I Am The Swarm-Chapter 611: Setback

Although evading the pursuit of the intelligent machines would confirm suspicions and increase the difficulty of future infiltration, not evading them was even worse. Any anomalies inside the creatures would be exposed, and they would likely have to self-destruct on the spot.

In this star region, only Swarm units were capable of self-destructing on the spot. Others couldn’t imitate this even if they tried, making it a glaringly obvious identifier. If they resorted to this, it would be tantamount to confessing.

Fortunately, plants didn’t have this problem. Hollowing out a small area inside them to develop other tissues wouldn’t attract attention as long as it wasn’t too extreme.

Moreover, their inability to move freely seemed to be an advantage in this situation. Without agility as a factor, there was no way to detect abnormalities in their movement.

An echolocation system formed inside the plants. Since they couldn’t infiltrate through the windows, visual systems were almost useless. Additionally, visual systems would be exposed on the surface, leaving vulnerabilities, but echolocation systems had no such issues.

They could remain hidden inside the plants, with a few leaves subtly altered to function as audio receivers. Combined with the plants’ natural advantage of clinging to walls, soon…

Soon, Luo Wen felt frustration once again.

The interior of the castle was almost completely silent, producing no echoes, which meant the echolocation system couldn’t gather any information.

In fact, the lack of information itself conveyed some intelligence. At the very least, Luo Wen now knew that there was no activity inside the castle.

Could it be that Cecil really wasn’t here? If the intelligent machines could enter hibernation to stop moving, then as a living being, Cecil would still need to eat, drink, and take care of other daily necessities. As a Ji Race elder, she certainly wouldn’t handle these tasks herself; she would have dedicated servants or machines to attend to her.

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These servants or machines would inevitably create some noise, making it impossible for the castle to be so silent that even the echolocation system couldn’t detect any sound.

Although the likelihood of Cecil not being here was now almost certain, Luo Wen still considered one possibility. If machines could enter hibernation to stop functioning, why couldn’t Cecil do the same?

If Cecil entered hibernation, the machines serving her daily needs would also go into standby mode, creating the illusion of complete silence inside the castle.

In reality, this scenario was far more plausible than it seemed. In many interstellar civilizations, hibernation was a very common practice.

Due to the vastness of the universe and the limitations of spacecraft speeds, even with Star Gates, decades or even centuries of monotonous travel were not uncommon.

In the early days of interstellar travel, a single voyage could span multiple generations, or even dozens of generations. By the time the ship reached its destination, the original crew would have long since passed away, never having seen the sights of their destination.

This situation was one of the greatest motivations for various races to pursue life extension. However, life extension without side effects had its limits. Thus, people began to approach the problem from another angle: if lifespan was finite, then they should eliminate meaningless time consumption.

Meaningless waiting, tedious interstellar travel—if they could pause the passage of time during these periods and resume only when something meaningful occurred, wouldn’t that effectively extend their lifespan?

Hibernation technology emerged from this line of thinking. By now, hibernation had become as commonplace as eating and sleeping. Some even used hibernation to replace sleep, effectively increasing their productive lifespan.

The New Ji Race had taken this technology to its extreme. For example, Elder Humes, who had a natural lifespan of only a few hundred years, had lived for over five thousand years—almost ten times his original lifespan. This was largely due to his frequent use of hibernation.

If Elder Humes was like this, it was highly likely that Cecil, also a Ji Race elder, followed a similar pattern. The residents of the nearby city hadn’t received any notifications about a new administrator taking over, which suggested that Cecil’s presence here was a private matter.

Since it wasn’t official business but a private visit, and the owner of the castle wasn’t home, Cecil might have chosen to enter hibernation while waiting for the return of the Ji Race elder named Sade.

Of course, this was just Luo Wen’s optimistic speculation. Until the facts were fully verified, he needed something to hope for.

Subsequently, Luo Wen activated the Swarm’s covert intelligence network, focusing on gathering information about Elder Sade to determine what he was doing and estimate how long it would take for him to return home.

To Luo Wen’s surprise, all channels reported no information about Elder Sade. This could only mean one thing: Sade had also entered hibernation, and it was a long-term hibernation at that.

Although there were tens of thousands of Ji Race elders, they stood at the pinnacle of a pyramid built by countless trillions of intelligent beings. As such, even the most low-profile elders had countless observers.

Under these circumstances, whenever they appeared in public or made speeches, their locations would be noted by those paying attention. Therefore, if they went silent for an extended period, it could only mean one of two things: they had either died or entered hibernation.

With current technology, barring accidents, one’s remaining lifespan could be calculated with reasonable accuracy. For figures as prominent as Ji Race elders, even approaching the end of their natural lifespan would make headlines, causing a significant stir. Elder Humes, for example, had been in this situation.

Sade clearly didn’t fit this scenario. His maternal race, the Black Tower Race, was an inner-ring civilization that had survived since the time of the original Ji Race, so their lifespans were naturally long.

Based on their lifespan calculations, Sade was still in his prime. Therefore, the only explanation for his disappearance was long-term hibernation. In such cases, only those close to him would know his whereabouts.

As for the possibility of Sade being genuinely missing? In the territory of the Interstellar Confederation, this was simply impossible. The Ji Race had the power to make such a claim.

Waiting aimlessly wasn’t Luo Wen’s style. Since there was no information about Sade, Luo Wen had no choice but to resort to some unconventional methods. As long as he was careful and severed the connection before exposure, it would likely only leave behind a mystery and not expose the Swarm. Probably.

The familiar flock of birds flew toward the castle once again. In the records of the castle’s artificial intelligence, these birds were residents of the nearby forest, often flying over the castle in groups and occasionally leaving behind some droppings.

The AI compared the birds’ flight path and found that the deviation from their usual trajectory was less than one percent. Nothing unusual.