I Am The Swarm

“All the demonstrations are done; now it’s time for us to reveal our trump card.”

Across the battlefronts, the situation was either balanced or disadvantageous, with no advantage to be seen anywhere. If this continued, the second wave of war launched by the Swarm would likely end in another anticlimactic failure.

Faced with various unfavorable circumstances, Sarah Kerrigan, as the supreme commander, remained calm—she had her own confidence to rely on.

On Planet Raze, due to the insufficient number of laser defense arrays, several land-based cannons were destroyed. However, all the destroyed cannons were outside the protective range of the laser arrays. With their destruction, the remaining laser arrays were now sufficient to guard all remaining land-based cannons.

Thus, in the final few rounds of bombardment from the Primordial bodies, the loss of land-based cannons was minimal. Later, the emergence of orbital defense cannons successfully diverted the Swarm’s long-range firepower.

Under such interference-free conditions, the land-based cannons freely unleashed energy beams, firing to their heart’s content.

But when Sarah gave her command, the Swarm forces hidden deep underground on Planet Raze, quietly developing for more than a decade, finally revealed their claws.

Years ago, the Riken’s land-based cannon bases, totaling over thirty locations, had turned into patches of purple on the map after being attacked by the Swarm. After trying numerous methods without success, the Rikens were forced to resort to nuclear strikes.

The tremendous power of the new nuclear bombs vaporized the bases and the Swarm units within them, along with several kilometers of the subsurface area, leaving behind semi-spherical craters.

Even the rugged mountain areas, which proved difficult during repeated attempts to eliminate residual Swarm forces, were eventually bombed into depressions.

Afterward, the Rikens conducted careful inspections, confirming no traces of Swarm units remained before beginning the reconstruction of Planet Raze.

But in truth, they had deceived themselves. In the regions scorched by nuclear fire, the fungal carpets, still shallow at the time, were indeed evaporated by the extreme heat.

However, an unknown number of larval bodies and mature bodies, equipped with optical stealth, had escaped unnoticed. The Rikens, lacking effective reconnaissance means for these medium- and small-sized units, completely missed their presence.

Not to mention that during the Swarm’s attacks on various cannon bases across Planet Raze, at least tens of thousands of larval bodies had detached from their units and gone into hiding en route.

After burrowing underground, they didn’t resurface but continued to dig deeper.

For the Rikens to eradicate them entirely, they would have to obliterate an entire layer of Planet Raze. However, the scale of such an operation and the sheer quantity of nuclear bombs required would exceed all the Rikens’ reserves, making it an impossible task.

Each larval body carried at least a hundred spores, with each capable of mutating into a fungal carpet seed. The fungal carpet, after developing for a while, could mutate parts of its tissues to produce a Brood Queen.

Thus, thousands of Swarm bases took root across Planet Raze. But they remained dormant, deliberately staying hidden deep underground to avoid Riken detection, relying primarily on geothermal and radioactive materials for sustenance.

Now, however, it was time for these bases to sprout.

A new species of gigantic insect appeared before the world for the first time.

These creatures were over fifty meters in length, with a diameter exceeding three meters, resembling enormous worms magnified hundreds of times. Their mouths were lined with countless sharp teeth arranged in a spiral pattern, extending deep into their pitch-black, abyss-like interiors.

As their mouths opened and closed, soft soil, resilient bedrock, and even tough metals were sliced through like tofu, swallowed into their abdomens.

It contained more than ten massive grinding organs inside, functioning like gigantic blenders that pulverized everything ingested into fine particles.

These particles were then transported into specialized internal pipelines coated with a unique secretion. As the particles passed through, they fused with the secretion, forming a viscous, paste-like substance.

The creature’s body was covered in a hardened chitinous exoskeleton. Unlike fearsome spiked armor, this exoskeleton was remarkably smooth, allowing the creature to glide effortlessly through the underground without worrying about unnecessary damage.

The exoskeleton was riddled with evenly distributed pores, each about five centimeters in diameter. These pores connected to the viscous fluid pipelines, enabling the liquid to be expelled outside the body.

When the creature began working, it consumed all soil and rock in its path. Inside its body, these materials were converted into a thick liquid, which was then transported to its exterior.

Between the soft tissues of the creature and its exoskeleton lay a layer of air sacs. When inflated, these sacs caused the creature’s body to lose its suppleness and expand into a rounded, rod-like shape.

Once inflated, the creature forcefully compressed the surrounding soil, solidifying the walls of the passage it created. Simultaneously, the viscous liquid was expelled through the numerous pores across its body, coating the compressed passage walls as the creature advanced.

When the expelled liquid mixed with the soil and stone, it quickly seeped into the materials. Within a minute, it solidified and bonded, reinforcing the tunnel walls further.

This newly revealed species, dubbed the Burrowing Worm, could excavate tunnels over a hundred kilometers long and three meters wide in a single hour. Compared to the Swarm’s previous reliance on Worker Drones to painstakingly dig and reinforce tunnels bit by bit, this represented a monumental leap in their assault capabilities.

“Team Leader! Come take a look at this—our instruments are detecting some abnormal data!”

Inside a chamber of the underground nuclear power plant, a Riken technician suddenly shouted.

Hearing the call, the other Rikens in the room quickly gathered. The chamber housed only about a dozen Rikens, a mix of engineers and security personnel.

Amid the ongoing war in space, the laser defense arrays and land-based cannons had been continuously firing since the conflict began. Supplying energy to these weapons made the nuclear power plant a critical strategic asset. Yet, because Planet Raze was firmly within Riken territory and most forces had been dispatched to the main battlefront, the security team here was small. Engineers, tasked with maintaining the power plant’s operations, formed the majority.

After all, no one wanted their weapons to go offline during a war because of preventable equipment failures.

Despite the limited security personnel, the facility was equipped with comprehensive early warning systems. Located more than a hundred meters underground, the plant’s primary monitoring systems focused on access tunnels and geological changes in the surrounding area.

At the war’s outset, the laser defense arrays and land-based cannons operated at maximum output. The laser arrays, in particular, consumed enormous amounts of energy, triggering repeated alarms in the power plant. Maintenance engineers scrambled everywhere to inspect and repair components, ensuring the plant continued to run smoothly.

Had the output demands continued for another hour, the power plant might have risked a shutdown.

Fortunately, the Swarm shifted their bombardment to other targets, relieving the laser defense arrays from active duty. With only the land-based cannons drawing power, the plant now operated at just 50% of its maximum capacity to meet energy needs.

With the reduced workload, the personnel gathered in the control room.

Deep underground and prohibited from venturing to the planet’s surface during the war, they couldn’t directly observe the battlefield. Instead, they relied on videos broadcast by accompanying military ships to glean updates on the war.

However, the ferocity of the battlefield made it difficult to secure clear footage. Computational resources were prioritized for frontline operations, leaving the power plant staff with only sporadic audio feeds to follow.

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