I Am The Swarm-Chapter 788: The Beginning

“Indeed, it’s unexpected. The New Ji Race might have fortified the gates around XM768, but they probably never imagined the real target would be XM756, six hundred light-years away.”

“The Swarm’s misdirection was brilliant. Even we, their allies, didn’t see it coming—let alone the New Ji Race.”

“So, how should we respond to the Swarm?”

“I don’t think we need to refuse. At the very least, the Swarm has been a reliable ally over the past century.”

“Agreed. Our cooperation has been fairly smooth. No need to damage the relationship over this. Helping the Swarm Empress return might even earn us their gratitude.”

“Her return to the throne doesn’t affect us much. I’m in favor of cooperating.”

“So am I—but they must share their plan with us. Only then can we cooperate while ensuring our people’s safety.”

“Fair enough. I doubt they’ll refuse.”

At the XM756 Star Gate, the situation was tranquil and far removed from conflict. Not far from the gate stood a massive starport. Due to the outbreak of war, the gate was under heavy restrictions, but the starport still maintained a steady flow of activity.

Though trade ships had disappeared, the starport had become surrounded by countless space factories and a constant stream of ships delivering resources.

Combined with the residents living in the starport, it retained a certain level of prosperity.

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In fact, the Swarm had begun seeding this location fifty years earlier. Thanks to the lack of defensive measures and the dense factory cover, the Swarm had slowly carved out a niche presence in this tight space.

With an initial foundation, the Swarm assimilated some races, who then helped rapidly expand their ranks of “insiders.”

Once an entire area was filled with their own people, surveillance cameras and monitoring no longer mattered. The Swarm entered a period of rapid growth.

As their influence expanded, so did the zones and personnel under their control.

The warships assembled and forged by the space factories were periodically sent through the Star Gate to the New Ji Race. Through this channel, the Swarm not only spread its seeds to the Star Gate, but also delivered them to the New Ji Race’s homeworld.

After years of development, the Swarm had accumulated substantial strength within the Star Gate. And now, the time had come to act.

Due to the need to survive in tightly monitored spaces, most of the Swarm units within the gate were small, micro-sized flying bugs. These were easier to conceal and had the added mobility of flight.

A group of flying insects cautiously navigated a narrow pipe, only five centimeters in diameter, which housed two other conduits supplying power to a specific hatch and its systems.

Following this pipe would eventually lead to a larger junction and then to the main energy conduit. But as the tunnel widened, surveillance devices became more common.

Fortunately, the Swarm had long since mapped every detail over the years. At the tunnel’s entry point, the flying insects slowly landed, and from their abdomens emerged countless near-transparent tiny bugs—much like aphids from the ancient Genesis Continent.

These tiny bugs, swarming in dense numbers, used the cables for cover to easily avoid detection and crawled deeper into the system. The flying insects, having unloaded their cargo, took off again and soon returned with more.

These micro-bugs were equipped with simple features: jointed limbs with hooked claws for crawling along smooth surfaces, sharp teeth, and bodies filled with highly corrosive fluid. Like venom sacs with legs, they were tiny, but essential to capturing the gate.

Through the diligent efforts of the flying insects, countless tiny bugs spread through the basic pipeline network, slowly infiltrating every part of the Star Gate. Eventually, even the main energy core harbored their presence.

Not only did they invade the wiring conduits, these micro-bugs also used their size to infiltrate other parts of the gate—residential areas, workstations, mechanical equipment, even the rest zones for mechanical warriors. They were everywhere.

When inactive, their mimicry systems activated, blending them seamlessly into the environment and making them nearly impossible to detect.

Time quickly advanced to the day of the scheduled operation with the Inner-circle Alliance. All the surveillance systems on the Star Gate were simultaneously destroyed and rendered useless.

“What’s going on?!”

In the control room, the New Ji personnel were stunned by the sudden blackout. But the artificial intelligence beat them to the punch—issuing an alert.

Unfortunately, it was already too late. The tiny bugs had begun gnawing and even self-destructing to destroy their targets. Though small in size, the sheer numbers added up. Moreover, many precision systems could be crippled just by damaging a single component.

As the surveillance systems went down, larger bugs burst forth from hidden spots. Automated defense weapons received attack commands from the AI, but due to damage to their energy systems and internal components, they were powerless to act—left watching helplessly as the insects marched past.

The quantum communication system was soon destroyed, the network severed, and various computers were damaged to varying degrees—further limiting the artificial intelligence’s ability to function.

At this point, the Inner-circle Alliance’s infiltrators also sprang into action. Their regular colleagues had already been incapacitated by the Swarm’s neurotoxins and could only watch wide-eyed as the operation unfolded.

Having spent years undercover within the New Ji Race, these infiltrators were intimately familiar with the Star Gate’s systems. Not only did they forcibly disable the alarm systems, they also sent false signals to the external fleet. As a result, the fleet—first alerted to a threat, then reassured with an all-clear—was left thoroughly confused.