Perhaps it was the inexperience of Devours Viins at fault. It could have been the strange flow of energy of the vessel or the press of bodies marking thousands of different souls. Maybe she just got distracted for a bit. Either way, as she was trying to find Madiha to deliver unto her the requested reinforcements she missed a rather important event. Specifically, the ship itself departing from the below.
“Oh my,” Devours Viins turned to her royal guard. “It appears we have left atmosphere. And I am not certified for atmospheric reentry onto a high gravity.”
Some of the guards were panicking. It seemed that the change in motion hadn’t been observed by all of them. “We will dly sacrifice our bodies for your survival!”
“There is no need for that,” the queen replied. “I will simply send a message to the surface to tell them that they will have to handle their portion of Xiopia on their own.”
The decision to bring void ant tech had been made with great care. Ultimately, it was because of the particr foes they were dealing with. Once void ants were discovered they would either be crushed and ignored or thoroughly eradicated. Either way, it wasn’t a risk to show their alignment with the Alliance. Provoking a response wasn’t intended, but it wasn’t undesirable.
It was also so difficult to live without. Only being able tomunicate through the aid of humans was quite limiting. Humans were great, but they weren’t <em>everywhere</em>. Especially friendly ones.
Devours Viins sent a message to the. They wouldn’t have long before the void antms didn’t work. They weren’t meant to be long range. Any intearyms required boosters that piggybacked on humanworks- and the Swirling Swarm clearly didn’t have anything like that. They barely even knew how to make their stolen ships go.
“There, we are covered,” she said. “A princess will take over management of the nest while I am away. We will return with the first ship. Now then, we must find Madiha.”
As she had already made her decision, her words were absolute. Every moment, chances of returning to the diminished. They might not even be able to make it out of the ship regardless. With it sealed, they would likely have to cause actual damage to the vessel or its barriers, alerting the enemy. That mightpromise Madiha’s position. The queen found Madiha eventually. She looked not at all perturbed by being pressed in among a dozen others, their limbs entangled. The Swirling Swarm were not known for good manners, so it was unsurprising when one individual''s hands wandered where they should not. People were equally unconcerned when that hand was pierced through by a dart. Madiha barely even nced over as the offending individual tried to flee rather slowly through the crowds. She pinned a foot to the wall- or was it a floor? Nobody had bothered to enable artificial gravity on the vessel. In the moment a single person was stuck, they were dead. A dozen people rifled through their pockets in the next instant.
“These people are the opposite of teamwork.” It took Devours Viins just one tiny nip to get Madiha’s attention this time. The void ant stood alone on whatever surface was most like a wall to Madiha at the time. The others were fully concealed. “I apologize for thete arrival. Yes, I do understand that we are now in space, but such small details must be handled smoothly. We will be ready for your arrival.”
Madiha said nothing. Talking would certainly be too much, and attempting any form of sign would be suspicious. The woman just gave an annoyed look that was appropriate for the totality of the circumstances.
-----
There was hardly any need for the void ant queen when the Swirling Swarm were doing a perfectly fine job of devouring each other. Not literally- except maybe <em>one</em> incident- but she witnessed more than a few deaths over the course of their month long journey. Sometimes it was over food, for those who were foolish enough not to have brought their own or weak enough to not have any. Usually it was because the people were incapable of getting along.
If void ants had been anything like that, they would not have survived until the time of the moon and the birth of the Great Queen. Yet void ants could reproduce quite rapidly- eggs production made such things much easier. Being quite small was also an advantage in that regard. Humans couldn’t do that. They should all be gone.
She <em>did</em> mean it as a judgement as well. Not humans in general. These humans. They should be gone morally and physically. The mystery of their continued survival was a tough one.
Especially when they attacked their target. Devours Viins rode atop Madiha as she moved among the Swirling Swarm. The bulk of their forces threw themselves against the local sect, mighty warriors swinging heavy ils. For the most part, the Swirling Swarm met them head on- but they were individually far less capable.
Madiha took a position in the middle, throwing weapons towards the front lines. Devours Viins and her fellow void ants watched her back, sides, and generally around her. It did seem like the Swirling Swarm was at least fairly well coordinated about not killing their allies in the middle of a pitched battle. Maybe.
Madiha did it though. She kept <em>identally</em> hitting people in the back, and they wouldn’t be able toin afterwards. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to an individual like her. Her power was neither strong enough nor weak enough to be notable.
Despite her best efforts and the actual superiority of individual cultivators among the defenders, the Swirling Swarm appeared to have won. All their efforts were focused on one location, and they swarmed over arge city. They snatched everything- food, cultivation resources, people, or whatever else they seemed to think was worthwhile. That included ships, which they packed full of themselves or others. Nobody seemed to bother jumping on the <em>same</em> vessel as they rode in the other direction.
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That was how they almost died. Devours Viins had made the wild assumption that onlypetent individuals would try to pilot their ships. It was a good thing the collision happened at low speed. Somehow, the general aura of the Swirling Swarm stopped it from beingplete devastation. Probably fifty people were sucked out into space and only half of them were rescued.
It seemed they were already heading back to Xiopia. The queen <em>hoped</em> they were going back to Xiopia… but she didn’t actually know that would be the case. People just <em>did</em>.
-----
Devours Viins was quite fortunate to be able to return to her home, unharmed. She even had a short adventure. A single, boring adventure where they didn’t get to do nearly as much overthrowing ofary governments as might have been warranted. Obviously against the Swarm. They really just casually went and returned. At least they had learned something about where the people came from.
Most were captives. It seemed that some people <em>forgot</em> that some of those involved were captives. Those taken as ves were treated slightly worse than other humans, which was to say pretty horribly… but it appeared they were confirming one of the theories for how the Swirling Swarm sustained itself.
“You’re not allowed to be one of them,” Devours Viins said to Madiha.
“... I wasn’t nning to.”
“Perhaps not, but humans are vulnerable to societal pressure.”
Madiha raised an eyebrow. “And void ants are not?”
“We formalize societal pressure from the top. But in this case… we certainly won’t bow to the aura of the Swirling Swarm. Does it bother you?”
The human did end up taking her words seriously. “It’s… oppressive. They’re not so much recruiting people as… haphazardly continuing the cycle of violence. It’s a shame humans are so good at it.”
Indeed. It might have been presumed that those thrown into terrible situations would band together against the Swirling Swarm, but the oppressors were so numerous and indeed unorganized that nobody ended up having anyone to rely upon. Though perhaps that was a button that the Alliance could press. Organize a rebellion from within their midst, based on those newly… recruited. Void ants wouldn’t be much good for that, but at least they could find them.
-----
There rarely urred a period in Velvet’s life where she had been so stressed out about nothing at all. Trivial things? Absolutely. Things she could do nothing about? Certainly. But never in recent years had she been so concerned about how there was nobody who would even <em>attempt</em> to hurt her. Not within dozens of lightyears.
When she had once again arrived in hostile territory, she was almost relieved. At least the local systems were currently functional, instead of having dim stars and dulls. She wouldn’t say that they were doing <em>well</em>, but they were packed full of people as she had expected.
She set about trying to establish a decent knowledge base. Ultimately, she found it was difficult to get far. Nobody really knew that much individually. There was a loose structure to be found beneath the surface, but it seemed more like a strange habit than actual intent. Rather than a hivemind, Velvet thought they were quite the opposite. They didn’t think in tandem, they simply acted. Like a true swarm of locusts, their behavior changed once a certain threshold was reached. They didn’t <emmunicate</em>. They just went.
It wasn’t a perfect analogy. There <em>was</em> a sort ofbined aura, but it really was nothing like a proper hivemind. Velvet had visited them, and they were quite nice. A little bit creepy sometimes, but ultimately pleasant.
She wasn’t going to be able to scrounge up any information about the anchor, who might know of it, or where it might have been moved. Not without a good bit of luck. Having confirmed that the core of their territory was simply missing, she was ready to move on. The void ants with herecked a queen to establish a nest, and they would need far more than one per. They could probably spend decades scouring each ande up with nothing- because there would be nothing to learn.
It felt like a failure. Velvet <em>knew</em> that it wasn’t- just a setback. It would take her some time to return to the core of the Alliance and set out once more, but she wasn’t done. She hadn’t been exposed, the Swirling Swarm wouldn’t be waiting to ambush her when she returned. But she had really been hoping to find something. Maybe not the anchor itself, but a good hint that they could work on.
All Velvet really knew was that it wasn’t in the core systems. Unless… well, maybe it was. For that, they would have to have a better sense of devotion. It wasn’t impossible to feel. Velvet could quite easily track her own. Unsurprisingly, it was all flowing in from the west, with some from the southwest. Nobody really knew her outside of those ces. She didn’t cultivate negative devotion, so her enemies knowing of her was so insignificant as to be inconsequential.
Tracking the devotion of others was tougher. Otherwise, people would use it to hunt down Domination cultivators all the time- and Everheart in specific. Devotion energy had no real power on its own either. It was so faint.
The Alliance could track it to some extent, but it required overlyrge facilities that were far from portable. At best, it told them that known Everheart systems did, in fact, probably contain Everheart. Though the flow of energy going to <em>that man</em> was wildly chaotic in many ways. A few positive feelings from those who liked tricksters, a lot of negative feelings… and it went to many ces. Not necessarily the closest location, either. Whatever Everheart had done with clones- whether they were true clones or just good replicas- it certainly confused things.
Velvet readied herself for the return. One of their major assumptions had proven false in a rather horrifying manner. She’d already shared that information, but she still had more she could say in person. It was better to <em>not</em> drop in and check on their first batch of spies. It was better to trust them and not risk revealing them.
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