I Am The Swarm-Chapter 642: Awareness

At 128x slow motion, the movements of the B-3 repair robots had been slowed to an extreme, almost to the point of freezing. Yet, even with their eyes wide open, the crew could still see a fleeting shadow in the video, which struck one of the B-3 robots in the distance. Before they could see the outcome, the B-3 that had captured the footage went dark.

“What was that? Did anyone see it clearly?”

The crew shook their heads. One of them said, “Do we have something like that on our ship? Did we carry some secret weapon that’s now out of control?”

“Have you been watching too many movies, or did your brain get squeezed by the door? That’s clearly not ours.”

“You can’t be sure. After all, your clearance isn’t high enough to know about the most classified things.”

“You!…”

“Enough. I’ve already reported the situation to the captain. It’s out of our hands now. Gwendolyn, slow it down further, to 256x. I want to see what that shadow is.”

A moment later.

“Did you see it?”

“No…”

“It looks like a whip?”

“…From the way it lashes out, it’s obviously something whip-like. But what we need now is a concrete answer. Stop saying ‘it looks like.’”

“…”

“Gwendolyn, slow the video down to 512x!”

At over 500x slow motion, the crew finally saw what it was. To be honest, even after seeing it clearly, they could only conclude that it was something like a whip. They had no idea what material it was made of.

However, while they didn’t know the material of the whip, they were quite familiar with its style.

“The Swarm?” After all, they had been at war for a long time. While the many civilizations of the Confederation primarily followed a mechanical path and were heavily influenced by the Ji race during their development, they often relied on paint schemes to distinguish themselves.

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The Swarm, however, didn’t need to do this. Its style was so unique and unmistakable. Moreover, the Swarm loved to equip its units with tentacle-like melee weapons. Whether it was the Space Octopus, Space Squid, Puffer Cannonfish, or even the Desolation-Class Mothership, they all had tentacles to some extent.

And this whip-like lashing motion was almost a signature attack of the Swarm’s tentacles. In fact, even at 64x slow motion, the crew had already begun to suspect this.

But they had held onto a sliver of hope, hoping that the facts would disprove their suspicions. Unfortunately, the final proof confirmed their fears—this was indeed something from the Swarm.

But how could something from the Swarm be on their ship? Due to their position, their ship had never been in close contact with Swarm forces.

“Wait, we have had contact with the Swarm before.”

“Huh? When? I don’t remember that.”

“Don’t you remember? When they launched those Space Octopus projectiles, you all mocked the Swarm for its ‘troop delivery’ tactics.”

“I remember now, but we intercepted and destroyed them early on. They never got close to us.”

“Hmph, that’s because your clearance isn’t high enough. You don’t know the full story.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to? We have the same clearance. What do you know that I don’t?”

“I know what you’re talking about. Back then, due to orders from above, we did let some of the Swarm’s octopus monsters get close and engage in close combat for a while. Our fleet even suffered some minor damage.”

“What? I didn’t know about that.”

“It was classified at the time, so we couldn’t access the information. But it was declassified not long after. You didn’t know because you didn’t pay attention.”

“That’s true. But the close contact with the Swarm back then was with the H-159 medium-sized fleet to the east. It had nothing to do with us. Our ship has never been in close contact with the Swarm, not even within 300,000 kilometers.”

“As much as I don’t want to believe it, the fact is that they’re now on our ship.”

“There must be some mistake. I’ve heard the Swarm’s stealth technology is incredibly advanced. Maybe they used it to sneak in.”

“Impossible. The more well-known something is, the more precautions we take. The Swarm’s stealth tech is so advanced that we’d definitely have countermeasures, even if I don’t know the specifics.”

“I know about this. Our ship has installed gravitational detectors in certain areas, forming a complex gravitational detection network across the fleet. The Swarm’s strength lies in optical stealth and energy absorption/deflection technology, but they don’t have the means to block gravitational detection. The chances of them getting through this network are practically zero. So, they couldn’t have infiltrated our ship using stealth.”

“Again, the fact is that they are here.”

“I’m not denying that fact. I’m just saying they definitely didn’t use stealth to get in.”

“Another technology we’ve never seen before?”

“Very likely. The Swarm is different from the conventional civilizations we know. None of us knows their limits or how many hidden technologies they still have.”

“That’s not surprising. It’s said they inherited the legacy of a very powerful civilization. It’s normal for them to have some tricks up their sleeve.”

“It’s enviable, really.”

“What’s there to envy? With so many forces getting involved, the Swarm is doomed.”

“Yeah, possessing treasures beyond your strength isn’t a good thing. I’d rather play it safe than have that kind of experience.”

“Enough. Regardless, even if we don’t want to admit it, this young civilization is no longer something we can contend with. Even if it’s about to fall, we should at least respect its strength.”

“Hah, I wonder if your respect will make them spare your life.”

“That’s a different matter.”

“…”

At this point, the crew still hadn’t grasped the severity of the situation. After all, they had never truly witnessed the Swarm’s close combat capabilities. Or perhaps they did understand the gravity of the situation, but with their low clearance, they could do nothing but wait for further orders.

The ship’s captain had already deduced these things before the crew reached their conclusions. He was aware of the Swarm’s close combat prowess, but he didn’t know which Swarm unit was on the ship.

If it were one of their large combat units, their best course of action would be to flee immediately. However, judging by the size of the tentacle that attacked the B-3, there might still be room for maneuver.