The Blade Empress landed on a planet that was already a dead silence, and Bai Zhongqi walked on this land with Zero.
Experiencing the atmosphere here, Zero said, "With every breath of oxygen we take, the oxygen here diminishes by one part. Yet even without other consumption, this place will turn into a land of chaos."
Bai Zhongqi sighed softly as a swarm of cargo drones was released from the Blade Empress.
"I plan to introduce blue-green algae from Earth to this planet, and slowly life will begin to evolve here. Of course, if we have the energy, we can also undertake ecological restoration, which wouldn't take long to restore its ecological stability."
Life certainly favors more vibrancy, and if possible, Bai Zhongqi still hoped more planets would thrive and be vibrant with life.
Zero bent down, her waist and hips revealing a wonderful curve, as her slender green fingers touched a handful of soil from the surface. The soil slipped through her fingers as she said, "Even the organic matter in the soil has been taken away, very much in line with the nature of the Swarm. The soil here will soon become fully desiccated."
Bai Zhongqi curiously asked, "I've always been puzzled, logically speaking there should only be one Swarm in a universe, but now, apart from you, there is another Swarm, probably the one Chi Jia and his team encountered. This Swarm can now level a civilization of Level 30 planets to the ground, and its rate of growth is somewhat worrying."
Zero, clearly hostile toward the other Swarm, replied, "Three universes merged into a new universe, so the emergence of another Swarm is not surprising. Each Swarm has some unique traits. For instance, my Swarm has taken the path of reverse bionics, leaning more towards human-established civilizations. This other Swarm, however, has taken a bizarre route, using eggs that can penetrate energy shields and even material substances to parasitize other life forms. According to our collected data, this Swarm seems to have created a group of fierce and humanoid Insectoids with very strong combat abilities, and these individuals can also evolve."
"This is unlike the traits of your Swarm. Once your Enslaved Beasts are born, there's hardly any room for them to elevate their strength, unless you re-assimilate them and create new Enslaved Beasts. However, this Swarm clearly gives each individual a greater potential for growth."
With a cold expression, Zero said, "I even suspect that the Insectoids of this Swarm might possess individual consciousness."
Bai Zhongqi was astonished, "Historically, all Swarms have operated with one will, that of the Empress. If different Insectoids also have individual wills, what would that Swarm be like?"
"At least those Insectoids will still obey the Empress. The individual consciousness would grant them more autonomy, making the Swarm unpredictable and even more dangerous," Zero remarked with some concern.
Bai Zhongqi was more optimistic, as he confidently said, "Perhaps this Swarm does have the capability to defeat the Borke Civilization, but against us, it is still insufficient. We are here to trouble the Fallen Empire, but adding another Swarm to our issues is not much of a problem."
This journey wasn't fruitless either. Firstly, the planets of the Borke Civilization were destroyed too swiftly, and with the enemy being an undefeatable Swarm, the Borke people weren't able to destroy their significant technological achievements. Thus, this planet still held a vast amount of important technology from the Borke Civilization.
Though Bai Zhongqi was currently mainly engaged in the utilization of raw matter, for the vast Iridium Star population, more diverse categories of technology could bring about further development.
Furthermore, the large amount of abandoned buildings, facilities, spacecraft, and other items were all converted by Bai Zhongqi into raw matter, actually giving this planet a complete new start, devoid of any traces of past civilizations. If new life were to be born, they would be unaware of what had transpired before.
Bai Zhongqi collected more and more raw matter, opting to continually manufacture new Elder Ships. In fact, even inside the Golden Great Sail Ship's subspace cabin, he had not completely ceased creating Valkyries. These powerful warriors could adapt to various harsh combat environments and could also be used as labor. Importantly, they were nearly immortal; as long as they were replenished with raw matter, it was akin to a refurbishment, similar to a major overhaul of a fighter jet, but the intervals between "major overhauls" for Valkyries were extremely long, about ten billion years.
Previously, Bai Zhongqi was keen on constructing Bionic Humans, but comparatively, the lifespans of Bionic Human bodies were only a few thousand years, which is long compared to humans, but Bai Zhongqi was immortal after all.
The Blade Empress took off again, and Bai Zhongqi returned to his captain's seat. This ship, not an Elder Ship but comparable to one, housed over fifteen hundred Iridium Star crew members. While Bai Zhongqi did not need to carry crew members, this was not just his own war but also the war of the Iridium Star people defending their United Empire, so he needed his Iridium Star soldiers to fight alongside him.
Having the opportunity to campaign alongside the Chancellor, all the crew members aboard the Blade Empress felt honored. However, there was actually not much they could do on the ship, and some even had the illusion that they were on an excursion.
At this moment, an intelligence officer on the bridge saluted Bai Zhongqi and reported, "Chancellor, most of our reconnaissance ships have returned. According to the compiled data, the situation is the same with eleven Borke Civilization planets around us; life on the planets has been wiped clean, but most of the civilization's buildings and facilities are still intact, and it is determined to have been destroyed by a Swarm disaster. We attempted to use Borke Civilization equipment to contact their Capital Star and official institutions, but there has been no response."
Bai Zhongqi was somewhat astonished, "All of Borke has been destroyed by the Swarm?"
This was also unexpected for Zero, "Just how large is this Swarm?"
"Actually, it's not surprising when you think about it, because this Swarm doesn't attack civilizations in conventional ways. Instead, it expands by spreading these eggs through the universe, and they can continuously seize planets."
"Could these eggs exceed the speed of light?"
"It's not impossible."
As Bai Zhongqi was considering to what extent this Swarm might have expanded, the alert system on the Blade Empress suddenly activated.
"Chancellor, we have detected a large-scale biological reaction. A Swarm approximately ten thousand kilometers in size is approaching us at a very high speed!"
Bai Zhongqi and Zero looked at each other, Bai Zhongqi said, "They came so soon?"
"They probably sensed the biological DNA and came directly for us," Zero speculated.