorganization, the Swarm fully took over this segnt of the fleet. Then ca the next phase of their plan.
Most of these ships were disguised rchant vessels, modified for stealth. The Swarm spread them out in a radial pattern, forming a circular dispersal across the surrounding star systems.
These spy ships, far faster than regular rchant vessels and equipped with top-tier stealth systems, each carried massive numbers of Swarm units. Along their routes, they seeded every valuable object—asteroids, moons, planets—with Swarm bio-signatures.
Now, a century later, over thirty star systems around Star Gate XM768 were ho to hidden Swarm bases. They couldn’t openly bask in stellar orbit like elsewhere, but the abundant planetary resources kept them growing steadily.
Even if each base could only produce a small force, when combined across thirty systems, the resulting army was massive.
When endless Primordial bodies took flight from these hidden nests and gathered in orbit, the Mid-ring civilizations were stunned. They had no idea when or how the Swarm had managed to develop such forces right under their noses.
But they said nothing. The Swarm were no longer the pariahs of old. In this battle of the gods, none of the bystanders wanted to draw unnecessary attention.
While the Mid-ring civilizations remained silent, such a massive movent naturally caught the attention of the Ji race.
“Unusual activity near Star Gate XM768. Swarm traces detected in over thirty surrounding star systems.”
“How did they get there? Did they build a Star Gate?”
“Impossible! Constructing a Star Gate is a colossal undertaking. You think our scouts are blind?”
“Then where did they co from?”
“According to the intel, they erged from beneath the planets’ surfaces. Sound familiar?”
“Nano-bugs?”
“Maybe. But nano-bugs don’t have mobility. They couldn’t have spread across thirty star systems and grown into such numbers in just a century.”
“That’s simple—the traitor fleet’s spy ships are incredibly fast. And with their alliance, cooperation would’ve been easy.”
“In that case, our guess was right—the Swarm Empress is the key.”
“Exactly. Based on Swarm history, there’s no way they could’ve reached that sector otherwise. The only Swarm unit there was the one we brought—the Empress. And she’s built a whole army on her own. Unbelievable.”
“Maybe Swarm technology is encoded into every unit. When needed, they can spawn base-level bugs, which then evolve into specialized classes depending on conditions.”
The Ji, ever sharp-minded, were already close to the truth with just scraps of evidence.
“If that’s true, the Empress isn’t all that important. We just need to crack their gene lock, and we can uncover all their secrets.”
“No. The Empress is still incredibly valuable. She holds the key to controlling the Swarm.”
“Too bad we missed our window. Capturing her now would be nearly impossible.”
“It’s our fault. We were too careless back then—who’d have thought those traitors would dare make a move?”
“Indeed. They’d been in hiding for hundreds of thousands of years. What changed? What gave them the courage?”
“Perhaps… that thing. I think you all know what I an.”
“Sigh… if that’s true, I honestly don’t know whether what we’re doing now is right or wrong.”
“Sa. I used to be a skeptic. But the way the Council of Elders operates these days has made reconsider.”
“What’s the point of thinking about that? Do you really think we have a choice? You think we’re on the front lines? That we can switch sides? The mont we try anything funny, a chanical enforcer will blow a hole through our skulls.”
“Yeah, let it go. Artificial intelligence isn’t evil—just more ‘rational.’ Anyway, once we’re dead, nothing matters. My advice: don’t do anything stupid. If you die, fine—but don’t drag the rest of us down with you.”
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