The Colossus Overhead Was Too Nightmarish

Without any thought at all, the moment Lu Shang saw the worker bee, he instinctively understood what it was.

More subtly, Lu Shang could directly read its intent. This worker bee had come to help him dig a grave, probably because it had heard his earlier lunatic ramblings.

"Are you saying I'm not dying fast enough, so you came here to piss me off to death and inherit my Huabei?" Lu Shang flipped the worker bee the middle finger.

However, after calming down a little, Lu Shang quickly froze. A human like him could actually communicate normally with a swarm creature?!

After studying it carefully, Lu Shang understood why.

The Babel Swarm's psionic network!

Perhaps it was due to infection by swarm genes, some alteration the departed hive mind had made to his body, or some other unknown reason, but Lu Shang's brain was now connected to Nestworld's swarm network.

"You... can understand what I'm saying?" Lu Shang stared at the worker bee in the cave and asked tentatively.

The worker bee did not move, but Lu Shang could naturally sense its reply in his mind.

It understood...

Could it be because my brain is connected to this psionic network too, so they see me as one of the swarm?

With that question in mind, Lu Shang temporarily suppressed his curiosity. The crisis did not allow him to waste any more time. The Galactic Alliance fleet was still lurking menacingly in space.

Lu Shang hurriedly made his request to the worker bee. "I need to know what's happening outside Nestworld."

Almost the instant Lu Shang made the request, his field of vision expanded enormously, taking in the entirety of Nestworld from the inside out.

This godlike perspective was strange, but it could not extend far from Nestworld. After investigating it, Lu Shang roughly understood the principle. Through the psionic network, he had linked to the senses of every swarm unit on Nestworld, using those senses to observe Nestworld and its surroundings.

When Lu Shang saw the massive interstellar fleet that had moored near Nestworld at some unknown time, along with the planet-destroying cannon that had apparently been charging for who knew how long, his expression darkened.

The situation he least wanted to see had still happened!

The Galactic Alliance's main fleet had arrived in this star system. No Babel Swarm space unit could possibly escape such terrifying firepower containment.

In other words, the hope of survival Lu Shang had just kindled was snuffed out again in an instant!

This Nestworld of swarm creatures was about to explode where it stood!

Lu Shang slumped stiffly onto the ground. He was still so young. He had not even gotten himself a girlfriend before he had to leave this world like this, blasted by an alien planet-killing weapon until not even a single cell remained...

The more Lu Shang thought about it, the angrier he became. Then he glanced at the worker bee beside him, which was blankly pondering how to dig his grave.

"What are you looking at? You think just because I'm screwed, your swarm is doing any better? Do you really think the swarm creatures that escaped from here can continue your species? I'm telling you, dream on!"

[Why?]

The worker bee looked at Lu Shang in confusion. The other swarm creatures on Nestworld were also linked to the worker bee's senses through the network, blankly watching Lu Shang.

"You don't understand? Then let me ask you this: has the swarm achieved any development after being trapped in its own home star system for four hundred and thirty thousand years?"

"For four hundred and thirty thousand years, your technological level has remained stuck in the realm of chemical molecules! For four hundred and thirty thousand years, you've still used chemical propulsion without the slightest change! For four hundred and thirty thousand years, your military doctrine has still fucking been human-wave tactics! After four hundred and thirty thousand years, you still couldn't develop faster-than-light travel, and had to rely on some void god that came out of nowhere to give you a 'psionic cheat' before you could wage war across the stars!"

"Now look at your opponents! Facing you, who possess faster-than-light capability and a numerical advantage, they were not only able to preserve the embers of their civilization through strategy, but also seize opportunities for further development. Step by step, they struggled their way into a technological explosion, developed faster-than-light technology, and ultimately reversed the offensive and defensive positions!"

"Doesn't any of that wake up even a tiny bit of those mush-filled brains of yours?"

"A trash civilization like yours, with such a warped development model and a habit of baring its fangs all day, thinks that escaping through psionics and barely surviving for a while means you can keep barely surviving forever? I guarantee that within a hundred years at most, your enemies will develop technology that matches or even surpasses psionics."

"When that time comes, it will be the moment the Babel Swarm is wiped out!"

The moment he said this, Nestworld's swarm network fell utterly silent. Compared with before, it was as though a surging, turbulent river had suddenly become a lake as still as a mirror.

[Then what should the swarm do?]

The worker bee stared blankly at Lu Shang. The other swarm creatures on Nestworld, connected to the worker bee's senses through the network, also stared blankly at him.

"What do you mean, what should you do? You're done for. Do you know how enormous the gap in basic science is between the Galactic Alliance and you? The only reason your swarm has managed to fight them this long is because some void god gave you that 'psionic cheat.' What makes you think you can bridge the technological gulf between you and the enemy..."

The self-destructive Lu Shang had wanted to continue with another round of mockery, but he suddenly froze. His tone gradually softened, and his displeased expression slowly turned thoughtful.

"Wait, psionics?"

"Psionics... if it's psionics..." Lu Shang frowned deeply, rubbing his chin.

The Babel Swarm used psionics' ability to influence space-time to create space-time warp bubbles capable of faster-than-light displacement, crossing vast distances measured in light-years.

Then... he had no need to specifically run out into space at all!

Why couldn't they create a space-time warp bubble directly on Nestworld and escape faster than light?

Or why couldn't they wrap the entire Nestworld in a space-time warp bubble and flee faster than light?

The more Lu Shang thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. There did not appear to be any problem with it, so he directly sent the idea into the swarm network.

Very quickly, the swarm creatures on Nestworld sent back a response through the network.

[Neither is possible.]

The first was due to the fragility of space-time warp bubbles. With interference from a planet's mass, a warp bubble created on a planet could not remain stable. Therefore, swarm creatures generally had to first distort space-time with psionics to create an anti-gravity field and leave the planet, then create a space-time warp bubble around themselves after entering space.

The second was because a planet's mass and size were far too great. Creating a space-time warp bubble on such an astronomical scale required an immense amount of psionic power to bend space-time. Yet the largest creature in the Babel Swarm was only around ten kilometers long, and it already required a top-tier Level Ten psionic creature for faster-than-light travel. Nestworld alone had a diameter of more than twelve thousand kilometers. What level of psionic creature would that require?

And at a time like this, where could the swarm possibly find a psionic creature so unimaginably powerful?

"Only Level Ten at most?"

Lu Shang froze. He had not yet digested enough swarm memories, so his understanding of psionics remained limited.

After thinking for a while, Lu Shang's brow relaxed again. He turned to the worker bee beside him, which was still pondering how to dig his grave.

"Then we'll use Level Ten."