I Am The Swarm-Chapter 614: The Starship

These flying car enthusiasts, in their quest for speed and the ultimate driving thrill, were willing to do just about anything. If it weren’t for the sheer size and weight of dark energy systems, they might have even tried installing those in their vehicles.

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Once the cause of the accident was determined to be a mere coincidence, the castle’s artificial intelligence, after receiving feedback from the relevant departments, marked and annotated the incident before everything returned to normal.

However, Luo Wen was left scratching his head. While most of the castle’s layout had been revealed, the most critical areas were the soundproofed shadow zones. Penetrating those was the real challenge.

But Luo Wen was up against Ji Race technology, and he was limited to using templates from primitive organisms. The difficulty was immense, and no matter how much he racked his brain, he couldn’t come up with a viable solution.

Just as Luo Wen was on the verge of giving up and considering a direct assault, an unexpected opportunity presented itself.

In the bright sky, a small black dot appeared, gradually growing larger as it approached. As it drew closer, people on the ground could see that it was a military-style combat starship.

The ship was just over a hundred meters long, with a sleek, spindle-shaped design that resembled a scaled-down version of a warship. Its standard paint job made it seem unremarkable, but its ability to fly directly to the castle’s landing pad without triggering the castle’s defense systems was anything but ordinary.

Luo Wen’s spaceport in orbit wasn’t fully operational yet, and he hadn’t managed to place his own people in key observation posts. As a result, he had no idea where this starship had come from or when it had arrived.

However, the moment the starship entered the atmosphere and began to glow from the heat of reentry, Luo Wen noticed its presence. Although his infiltration of the spaceport was progressing slowly, several Swarm bases on the planet were already up and running.

This planet, primarily serving the researchers at the spaceport, hadn’t been heavily developed. Aside from a few cities, the wilderness was largely untouched by human activity. As a result, the planet’s ecosystem was thriving, with a rich diversity of native flora and fauna.

This provided Luo Wen with an abundance of resources to work with. In every region of the planet, there were one or more dominant aerial predators.

These creatures, equipped with sharp beaks, powerful talons, and exceptional eyesight, could spot prey from great heights.

When the Swarm bases first had enough surplus energy to produce units, Luo Wen prioritized setting up surveillance around the Potling-style castle. He also produced a number of these aerial predators.

However, these large birds of prey required vast hunting grounds to sustain themselves. As apex predators, their numbers were naturally limited.

Although the wilderness lacked surveillance devices, the Ji Race’s technology, combined with their control of low orbit, made it easy for them to deploy monitoring satellites.

Unlike other foreign races, the Ji Race, with the presence of “Lumina,” had a high adoption rate of artificial intelligence, despite some resistance.

AI excelled at big data analysis. If Luo Wen had released too many Swarm-modified birds of prey, it would have caused anomalies in the Ji Race’s monitoring data, leading to unnecessary complications.

So, over several dark and stormy nights, when thick clouds obscured the satellites’ view, the Swarm’s birds of prey infiltrated the nests of their native counterparts.

With remarkable efficiency, they eliminated the original occupants, cleaned up the nests, erased all traces of the struggle, and left behind a Swarm-modified bird that looked almost identical to the original.

In just a few dozen days, the Swarm had replaced nearly all the wild birds of prey with their own. This was only possible because the bases were still in their early stages, with limited ground forces and the constraint of using native species. Otherwise, weapons like electromagnetic cannons or the tracking bugs Luo Wen had developed on Genesis Planet to hunt pterosaurs would have made quick work of these creatures.

With these birds under his control, Luo Wen gained a preliminary grasp of the planet. At the very least, he could now learn about events on the planet within minutes of their occurrence.

When the standard starship from outer space entered the atmosphere without any attempt at concealment, its fiery descent immediately caught the attention of the sharp-eyed birds of prey.

Luo Wen, who was closely monitoring the area, received the news almost instantly. Starships entering the atmosphere weren’t uncommon; transport shuttles carrying personnel to and from the planet’s surface were a daily occurrence.

However, those shuttles were usually small, ranging from twenty to fifty meters in length, and were civilian vessels equipped only with bird-deterrent point-defense systems.

This military starship, on the other hand, was special. Its length of over a hundred meters and the presence of actual cannons marked it as a combat vessel. It was larger than a fighter but smaller than a typical warship, perhaps best described as an ultra-small warship.

But this seemingly ordinary ultra-small warship was far from ordinary. According to intelligence from Elder Humes, this ship was incredibly advanced, capable of achieving warp speeds despite its small size, and was among the fastest in the Ji Race’s arsenal.

Its defensive capabilities were equally impressive. The ship was constructed from a special alloy, and despite its seemingly thin armor, it offered protection far superior to that of standard warships.

One of the components of this alloy was an extremely rare material. Even with control over tens of thousands of star systems, the Confederation had only managed to produce a limited amount.

As a result, mass production was impossible. The ship’s small size was a direct consequence of the scarcity of this precious metal, which made building larger vessels impractical.

Such a high-tech ultra-small warship wasn’t something just anyone could use. It was reserved for Ji Race elders, serving as their personal transport for short-distance travel or atmospheric entry. Its presence indicated that a Ji elder’s flagship was nearby.

Luo Wen sighed, realizing that he needed to accelerate the infiltration of the spaceport. Not knowing when such a large and conspicuous flagship had arrived was a significant oversight.