Black-Hole Induction Was Far From Enough

After giving the Babel Swarm a thorough dressing-down, Lu Shang had no interest in paying any more attention to the other brain cores and hives, which had resumed busily deconstructing the Crystal Entities' genetic material.

He linked his senses to those of a planetary organism imprisoning the Crystal Entities.

The planetary organism had used psionic power to imprison the Crystal Entities within a massive cavity in the planetary strata. The cavity was formed of flesh walls, and Lu Shang's enhanced senses allowed him to clearly see every vein and blood vessel running across them, as well as the swarm larvae writhing within.

Beyond that, countless pitch-black spheres floated within the cavity. These were regions where spacetime had been warped to the extreme by psionic power, areas even light could not enter.

The spheres held the Crystal Entities that had been captured in large numbers not long ago.

The enormous eyeball connected to Lu Shang's senses moved close to one of the black spheres and had the planetary organism open the sealed spacetime.

Bahadun'er, confined within a space without even a trace of light, was still curiously observing the environment around the Crystal Entities.

It was not worried about its predicament. Its life form made it exceptionally difficult to kill. Even if the Babel Swarm slaughtered all the captured Crystal Entities, those Crystal Entities it had hidden throughout the galaxy would still ensure its survival.

Suddenly, Bahadun'er noticed a beam of light seeping through the pitch-black barrier.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the black barrier unfolded. The environment around the Crystal Entities changed, and it found itself within a massive cavity formed of flesh walls.

And the most conspicuous thing was undoubtedly the enormous eyeball right beside the Crystal Entities.

"How pathetic, Bahadun'er. It seems the death sentence you were planning to carry out wasn't all that impressive." Lu Shang mocked it through the psionic network.

"Query... species... true identity unknown..."

Even now, Bahadun'er refused to believe this was the Babel Swarm.

No fangs when fangs were needed, no claws when claws were needed, no numbers when numbers were needed—and psionic power vast enough to split a planet in half. And now they were telling it this was the Babel Swarm?

"Of course we're the Babel Swarm. Could it be that you, so powerful and so ready to execute us, can't even recognize our psionic power?" Lu Shang continued taunting it disdainfully.

"Error... Babel Swarm... unable to reconcile..."

"Believe we are whatever you want. I can't be bothered arguing about my identity with an incompetent loser." Lu Shang was too lazy to argue over such things. Whether this loser acknowledged it or not, the swarm was still the swarm. He had come to Bahadun'er for another purpose.

"Do you know where the other vassal races are?" Lu Shang asked about what concerned him more.

Bahadun'er replied, "Query... purpose..."

"Purpose?" Lu Shang replied casually. "Nothing much. I just want to see whether they're as clever as you are—whether they'll come running over to get beaten up on their own. And while we're at it, we can capture some for research."

Upon hearing that, Bahadun'er refused Lu Shang without a moment's thought.

"Response... refusal..."

Have it become a traitor under the Void God?

What a joke!

Not to mention it did not know what the other vassal races were doing, even if it did, it would never tell the Babel Swarm, which had already betrayed the Void God!

Lu Shang was not surprised. Rather, the other's reaction was more or less what he had expected.

Lu Shang said, "I know I can't threaten you. After all, you're not one individual, but a group. As an entity formed by the psionic network of the Crystal Entities, so long as even one Crystal Entity remains in the universe, you cannot be destroyed."

"Your ability to survive surpasses that of the Babel Swarm by more than one level. Right now, you must be secretly delighted over the Crystal Entities you've hidden throughout the galaxy, thinking we can't destroy you. Am I right?"

Lu Shang had not gathered intelligence on Bahadun'er for nothing. He had long since learned about the social structure within the enemy species.

Bahadun'er was an individual, but also a collective. Countless low-intelligence Crystal Entities had built a network with psionic power, and Bahadun'er had been born from the convergence of information within that network.

So long as even one Crystal Entity remained in the universe, Bahadun'er could not be completely killed.

"..."

With Lu Shang laying bare its hidden trump card so directly, Bahadun'er did not know how to respond for a moment.

"Do you know why I'm telling you all this?" Lu Shang asked meaningfully.

"I'm using the last shred of kindness I have left to warn you. Run while you can. The swarm will grow stronger without end. If you don't flee now, it'll be too late later."

"The spacecraft has entered orbit."

After entering the orbit of a solid planet, a spindle-shaped spacecraft bearing the emblem of the Galactic Alliance on its deck transmitted a message to a retired Galactic Alliance warship 120,000 kilometers away.

The retired warship had once been a flagship. Later, as the war escalated, it could no longer meet the Alliance military's needs. Yet because of its sturdy structure, it had been converted into an experimental vessel.

On the experimental vessel's bridge, aliens of all kinds dressed in Alliance research uniforms were busily operating the equipment.

After a while, the alien overseeing the experiment said to the spindle-shaped spacecraft, "All calibrations are complete. Prepare to begin the test."

"Received."

The spindle-shaped spacecraft replied.

Then, a comet-like object streaked out, trailing a long thin path behind it. It smashed into the solid planet's surface, sending ripple-like shockwaves across the ground.

The planet's surface then began changing color. A grayish-white region spread at a visible rate, expanding until it covered an area equivalent to two provincial capitals on Earth.

The spindle-shaped spacecraft continued deploying similar objects. Grayish-white regions expanded simultaneously across multiple parts of the entire planet.

Viewed from space, it looked as though a can of paint were being poured into paint of another color.

"This is the nano-industry you mentioned?"

The Galactic Alliance envoy asked the experiment's overseer.

"Yes. It uses nanomachines for industrial production. So long as the scale is large enough, the industrial output it achieves is no less than that of current war machine swarms," the overseer said.

The Galactic Alliance envoy turned his gaze back to the test planet and asked curiously, "Nanomachines have always existed, but large-scale nano-industry has never been realized because there are too many blueprints and the structures are too complex. How did you solve that problem?"

The overseer explained, "Through emergence. The chemical basis of material structures is molecules. Below molecules are atoms, then protons, neutrons, and electrons, then quarks... Why can these particles form so many complex things in the universe without blueprints? Naturally, because of emergence."

"There's no need for excessively complex design blueprints. We only need to design the nanomachines so that, once they accumulate in sufficient numbers, they spontaneously form this industry. Each link then connects to the next, and the emergent structures coordinate with one another, producing more complex changes. That lets us bypass the need for massive amounts of blueprint information."

After hearing the explanation, the Galactic Alliance envoy considered it for a moment before asking, "Then how will industrial precision be ensured?"

"Naturally, through a complete industrial system," the overseer said. "Once these nanomachines form a complete industrial chain, precision will constantly be adjusted through calibration, just like a computer's carry-based counting system."

"Once the Alliance's war industry completely breaks free of the threat posed by swarm organisms, the balance between offense and defense will reverse."

The Galactic Alliance envoy was slightly taken aback. Seeing that the other party did not seem to be joking, he said, "No. This alone isn't enough. I've been on the battlefield and fought those swarm organisms. I know very well that if the Alliance wants to defeat the mutating Babel Swarm, it still lacks several crucial things."

"Crucial things?" The experiment's overseer savored the phrase, then said solemnly, "Please tell us. We can try to achieve them according to your requirements."

The Galactic Alliance envoy replied, "What the Alliance military needs most right now is a more efficient, more direct, and harder-to-resist means of attack. Ideally, when we want the enemy dead, they die immediately—unable to react and unable to defend."

"Black-Hole-Induced Strike is actually far from enough to give the Alliance an irreversible advantage."