The Way Out
As the Swarm's territory continued to expand, the number of races from which the Intellect originated also increased, and Rowan's abilities grew rapidly. More than twenty years ago, he attempted a long-distance warp jump over a two-meter Flesh Sac, failing once, and the other attempt, if not for good luck, would most likely have also ended in failure.
Now, however, he can easily leap through two-meter Flesh Sac, and he can even successfully leap through five-meter Flesh Sac on his first try. Reaching this level of skill is definitely not something that can be achieved simply through skill proficiency.
Another indicator of his growing strength is the increase in the number of Anchor Unit he can create. In his early years, his limit was five, and when he first joined the Star Sea Alliance, his limit was ten. Now, he can easily create nearly twenty Anchor Unit.
Of these Anchor Unit, Rowan has already sent eight away. One was taken by the Intellect heading to the Epoch Clan territory, one was on Bodi Planet, and the other six were sent away this time.
However, there is no limit to the number of Anchor Unit. Once the Swarm bases in other star systems are established, there will be no need to worry about the Epoch Clan's surveillance. They can freely create Megastructure, detonate energy, and use warp drives. At that point, Anchor Unit will simply not be enough.
Fortunately, as long as the number of Node Unit in the same area reaches a certain level, quantitative change leads to qualitative change, and Rowan can still find and link them even if they do not have Anchor Unit.
For example, on Bodi Planet now, the number of Node Unit there is already sufficient. Rowan plans to send that Node Unit away once the Megastructure there is fully developed.
In this way, the Anchor Unit arrive at the new star system, find a location to develop, reach a certain scale, and are then sent away. This cycle continues, and even if there are only twenty Anchor Unit, the Swarm will still achieve a very rapid expansion rate in the future.
Therefore, the territory on Origin Star seems to be no longer important. Moreover, judging from the current situation, the other side is pressing forward step by step, and it seems to have entered the final stage, about to reveal their true intentions.
At this point, Rowan's decision to abandon developing this territory and focus on expanding his "sub-mines" seems like a good choice. After all, time can defeat most enemies, and Rowan doesn't need to do anything to the Star Sea Alliance; perhaps a million years from now, they will fall apart.
Even if a million years isn't enough, what about tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of years later? As an "immortal being," Rowan can slowly "outlive" them.
But Rowan is a sentimental person; this is his place of Origin, and it's absolutely impossible for him to give it up for nothing, even though the current Swarm is still inferior to the Epoch Clan and the Star Sea Alliance.
His mindset hadn't matured to that high level yet; he still wanted to try it himself.
In fact, from the current perspective, Rowan doesn't have any deep-seated hatred for the Epoch Clan or the Star Sea Alliance. From another perspective, their conspiracy makes Rowan dare not slack off, accelerating the development of the Swarm.
But in the vengeful Rowan's eyes, being used as a pawn was an offense in itself. Moreover, the fate of a pawn was not necessarily pleasant, and that was enough to justify taking action.
For whatever reason, the Swarm survived another twenty years. The Megastructure was destroyed, and the Swarm withdrew. As the former stronghold of the Swarm, countless Ancient Class destroyers stretched out in a vast, seemingly straight line between the two star systems, causing all those who harbored ill intentions towards the Swarm to tremble with fear.
Six new Seed have been successfully sent to different star systems. Except for the first Seed, which is still drifting in the void due to a lack of energy in its carrier, three of the five seeds sent later have entered the nearest star systems and have landed and developed on planets.
Fortunately, the star systems where these three "mining sites" are located are all pristine and show no signs of interference. Moreover, preliminary observations indicate that there are no competitors around the "mining sites," and at least the neighboring star systems show no signs of intelligent life. However, a more concrete assessment will require waiting until they develop further and then sending a fleet to conduct on-site investigations.
The remaining two Seed are also about to reach the target star system, but in any case, Rowan has already secured at least three "backup plans".
Having a "backup plan" means having more confidence, so they were able to act a little more freely in the Origin Star System. Otherwise, given Rowan's personality, he might have wanted to reclaim some of the large number of Ancient Class Zerg within the Origin Star to show weakness and buy more time for the Swarm.
Once the twenty-year deadline had passed, Edres, who had been waiting outside, led the engineering team into the Origin Star System without pausing for a moment. What they had initially thought would be a quick engineering task turned into a stationing mission, and after such a long wait, they were already seething with anger.
However, they couldn't easily retaliate. Over the years, they had come to understand that this Zerg was no ordinary Outer-Ring Civilizations. It was a hidden behemoth, and its terrifying numbers alone were enough to contend with many outer-circle, and even Mid-Ring Civilizations.
And this is only the military strength of one of the enemy's star systems.
Although their speed is still somewhat lacking, Zerg are not enough to invade but more than enough to defend themselves. Even if the Zerg combat units are used as fixed defensive structures, the Epoch Clan would have to be prepared to suffer some losses if they wanted to take them down.
As for the ships led by Edres, they dared not say much. Thanks to the two rounds of hype from the Koya Alliance, the Swarm was portrayed by the outside world as villains such as tyrants and colonizers.
Edres worried that if he treated the Zerg like he would other races, and went to say a few more words to them, he might just disappear without a trace. Even if the Zerg were punished, he would be dead by then, so what good would it do?
Because the Rat-folk civilization's technology level was insufficient and they did not yet have spaceships capable of fast long-distance travel, it was the Swarm, which was invited by the Rat-folk civilization, that guided Edres and his group.
Tens of thousands of Ancient Class ships surrounded more than ten Epoch Clan ships. Even though the Epoch Clan ships were behemoths with a length of over four thousand meters, they appeared somewhat weak and insignificant in the face of such a dense Ancient Class army.
In terms of the size of the guiding team, the Swarm is quite unique.
"These guys are definitely doing this on purpose!" said a member of the Epoch Clan indignantly. He had just been woken up and was in a bad mood.
"So what if it's intentional? Those ugly monsters outside could tear us apart before we even activate our warp drive." This was a member of the Epoch Clan Swarm disagreed with the Zerg's aesthetic sense, or perhaps with Rowan's.
"Just bear with it. Once we get there, we can make direct contact with the Rat-folk."
--
"Captain, what do we do next?"
"Proceed according to the original plan!"