I Am The Swarm-Chapter 739: Consumption

The computational battle between the two sides didn’t last long, as the encirclement was shrinking at an alarming rate. In just a short while, Sarah found herself with no room to evade and was forced to engage.

Several K2N9 units charged toward Sarah without slowing down. The Ji race now had unwavering faith in the Swarm Empress’s custom armor, believing that such collisions wouldn’t harm her. Thus, their attacks became far less cautious and much more aggressive.

While these collisions couldn’t damage Sarah, they effectively hindered her movements and slowed her escape. Once surrounded and her energy depleted, most of her high-tech systems would be rendered useless, leaving her with only her superhuman physical abilities—insufficient for escape.

Fortunately, Sarah had already accumulated a significant amount of energy since earlier. Her specially customized body boasted numerous functions and came equipped with five energy storage organs. The resources consumed by this single small frame were enough to construct over a hundred Dark Energy Furnaces capable of powering Primordial bodies.

Facing the charging K2N9s, Sarah knew this wasn’t the time to conserve energy. Dual Negative Energy Blades extended, and with a few swift swings, she dismantled two K2N9s.

Shoving the broken metal parts aside, Sarah rushed out along the path one of the K2N9s had taken. This position was already surrounded, and continuing to dig downward would be suicidal. She needed to disrupt the Ji forces’ formation first.

The Ji soldiers following the K2N9s hadn’t expected such close contact with the Swarm Empress. However, this moment of “honor” was quickly interrupted by the alarm from their personal systems. Selina dutifully performed her duty, unaffected by irrelevant emotions.

Though Selina’s warning was timely, the proximity between the two sides was too close. When Sarah’s body erupted with a sonic boom, it signaled the end of the skirmish.

There was no need to waste precious energy using Negative Energy Blades on these minor threats. The Negative Energy Blade on her right arm retracted, replaced instantly by a High-Molecular Blade.

Though the Ji soldiers’ protective suits offered some resistance to the High-Molecular Blade, Sarah’s speed amplified its attack power. In the blink of an eye, several Ji soldiers met the same fate as the K2N9s.

However, this was the Ji race’s home turf. Behind the tunnels, countless Ji soldiers were still converging. Sarah turned back to rummage through the fallen Ji soldiers, retrieving their high-explosive grenades. Most of their weapons were identity-bound, requiring specific unlocking methods that outsiders couldn’t use even if they obtained them.

Thankfully, high-explosive grenades required no such authentication and were quite handy. Based on feedback from her echolocation system, some Ji squads had already begun pursuing her from behind.

Removing the safety rings, Sarah hurled two grenades with enhanced strength from her bio-armor. They screamed through the air before detonating with two thunderous blasts.

Though the grenades’ loud explosions couldn’t harm the K2N9s or the armored Ji soldiers, they were sufficient to destabilize the already fragile tunnel structure.

A few more grenades were thrown, detonating at different points along the tunnel, sealing off the retreat route. This temporarily delayed the encirclement’s closure.

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During this brief reprieve, Sarah could focus on dealing with the enemies in front of her.

After Sarah swiftly dispatched one K2N9 and several Ji soldiers, the remaining Ji forces grew more cautious. Instead of blindly charging, they positioned two K2N9s as shields while other Ji soldiers attacked Sarah from a distance.

Sarah’s overwhelming performance had an unintended consequence: the Ji forces became overly confident in her defenses, resorting to firing blunt-nosed projectiles at her.

Though purely physical attacks, the projectiles’ mass and velocity gave them considerable impact. If struck, even her bio-armor absorbing most of the energy, Sarah would still be knocked flying by the residual force.

In such narrow tunnels, being knocked back meant the subsequent blunt-nosed projectiles would act like crowd-control skills with no cooldown, rendering Sarah unable to rise.

Though fast, the blunt-nosed projectiles were still trackable thanks to Sarah’s custom body granting her superior dynamic vision. Combined with her extraordinary reflexes, she could confidently evade them in open terrain, potentially retreating or even counterattacking.

Unfortunately, this was a narrow underground tunnel. The unique terrain significantly diminished her agility advantage. Though she could see every projectile’s trajectory, calculating an evasion path was impossible.

Fortunately, Sarah had other abilities. The Negative Energy Shield—a near game-breaking skill at this stage—could render her invincible as long as her energy reserves lasted.

Although Sarah’s energy reserves were relatively ample, sustaining the Negative Energy Shield for prolonged periods was unsustainable. She was still some distance from true invincibility.

However, Sarah had her own energy-saving tricks. A stronger Negative Energy output and control system, supported by the Swarm Network’s infinite computational power, allowed her to perform precise operations.

Dodging two blunt-nosed projectiles, rolling away from another five, and leaping backward to avoid three more, Sarah was eventually cornered with no room to maneuver.

Facing five incoming blunt-nosed projectiles, Sarah stood her ground. At the last possible moment, a thin layer of energy shield appeared in front of her. Without sparking, the shield erased the projectiles into nothingness, consuming a small portion of Sarah’s energy in the process.

The Negative Energy Shield’s defense mechanism was peculiar—it treated all matter equally. Whether dark energy bombs, high-quality alloys, or ordinary mud and sand, anything that touched it was mercilessly erased.

The energy consumption for each interaction wasn’t significantly different. This was why Sarah avoided using the Negative Energy Shield for digging; the dense soil layers would deplete her energy reserves like a deflating balloon in a very short time.

By her calculations, her energy reserves could erase approximately twenty tons of positive-energy material. While seemingly substantial, it would only allow her to descend about a hundred meters into the soil before becoming a powerless husk.

However, against blunt-nosed projectiles, even standing still, she could exhaust an entire Ji battalion’s ammunition quota.

But to endure longer on the battlefield, Sarah had to be meticulous in her energy management.