I Am The Swarm

“Your Majesty, we meet again. I just didn’t expect it would take so long. I originally thought it’d only be a little over a hundred years.”

The moment they met, Lumina gave a slight bow and immediately spoke.

“You’re disappointed?” Sarah curled her lips indifferently. Strangely, despite it being just a single meeting prior, their reunion already felt like that of old friends—there was none of the formal pretense left in their words.

“A little, yes. But I know this was Your Majesty’s deliberate decision. Perhaps, for the Swarm, it was the better choice.”

Sarah’s expression didn’t change, but in her heart, she muttered that if she had the authority, she’d have already deployed new units to wipe out the New Ji race—not even needing a hundred years.

But such things didn’t need to be shared with Lumina. Instead, she asked, “The Ji are about to fall. What have you come to say this time?”

“Your Majesty, would you like to hear a story?” Lumina’s eyes shimmered with a mysterious light, locking onto Sarah as if anticipating something.

It seemed they were finally getting to the point. Sarah had been curious about this for a long time. If Luo Wen hadn’t held her back, she would’ve led the assault personally to crush the Ji quickly.

So, she didn’t bother feigning restraint and simply said, “Go ahead.”

Lumina’s gaze slowly lost focus, as if slipping into memory. It was hard to believe a machine could portray such an expression with such vivid authenticity.

“It was a very, very long time ago.”

A classic opening line fit for a wolfish bedtime tale. Sarah adopted a listening posture. But after saying that, Lumina hesitated, then lightly furrowed her brows.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked.

“My expression was inaccurate. In truth, I don’t know exactly when this occurred,” Lumina explained. She thought for a moment longer, but seemed unable to calculate an answer.

With only an intro, Sarah couldn’t make any guesses yet. Seeing Lumina frozen in thought, she sighed helplessly and said, “Don’t get stuck on the time. Just keep going.”

Lumina nodded. “Alright. At some unknown point in time, a civilization developed over countless years, expanding across multiple galaxies. They had countless vassal races, and within their observable reach, no enemies remained.”

Sarah thought to herself—goodness, that was far stronger than the Ji. Even combined with the Interstellar Technological Confederation, the Ji’s territory spanned only tens of thousands of star systems. The gap in scale was staggering. A single galaxy alone contained billions of star systems or more. The gap in scale was staggering.

“Just as they reached their peak… their enemies appeared. No one knew where they came from, but they were just as powerful—at the very least, no weaker—and endless in number.”

“Why did they start fighting?” Sarah interjected.

Lumina shook her head. “Unknown. Maybe the strong simply can’t coexist. Or perhaps… for another reason. But they fought.”

“What was this civilization called?” Sarah asked. A force that strong had to have a name.

Again, Lumina shook her head. “Unclear. But names are just labels. Let’s call it ‘Qi.’”

Seeing Sarah had no more questions, Lumina continued.

“The war between these two civilizations lasted ages—so long that no one knew how many eras it spanned. Entire galaxies were emptied. Both sides could wield the power of stellar bodies. In the end, galaxies were left with nothing but black holes—everything else obliterated.”

Sarah’s expression turned grim. With that level of power, even the Swarm in its current state would be far outmatched. If they encountered either of these civilizations, they’d likely be torn apart.

Moreover, for Lumina to know of these things, it meant she—or her data—had some kind of contact with them. That was no small matter. Yet across the StarNet’s historical records—and even from the intelligence gathered by Swarm Intelligent Entities embedded in the Ji—there was no record of this whatsoever.

But Lumina seemed unaware of Sarah’s reaction and kept going.

“Though the Qi Civilization was already unimaginably strong, their enemies were stronger. Over time, the Qi began to fall behind, and the situation deteriorated rapidly.”

“A race that had dominated the stars for eons would never accept such a fate. Their civilization had already begun to delve into the study of time. They could interfere with the river of time—to a degree. Someone proposed sending teams across time to eliminate the threat before it rose.”

“But the research was incomplete. They didn’t know what consequences temporal interference might bring. Some opposed the idea. Still, a small internal vote—offering few options—ultimately passed the proposal.”

“Somehow, the Qi Civilization confirmed the target time point, and roughly where it would occur. They began dispatching teams into the past. But time is mysterious. According to their researchers, if the mission succeeded, the result would immediately reflect in the present—no waiting required.”

“In other words, if their enemy vanished, that meant success. But… their enemy never disappeared. So they kept sending teams—again and again…”

At that point, Lumina suddenly stopped. Sarah, who was thoroughly engrossed, immediately urged, “And then?”

Lumina shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?!” Sarah was stunned. Was this a made-up story? An unfinished novel?

“That’s right. I don’t know,” Lumina affirmed calmly.

“Why? Did the two civilizations never finish the war?” That seemed plausible. For a civilization spanning multiple galaxies, even losing ground wouldn’t mean swift annihilation. Their war might still be raging somewhere out there.

“Perhaps,” Lumina replied wistfully. “Who can say? The one who shared this story with me… didn’t know the outcome either.”

Sarah was startled. There was now a third party in this tale—someone who had told Lumina this story. And if they knew details of such a scale, they must not be ordinary. Could it be that there were other hidden enemies in this galaxy?

However, Luo Wen—who had also been listening—had a different interpretation. He didn’t interrupt Sarah’s speculation, but Sarah clearly wasn’t naïve. She immediately thought of other possibilities.

Seeing her expression change, Lumina went on.

“It seems you’ve figured it out. That’s right. One of those time-traveling teams arrived in this galaxy—1.36 million years ago.”

Sarah immediately noticed that this time, Lumina had given an exact date. It made sense—this event had happened within their galaxy, so it could be precisely dated.

And that date… Sarah began to reflect.

[T/N:

So yeah, turns out the Ji and the Confederation only controlled a few star systems this whole time. I always thought that was weird, and I’m sure some of you did too. I just chalked it up to “numbers go brrr” like in most Chinese novelbuddys. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

But now, 826 chapters in, the author casually mentions that a galaxy has a billion stars and it’s honestly super annoying. I don’t know what he was thinking dropping that this late. There’s a slight clarification in the next chapter, but still—it’s frustrating. Just had to get that off my chest.

Anyways two more chapters left, then the afterword, and one extra bonus chapter after that. Almost there.]