I Am The Swarm

Although Burrowing Worms were classified as auxiliary units, their massive size granted them considerable combat capabilities. Underground, this ability was further amplified by various environmental factors.

However, the Ji race’s equipment was no joke. Despite significant electromagnetic interference underground and the K2N9 being an ancient relic from ten thousand years ago, they still managed to detect the approaching Burrowing Worm at the last possible moment and evade its attack.

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The Burrowing Worm, nearly a hundred meters long with a diameter of seven to eight meters, charged past, but the Ji soldiers couldn’t see it. They could only observe its presence through their instruments—a long streak of light on their sensors.

“What a massive creature,” one Ji soldier remarked. Though they couldn’t see the full form of the Burrowing Worm, the sensor clearly displayed its elongated trail.

“According to records, this size classifies it as merely a juvenile.” Another soldier calmly provided this information. Indeed, adult Burrowing Worms typically measured several hundred meters in length with even greater diameters—monstrous beasts capable of swallowing gunboats whole.

“Well, thanks for the lesson, but I’d rather not meet its parents. If it even has any.”

“Uh-oh! Another one!” A soldier’s alarmed shout interrupted their banter. Sure enough, another long streak of light appeared on the screens, racing toward their position.

“Forward! Hurry, there’s a tunnel ahead!” The juvenile Burrowing Worm that had just passed hadn’t directly attacked the K2N9s, but it left behind a relatively wide tunnel. The Ji soldiers detected this clearly through their instruments.

All five K2N9s powered up and surged forward, entering the tunnel in a single burst.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry! Dismount!” the squad leader shouted, directing the team to disembark. Though the K2N9s were sturdy, they were too passive, leaving the soldiers at the mercy of fate. Once outside, though danger remained, they could take control of their own destinies—even if they perished, it would be on their own terms.

The tunnel was spacious, as Burrowing Worms’ primary function was digging passageways. Their massive mouths devoured sand and soil, expelling it through excretion pores across their bodies to compact the ground they passed through, forming tunnels.

However, this ability could be toggled on or off. When they closed the excretion pores on their bodies, leaving only the rear ones open, the areas they passed through became loose soil instead of proper tunnels.

The other charging Burrowing Worm raced past the Ji squad. Though massive, its attack area was limited to a small frontal region. By the time the Ji soldiers could detect it, its attack was largely ineffective.

However, the area this Burrowing Worm passed through lacked a tunnel, and it even partially collapsed the existing one.

“Their abilities aren’t passive!” One Ji soldier astutely noted this new information. Though his statement was abrupt, his elite teammates immediately grasped his meaning.

“Quick, check the Swarm Empress’s beacon position!”

“It’s moving! The beacon is moving!”

“Pursue! I knew the Swarm wouldn’t be so kind as to dig us a battlefield tunnel.”

At this point, the soldiers’ boosters finally came into play. The tunnel, over seven meters in diameter and as tall as two stories, was relatively spacious, allowing two soldiers to fly side by side.

Still, the squad leader ordered them to spread out in a dispersed formation. One reason was the lurking Burrowing Worm nearby. Though its large size meant long intervals between attacks and required it to loop back after each charge, this was Swarm territory, and no rule stated only one Burrowing Worm could attack them. Thus, they needed sufficient space to evade potential attacks.

Moreover, while this tunnel gave them mobility, it also freed other Swarm units to act. They might face ambushes from units like Modified Spider Combat Bugs at any moment. Therefore, they needed to maintain enough distance between each other to ensure adequate reaction times.

“K2N9s, maintain fifty-meter intervals and provide intelligence support!” Although the soldiers’ combat suits integrated some reconnaissance functions, their capabilities were limited by size and paled compared to the larger instruments aboard the K2N9s. The soldiers relied on the K2N9s for intel.

However, the underground environment remained rife with magnetic interference, preventing the K2N9s from scanning too far. Thus, the commander arranged them in a straight line to maximize their detection range.

“The target is moving fast! We need to speed up!” Increasing speed meant heightened danger, but the commander had no choice. If they died in battle, so be it. But if they returned alive, their combat suits’ integrated battlefield recorders would document their actions. Any sign of negligence could land them in military court, and the consequences might not be much better than dying in combat.

The team began accelerating. Fortunately, they were flying forward, which didn’t consume much physical energy, leaving them alert to their surroundings and prepared for ambushes.

Occasionally, they spotted Swarm corpses embedded in the tunnel walls. It seemed the B5 bomb had wiped out all nearby Swarm units—an improbable feat, yet true, as they hadn’t encountered any attacks along the way.

“The target is too fast! We can’t catch up!”

“Keep accelerating!”

“No, if we go faster, we’ll lose our ability to respond to unexpected threats. Transmit our position! Have the officers arrange teams to intercept ahead!”

The priority of the leading squad’s report was high, and their proposal was quickly approved. Though not many K2N9s were available, there were enough for the current situation. By now, dozens of K2N9s had been dropped from near-orbit to the surface, each carrying a fully mobilized squad.

They split into dozens of teams and planned to enter the underground from fifteen different locations to encircle and intercept the Swarm Empress. At this point, the pursuing and fleeing parties had unknowingly descended over a thousand meters below the surface, far beyond the influence of the B5 bomb. For the first time, the pursuing Ji squad encountered an ambush from units other than Burrowing Worms.

“Be careful! High-intensity energy reaction ahead! It’s an electromagnetic railgun!”

The juvenile Burrowing Worm that dug the tunnel seemed to have obsessive-compulsive tendencies—it had created an almost perfectly straight passage with minimal curves. Earlier, the squad thought this was to allow the Swarm Empress to escape as quickly as possible, given that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. However, they now realized the real reason lay in wait for them.

Though they successfully detected the attack, trapped within the underground tunnel, they had no space to evade. Moreover, the K2N9s lacked repulsion fields, rendering them incapable of intercepting the incoming projectile.