This Swarm Was Far Too Fake

The stars around them, distorted by faster-than-light travel, changed from countless thin lines back into points dotting the cosmic backdrop. A vast number of crystals abruptly appeared in the empty expanse between stars.

Bahadun'er was in no hurry to attack the swarm creatures entrenched in the nearby star systems.

War required skill, especially space warfare. A reckless attack would only squander their existing advantage and might even hand the advantage to the enemy.

It carefully sensed the psionic signatures throughout the Bogu Grand Nebula, in every direction.

Bahadun'er was surprised to discover that the psionic signatures in every direction were absurdly powerful.

Clearly, the Babel Swarm had an enormous number of creatures—far more than when it had once ravaged the galaxy.

No wonder they had survived until now even after losing their Overmind... One of Bahadun'er's doubts was resolved.

However, Bahadun'er did not doubt its own victory. It understood the Babel Swarm. This servant race was not skilled at strategy; the only strategy it knew was using overwhelming numbers to crush its enemies.

Aside from spore acid and plasma jets, those were their primary methods of attack. Neither posed a threat to Bahadun'er's crystals. Their lattice structure was highly stable and did not readily undergo chemical reactions. Their atomic structure was as tough as carbon fiber, making them highly resilient; ordinary fangs and claws could hardly threaten them.

Most importantly, swarm creatures were accustomed to close combat. As long as it made proper use of that weakness, Bahadun'er's crystals could easily wipe out an entire herd of Behemoths.

It selected a star system that was not too far away and had the weakest psionic signature. Bahadun'er detached a small force of crystals from the batch under its command and had them make a faster-than-light jump to invade it.

Hathe, formerly an agricultural planet of the Dias Empire, now a special autonomous planet of the Dias Empire.

What did that mean?

It used to be a planet under the Dias Empire's jurisdiction. Now, it was a planet nominally belonging to the Dias Empire.

The reason it still insisted on flying the Dias Empire's banner was not because Hathe's governor was particularly loyal. It was mainly because they feared the Galactic Alliance might suddenly rally later and defeat the Babel Swarm once again.

Hathe's policy was simple: they would side with whoever won.

The garrison fleet belonging to Hathe, composed of warships acquired through trade with the Swarm, was patrolling the star system.

On the bridge, the chief commander sprawled lazily in his seat and saw one of his subordinates intently watching galactic news transmitted from the Galactic Alliance.

"Relax. Relax a little. No matter which side wins in the end, we still have options. There's no need to watch this every day. No one is going to want to attack us," the chief commander said.

"But if the Alliance wins, that would be the best outcome. I don't want to worship those swarm creatures as our rulers," the subordinate said.

"Most of the time, I really don't understand people like you, who value glory and dignity more than your own lives." The chief commander shook his head helplessly.

He still could not forget the scene from when swarm creatures fought near Hathe. They had directly infiltrated the warships with psionic power and crushed the idiots shouting slogans like "Long live glory!" and "The Empire eternal!" into balls of flesh.

Suddenly, alarms rang across the bridge.

The chief commander's heart skipped a beat, and his relaxed mood immediately turned tense.

"What's happening?!"

"An attack! Enemies have appeared in space!" the subordinate reported.

The chief commander wanted to curse. Of course he knew the alarm on the bridge meant the fleet was under attack. What he wanted to know was who was attacking them.

"Who are the attackers? Swarm creatures? An Alliance fleet?"

Before launching an attack, Bahadun'er always sent a small force of crystals to make a probing assault.

Doing so would expose its intention to attack in advance and eliminate the possibility of a surprise strike, but it would also provide a basic understanding of the enemy's military strength.

It minimized the risk of stumbling into an enemy force it could not defeat.

After the fleet patrolling near Hathe had destroyed the probing crystals with considerable difficulty, Bahadun'er gained a rough understanding of the enemy's strength within the star system.

It found it strange that swarm creatures were piloting Galactic Alliance warships to fight its crystals, and that not a single Behemoth had come to join the battle.

But Bahadun'er believed this might be related to the Babel Swarm's strategy against the Galactic Alliance.

In Bahadun'er's memories, the Babel Swarm possessed a type of swarm organism capable of parasitizing an enemy's brain, gradually devouring it entirely, and taking complete control of the host's body.

Perhaps the swarm creatures had modified these organisms somehow, allowing the Galactic Alliance to fail to detect the parasites. By controlling others through parasitism, they had used the Galactic Alliance to develop and strengthen themselves.

That also explained why the psionic signatures in every direction were so absurdly powerful. Clearly, there were an enormous number of such parasites.

Having figured this out, Bahadun'er immediately ordered all crystals to attack. The immense mass of crystals vanished into thin air together, entering faster-than-light travel.

The Galactic Alliance's warships were indeed powerful, but the number of warships currently engaged was not large.

Through the small force of crystals that had already been destroyed, Bahadun'er obtained the coordinates of the enemy fleet. It therefore had the crystals jump directly near those coordinates, using sheer numbers to compensate for their insufficient attack power and swiftly swallow the entire enemy fleet.

During the battle, several warships in that fleet capable of Black-Hole-Induced Strike caught Bahadun'er's attention.

Although Bahadun'er did not understand how a Black-Hole-Induced Strike worked, its power was undeniable.

"Intelligence updated... warships... new type..."

Bahadun'er could not help but feel fortunate. If there had been several thousand more warships of that type, the crystals it had sent to attack would likely have suffered devastating losses this time.

After destroying the fleet parasitized by the Babel Swarm, Bahadun'er began continuously bombarding Hathe from orbit with crystals, dropping vast numbers of them onto the surface.

The crystals, streaking downward like meteors and trailing long paths behind them, would produce massive amounts of biocrystal upon reaching the ground. Once those biocrystals completely covered the surface, no life other than crystals would remain on the planet.

Having lost its fleet, Hathe could no longer mount any effective resistance.

"Target selected..."

As Bahadun'er considered its next target, a powerful gravitational wave appeared within the star system—one it had only been fortunate enough to sense during the collision of two black holes.

Terrifying!

No other word could describe that feeling!

Three swarm nest planets abruptly appeared ten thousand kilometers away from the crystals. The immense psionic power they emitted instantly imprisoned every crystal.

The crystals that had fallen onto Hathe were forcibly dragged out of the ground and back into space by psionic power.

No, those were not swarm nest planets!

Those things were not swarm nest planets at all, but something else wearing the appearance of nest planets!

Amid its shock, Bahadun'er corrected its understanding. It saw enormous eyes upon those nest planets and sensed psionic signatures it could not comprehend at all.

From those psionic signatures, Bahadun'er could identify them as creatures bred by the Babel Swarm.

"Question... unable to comprehend... unable to comprehend..."

Bahadun'er stared at the planetary creatures in disbelief. Countless crystals fell toward them like motionless meteors, while Bahadun'er, their commander, could only watch, unable to change anything.

Before the absolute might of psionic power, any struggle was a joke.

Bahadun'er could not believe that what it was seeing could be creatures of the Babel Swarm.

That's right!

This was not the Babel Swarm at all!

We are both races favored by the Void God—how could the gap between us possibly be this vast!