Chapter 162: Death of the Swarm Queen

Words : 1444 Updated : Sep 23rd, 2025

In such density, how many bugs existed within several thousand kilometers? Xiao Yu didn’t know. He only saw that, in that patch of void, every single bug was swept clean—compressed into a massive sphere, suspended in space. After all, this wasn’t near the Swarm Queen’s main body. Losing so many bugs in one go was something she couldn’t recover from quickly. So, with the surrounding Swarm cleared by the gravitational bombs, Xiao Yu’s fleet launched a renewed assault. Finally, they tore a gap in the Swarm’s defensive lines. Through this breach, Xiao Yu unleashed a ferocious carpet-bombing assault on Satellite 3J’s surface. After clearing an area, he swiftly deployed robots to land and install a high-yield hydrogen bomb. Then another bomb, in another zone... Altogether, Xiao Yu installed more than a dozen high-yield hydrogen bombs on Satellite 3J and assigned sufficient forces to guard them. These forces could protect the bombs from destruction for at least ten hours. Once the hydrogen bombs were in place, Xiao Yu saw that the Swarm Queen immediately ceased expelling Satellite 3A and re-swallowed it instead. Both Xiao Yu and the Queen understood—this maneuver had failed. In this situation, if the Swarm Queen had continued trying to spit out Satellite 3A and devour Satellite 3J, then at the very moment she swallowed 3J, Xiao Yu would have triggered the detonation of those bombs without hesitation. Even if the bombs didn’t kill her outright, they would cripple her—eliminating at least 80% of her combat capability. And the Swarm Queen couldn’t destroy those hydrogen bombs quickly. The wisest choice was to abandon the plan altogether. Clearly, she wasn’t stupid. Although this operation ended in failure for the Swarm Queen, it still brought considerable disruption to Xiao Yu. Once again, he accelerated his occupation of nearby celestial bodies. After another full year, all twelve large satellites—except for 3A, still inside the Swarm Queen—were under Xiao Yu’s control. This meant that the Swarm Queen had become a beast in a trap—her destruction was now only a matter of time. At this point, Xiao Yu actually became less impatient. He even withdrew all large ships from the front lines and redeployed them to face the side of the Swarm Queen oriented toward Planet three, where he constructed an enormous net—completely severing her access to fusion fuel. Meanwhile, the bases on the other eleven satellites continued to produce massive quantities of ultra-miniature starships. These ships, in concentrated waves, launched relentless harassment attacks against the Swarm Queen. Still, she refused to give up. Xiao Yu saw her continuing to expel her spawn in an attempt to resist the relentless mechanical horde. At the same time, she tried to assemble Swarm armies to break through Xiao Yu’s blockade and reestablish her supply routes. Because the region of space was so vast, Xiao Yu couldn’t completely seal it off. But he could reduce her fusion fuel intake by 70%–80%. By now, the years-long war centered around Planet three—with the entire Aquila three-Star System as the battlefield—was entering its final stage. The Swarm Queen’s actions now embodied the phrase “a trapped beast has no option but to fight.” She had no hope of survival, yet continued to resist. Xiao Yu kept a close watch on her spawn production rate. At its peak, she had once produced two hundred million bugs per day. But now, that number had dropped to just ten million—and the combat effectiveness of the bugs had noticeably declined. Seeing this, Xiao Yu was speechless. “Is Planet 3A’s resource supply finally drying up, and she’s resorting to producing defective bugs?” he thought with a wry smile. So, Xiao Yu personally piloted the Hebei, leading a few large ships in another approach toward the Swarm Queen’s body. He wanted to observe how much potential she still had left to squeeze out. Sure enough, upon detecting Xiao Yu’s approach, the Swarm Queen suddenly ramped up her bug production fivefold—reaching one hundred million per day, over four million per hour. A sky-darkening tide of bugs surged out again, forming a dense wall in front of the Hebei. Xiao Yu promptly gave up on closing in. Instead, he commanded his fleet to slowly clear away the bugs. His goal was to keep the Queen in a constant state of tension, forcing her to produce as many bugs as possible. Xiao Yu hadn’t forgotten—each bug yielded ten kilograms of usable material. The flesh of white dwarf alien beasts was used to build large ships, but for smaller craft, he relied entirely on the Swarm. In fact, if not for the nearby quintuple Star System drawing his attention—tempting him with the mysteries of the Grand Unified Theory—Xiao Yu might’ve even considered feeding the Swarm Queen synthetic materials to generate more bugs. “I’m very busy. Since I don’t have time, you’ll just have to live a little shorter,” Xiao Yu thought to himself. Now, the once mighty, planet-swallowing Swarm Queen had become a pitiful creature in Xiao Yu’s hands—something he could toy with at will. She was like a nearly-dried orange—most of the juice had already been squeezed out, but Xiao Yu still pressed on, trying to extract the last drop. At this point, the number of remaining bugs in the Planet three system was about five billion. That number no longer posed any threat to Xiao Yu. The number of ultra-miniature starships in the system had reached the trillion level. Under this overwhelming force, not a single bug could escape. In just one day, Xiao Yu completely wiped them out. Now, in the entire system, aside from the few hundred thousand bugs the Queen had just produced, there were no Swarm left. It seemed the Swarm Queen was truly at death’s door. Even when the Hebei paraded in front of her, all she could do was raise her production rate to one million per day—barely double, and no higher. “If that’s all she’s got, there’s no point dragging this out. Might as well end it.” Xiao Yu made his decision and once again maneuvered the Hebei close to the Swarm Queen, bringing the distance to just five thousand kilometers as he examined her carefully. Her appearance hadn’t changed. Her surface was still cratered and uneven, riddled with countless deep holes. But what differed from a year ago was that these holes, which had once sprayed out spawn in vibrant, continuous streams, now only slowly oozed out a single bug after a long wait—and even then, a severely defective one, with only half the combat power of previous generations. “What a shame this thing’s so big. If it were smaller, I could’ve tried artificially breeding it. That would be like having a dedicated special materials production machine,” Xiao Yu mused regretfully. Then he issued the launch order for the County-Class ship. That County-Class vessel had been on standby inside the Hebei for some time. Its engine was ready. Upon receiving the launch command, it immediately powered up and flew out of the Hebei’s hangar, slowly approaching the Swarm Queen. The Queen was the size of a planet. This County-Class ship was like a mosquito in comparison—utterly insignificant. But this ship possessed the power to completely annihilate her. “All ships withdraw and regroup on the far side of Planet three,” Xiao Yu ordered. The large ships retreated behind the planet, and the ultra-miniature starships each hid behind various satellites. The County-Class ship continued its slow approach. Inside, it carried one thousand hydrogen bombs. Each one had a yield of one trillion tons. Altogether—ten quadrillion tons of destructive power. Such an immense force, if detonated on a planet’s surface, could generate shockwaves strong enough to shatter the entire planet in an instant. Under the cover of tens of thousands of defective bugs, the County-Class ship landed on the Queen’s surface. Instantly, her body formed a fold and clamped down on the vessel. But at that exact moment, Xiao Yu gave the detonation command. Every monitoring satellite scattered throughout the system, along with ground stations on the other satellites, observed the same scene: A speck of white light appeared on the Queen’s surface. That light instantly expanded—growing to cover half the planetary mass. In that moment, everything touched by the light—be it the Swarm Queen’s flesh or the rocky surface—was vaporized on the spot. Not even scattered debris remained. The shockwave reached the far side of the planet and fractured it into several chunks. The remaining half of the Swarm Queen, after losing the first half to vaporization, was torn apart by the planet’s disintegration. In the instant of the hydrogen bomb’s explosion, she died. Utterly and completely.

Chapter 162: Death of the Swarm Queen

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