I Am The Swarm-Chapter 714: Delay

“Damn it!” A Ji soldier narrowly dodged an electromagnetic cannon shot. Although the projectile missed him, the intense wind pressure it generated threw their formation into chaos.

A few flying artillery bugs seized the opportunity, launching a concentrated barrage through the gaps in the Ji soldiers’ now-disrupted defenses. Several Ji soldiers were hit, and he was one of them.

Although his combat suit absorbed most of the impact from the tenfold-sonic poison pellets, he still coughed up a trickle of blood. Worse, his weapon’s main body was struck by one of the pellets.

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The Ji soldiers’ individual firearms were incredibly powerful, capable of launching a variety of attacks by equipping different modules. But all of this relied on one prerequisite: the weapon’s main body had to be intact.

While the weapon’s main body was made of synthetic materials, appearing lightweight yet sturdy, its complex design and functionality meant it contained many delicate components. Thus, its actual durability was weaker than the seemingly soft combat suit.

As a result, when his weapon was hit by the poison pellet, the powerful impact alone was enough to destroy it, not to mention the subsequent corrosive damage.

Still, he was relatively lucky. Although his weapon was destroyed and several areas of his suit were corroding and smoking, two of his comrades had been pierced through their armor by multiple pellets and fell from the sky.

“Cover me!” the soldier shouted.

Due to weight constraints, they only carried one main weapon, but battlefield accidents were common, and damage was frequent. To address this, the Ji had developed a specialized repair tool, though using it required a bit of time.

“Hurry!” His teammates had naturally noticed his weapon’s destruction. But with two soldiers already lost, their formation’s margin for error had shrunk. Now, with one more temporarily out of action, the pressure on them increased.

The soldier with the damaged weapon didn’t speak. He quickly pulled a small box from his waist pouch and opened it. Upon activation, the box disintegrated into a silver liquid that flowed toward the weapon’s main body.

The silver liquid consumed itself to remove the toxins from the weapon and then filled in and repaired the damaged areas, quickly restoring the weapon to functionality.

This small box, called a Rapid Repair Kit, was composed of countless nanobots made of the same material as the weapon. With the assistance of artificial intelligence, they could quickly repair the weapon’s main body and restore its functionality.

“Returning to the squad!” the soldier shouted, now armed again.

“Take position two!”

“Understood!”

Similar scenes played out across the battlefield. Since the boar-like beasts had joined the fight, the Swarm had been steadily whittling down the Ji forces, and the scales of victory were slowly tilting.

“These things are tying up too many of our troops.”

“We need to change the situation. The target has moved underground. We need to wrap up the surface battle quickly and send troops to capture her.”

With the Burrowers’ appearance, Sarah naturally didn’t stay on the surface for long, quickly diving into an underground tunnel. The Ji had lost track of her.

The Swarm’s constant introduction of new units and reinforcements had entangled the Ji ground forces, leaving the rear command team scratching their heads in frustration.

“We’re running out of time.”

“Send in the fighters. They’re not doing much in near-orbit anyway, and they can help clear out the Swarm’s anti-air defenses.”

“The frontlines need more reinforcements. Send another unit over!”

“Agreed. Our special forces just detonated several gravity bombs along the Swarm’s reinforcement routes, slightly delaying their arrival. This frees up some troops from the main space battle.”

“Then send all available units. We need to crush the Swarm in one go.”

“Understood.”

In the Swarm’s Star System One, the main space battle was raging. The Ji had stationed fifty million warships here, currently engaged in fierce combat with hundreds of millions of Swarm units.

Like the Ji soldiers, the Ji fleet, though outnumbered, had superior firepower in group combat. They even held the upper hand against enemies several times their number.

But this was Swarm territory. Reinforcements originally stationed outside the star system were now rushing to the battlefield. However, their sheer numbers had been detected early by Ji reconnaissance units. The Ji had set traps along the Swarm’s likely routes, just in case.

Now, these traps were activated. Powerful gravity bombs not only prevented warp travel but also forced the Swarm to detour even at sub-light speeds.

Originally, the fastest Swarm reinforcements could reach the battlefield in under two hours. The Ji needed to leave before this force arrived, or they would be bogged down and eventually overwhelmed by the endless Swarm reinforcements.

Thus, after accounting for the time needed for the ground forces to retreat from the ecological planet and return to the main fleet, they initially had only half an hour to complete their mission. But with Sarah now underground, half an hour was clearly insufficient. Fortunately, the Ji’s traps were effective, buying them some extra time.

Even small changes in space combat could have dramatic effects on timing. Due to the altered travel routes and detours, the Swarm reinforcements would take at least five days to reach the battlefield. This gave the Ji ample time to complete their mission.

Leveraging their group combat advantage, the Ji fleet in near-orbit also began to dominate. The role of the unmanned fighter drones diminished, so they were assigned a new task.

Since warships couldn’t get too close to the planet, yet they needed to maintain significant influence over the surface, they had to rely on their onboard combat units.

Whether it was drop pods, gunboats, or the ground forces, these were all means of influencing the planet’s surface. Unmanned fighter drones, in addition to space combat, were also capable of traversing the atmosphere.

The over ten thousand Ji warships carried more than fifty million unmanned fighter drones, most of which had survived the earlier battles with minimal losses.

A large-scale descent began once more, and the Swarm’s anti-air defenses roared to life. Although the Ji had sent teams to locate and mark these defenses during the initial landing operation, this was Swarm territory. Operating alone, even on fast-moving vehicles, the teams were quickly intercepted and eliminated shortly after leaving the main force.

Thus, the Ji fleet in near-orbit hadn’t received much information about the Swarm’s anti-air defenses.