I Am The Swarm-Chapter 560: The Plan

With the full arrival of the Rashudia fleet, all the civilizations stationed at the frontline knew that a major battle was imminent. At the same time, various gatherings and discussions filled the camps.

The main topic of discussion was naturally how the upcoming battle should be conducted, followed by discussions about the Swarm itself.

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As they prepared to engage the Swarm, the various races couldn’t help but do some homework beforehand. However, the Swarm’s current behavior didn’t quite match the descriptions in the records.

Compared to the Swarm of the past, the current Swarm seemed too docile. This led to two prevailing views among the outer-ring races. One was that the Swarm, knowing victory was hopeless, had already given up and was now enjoying the last moments of its existence. The other was that this was all a facade, and the Swarm was preparing some kind of devastating move, hence their calm demeanor.

The support for these two views was split roughly 60-40, with more people leaning toward the idea that the Swarm was preparing something big. As a result, the third most popular topic of discussion was what exactly the Swarm was planning.

Speculations ran wild, ranging from super bombs and stellar explosions to even science fiction concepts like dimensional flattening. However, as the discussions progressed, ideas like super bombs and dimensional flattening were gradually ruled out.

A super bomb was deemed impossible—what kind of bomb could affect a range of several light-years and annihilate a super fleet of 3 billion ships in one go? It was simply unimaginable.

As for dimensional flattening, that was even more far-fetched. While it was a fascinating concept, it remained purely theoretical. No civilization, not even the Ji Race, had made any progress in dimensional exploration.

This left the idea of triggering a stellar explosion as the most plausible option. If the Swarm could indeed cause the star in the First Star System to explode, the resulting massive release of energy and matter would easily destroy the Confederation super fleet. The explosion could even turn nearby star systems into dead zones, affecting the entire Interstellar Confederation to varying degrees.

If the Swarm really planned to do this, they were playing a dangerous game. However, sacrificing their own biological weapons in exchange for the Confederation’s ships and personnel seemed like a worthwhile trade.

Moreover, over the years, the Swarm’s reinforcements had increased slowly. While objectively speaking, many factors constrained the Swarm’s ability to rapidly expand their forces, adding 1 billion units over ten years was within a reasonable range.

But people often believe what they want to believe. In the rumors, the Swarm’s slow reinforcement rate was interpreted as a deliberate move to minimize their own casualties. After all, if the forces here were doomed to annihilation, it made sense to keep their numbers as low as possible.

The outer-ring races speculated that if it weren’t for the need to maintain appearances, the Swarm would have preferred to withdraw all their existing forces.

From another perspective, a star was indeed a super bomb. Its explosion could affect hundreds or even thousands of light-years, and it came with no construction cost—completely natural. As the saying went, “Those who’ve used it swear by it.”

Of course, the last part was just a joke. The records of the Confederation’s races contained no instances of stellar explosions. This wasn’t just a matter of unwillingness—historically, there had always been a few madmen with crazy ideas.

The reason these madmen never succeeded ultimately came down to a lack of capability. While stars were right there, they weren’t something you could just blow up at will.

Forget stars—even a regular terrestrial planet, if it was large enough, could stump many outer-ring races. At least half of the mid-ring civilizations had no way to deal with planets.

The gap between planets and stars was even greater than the gap between primitive civilizations and mid-ring civilizations. None of the forces currently at the frontline could achieve such a feat.

This included the Rashudia Race, which claimed to be the strongest mid-ring civilization.

Not just them—even the inner-ring civilizations would find it difficult. Thus, whether the Swarm had the capability and means to destroy a star became a new hot topic.

Moreover, if the Swarm’s plan was indeed to use a stellar explosion to annihilate the Confederation forces, they faced more than just the challenge of destroying the star.

Even if the Swarm had a method to trigger a stellar explosion, the resulting energy shockwaves wouldn’t travel at warp speed. As long as the Confederation forces maintained a certain distance, they could calmly turn around, create a safe distance, and warp away.

If the Swarm couldn’t annihilate the Confederation forces in one go and still lost so many of their own units, it would be a terrible trade-off. The Swarm wasn’t stupid—their past achievements proved that. They must have some kind of plan to ensure success.

The outer-ring races let their imaginations run wild, following this line of thought, and eventually realized that the problem seemed to circle back to the Confederation forces.

The Confederation forces’ goal was to attack the First Star System, which meant they would inevitably get close to it. The Swarm wouldn’t need any elaborate schemes—the Confederation forces would deliver themselves right to the Swarm’s doorstep.

Conversely, the Swarm would be safe. Their original goal was to defend against the Confederation forces’ attack. If the Confederation forces didn’t come, they couldn’t pose a threat to Swarm territory.

The more the outer-ring races thought about it, the more it made sense. The logic was self-consistent and aligned with reality. The Swarm must be planning exactly this. As more and more outer-ring races believed this speculation, it gradually became accepted as fact.

Strangely, the outer-ring races didn’t seem too upset about this. Instead, they seemed almost gleeful. With the Rashudia Race now in charge of the frontline, everyone wanted to see how they would handle this situation. If they were forced to retreat before the battle even began or simply sat there wasting time, it would be a huge joke—one that might overshadow all other hot topics.

The spectators prepared their snacks and front-row seats, ready to watch the Rashudia Race stumble. After all, the Rashudia Race’s universally detestable personality had earned them too many enemies.

However, they underestimated the Rashudia Race and their nasty temperament. The Rashudia Race hadn’t even considered a solution. They were here for victory, and at this critical moment, retreat was out of the question. Honor was their life—they would either succeed or die trying.

Thus, the battle plan was soon issued. Compared to the previous plan, the new one was almost unchanged—in fact, it was identical.

The Rashudia Race’s stance was clear: proceed as planned. Form up, push forward, and destroy everything in their path…

This caused an uproar among the outer-ring races. Without any precautions against the Swarm’s potential stellar explosion plan, weren’t they being sent to their deaths? Protests erupted, with many opposing the Rashudia Race’s plan.

But the Rashudia Race paid them no heed. They simply stated that they were now the frontline commanders, and anyone who disobeyed orders would be executed on the spot.