I Am The Swarm-Chapter 794: The Battlefield

The Swarm had been secretly preparing those sites for decades. During that time, they had sent newly-built Swarm warships through the gates and into Ji territory.

From there, they spread further outward. Some of those warships had even been assigned to the front lines.

And of course, the Swarm didn’t miss the chance to spread their infection, enthusiastically sowing seeds into nearby Ji units—including several Battle Stars.

At first, everything went smoothly. But the Empress’s return operation had revealed some behavioral parameters of Swarm units, which allowed the Ji Race to launch a massive cleansing campaign. Many of the infiltrating Swarm bugs inside many Ji units were purged with targeted methods.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

These infiltration units were usually small or micro-scale support types, and stood no chance against these cleanups—leading to heavy Swarm losses.

Still, thanks to their immense numbers, a few always slipped through the cracks. But these survivors didn’t dare move—they entered hibernation, reducing energy use to stay hidden. As long as they remained alive, they could still transmit coordinates for the Swarm.

Even in the Battle Stars, a few infiltrators remained, but after several rounds of purging, their numbers were too few to launch any kind of cooperative operation. Moreover, the Swarm discovered that the Ji were now actively defending against Micro-Seeds, making it nearly impossible to deploy them directly. Even if they succeeded in planting one, they wouldn’t have the environment needed to develop under Ji pressure.

At this point, the war had lost most of its technical finesse. Occasionally, a flash of brilliance or tactical creativity could earn a small victory on a localized front—but on a battlefield of this scale, even that edge might be erased by the next salvo.

Time marched on. The five hundred billion troops originally stationed at the front were gradually all committed. Every day brought new waves of artillery and loss of life, but unless you were on the battlefield yourself, most people—whether in command or among the higher ups watching from afar—had become emotionally numb.

All they saw were the numbers:

Northern front losses today: 20,191 warships.

Eastern front: 19,546.

Western front: 57,192…

And in the face of a five-hundred-billion total deployment, such figures felt almost negligible.

The war continued. With initial deployments fully committed, both sides had no choice but to continuously inject new forces just to avoid falling behind.

Over the next few years, the Ji Race gradually deployed more Battle Stars, allowing them to gain local advantages on several fronts—applying pressure to the Anti-Ji Alliance.

This battlefield had become too critical to lose. Though it represented only a small portion of total forces within each faction, it was strategically vital: a loss here would mean the destruction of a massive reserve force, creating a serious shortfall in mobile reinforcements.

And the remaining forces, though numerous, were evenly spread across thousands of light-years of borderfronts. If either side gained this mobile force, they could send it wherever needed, tipping the balance, crushing defenders, and gaining momentum—a snowball effect that would eventually determine the outcome of the entire war.

So both sides had no choice but to pour newly produced troops into this battlefield.

By New Era Year 240—fifteen years after the start of the war—the total deployment on this battlefield exceeded one trillion units.

It had evolved into a two-light-year-long mega meat grinder.

Over the decade, as more than a hundred Battle Stars arrived, the Ji Race achieved significant victories on several localized fronts, especially pressuring the Inner-circle Alliance.

Though surrounded, the Ji Race had hundreds of Star Gates connecting them to the outside—each serving as a major production base. Each base could draw resources from dozens or even hundreds of light-years away.

This meant that Ji warships could be supplied to the front endlessly.

By contrast, while the Swarm’s industrial output was impressive, their defensive units—the Primordial bodies—suffered the highest attrition rates of all combatants. But even so, the Swarm could maintain these losses.

However, the Swarm only had sixteen Star Gates connecting their territory to the rest of the galaxy—and just two near the front. So while production wasn’t an issue, deployment speed was.

At the beginning of the war, the Swarm had begun constructing fifty new Star Gates within their territory. Five of them were positioned near this battlefield and were expected to come online in a few years—hopefully alleviating the bottleneck. Assuming the Alliance held out until then.

Unfortunately, the Inner-circle Alliance was now falling behind.

Despite having the lowest casualty rate—thanks to the Swarm absorbing most of the damage on the front lines—they had the fewest available resources of the three factions.

As a result, they became the weakest link in the Anti-Ji Alliance.