I Am The Swarm-Chapter 808: Oppression

Over the years, thanks to over a thousand extragalactic bases, Luo Wen had grown increasingly connected to this universe. Coupled with his harvesting of spiritual entities from the Interstellar Technological Confederation, this dual-pronged strategy had rapidly accelerated his power growth.

Correspondingly, the Swarm’s strength had also grown significantly, far beyond what the Genesis System alone revealed.

Thus, Luo Wen had long had contingency plans for the energy supply of the new operations hub. It would certainly not become a bottleneck.

The reason Luo Wen had painstakingly concentrated most of the Star Gates in one place, of course, came with massive advantages. Even though the new operations hub—destined to house 100,000 Star Gates—was not yet complete, the existing hub of just 10,000 gates already demonstrated the benefits of this clustered model.

From afar, massive energy beams, each as wide as a planet, stretched across the void in golden brilliance—life’s radiance, the source of all existence.

At the heart of the ultra-long-range interstellar Star Gates—each many times larger than standard gates—the fabric of space shimmered. Swarm forces streamed out in waves. Given this was deep space, the baseline deployment unit was the Primordial body. Smaller combat units were all carried aboard these Primordial bodies.

Surrounding the interstellar gates were clusters of standard Star Gates. The Primordial bodies emerging from the main gate moved without delay, slipping into assigned gates according to pre-planned deployments.

These led to secondary operations hubs or directly to front-line battlefields. Here, the advantages of clustered Star Gates became clear—flexible force deployment across all battlefronts and massive reductions in transit delays.

Every day, hundreds of millions of Primordial bodies were deployed from this central hub—some to the main battlefield, others to border skirmishes, and many more to hunt down Ji guerrilla fleets.

With each passing day, the Swarm’s forces swelled by billions. As expected, faced with this ever-growing pressure, the Ji began their third wave of mass migrations.

Now, the Ji territory within twenty light-years of the border was completely evacuated. From afar, it resembled a hollow ring cut into the Galaxy—sure to inspire wild speculation from any distant Watchers who might peer into the void.

But even that wasn’t enough. This third migration was unprecedented. All planets within fifty light-years of the front received mandatory relocation notices.

Though their situation was grim, the Ji still wielded some of the most advanced technology in the sector. There was no way they didn’t notice the Swarm’s rapid mobilization.

On these planets, the new generation of Ji fell into despair. Their former neighbors and homelands had been devastated before their very eyes.

Once so proud and confident in their freedom, the Ji realized that when Lumina shed its mask, and mechanical soldiers took full control, their so-called autonomy was utterly fragile and meaningless.

Although many had not yet been forced into cryogenic chambers, they were confined to limited zones, with less freedom than even the Confederation races.

At least the Confederation races, though denied Star Gate access, could move about freely—and even express their views without censorship. The Swarm never restricted public discourse.

Ironically, this laissez-faire attitude only earned the Swarm more goodwill. The races appreciated being treated as insignificant—because what was ignored was also often safe, and not seen as a threat.

—

“Overlord, on Primary Battlefield One, we eliminated fifty million enemy units yesterday, with our own losses totaling 210 million.”

“Overlord, on Primary Battlefield Two, 30 million enemies were killed, with 120 million losses on our side.”

“…”

“Overlord, in Sector 31-52, we advanced two billion kilometers, with only two million casualties.”

Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freewebnσvel.cøm.

“Overlord, in Sector 41-23, we had a minor skirmish. Enemy casualties were 500,000, our losses 2.7 million.”

“…”

“Overlord, in the Ketou area, troops TG41761 and TG41982 successfully intercepted a Ji fleet. So far, we’ve eliminated 15,000 enemy ships at the cost of 8,000 units. Pursuit continues.”

“Overlord, following a report from the Wuju race, we raided a nano-bot concentration point yesterday and recovered 3.6 million tons of nano-bot debris. Our losses: 23.”

“…”

These were Luo Wen’s daily briefings—tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of updates. A typical carbon-based intelligence might take dozens of days to read through just a single day’s worth of reports, but for Luo Wen, it was as natural as breathing.

“Overlord, we’ve only deployed seven extragalactic bases, and already the Ji are buckling. Once the remaining ultra-long-range Star Gates are completed, their remaining reserves won’t last long,” said Sarah, whose duties as part of the Swarm’s symbolic court had grown lighter since they had closed themselves off from external diplomacy. She now often lingered at Luo Wen’s side.

“The Ji may still have something hidden. We mustn’t grow complacent,” Luo Wen replied calmly. A veteran of many battles—especially with abstract forces like the unknown—he had learned to always assume his enemies were more formidable than they appeared. That way, victory came easier when the truth proved otherwise.

“What could they be hiding—relying on Lumina? Hmph…” Sarah scoffed.

Luo Wen didn’t respond, but he understood what she meant. She wasn’t underestimating Lumina, but rather pointing out a mismatch of domains.

Had the Swarm been a purely mechanical civilization—even one slightly more advanced than the Ji—Lumina, a godlike being in virtual space, might’ve had a real chance at overturning the tide.

But the Swarm was a biotech-focused force, and more critically, it had the Swarm Network—a bugged-out neural web that rendered 90% of Lumina’s advantages moot. Within this architecture, Lumina’s control over the virtual network had no room to manifest.

To the Swarm, Lumina was little more than a competent general. And while the Ji’s AI-driven troops were well-coordinated, coordination was also one of the Swarm’s greatest strengths.

With countless Intelligent Entities capable of micromanaging individual skirmishes, Lumina simply had no edge against the Swarm.