Doubts

The various inspections conducted by more than 100,000 researchers were extremely time-consuming, and the Epoch Clan had a small staff and limited space. Therefore, the entire process took nearly a year to complete.

Fortunately, no abnormalities were found among the passengers who boarded the ship; they were all in good health and did not carry any strange pathogens. As for the luggage, although several dangerous items were detected, after careful investigation, it was found that this was not intentional on the part of the person, so it was not considered a major problem.

The researchers who passed the inspection entered the Stasis Pod one after another, and their luggage was stored separately. After everything was ready, the two Epoch Clan transport ships, escorted by eighteen warships, slowly left the Star Port and gradually accelerated.

The light from the ship's stern engines gradually dimmed and soon disappeared into the distant sea of stars.

The Epoch Clan's warp drive technology is quite mature. The Warp Bubble they produce are very stable and small in size, so there is no need to worry about them being affected by the super-large gravitational sources of planets.

Therefore, unlike the Telo Civilization's warships, they did not need to fly out of the star system before activating. Under the watchful Overseer of the Swarm, after the small fleet had broken away from the Binary Star Defense Line by 5 million kilometers, their forms became blurred, and their exact coordinates could no longer be detected by optical radar.

However, Warp Bubble are ultimately based on a special gravitational field under the influence of gravity, so their location can still be detected using some Gravity Radar.

Hundreds of Intellect were already on high alert, calculating the speed of the Epoch Clan's spaceship by constantly capturing its position coordinates. Two times the speed of light, three times the speed of light, four times... They accelerated very quickly, and the warship's speed only stabilized after it reached eight times the speed of light, and it has maintained this speed ever since.

Rowan's expression was somewhat solemn. The advanced level of the Epoch Clan's technology still exceeded his expectations. When the Telo Civilization was negotiating, he had predicted where the Five came from and calculated their spaceship speed, resulting in a terrifying value. Later, when he learned that they were on the Telo Mother Planet and had arrived at the negotiation location aboard Telo Civilization warship, he breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Unexpectedly, the actual situation was even worse than anticipated. Eight times the speed of light, and that was with the large transport ships hindering them; the Epoch Clan's warships were likely even faster.

Furthermore, it's hard to say whether this represents their most advanced technology, as these are merely peripheral fleets transporting foreign researchers; their main combat forces may be far more formidable.

Suddenly, Rowan frowned. Something was wrong. Although the situation was very bad, it might not be as bad as he thought.

If it were just an ordinary alien race, Rowan's earlier thought might be correct, but the Swarm is now an important pawn. Coupled with the speculation about the previous delays in negotiations, the mastermind needs a Swarm that fits his setup.

Therefore, he must use various means to modify and influence the current Swarm.

However, due to time constraints, the Swarm doesn't have many allies or enemies, nor any significant ties of interest. Therefore, given the Swarm's current state, he has limited means and opportunities to influence it.

So this time, the arrival of the Epoch Clan's spaceship to pick up people is one of the few times the Swarm have made contact with the outside world. If the Swarm does not meet the expectations of the mastermind behind the scenes, then he will definitely not let this opportunity go.

Given that these Epoch Clan ships did not clash with the Swarm and everything went smoothly, their departure was likely a covert display of force. This display of force was probably carried out at maximum capacity, meaning that eight times the speed of light might be the current limit of the Epoch Clan technology.

What are they trying to achieve? Is this exertion of force intended to increase the Swarm's sense of crisis? Is it to force the Swarm to grow faster under external pressure? The Swarm's ability to rapidly produce units has already been proven; are they trying to improve the quality of the Swarm while increasing their numbers?

This situation...?

Why does this sound like a melodramatic soap opera, with a destiny bestowed upon them by heaven?

They've created a hypothetical enemy for the Swarm to stimulate Swarm growth, and they seem to be in a rush. Could the mastermind be a resistance organization hidden within the Star Sea Alliance?

They need powerful allies to fight the Epoch Clan, and the Swarm have that potential. They don't seem particularly interested in Life Star, and their treatment of the Riken Race and Rat-folk Race hasn't been overly aggressive. This suggests that forming an alliance would be relatively trustworthy. And most importantly, they can rapidly produce an army—a perfect pool of cannon fodder!

Perhaps once the Swarm reaches a certain size, an organization will emerge claiming to have secretly nurtured Swarm and now needs the Swarm to lead the charge against the evil Epoch Clan?

Rowan raised an eyebrow. Interesting, but this was just speculation. Perhaps the other side was doing the opposite, deliberately setting up this scheme so that Rowan could guess it, thus achieving their true purpose?

Is this what they mean by "I predicted your prediction," or "You thought I was on the fifth level, but I was actually in the atmosphere"?

This is getting complicated. It's a mix of truth and falsehood, reality and illusion. Who knows what they're really after? It seems we can only play it by ear.

However, how could they be certain that the Swarm could observe the Epoch Clan's spaceship? This was the premise of everything. If they couldn't be 100% certain that the Swarm could observe it, wouldn't it be like putting on a show for the blind? A wasted performance?

The Swarm's technological capabilities have always been well concealed. Under normal circumstances, given their current performance, the Swarm would have no way of detecting the fleet within the Warp Bubble. Even if they have some suspicions, they have no evidence.

And it is indeed true. If the Swarm had not received any external assistance, even with tens of millions of Intellect working tirelessly and without complaint, it would not have been able to surpass the achievements of other civilizations that took tens of thousands of years in just a few hundred years, especially since they had taken a different path in biotechnology.

After capturing Godzilla, Rowan used his abilities to analyze the Bio-controlled Fusion Technology for several months, obtaining the Atomic Furnace. However, there was still a hidden genetic fragment that took Rowan more than a year to analyze successfully.

Godzilla is truly a legendary creature; it's incredible that it could evolve to that level. Even with Rowan's abilities, it's unknown how long it would take him to evolve to Godzilla's state at that time.

It provided Rowan with tremendous assistance, elevating the Swarm's combat power by several levels and solving many technical challenges the Swarm faced at the time, such as the Space Octopus's endurance problem. And not only in the past, but even now, it continues to provide assistance to the Swarm.

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