Intergalactic conquest with an AI-Chapter 372: Xylos struggle. {4} Learn to fear the swarm.

"I didn't catch that; say it again."

The Eastern General's voice crackled through the communication device strapped tightly to his left forearm. He leaned closer, gripping the receiver like a lifeline, but there was no reply.

Only a hollow, hissing noise... the empty whisper of static. No words. No breath. Just silence.

A cold weight pressed down on his chest like invisible iron. He exhaled slowly, trying to ignore the growing knot in his stomach.

"...I don't like this," he muttered under his breath while his eyes locked on the battlefield ahead. Smoke drifted across the field in thick, dirty clouds, blotting out the horizon and painting everything in shades of gray. "Something's wrong. I can feel it... in my old bones."

His instincts, sharpened by decades of war, were screaming. Something wasn't right. Something was hiding in the smoke.

He turned to one of his elite bodyguards, a towering soldier clad in reinforced armor and placed a firm, commanding hand on the man's shoulder.

"Stay here," the General ordered, his tone ironclad. "Gather what's left of our units. Set up a fallback position behind the ruins and prepare a new ambush zone. Once that's done, find me again."

The soldier nodded and gave a crisp salute, his voice full of determination. "Leave it to me, General! I won't fail you."

The General didn't stay to watch him go. He couldn't afford to. Every second counted now.

A few minutes earlier, a transmission had burst through the comms full of panic and static. A squad's communications officer had screamed about something strange in the smoke. He hadn't even finished his warning before the message cut off completely.

And then… the nightmare began.

From that thick, unnatural smoke, black tendrils had emerged... twisting, writhing things, slick and fast like living whips.

They pulsed with glowing green veins, like spiderwebs lit from within by poison. Each tendril moved with a mind of its own, striking with deadly precision. They stabbed through armor like paper and tore through flesh like it was nothing.

The screams didn't last long.

The moment the tendrils struck, the soldiers froze. Their limbs stiffened. Their eyes turned glassy, lit with the same sickly green glow that ran through the tendrils.

They weren't alive anymore. They had become puppets... lifeless marionettes controlled by something far more terrifying.... The Khryssari Swarm Weaver.

This was Ys's new unit, unleashed upon the Eastern Front. The Weaver wasn't the strongest creature in the Swarm's hierarchy. It wasn't a Queen or even a Princess.

But it didn't need brute strength to be dangerous. It was the brain. A battlefield tactician. A creature that didn't just command... it calculated.

Its bioelectric mind was like a living supercomputer, taking raw, mindless Khryssari drones and turning them into a coordinated army of murderers. It was strength with strategy. Violence with vision. And worst of all?

It could infect....

Those who didn't die from the tendrils' strike didn't survive intact. The corruption crept inside them. Rewrote them. Changed them. Turned them against their own brothers and sisters in arms. Silent. Invisible. Like a disease.

And now, that infection was spreading across the Eastern Front... quietly, cruelly, like a shadow in the blood.

The defenders had fought hard. For hours, they held the line with everything they had. Every trap, every ambush, every bullet had been used to push back the Swarm. They fought like wolves, fierce and desperate, and each skirmish had bought them a few more minutes of hope.

But as the sun dipped below the horizon and night took hold, the air seemed to shift. The wind changed direction. The sounds of the battlefield grew quieter... too quiet.

In the command tent, lit by the pale glow of flickering holograms, the Eastern General stood alone with his eyes narrowed. A glowing map hovered before him, showing blue lights for his troops and red for the enemy. Tiny symbols marked tunnel entrances, supply lines, and fallback zones.

He tapped the side of the display.

"Report," he said firmly. "Any strange movement from the enemy? Any changes?"

A nearby captain stepped forward and shook his head.

"Nothing so far, sir. They're still attacking in waves, but it's the same old pattern. No surprises. Even our simplest traps are working. At this rate, we should be ready for the bombing run. We can take out those tunnelers before they get too close to the frontline"

The General's jaw clenched. He didn't trust how calm it sounded.

"Good," he said. "Send the signal to the Eastern Hangar. I want the bombers airborne in thirty minutes. Make sure they're escorted by gunboats loaded with heavy anti-air. No room for error. We lose those bombers, we lose our only opportunity to turn the tides."

"Understood, General." The captain gave a respectful nod, saluted, and turned toward the tent's exit.

But as he stepped into the night, no one noticed the flicker in his eyes. For just a moment, barely a heartbeat...a pale green glow shimmered across his irises. freēwēbηovel.c૦m

"Mmmm~"

Ys tilted her head while a thoughtful purr curled from her lips as she watched the battlefield through the glowing lens of her Firefly drone. The tiny insect floated in the air, projecting a shimmering view of the Eastern Front before her, like a living painting of war and ruin.

Her luminous, gemstone-like eyes narrowed as she observed the chaos.

The Weaver's forces were dying rapidly, endlessly. Carapaced bodies fell like autumn leaves, piling into craters burned by lasers and shredded by gunfire. The sight had nearly bored her.

"Tch, how predictable."

"I was just about to crush that ugly little brain from here," she said aloud while tapping her chin with a porcelain-like finger. Her voice was light, almost whimsical, like she was commenting on a dull stage play.

"It's just tossing away soldiers like broken toys~ Sloppy and sad."

She was ready to turn her attention elsewhere, already losing interest in what seemed like another wasteful effort by the Swarm's lesser minds.

But then... she felt it.

A subtle ripple passed through the hive mind. A shift. Not panic. Not chaos. But thought. Tactic. A cold, calculating whisper threading its way through the Swarm's network.

Her lips slowly curled into a dangerous smile.

"Oh my~" she purred, her voice dripping with delighted venom. "It seems this little Weaver has some teeth after all~" Her fingers twirled in the air, lazily dancing above the drone feed. "How curious. How clever~"

She stretched out on her silken bed while her long, soft, green hair spilled over embroidered pillows. Her expression was alight with glee... like a child discovering a new toy had hidden features.

"This kind of play isn't normally to my taste... but hmm~ it's entertaining enough. Very well. I'll let it live a little longer. Just a little~"

And with a playful flick of her wrist, she dismissed the drone feed, settling back to enjoy the growing spectacle like a queen watching flames dance across a chessboard.

Back at the Eastern Front, the Captain no longer the man he had once been, walked through the camp with brisk purpose. His eyes still gleamed with faint humanity, but deep behind them pulsed that eerie green glow. The Weaver's signature.

He had already relayed the General's commands, repeating them with flawless precision.

"This is Captain Vely, Eastern Front Command. Identification Alpha-Seven-Niner-Zero. Orders relayed. Bombers authorized. Mission: Tunneler Suppression."

No one questioned him. His tone was sharp, his presence calm. Just another officer doing his duty.

Elsewhere, a young communications officer sprinted into the hangar, nearly collapsing as he reached the Air Force captain.

"Sir!" he gasped. "Orders from the General! Immediate deployment! bombers and escorts! Target the tunnelers on the abandoned eastern fortress!

The Air Force captain, unaware of the trap already closing around them, gave a firm nod. "Understood. We'll be in the air in thirty minutes."

Exactly half an hour later, thunder rolled across the Eastern Bridge... not from the sky, but from the tarmac. Bombers lined up like predators ready to strike, their dark forms sleek and brimming with death. Around them, gunboats hovered, their turrets loaded and tracking the skies.

Below, soldiers cheered, waving and clapping like fans at a festival. They believed salvation had arrived.

"This is Squad Leader Golden Four!" came a voice over the comms. "Enemy air units sighted ahead! Bombers! hold your course! No matter what, drop those bombs!"

And then, the stars disappeared.

Khryssari Skydancers descended from the night like a wave of living blades. Their wings shimmered like oil in moonlight, buzzing in unnatural rhythm. In moments, the dark sky turned into a writhing storm of chitin and death.

The gunboats opened fire. laser turrets lit up the clouds in streaks of blue and white, ripping through Skydancers in blazing arcs. For every one that fell, ten more screamed down from the clouds.

"Bomber Four reporting! taking heavy damage! Requesting imm—AAAAGHH—!"

A fireball bloomed in the sky, swallowing the bomber and dozens of Skydancers. Then another explosion... then another. In mere moments, half the strike force had been wiped out.

But the survivors pressed on, determined to complete their mission.

"Leader Bomber to all units! target acquired! Activating payload now!"

The pilot's hands moved fast, flipping switches, setting the bombs. The targeting systems locked on. Green dots blinked across their display.

"Countdown initiated! Ten-minus-two… seven… six… three… two… RELEASE!"

The bombs fell like falling stars, dozens of them, heavy with high-impact plasma cores meant to incinerate anything beneath.

And then… something impossible happened.

The worms ate them.....

They rose from the ground, vast segmented bodies with gaping maws opening like giant metal flowers. With a wet, bone-shaking sound, they swallowed the bombs mid-fall.... crunching them between armored jaws as if chewing on candy.