["Advance! Advance...!"]
["Repeat! Requesting support!"]
[Inside the cockpit, Firefly's breathing was heavy and broken.]
[Sweat slid down from her temples, leaving winding traces across her pale cheeks. Her eyes, at this moment, seemed to have had all light drained from them, leaving only a bottomless emptiness.]
["Requesting support!"]
["Command, Firefly Squad 4 has discovered the Brood Mother!"]
["Repeat, requesting support—"]
["Advance! Advance!"]
[Chaotic communication signals exploded by her ears like a sharp blade, stabbing into her nerves again and again. Within those voices were roars and fury; she could not even distinguish which were real cries for help and which were only the persistent auditory hallucinations in her mind.]
[Outside the mecha, the insect swarm that blotted out the sky continued to devour everything without purpose... Artillery fire still thundered.]
[She clenched her teeth and manipulated the mecha's artillery to blast several True Stings that lunged at her. The insects' viscous bodily fluids were instantly evaporated, leaving only a layer of hazy dark red.]
["Haah… haah..."]
[Rapid gasps echoed inside the sealed cockpit. Yet just as she was adjusting, a tremendous impact suddenly struck from all directions. Countless insects crashed against her mecha and overturned her onto the ground.]
[At the critical moment, a mecha charged over from the side. Artillery fire exploded into brilliant orange-red among the insect swarm. It turned its head toward Firefly: "Stand up! The target is right ahead—continue the breakthrough!"]
[Firefly finally recovered from her daze at this moment: "Yes!"]
——
One Piece.
"Th-this is the Swarm Disaster?"
The insect tide on the celestial screen was like a rolling dark-red tsunami, almost piercing through the celestial screen and blotting out the entire sky. That hair-raising rustling sound filled heaven and earth, making Blackbeard's scalp tingle.
That place... was it hell?
Although in the Simulated Universe he had also stood from Stelle's perspective and watched the Swarm Disaster, participating in the subjugation of the insects in the form of a "resistance force" was still the first time. Previously he had imagined in his mind the scene of using the Black-Black Fruit's black hole to crush the insects, but looking at it now... even if these insects lined up and let him kill them, he would probably never finish killing them in his entire lifetime.
The number of the insect swarm was endless, while people suffered casualties every single second.
…But wasn't [Propagation] already dead?
After a moment of thought, however, he quickly negated his own conjecture: "No, the Swarm Disaster ended long ago—otherwise our world might also have been completely gnawed away. [Propagation] is dead. This is not the Swarm Disaster; these are the offspring left behind by [Propagation]."
Burgess widened his eyes: "Offspring? The offspring of [Propagation] can achieve this kind of effect?"
Kuzan nodded: "…It seems the insect swarms have always been a major threat in the universe. This military organization named Glamoth—their mission is precisely to confront the insect swarms. But I never expected that a mecha of SAM's level is only an ordinary combat unit in Glamoth. This is truly..."
Kuzan swallowed the word "exaggerated." He had also once served as a Marine Admiral. If someone told him now that Admirals of his or Akainu's level could only serve as ordinary soldiers in another empire... just how powerful would that opposing empire have to be?
——
[Artillery fire plowed burning trenches across the scorched earth. The small mecha unit that Firefly belonged to was struggling to advance through the insect tide.]
["Maintain formation! Left wing, fill the gap!"]
[Countless iron cavalry fell before her eyes.]
[Were there people among them who had spoken with her earlier? Amid the violent jolting of the charge, she realized this question for the first time. The holographic screen continuously flashed bright-red warnings until, at a certain moment... the artillery fire and the noisy earpiece communications all fell into an eerie silence.]
[A shadow enveloped the entire battlefield.]
[She raised her head and looked. A Brood Mother as massive as a mountain range slowly rose from a fissure in the earth's crust, like a living black cloud. Behind it was an even denser insect swarm, buzzing as they lunged toward everyone.]
[In this wave of the insect tide, Firefly watched with her own eyes as a comrade's mecha was smashed into pieces by the insect swarm and knelt on the ground like a withered leaf.]
["Is anyone still alive? Cover me as I approach the Brood Mother."]
[An urgent mechanical voice came from behind. Firefly sharply turned her head and saw a battered mecha stuffing a certain red button into her hand.]
["This is..."]
["Activate it the moment you see the signal." The other party's voice was terrifyingly calm, but the next second it turned and charged into the insect tide. Relying on agile movements, it weaved through the artillery fire until it leapt into the air and landed on the Brood Mother's limbs—]
["Puchi!"]
[A sharp bone spur suddenly shot out from the Brood Mother's limbs, completely piercing through its mecha. Amid a series of spasms and tremors, the dying pilot tore off the mecha's faceplate and flung it into the Brood Mother's carapace.]
["Protocol approved… Execute scorched-earth operation..."]
["For... Her Majesty the Empress!"]
——
Teyvat.
"How tragic."
"Sigh..."
On Mt. Aocang, Cloud Retainer sighed deeply. Although she had witnessed similar tragic scenes during the Archon War, after several thousand years... the hellish painting scroll on the celestial screen today still involuntarily stirred those long-buried memories of hers.
"I wonder whether that little girl with the glasses survived. This adeptus rather liked her."
Moon Carver shook his head: "…I'm afraid she is already gone as well? This adeptus can more or less see it—these children are nothing more than frontline soldiers of the legion. They have been brainwashed into becoming chess pieces that devote themselves to the Empress. Without orders, they cannot leave the cockpit even unto death. How cruel."
Before the endless insect swarm, life seemed to have been abstracted into cold numbers one after another. The insect swarm cared nothing for the extinction of individuals; behind every death, tens of thousands of new lives were born. Compared to them, the number of humans was truly too insignificant.
"Without the Company or an Emanator... or some genius willing to intervene, relying solely on these mechas... is like a mayfly trying to shake a tree."
Mountain Shaper flapped his wings. "But speaking of which, since the harm of the insect swarm is so great, is there truly not a single Emanator willing to act? The Hunt? The Xianzhou? The disaster of these insects is probably no less than that of [Abundance], is it?"
"The Xianzhou? They themselves are still locked in a life-and-death struggle against the Abundance folk, and now [Destruction] has inserted itself as well—where would they still have the surplus strength to confront the insect swarm? However, the mechas of this Glamoth Empire are rather exquisite. This adeptus also wishes to research them for a while..."
"Cloud Retainer, you wouldn't be about to claim that you can research and produce one of those mechas, would you?"
Cloud Retainer pushed up the red-framed glasses on her nose: "Why not? After this adeptus researches for a hundred years or so, it is not necessarily impossible to imitate one... and perhaps even make it better than theirs—"
"Boom!"
Before the words finished, a world-shaking explosion resounded from the celestial screen, as if the sky itself were about to collapse. The three adepti were all dazzled by the sudden piercing white light and could not open their eyes. Only after the explosion gradually faded did they slowly open their eyes.
"...Wh-what just happened?"
——