Things of the Spiritual Realm

Massive numbers of Leaper creatures poured out from several stargates within the star system. Their sky-covering numbers blotted out the stars, like an incomparably vast black curtain slowly unfurling and isolating this star system from the galaxy.

A cluster of hundreds of millions of Leaper creatures—when such a cluster moved as one, even planets would have their orbits altered by the relativistic effects caused by their movement.

Since the successive completion of gravitational rings near several stars in the Gate World, giving birth to a Leaper creature cluster of this scale had become practically effortless for the Collectors. With Gates as superluminal strategic passages, the Collectors no longer needed to consider the costs of movement across light-year distances and could reach any point on the battlefield.

This was also a key factor in how they could suppress the Coordination Association through sheer numbers.

"Take your positions!"

A vast number of Leaper creatures gathered at a Gate. On the other side was the star system named Gorin by the Inari Radiant Empire, also a strategic node. The Collectors needed to reach Gorin before using the stargate there to continue attacking the Coordination Association's remaining positions.

The Coordination Association usually deployed large numbers of combat units at these strategic nodes to contain the Collectors' fierce offensives, but they generally could not hold them.

Things had been different before. A Leaper creature cluster usually could not seize a position during its initial assault and needed repeated attacks, relying on casualty numbers to force the Coordination Association to abandon it. But since the gravitational rings had been completed, the number of Leaper creatures had explosively increased. Now, with hundreds of millions of Leaper creatures flooding into a strategic node in a swarm, even heavily defended positions were little more than decorations.

The Collectors had