I Am The Swarm

Not only Conradus’s side, but other members of the Confederation forces also had their own databases. Before engaging the Swarm, the Ji race had shared some intelligence with everyone, so their information on the Swarm was roughly the same.

As a result, the matches they came up with were similar to those of the Rashudia race. Likewise, no one believed that the Swarm’s megastructure was gathering energy for electromagnetic catapulting. Were the Swarm planning to launch a massive projectile to attack the Confederation forces?

This seemed laughable, as the current battlefield conditions simply didn’t allow for such an operation.

Unlike energy fire, electromagnetic projectiles were physical entities. Smaller ones might be manageable, but the Swarm’s megastructure was designed to catapult something like a 500-meter-long Primordial Body. Something that large, if not launched into a cleared path, would quickly become riddled with holes before it could travel far.

By now, the battle had been ongoing for some time, and the mutual bombardment had caused significant losses on both sides. The Swarm had it slightly better, as the wreckage of their Primordial Bodies could be absorbed by other combat units to accelerate repairs. Lightly damaged units either moved themselves or were dragged to the rear by allies to bask in the star’s energy and heal faster. If the battle dragged on, they might even have a chance to return to the front lines.

The Confederation forces, however, were in a different situation. Damaged ships with minor damage would also retreat to the rear for emergency repairs, but many had been directly shattered into fragments by concentrated main cannon fire.

These shipwrecks floated in the void, becoming obstacles. However, the Confederation forces actually liked these obstacles and even deliberately pushed the wreckage toward the front lines.

Although energy beams weren’t physical entities, they could still be disrupted or even prematurely detonated by these wreckage obstacles. Since the wreckage was closer to the Confederation forces, they could more easily adjust their firing angles to avoid them.

The wreckage acted as a layer of cover, blocking a significant amount of the Swarm’s firepower.

Therefore, everyone believed that although the Swarm followed a biotech path, they must understand such basic principles and wouldn’t resort to something as rudimentary as launching a massive electromagnetic projectile.

Yet, the energy levels of the Swarm’s megastructure continued to rise, and the match with electromagnetic catapulting grew stronger.

Were they really about to launch something?

Could the Swarm be planning to fire a Primordial Body?

This wasn’t impossible. After all, during the battle with the Yuntu race, the Swarm had used a Desolation-class mothership to launch Primordial Bodies at the Yuntu, achieving significant results.

But that was when the Yuntu race was completely surrounded, desperate to break free, with all their main cannons focused on opening an escape route and unable to defend against surrounding attacks.

Later, when the escape route was opened and the main cannons returned to defense, most of the Primordial Bodies were blown apart mid-flight. After all, even when curled up, a Primordial Body was over 100 meters in diameter—an easy target.

Now, the Confederation forces outnumbered the Yuntu race by dozens of times, and based on the current battle situation, it was the Swarm that was being suppressed in terms of firepower.

In such a scenario, launching Primordial Bodies would be like serving themselves up on a platter. Even if the Swarm’s megastructure had higher energy levels and could potentially launch something like a Desolation-class mothership, there were only two of them, which was far too few to make a difference.

However, the Swarm wasn’t stupid. They must have some confidence in this plan. Besides, everything at this point was just speculation. Most foreign races still didn’t believe the Swarm would launch anything. Some suggested that it might be an ultra-large Beam-type Weapon.

From a scientific perspective, this speculation was more realistic. The Swarm had already entered the dark energy system, and their powerful energy production and output systems were the foundation for developing Beam-type Weapons.

But that was just the foundation. Although Beam-type Weapons had many advantages, their range had always been a weakness. Even with the dark energy system, it would still take a long time to develop Beam-type Weapons with ranges comparable to current energy Beam-type Weapons.

Like all mid-ring civilizations, many had already developed dark energy system technology, but they still hadn’t mastered Super-Long-Range Beam-Type Weaponry, remaining within the framework of energy Beam-type Weapons.

However, it was said that the Ji race and several powerful inner-ring civilizations had developed powerful Beam-type Weapons and successfully miniaturized them, replacing their existing energy Beam-type Weapon systems.

This kind of weapon upgrade represented a qualitative leap. Any qualitative leap in a system would be a crushing advantage over lower-tier technology. Imagine two sides facing each other across the void, with one side’s weapons taking minutes to reach the enemy’s formation, while the other’s firepower arrived instantaneously. Such a battle would be a one-sided slaughter.

Currently, the Swarm’s technology appeared to remain at the level of energy Beam-type Weapons, not yet reaching the stage of Super-Long-Range Beam-Type Weapons. But who knew if the Swarm’s mysterious legacy contained such technology?

Moreover, many new technologies started out as massive systems and only became miniaturized as the technology advanced. The Ji race and those inner-ring civilizations had all gone through this process.

Perhaps the Swarm had already crossed the threshold into Super-Long-Range Beam-Type Weapons but hadn’t yet refined the technology enough to miniaturize it, leaving it only usable in the form of their megastructure.

If that were the case, the Confederation forces would need to be cautious. If those were indeed Super-Long-Range Beam-Type Weapons, given the size of the Swarm’s megastructure and its proximity to the star for energy supply, even just two of them could cause unimaginable destruction. They might completely erase all the advantages the Confederation forces currently held.

Without Conradus’s orders, the Confederation forces’ firepower intensified in unison. Their thinking was that if they could eliminate more of the Swarm’s conventional forces in advance, even if the Swarm’s megastructure turned out to be an Super-Long-Range Beam-Type Weapon, without the protection of other units, it would be a sitting duck.

Moreover, if they could capture it, even if the technological systems were different, they might still gain insights to advance their own technology.

However, some civilizations were dismissive of this. Several mid-ring civilizations present, including the Rashudia race, had already crossed the threshold into Super-Long-Range Beam-Type Weapons.

They believed that if they had an energy source as large as the Swarm’s megastructure, they could easily increase the range of Beam-type Weapons to match energy Beam-type Weapons.

Therefore, compared to the Swarm’s Super-Long-Range Beam-Type Weapon technology, they were more interested in the Swarm’s megastructure technology. Unfortunately, previous opportunities to study the Swarm’s megastructures had ended in self-destruction. They wondered if this time, they might get a chance to observe one up close.