Then, it ignited again. But the swarm's nature had fundamentally shifted.
The light within their bodies was no longer localized. Now, visible filaments of energy connected each unit to its neighbors, forming a neural network of light that pulsed with its own intelligence. The individual vortices had merged into a single distributed structure—a "giant vortex" whose scale occupied half the cube.
Aku stopped firing. Not out of hesitation, but out of a need for calculation. The air in front of him began to curve. It wasn't an optical illusion brought on by fatigue; the energy density had reached such a point that the air's refractive index had been altered. The bees descended together, but they no longer moved as a cluster of individuals. They moved as a solid block—a compact mass obeying a single center of gravity.
