I Am The Swarm

Chapter 482: The Tunnel

The tunnel leading to the surface stretched deep underground, spanning ten kilometers. For practical reasons, it was never designed as a spacious multi-lane highway. Instead, it was narrow, accommodating at most two vehicles side by side.

The Daqi commander’s decision to assign numbers for the war vehicles to enter the tunnel had been a calculated one. While there might have been minor flaws in his allocation strategy, the impulsive queue-jumping of one driver completely doomed their escape.

This reckless act triggered a chain reaction. As the rear vehicle’s engine roared, overtaking the others and surging into the tunnel, the rest of the convoy followed suit, reacting with similar haste.

But the tunnel was already packed to capacity, leaving no room for additional vehicles to squeeze in—let alone a third, fourth, or fifth.

Even in times of peace, queue-jumping was universally detested. In the face of a life-threatening situation, such behavior was utterly intolerable.

The result was chaos. Several war vehicles collided at the tunnel entrance, their drivers slamming on the gas in desperate attempts to force their way through. Profanities—ranging from ancient Daqi curses to modern and trendy expletives—erupted as they hurled insults at one another.

Yet, no matter how loudly they cursed or how hard they pressed their pedals, the vehicles—products of advanced interstellar engineering—remained largely unscathed. These were military-grade constructs, after all. The collisions amounted to little more than scratches on the paintwork.

The growing pileup only worsened as more vehicles joined the fray. This unintended bottleneck created the perfect opportunity for the Raiders. Jumping onto the last vehicles in the line, they rapidly scrambled across rooftops toward the front of the convoy.

The gunships, still hovering above, were losing control of the situation entirely. While some Raiders swarmed the ground vehicles, others climbed up the walls of the hangar, reaching a sufficient height before leaping toward the gunships.

On one gunship, a Daqi soldier stationed at the cabin’s firing port was caught off guard by the sudden aerial assault. One Raider, with its sharp appendages, plunged its claws directly into his arm. The intense pain caused him to collapse, his weapon slipping from his hands.

Another soldier beside him, hesitant to shoot due to the proximity of the attacker, grabbed the Raider with both hands and tried to pull it off his injured comrade. However, the Raider’s sharp appendages had pierced through the first soldier’s arm and become lodged. The futile tugging only intensified the victim’s agonized screams.

Seeing this, a third soldier on the opposite side drew a tactical knife from his waist and drove it into the Raider’s body.

In an instant, translucent green fluid sprayed out from the wound, splattering across all three soldiers. The corrosive properties of the Raider’s bodily fluids took effect immediately, causing the soldiers’ protective suits to emit white smoke as the acid began eating through the material.

Fortunately, all three were wearing protective helmets, which prevented immediate fatality. However, the visors on their helmets became corroded, obscuring their vision. The rest of their protective suits, lacking the same level of defense, quickly failed.

The compromised areas of their suits were soon eaten away, exposing their skin to the acid. What began as one soldier’s agonized cries now escalated into a chorus of three distinct howls of pain.

All of this occurred in a flash. The soldiers behind them finally reacted, dragging the three injured comrades back into the cabin. With swift but brutal efficiency, they cut away the remnants of their suits and surgically removed the corroded flesh, filling the gunship with a cacophony of blood-curdling screams.

Fortunately, the Raiders’ splattered acidic fluids were limited in quantity. Combined with the neutralizing effects of the Daqi’s protective suits, the acid’s corrosive power was greatly diminished by the time it reached their bodies. Otherwise, these highly corrosive fluids, capable of melting through metal barriers, would not have been so easily mitigated.

However, the soldier whose arm had been impaled by the Raider’s sharp appendage wasn’t as lucky. His entire right arm, along with the now-lifeless Raider embedded in it, had to be amputated.

In the past, for a civilization like the Daqi, outfitting this injured soldier with a bionic mechanical arm would have been a routine matter. But now, with their homeworld abandoned and resources scattered, finding someone capable of performing such a procedure would be near impossible.

Meanwhile, more Raiders began scaling the walls, their threat level now undeniable. With the convoy below descending into chaos, the commanders of the two gunships made the decisive call to retreat.

The gunship engines roared to life, releasing streams of energy from their bases. The ships ascended rapidly, easily escaping the pursuing Raiders.

“Being alive… feels so good,” one soldier murmured.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen sunlight… it’s beautiful,” another whispered.

With a faint whooshing sound, the gunships emerged from the ventilation shafts. The planet’s surface greeted them with the soft glow of dawn, the star just beginning to rise. Sunlight bathed the Daqi, freshly escaped from the depths of the base, in a sensation of rebirth, as though they had emerged from the underworld itself.

After a brief moment of reflection, the gunships regrouped under the commander’s orders and followed the planned route toward the main forces.

Meanwhile, those trapped in the chaotic convoy below had no chance of seeing the familiar light of their homeworld’s star. Their frenzied actions at the tunnel entrance had unintentionally delayed the Swarm’s pursuit—though only slightly. ??????§

The Raiders, working together, quickly cleared the blocked vehicles out of the tunnel. The Swarm had specialized units to salvage the wreckage, leaving the Raiders free to continue their primary mission, chasing down the fleeing Daqi.

Those who had managed to advance deeper into the tunnel were keenly aware of the absence of their rear companions. They understood the implications of this silence but had no recourse other than to press harder on the accelerator, urging their vehicles forward as fast as possible.

Suddenly, a muffled rumble echoed from up ahead, growing louder as it approached.

“Speed up! Drive faster!” the squad leader bellowed. He didn’t know the source of the sound, but he was certain it wasn’t coming from their side. That could only mean it was the enemy.

In the confined space of the underground tunnel, any disturbance could spell their doom.

The assault vehicles in the lead, designed for speed, quickly outpaced the slower transport vehicles at the rear. At full throttle, they widened the gap between themselves and their less-equipped counterparts.

The strange rumbling grew closer, accompanied by vibrations that sent dust cascading from the tunnel ceiling. Fear gripped the Daqi as they scanned the walls with wide eyes, unable to pinpoint the source of the noise. The tunnel’s structure caused the sounds to reverberate and echo chaotically, making it impossible to determine their origin.

Suddenly, a deafening thud echoed from the metal wall on the upper right of the tunnel. A moment later, a nerve-wracking sound of metal being gnawed and torn apart filled the air. A thick tunnel wall, several meters deep, was quickly breached, leaving a small but rapidly widening hole.

“Push through!! Go!!” the squad leader shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking from the strain. No one mocked him for the distortion in his voice—none of them even noticed. All eyes were fixed on the hole in the wall, which was growing larger by the second.

Without needing further orders, the drivers of the assault vehicles floored their accelerators. Engines roared, echoing through the tunnel as five assault vehicles shot past the danger zone like phantoms.

But as the sixth vehicle approached, the metal wall gave way entirely. A massive creature burst through the breach, its enormous body blocking the tunnel’s center.

It was a Burrowing Worm, one of the Swarm’s specialized tunnel breachers!