I Am The Swarm

The events in the movie didn’t occur. Godzilla was genuinely weakened to the extreme, and as the gunboats approached, it could only look on helplessly, utterly powerless to resist.

“Truly spectacular.” These gunboats, typically about thirty meters in length, were small compared to the over-100-meter-long Godzilla. Though they weren’t exactly tiny, they were barely “big” in comparison.

“Indeed. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d never have imagined such a creature could exist.”

“Look at the blue glow on its dorsal fins—so beautiful.”

“…” Hearing this, the captain was silently added to the “not fit to be left alone” list by his colleagues.

General Masai was also watching the scene remotely through the cameras mounted on the gunboats. Though he shared a similar sense of awe, not being there in person made it hard to fully grasp the magnitude of the experience.

Still, since this creature was already close to death, bringing it back for study might yield some surprising discoveries.

“The orders are in. The General wants us to take this Behemoth back to Irwin Base (formerly Cross Base).”

“How long until it finally kicks the bucket?”

“Then how do we transport it? Can our gunboats even tow something this big?”

“Shouldn’t be an issue. We’ve got twenty-one gunboats here, enough to haul something weighing thirty to forty thousand tons.”

“But it’s still alive. How do we tie it down?”

“Maybe we should ask for its opinion.”

“…”

Everyone was feigning ignorance. Wandering near Godzilla while it was alive was one thing, but actually trying to handle it was intimidating for all of them.

Five minutes later.

“We can’t just wait around. If we delay any longer, we’ll be violating orders.”

“Let’s go for another round of attacks. It might leave the body less intact, but at least it’s safer.”

Since they were in the water, the energy beams from the gunboats suffered severe attenuation while passing through. As a result, the Riken forces had to conduct a total of three more rounds of attacks before finally blasting apart Godzilla’s head.

This was only possible because Godzilla was so injured that it could barely dodge.

In truth, Godzilla still had enough strength for a last-ditch counterattack, and could have easily taken several Riken gunboats down with it. However, to prevent environmental damage to the surrounding area, it wasn’t given another chance to fight back.

Another dozen or so minutes passed. Once they confirmed that Godzilla was indeed dead, the gunboats released their ropes and hooks, fastening them to various parts of its body in preparation to tow it away.

Unfortunately, gunboats weren’t designed for heavy transport, and Godzilla was far heavier than the Rikens had anticipated. Furthermore, the earlier attacks had caused part of the cave to collapse, leaving the creature partially buried under rubble. Even with over twenty gunboats, they couldn’t pull Godzilla out.

Left with no choice, they reported the situation and awaited reinforcements.

“Rookie, where do you think you’re going? Don’t wander off,” a captain suddenly said over the communication channel.

The so-called rookie was Kaida. Having been promoted by Lieutenant Colonel Cross to special operations team captain, he was nicknamed “rookie” by the more experienced captains.

“Treasure hunting. That’s how it works in movies, right? Monster lairs usually hide some kind of treasure,” Kaida replied.

“…” Everyone was speechless. Movies were nonsense—what reference value could they possibly have?

Yet, this time, a movie-like plotline actually came true.

About ten minutes later, Kaida’s voice came through the channel: “Hey, everyone, come look at this!”

“What is it?”

“Don’t tell me this guy actually found treasure?”

Curious, the other gunboats turned toward Kaida’s location.

“What’s this?”

“It looks like some kind of plant.”

Moving past Godzilla’s body and further into the cave, the team discovered the so-called “treasure”—a red-and-black vine-like plant with numerous fruits emitting a faint purple glow. 𐍂ἈƝɵＢΕş

“Even though I’m not an expert, I can tell this is something unusual,” Kaida remarked.

“Yeah, I can see that too.”

“No kidding. With the radiation levels here, we wouldn’t last more than half an hour without protective suits. Yet, this plant is thriving. There’s definitely something special about it.”

“Those fruits look delicious.”

“Go ahead and try one, then tell us how it tastes.”

“Screw you, I’m not that dumb.”

“Why can’t we eat them?” one team member quietly asked his captain.

“…Are you stupid? This thing grew in a radiation-heavy environment. Even a tiny trace of radiation could give you multiple radiation-related illnesses at best or kill you outright at worst,” the captain snapped, glad that the others hadn’t heard. If they found out there was someone this idiotic in their team, they’d be laughing about it for years.

“…”

“Maybe we can take some back for the experts to analyze.”

“Agreed. We’re just killing time anyway, and this might turn out to be another achievement.”

Using underwater robots equipped with radiation-shielding containers, they carefully cut and collected several samples of the plant and its fruit.

No sooner had the robots returned than reinforcements arrived. After detailed measurements, some smaller engineering ships blasted open the cave.

Several transport ships, each over a hundred meters long, landed on the water’s surface. Half-meter-thick cables were lowered to the seabed, wrapped around Godzilla’s body, and slowly hoisted it out of the ocean. The transport ships then began their journey back to the land-based facility.

The Swarm had gone to great lengths to bring certain elements into the Rikens’ view.

Considering the compatibility issues between the Fungal Carpet and the Swarm’s spacefaring organisms, Luo Wen had specially designed the new plants to be completely distinct from the Fungal Carpet. This rushed project was Luo Wen’s most intense research effort in a long time.

Fortunately, these plants didn’t require the same complexity as the original Fungal Carpet. By tailoring them to the physiology of the Rikens and adding some unique features and genetic nodes for communication purposes, Luo Wen managed to make the plants appear entirely unrelated to the Swarm.

This step was critical because the Swarm’s earlier creations—like the Fungal Carpet—had already been exposed. For these plants, it was essential to eliminate any visible connections to the Swarm while laying groundwork for future plans.

What concerned Luo Wen most was the potential existence of advanced civilizations. He was always wary of “coincidences,” often using asymmetric information to create his own. But this also made him suspicious of seemingly random coincidences.

In the Dark Forest, he believed, there was no such thing as causeless affection.

Luo Wen needed more information to draw conclusions and had to uncover the true origins of that ancient spaceship. In the meantime, he had to make preparations, restructuring parts of the Swarm as necessary.

What had already been exposed couldn’t be helped. What remained hidden had to stay that way, while some groundwork still needed to be laid.

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