Neither of them feared death, so naturally, there was no fear in their hearts. Sarah stepped onto the transport beast first, followed closely by Lumina. The beast’s bat-like wings flapped gently, lifting them into flight and carrying them out of the cavern.
The walk there had taken nearly half an hour, but now, with specialized transport, they erged in the blink of an eye. Outside, another large Swarm beast lay quietly in wait.
Upon seeing this, Lumina’s eyes flickered thoughtfully. She had been with Sarah the entire ti—Sarah hadn’t issued a single order. Yet everything was prepared. Either there were others issuing commands within the palace, or Sarah had so unique thod of communication.
Lumina scrutinized Sarah again. Could it be so form of primary-color communication system? But she quickly shook her head self-deprecatingly. This body had no advanced scanning capabilities, so she had no way to verify either theory.
Sarah, pretending not to notice Lumina’s reaction, once again took the lead, stepping into the flesh pod on the back of the flying beast. Seeing Lumina follow, she asked coldly, “Lumina, where do you want to go?”
Lumina thought for a mont and didn’t na a specific location. She simply said that she wanted to see everything the Swarm was willing to show her. As for the itinerary, she left it to Sarah’s discretion.
Sarah considered this, then summoned a small force of just over a thousand Primordial bodies to escort them deeper into space. It wasn’t out of concern for her own safety—nor for Lumina’s nano-bot composed body, which could function normally in a vacuum—but space held unpredictable dangers. If the two of them traveled alone and sothing happened to Lumina’s form, they’d have to wait for her to send another body just to continue the conversation. That would be a waste of ti.
There wasn’t much the Swarm couldn’t show. Even their interstellar Star Gates were no longer secrets. After all, the sheer number of reinforcents they’d summoned from nowhere had long exposed the existence of a massive logistics hub. The energy transmission beams that spanned the void were visible across dozens, even hundreds, of light-years.
Besides, the interstellar Star Gates only connected to ten extragalactic bases. The others had no connection to this galaxy at all. Even if so great power was hiding in this galaxy, the Swarm no longer feared it.
While the Swarm’s territory in the Genesis Sector was not yet as vast as the Confederation’s, it now matched the New Ji in scale. And their expansion thod was simply too efficient: toss a few Micro-Seeds into a clean star system, and within a few decades, it would birth countless Swarm units.
Once the foundation reached a critical mass, the expansion rate grew exponentially.
So even at sub-light speed, a simple inspection would take thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of years. By then, the war would already be over.
Naturally, Lumina had no intention of truly seeing trivialities. Sarah guessed what she wanted to witness and directed the fleet toward a neighboring Star System.
“So this is the Swarm?” Lumina murmured, gazing at the star ahead. The orbital space was layered with Swarm units and bases—an intricate lattice.
Sarah said nothing, rely looking ahead. The Swarm had never hidden these things. Even the lowest-tier civilizations in the Outer-ring probably had similar footage.
Lumina seed to understand Sarah’s thoughts and calmly said, “A recording is still a recording. No matter how faithfully recreated in a virtual world, it can’t compare to the clarity and awe of reality.”
Sarah nodded silently. The two of them stood in stillness, watching the Swarm’s daily operations in low orbit.
“…That’s enough, Your Majesty. Let’s continue,” Lumina finally said after a long silence.
Sarah gave a nod and once again directed the fleet to move. Their next destination: the nearest Star Gate.
The Royal Court naturally had no shortage of Star Gates. After engaging warp travel, it took only a few days to reach the closest one.
The gate hung alone in the void, its purple biolights flickering faintly. A distorted spaceti vortex churned at its center—it had clearly been long prepared.
Their small fleet was not intercepted or inspected and entered the gate in an orderly fashion. After a brief visual distortion, they erged from the exit gate.
Unlike the cold, dim void from earlier, this area was bustling with activity. Multiple energy beams thicker than planets stread in from the distance, their radiant glow dispelling the darkness and chill with brilliance.
Tens of thousands of Swarm Star Gates, large and small, stood throughout the void. Countless Swarm units passed between them in endless streams. The unified violet biolights of the gates ford a shimring painting—like a noble, mysterious ocean in space.
No matter how many tis one saw it, this sight was always deeply awe-inspiring.
Lumina was no exception.
At first, erging from the gate, her view was limited—she could only glimpse part of the whole. But as their transport steadily drew away and her perspective widened, the full majesty of that ocean of Star Gates unfolded before her.
Lumina was truly shaken.
Even the Ji had never constructed anything so overwhelming.
These gates, due to their unique developntal structure, could offset much of the material cost through biological growth. But even so, they still required the complete stripping of several hundred Star Systems—excluding the stars themselves—to support.
For a civilization like the New Ji, which relied on chanical engineering, they would have to strip-mine thousands of Star Systems to match it.
Though the Ji had existed for over a million years, Lumina had always remained behind the scenes. Under the Council of Elders, a project of this scale was utterly impossible.
“This… is truly beautiful,” Lumina whispered, her gaze distant. It was like a murmured soliloquy, her expression so lifelike that even Sarah was montarily surprised.
But with machines, one could never be sure. Robots could simulate everything. As long as it was in their database, they could cycle through hundreds of facial expressions in a second—far beyond the skill of any actor.
After a long pause, Lumina finally collected herself. Her expression cald, and she looked at Sarah seriously.
“Forgive my mont of awe, Your Majesty. To create such a marvel… the Swarm is truly a powerful race.”
“Thank you for the complint,” Sarah replied calmly, giving a small nod.
“I wonder… would I be permitted to visit the other side of the Star Gate?”
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