I Am The Swarm

“You still haven’t found a way to forcibly access their intranet?” The Ji official was clearly unwilling to give up.

Since the New Ji Race inherited the Ji name, hundreds of thousands of years had passed. During that time, they had encountered civilizations similar to the Swarm—unwilling to let the Ji or any other foreign power access their intranets.

However, weakness was the original sin. Fragile, fledgling civilizations stood no chance against the Ji’s overwhelming technological superiority. What those civilizations believed to be foolproof intranet defenses often proved utterly meaningless in the face of the Ji’s capabilities.

But the Swarm was fundamentally different from any stubborn civilizations they had faced before.

“Not yet, sir. I’m sorry,” admitted a Ji crew member, bowing his head in shame. He often boasted about his exceptional hacking skills, but the current situation made him look like a clown.

“Useless!” The official cursed and flung a cup at the wall in frustration.

He had been tasked with achieving results, but with more than half the project already completed, his team had made no progress whatsoever.

“Sir, perhaps the Swarm is telling the truth. Maybe they really don’t have an intranet,” a technician suddenly interjected.

“What? Are you an idiot now too? No intranet—do they communicate telepathically?” The Ji official was fuming.

He couldn’t believe someone under his command would suggest such a naive idea. Any civilization that advanced beyond a certain level and accumulated sufficient knowledge would inevitably require an efficient means of information transmission.

Relying solely on memory was impossible. For instance, just the theoretical framework for a warp drive would take eons to record even with rapid transcription devices.

“But they don’t even have communication satellites. Our instruments haven’t detected any network signals. At this point, we don’t even know where the entrance is, let alone how to breach it,” the technician argued, convinced that the issue lay with the Swarm and not their own methods.

“The Swarm follows a biological pathway. Who says they need communication satellites to transmit information? Those giant creatures floating in the sky could easily serve as biological communication relays. Stop making excuses for your incompetence! Right now, immediately, think of a solution! I don’t want to hear any more about what can’t be done—I want results! Otherwise, none of you will have a good time!”

The official was on the verge of losing his temper. His technicians seemed to have completely lost their edge, coming up with ridiculous excuses. The Swarm conducted long-distance transmissions regularly—data that the Ji had managed to intercept on occasion. While their unique primary-color encryption rendered the content undecipherable, it at least confirmed that the Swarm possessed an information transmission system.

The problem wasn’t that the Swarm lacked a network. The problem was that the Ji had yet to find the door. Once they did, the Ji’s technological prowess would make breaking into the Swarm’s intranet a matter of minutes. There was no way the intranet’s entire contents could be encrypted.

Unfortunately, despite deliberately slowing down their construction progress to buy time, the Ji made no breakthroughs. By the time the project was completed, their technical team was left questioning their own abilities, utterly demoralized.

During this time, the Ji weren’t entirely passive. They attempted to physically infiltrate Swarm habitats to gather intelligence. However, they quickly discovered that challenges were everywhere.

Although they knew the planet must conceal numerous Swarm hives, Ji ships couldn’t conduct large-scale scans, and the Swarm’s underground tunnels were shielded by magnetic fields, rendering small scanning devices ineffective.

As a result, the Ji didn’t even know where the Swarm’s hives were, let alone how to infiltrate them. Even if they had precise locations, figuring out how to avoid the omnipresent Observer Bugs in the sky posed another significant challenge. These creatures—whose exact nature, whether living or something else, the Ji couldn’t comprehend—left them stumped.

In an effort to study the Observer Bugs, the Ji orchestrated an “accident,” successfully capturing a small Observer Bug and placing it in a specially designed container to prevent it from raising an alarm. However, when they tried to dissect it, they encountered the same awkward situation that the Riken had faced before. The moment a probe pierced the bug’s body, its genetic material collapsed, reducing it to a pool of viscous liquid.

Undeterred, the Ji conducted several more attempts until they received a stern warning from the Swarm, which forced them to stop.

Frustrated and resentful, the Ji construction team eventually left, heading to the Sandstorm System to rendezvous with their colleagues and stay there for a while. Unfortunately, their counterparts in the Sandstorm System had made similarly little progress. The Sandstorm System was even more primitive than the Neighboring Star System.

In the days that followed, everything seemed calm. Luo Wen waited for the next move from the mastermind behind the scenes, but no follow-up actions materialized. It was as if the Swarm had been entirely forgotten.

Years later, the Swarm’s Trade City was completed and inspected, prompting the Ji vessels to leave Swarm territory and return to the Riken System. Unlike the cold treatment they had received from the Swarm, the Riken System had been transformed into a bustling research hub.

It was said that considerable progress had been made in recent years, and several finished products had been developed—thanks in no small part to Luo Wen’s covert assistance. With increasing mastery over himself and the Swarm Network, Luo Wen manipulated node units with precision.

Remote-controlled genetic mutations during experiments became second nature to him. His interventions were seamless, leaving no trace behind.

Time marched on, and nearly a century passed in relative tranquility. During this time, Luo Wen observed nothing suspicious within Swarm territory that could be considered a follow-up action from the mastermind. This eerie quiet made him question the validity of his previous assumptions.

However, Luo Wen quickly dismissed such doubts. While his biological age was vast, his mental age was still relatively “young.” Over the years, he had gathered substantial information from various sources, including the Ji and other civilizations.

In civilizations with histories spanning hundreds of thousands of years, records often documented plans and schemes that took centuries or even millennia to unfold. Some plans even spanned tens of thousands of years, crossing multiple generations.

By comparison, the mere hundred years of silence around the Swarm hardly seemed unusual. Yet the uncertainty of being a piece on the chessboard without knowing the next move weighed on Luo Wen.

Meanwhile, the Riken System’s newfound prosperity, bolstered by the Ji’s presence and experimental output, attracted even more outsiders. Although the finished products were technically Ji creations and had little direct connection to the Riken, many production processes heavily involved the Riken people.

These products became items of trade within the Trade City, generating tax revenue. The city had expanded multiple times, and the massive influx of personnel fueled the Riken economy and accelerated their progress. On this foundation, the Riken grew stronger.

As strength grew, so too did ambition. Backed by the Ji and their laboratories, as well as extensive foreign interaction, the Riken were emboldened. If a war were to break out in the Riken System, it would implicate not just a few factions but an intricate web of interests.

Feeling untouchable, the Riken now sought to achieve more. Their first demand was complete control over the Riken System.

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