---o---
The people of the infinite-dimensional universe were all surprised when they saw the Swarm King's inner thoughts.
As everyone knew, the Swarm was without intelligence. No matter how numerous the race became, it would never give birth to a single intelligent, self-aware insect.
This was true even for the King-Bugs. Yet, the Swarm King possessed a basic capacity for thought. Although limited, it was enough to pique the curiosity of the audience outside the light curtain.
Could it be because the Swarm King was an Aeon?
To be honest, the status of an Aeon had already reached the same level as legendary Ultras like Ultraman King. The audience outside the light curtain was actually quite unwilling to believe that the Swarm King was merely an "animal" that survived on instinct.
It was terrifying, yes, but as intelligent beings, the audience couldn't help but look down on the Swarm King for that very reason.
[Light Curtain Commentary]
[Detective Conan: So the Swarm King isn't entirely mindless. It possesses some rational thought, but it doesn't seem very bright.]
[The Uchiha Dancer: For a being like the Swarm King, overwhelming power is all that matters. Such strength allows it to disregard all potential threats.]
[Aizen Sosuke: Acting purely on instinct... an enemy like that can sometimes be more terrifying than a thinking one.]
[Yukino Yukinoshita: Is the entire Swarm driven by the instinct of Propagation? The Swarm created by the Aeon of Propagation... for the universe, they're like cancer cells. Numerous, but ultimately meaningless...]
[Time Spirit: Cancer cells of the universe? The Swarm? A fitting description... But as for what the Aeon of Propagation is really all about, no one besides other Aeons truly knows. And didn't the light curtain say not to judge Aeons by mortal standards, even one that seems mindless?]
---o---
[On the light curtain, Ultraman Zero's body soared through the cosmos. With his ability to manipulate space, he moved continuously across the battlefield.]
[Along the way, countless vicious Swarm insects flew past him. Even Zero, who had fought the Swarm many times before, couldn't help but gasp at the sight of this chaotic swarm dance.]
[Good heavens, just how many bugs have been born? How many does Tayzzyronth pop out in one go? This is absurd.]
[Oh, right. It wasn't just the Swarm King birthing them; the other ordinary bugs could reproduce as well. But even so, it was still an exaggeration.]
[After this battle, every Ultra Warrior from the Land of Light would have the blood of hundreds of millions of beings on their hands.]
[Zero shot through the Swarm, spotting familiar figures among the insects, as well as special variants he had never seen before.]
[For a swarm numbering in the hundreds of millions, so-called "special variants" weren't really special at all; their numbers were immeasurable.]
[And one thing was clear: now that they had a target, the Swarm was no longer a disorganized mob. Their ferocity was on par with some of the most savage monsters.]
[Moreover, the Swarm had the bug of "the more numerous we are, the stronger our combined combat power becomes," not to mention their area-of-effect pheromone illusions. Faced with this onslaught, only a force like the Land of Light could stand a chance. Any other power that dared to confront them would face a situation they simply couldn't overcome.]
"Stelle, can you sense the Swarm King's location? This multi-colored stuff is so annoying, like a thick fog. I can't see a thing."
While flying through the Swarm, Zero still hadn't spotted the dangerous figure. Don't tell him Tayzzyronth got scared and hid?
Zero casually shattered the pheromones between the Swarm with one hand while swinging his blade with the other. The powerful slash easily cleaved a planet-sized insect in two.
Stelle, however, narrowed her eyes. "Good question. The information the Amber King gave me does, in fact, include a way to find the Swarm King."
"Oh? Let's hear it." Zero had just been making small talk to ensure he wasn't being affected by the Swarm's pheromones while they chatted. He hadn't expected Stelle to actually have a solution.
"The Aeon of Propagation is a mindless insect, with intelligence comparable to a small animal. It acts purely on instinct, so... as long as you can present an energy source that attracts it, or something else related to Propagation, you won't have to find It. It will appear on its own."
It was a logical and sound method, perfectly in line with the Aeon of Propagation's personality. But after hearing it, it felt like she hadn't said anything at all.
Zero slapped his forehead in frustration, thinking about how pointless that was. Who the hell knew what the Swarm King liked? He had never seen it show particular interest in any kind of energy before. Then again, perhaps this massive invasion of the Land of Light was because it had taken a twisted liking to the Sacred Light.
But he couldn't just use the Sacred Light as bait. Without it, more than half of the Ultra Warriors in the Land of Light would lose their ability to fight. Not everyone was like Zero, with the Aegis of Palagye and Stelle as a personal power bank.
"Speaking of the Aeon of Preservation, I've learned a bit about him. He's considered a benevolent god in your universe, but... he seems to utterly despise the Swarm King. Do they have some kind of grudge?" Zero asked curiously. He was always inquisitive about the gods of another universe.
"Who knows what goes on between Aeons. It's probably because the Swarm King's Path and the Amber King's Path are fundamentally opposed. Its reckless propagation is something that almost no one in the entire universe, with few exceptions, would approve of."
"However, speaking of the Aeon of Preservation, during the Swarm Disaster, there was a rumor that the Amber King smashed the Swarm King to death with just a few Amber Eras. Afterward, he even stripped its concept from its shell, causing the Swarm King to completely disappear from the sight of ordinary people. Who knows if it's true."
On their way to find the Swarm King, Stelle and Zero chatted idly, trying to find any information about the Swarm King's weaknesses in the data given by the Amber King.
But it seemed there was none. Perhaps it was because when the Amber King fought the Swarm King back then, he never even considered finding a weakness. He just solved the problem with pure, overwhelming power.
"Amber Era? What's that? A power of the Aeon of Preservation?" Zero asked, puzzled. It sounded more like a measure of time. Was he supposed to believe the Swarm King and the Amber King fought for a very long time?
"An Amber Era..." Stelle murmured. "It's a common timekeeping method used in our universe, promoted by the Corporation. Basically, it uses the birth of the Aeon of Preservation as the first year, and each swing of the Amber King's hammer marks the beginning of a new era. One Amber Era is roughly 76 to 240 years."
"So you're saying... they fought for over a hundred years? No, wait... if it's calculated by hammer swings, then the Aeon of Preservation only swung his hammer a few times to beat the Swarm King?!"
Zero exclaimed in disbelief. He knew the Swarm King was powerful, and with its disgusting Path abilities, it would be a match for the entire universe if it had even a shred of intelligence. But to think... it was hammered to death by the Amber King in just a few swings.
From this perspective, despite both being Aeons, the Swarm King was simply no match for the Amber King.
"It wasn't that exaggerated. As fellow Aeons, it's almost impossible for the Amber King to kill the Swarm King. The reason it went so smoothly was largely due to the help of other Aeons."
"Is that so..." Zero took a deep breath, having roughly pieced together how the Star Rail universe survived the Swarm Disaster. ]
---o---
It wasn't just Zero; the audience across the infinite-dimensional universe who saw this scene also gradually understood what had happened.
To put it simply, the nature of the Swarm King's own Path led it to provoke several other Aeons at the same time. Then... under the combined power of numerous Aeons, it was hammered to death by the Amber King.
No wonder the Amber King didn't give Stelle any information on how to fight the Swarm King. In a sense, they never really fought. In that divine war... the difference in their combat power wasn't just a small gap.
[Light Curtain Commentary]
[Utaha Kasumigaoka: The Swarm King was beaten to death by the Amber King, and even its divine essence was knocked out, yet it could still revive. The immortality of Aeons truly knows no upper limit.]
[Detective Conan: They exist as abstract concepts. As long as their Path doesn't vanish, or as long as the concept their Path symbolizes doesn't disappear, the Aeon will not disappear, regardless of the form they take. This kind of ability, in the hands of a normal person, would be quite terrifying.]
[Yukino Yukinoshita: Normal people can't even follow a Path, let alone achieve immortality. And according to Stelle, there are conflicts between Aeons, which can even lead to war. Ordinary people don't even have the right to watch an Aeon's battle.]
[Ruan Mei: A war between gods? That hasn't happened since the Aeon of Propagation disappeared. However... no one can guarantee that another divine war won't occur.]
---o---
[On the light curtain, as the war in the Land of Light raged on, the Swarm King's side suffered heavy losses.]
[At least on the surface, the Swarm King's army was being suppressed. After all, quality over quantity. What's more, the fountain of life was right behind the Ultra Warriors, allowing them to restore their energy at any time.]
[In a short period, the space around the Land of Light was filled with the corpses of the Swarm. These were often the bodies of their comrades that the Swarm didn't have time to devour, or those that the warriors of the Land of Light couldn't dispose of, left to drift as space junk.]
[Due to the nature of Propagation, these bodies would be very difficult to decompose naturally. It would take at least hundreds of years.]
[However, knowing the character of the Ultra Warriors, they would surely dispatch a large number of fighters to clean up these insect corpses after the battle was over.]
[After all, the ability of Propagation was extremely bizarre. If the Swarm corpses were taken by others for malicious purposes, the consequences would be unimaginable.]
[However... as the light curtain's camera shifted, the audience outside the screen made a startling discovery. In a certain corner of the universe, a huge, soft-bodied creature was wriggling. It extended several tentacles from its body and devoured the surrounding Swarm corpses without hesitation.]
[One... two... countless. No one knew how many Swarm this oval-shaped, soft-bodied creature had devoured, but judging by the aura of this being, the energy it radiated could only be described as terrifying!]
[Though not yet on the level of an Ultimate Ultra like Shining Infinity Zero, the aura it faintly revealed was not the least bit inferior to them.]
"What... what kind of god is this? Is it a creature from the Ultraman universe?"
"That oval-shaped creature has a red light glowing inside it... it looks... it looks like a cocoon!!"
The audience outside the light curtain revealed looks of shock, but that was far from all.
[This bizarre cocoon, in just a few seconds, swallowed a galaxy's worth of Swarm corpses. Then, its tentacles tore through the void, directly snatching several Sphia from empty space.]
[The Swarm was one thing, but it didn't even spare creatures like the Sphia. These Sphia were just passing by and hadn't done anything, yet they were devoured by this giant cocoon without the slightest chance to resist.]
[As the Sphia were also devoured, the cocoon seemed to become saturated. It emitted a deep and terrifying sound, like the low growl of a monster, filled with oppressive power.]
"Hahaha, beautifully done, Zetton! After you absorb this batch, you will successfully hatch! Then, the entire universe... will belong to me, Alien Bat!!"
"What are Empire Aliens, Pedan Aliens, or even a resurrected Alien Empera? They are nothing in my eyes!"
[Beside the giant cocoon, a figure radiating a sinister aura appeared before the audience outside the light curtain. And that... was none other than the tentacled cosmic being, Alien Bat!!]
[The giant cocoon behind him was... Zetton?]
[No, wasn't that the biological weapon of the Zettonians? When did it become Alien Bat's?]
[The Zettonians' biological weapon being hatched by Alien Bat... wasn't this a form of cosmic poaching?]
[And besides... this Zetton cocoon was far too large, completely inconsistent with Zetton's original size!]
[Could it be because it ate the corpses of the Swarm, which contained an overdose of growth hormones? After all, many of the Swarm were massive.]
[The audience outside the light curtain pondered this, while Alien Bat, in a state of extreme excitement, welcomed the cocoon's next evolution.]
"The countdown has begun! My prediction was correct! The bodies of the Swarm contain abundant nutrients. If you eat enough, supplemented by the dark emotions of despair and fear, Zetton's hatching speed will multiply!"
"Ultra Warriors, Swarm, just you wait! Wait for the birth of my Hyper Zetton! You will witness what true, ultimate terror is!!"
[Amidst a series of hideous, evil laughs, Alien Bat gradually vanished from sight.]
---o---