I Am The Swarm-Chapter 618: Activation

Although the biological armor had been moved frequently within the castle over the past few days, this also indicated that Sade and his team hadn’t made any substantial changes to it.

In fact, what the Confederation didn’t know was that, aside from the biological armor, the longevity serum was also a product that wouldn’t self-destruct once it left the so-called Swarm’s radiation zone.

The serum contained many nanoscale materials that, after entering the host’s body, would absorb nutrients and grow into node units capable of linking to the Swarm network. These nodes would mark their location and lie dormant, awaiting further instructions from Luo Wen.

Typically, Luo Wen would order these nodes to covertly transform the host’s body into a node unit, allowing him to track their location at any time, extract their spiritual entities, and turn them into “his own people.”

However, the Swarm characteristics of the longevity serum were well hidden. Although foreign races had long suspected something, they had never discovered anything concrete. The biological armor, on the other hand, was different. It bore the unmistakable mark of the Swarm. While it could operate far from the Swarm, it was still protected by a gene lock. Any attempt to tamper with it would trigger its self-destruction.

There had been cases where overly curious individuals, after purchasing biological armor at a high price, tried to do something improper with it, only to end up losing everything.

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Afterward, perhaps frustrated by the huge cost they had incurred for nothing, these individuals went to the Swarm’s Trade City to cause trouble, demanding compensation from the Swarm.

At that time, the Swarm had only recently joined the Confederation. These individuals likely thought the Swarm was just another ordinary outer-ring civilization and believed they could bully it. Otherwise, secretly cracking another race’s core technology was a major taboo, and they wouldn’t have dared to make such a public fuss.

However, the Swarm didn’t indulge them. They simply ignored the demands. As for the boycott of biological armor, the Swarm didn’t care, as they had never intended to profit from it.

After the Swarm’s cold response, the troublemakers made a scene for a while but eventually gave up when they realized they were just wasting their time. Later, for some reason, their ship accidentally hit a mine just as they were leaving Swarm territory, resulting in the death of everyone on board.

Although the Swarm was the prime suspect in the incident, they denied any involvement. After a brief war of words, the matter was quietly dropped.

In truth, Luo Wen knew that the troublemakers were just pawns attempting to probe something. But the Swarm had faced countless such probes, and this one was no different. In the end, they sent the troublemakers to their rightful place, which served as both a venting of frustration and a show of force.

Through this incident, the Confederation also learned some of the characteristics of the biological armor. Now, with Sade, although the biological armor was taken out of the vault every day, Luo Wen was certain that they hadn’t done anything substantial to it. The node beacon of the biological armor was still active. If Sade had done something, the beacon should have disappeared by now.

Presumably, they were aware of the fearsome nature of the Swarm’s gene lock and didn’t dare to act recklessly. But what could they possibly learn by just looking at the biological armor every day?

Luo Wen had been curious about what Sade and his team were trying to achieve. Were they really planning to crack the secrets of the biological armor through mere observation?

Now, Luo Wen knew.

The biological armor had been activated.

The long-stored biological armor had been activated at this moment. But what was the point? Although the biological armor was rare and precious, this was mainly due to the massive population of the Confederation and the fact that they were now at war with the Swarm, cutting off any further supply.

However, during the decades of the Swarm’s honeymoon period with the Confederation, tens of thousands of biological armors had flowed out of the Swarm’s Trade City.

At least half of these had been fused with their hosts. Luo Wen didn’t believe for a second that these individuals hadn’t tried to tamper with them. Even among those still within the Swarm network, Luo Wen had discovered a few instances of tampering.

However, when the biological armor was produced, Luo Wen had locked its permissions. If it was ever scrutinized, even if disconnected from the network, it would self-destruct.

Even if fused with a host, it would self-destruct without harming the host’s life. The reason it wouldn’t harm the host, even under scrutiny, was that it was, after all, a product. Luo Wen intended to use it to convert important figures into his allies, so he certainly wouldn’t allow it to cause fatalities.

After all, doing so would be like strapping a time bomb to someone. Such a dangerous thing would deter any important figure from trying it.

Sade and his team couldn’t possibly be unaware of this. So why had they activated the long-stored biological armor? Had their days of visual observation actually revealed something?

Luo Wen shook his head, dismissing the idea. He knew his own abilities best. The gene lock was, in essence, a ruse for the Confederation. In reality, it was a skill derived from his main body, a dimensional ability that couldn’t be cracked without reaching that level.

But Sade and his team didn’t know this. However, since they had activated the biological armor, they must have made some discovery or were simply conducting an experiment.

Luo Wen frowned in thought and quickly arrived at a possibility. Since the Confederation had already tried cracking the biological armor both before and after fusion, what about during the fusion process?

The Swarm had publicly stated that once activated, the biological armor would absorb a large amount of nutrients from the host and undergo a fusion process. After completing this process, the biological armor would separate again, feeding nutrients back to the host to improve their physical condition, enhance protection, and so on.

Could they be trying to observe the fusion process? To outsiders, this process, which involved integrating foreign biological material, might seem like the weakest point in the Swarm’s gene lock defense.

Regardless of their intentions, the activation of the biological armor was an excellent development for Luo Wen. Compared to being isolated under a spotlight, once the biological armor fused with the host, any mutations or energy consumption would be concealed by the host, making detection far more difficult.

What puzzled Luo Wen, however, was that even at this stage, the biological armor still hadn’t transmitted any audio feedback.

Could it be that these people didn’t need to communicate at all? Luo Wen shook his head. That was impossible. Did Sade really think he could complete such an experiment alone? This was a precious Swarm biological armor—a temporarily non-renewable resource. Each piece was invaluable. If it were Luo Wen, he would never be so reckless.