"High-density moving objects approaching through the memetic sea ahead. Numbers—"
Shoukaku glanced at the radar Light Screen.
She paused. The number rolled over the tip of her tongue before she finally said it.
"...Over one hundred million."
The next second, the mist of the memetic sea was torn open.
The things surging out of the roiling dark-purple wall of fog instantly filled the viewing windows of every bridge in the Vanguard Fleet.
The Swarm.
A sky-blotting, earth-covering Swarm.
Each one was half the length of a standard escort ship, their carapaces gleaming with a black-purple metallic sheen, the transparent membranous wings on their backs vibrating violently at a frequency that defied aerodynamics.
Their compound eyes were packed densely across the front of their triangular heads, every tiny facet reflecting the cold light of the Vanguard Fleet's thrusters.
Countless segmented limbs extended from beneath their shells, each segment ending in hooked claw-spikes.
The Swarm had not made a sound yet.
But that silence was more scalp-numbing than any screech—because everyone on the bridge could clearly see that the first batch of insects to surge out of the mist was arranging itself into a diamond formation at terrifying speed.
"Combat configuration!"
The moment Shoukaku's order fell, rows of blue halos unique to the Defense Field Generators lit up across the Qinglan's outer armor.
The barrels of the Ship-borne Close-in Weapon Systems swiveled in unison, their targeting systems automatically locking onto the Swarm vanguard that had entered range first.
Stelle shoved the selfie stick into March 7th's arms.
The movement was so fast that March 7th only reacted when she looked down and saw the extra thing in her arms.
"Huh?"
"Film me."
Stelle turned around. At some point, the baseball bat had already appeared in her hand, and the patterns along its