I Am The Swarm-Chapter 789: Blitz

Of course, this wasn’t always absolute—if they were facing certain death, they would resort to high-powered weapons in a desperate effort to take the invaders with them. But in such cases, the Swarm—who didn’t care about capturing New Ji warships—would simply use expendable units to destroy the entire ship. Either way, they came out ahead.

This, of course, didn’t factor in the efforts of infiltrators. But war was unpredictable, and there wasn’t always time to account for every contingency. When faced with madmen, the crew on board could only blame their bad luck.

As for the New Ji civilian personnel, they weren’t even a problem. Lacking any protection, a single tiny neurotoxic sting was enough to strip them of all resistance.

The Swarm’s success lay in their immediate destruction of several Star Gate nodes—cutting off any potential New Ji reinforcements from responding. Everything proceeded smoothly from there.

These nodes weren’t randomly selected either. Even if damaged, they were easy to repair—replacement parts were available right in the Star Gate’s own repair rooms. If the Star Gate’s auto-repair systems were still functioning, they could be fixed in as little as a few dozen minutes.

However, damaging these specific spots rendered the Star Gate unable to activate—completely cutting off Ji reinforcements.

Just as the Swarm had failed to pull off a miracle at XM768, the Ji Race couldn’t perform one at XM756 either—not when the Swarm was fully prepared.

In just one hour, XM756 officially changed hands. The Swarm had completely taken over.

Though this battle appeared effortless, in truth the Swarm had spent decades preparing for it. Only with the Ji Race’s lax defenses were they able to proceed step-by-step with such a deep infiltration.

Moreover, this tactic was difficult to replicate. Once used, the odds of success dropped significantly—especially given the Ji Race’s capabilities. They would certainly analyze this humiliating failure and reinforce every weak point.

That’s why XM756 wasn’t the only Star Gate to come under attack. Almost simultaneously, no fewer than eleven Star Gates were hit by similar tactics—and all of them were captured successfully.

Operating on a “waste not, want not” principle, while planning the operation to seize XM756, the Swarm had also infiltrated every Star Gate within reach over the past hundred years.

And the results had been promising.

In contrast to the Swarm and Inner-circle Alliance celebrating their glorious victories, the New Ji Race, having lost over ten Star Gates in one stroke, was understandably not in a cheerful mood.

What made it worse was that they had just celebrated their successful thwarting of the Swarm at XM768—feeling as though they had dealt a heavy blow. But before they could finish patting themselves on the back, the Swarm’s devastating counterattack—like a massive hand empowered with powerful buffs—slapped them squarely across the face.

“We must retaliate!”

“Agreed! This is outrageous!”

In the New Ji command center, the senior officers were red with shame and fury. After all, this slap in the face had landed especially hard—especially since they had just broadcast their earlier “victory” reports to other foreign races.

“How do we retaliate? Are we supposed to assemble a fleet, march across dozens or even hundreds of light-years, and try to attack one of their Star Gates?”

“We could try using the same method—conduct a long-term infiltration, then strike suddenly.”

“Not likely. We’re nothing like them. Those Inner-circle rebels don’t have our level of automation. And with the Swarm nearly impossible to infiltrate, it’s almost impossible to replicate their tactics.”

“Damn it. So we’re just going to let this go?”

“What else can we do? For now, we need to shut the barn door before more horses bolt. Send out micro-robots to inspect every pipe and conduit in our Star Gates. And those warships—we need to go over every one that’s been delivered in the last few years. I suspect the lost Star Gates received compromised ships.”

Everyone nodded. The Swarm’s infiltration tactics were nearly impossible to guard against. Not only the Star Gates and warships, but every other facility had to be checked as thoroughly as possible.

The Swarm’s method of infiltration was unlike anything they’d encountered before. The tiny bugs could survive by absorbing ambient free-floating energy in the air.

This meant that all the nooks and crannies of their infrastructure—places other civilizations couldn’t reach or utilize—had become the Swarm’s favorite hiding spots.

They would have to completely purge these areas. Otherwise, they’d never feel at ease in battle.