Chapter 18: Memorable Scene! The Swarm Takes Flight!

Eastern Country time, 8:00 PM sharp.

Amidst the eager anticipation of hundreds of thousands across the internet, Li Jiajun's livestream screen brightened from black right on time.

In the frame, there was no grand stage or dazzling lights. Li Jiajun stood in an open space outside his factory; the night was as dark as ink, with only a few high-powered searchlights temporarily pulled from the workshop illuminating the center of the field in a stark white.

Behind him were several rusty, ordinary-looking grey freight containers, sitting quietly like forgotten scrap metal. This simple setting formed a sharp contrast with the online hype, appearing somewhat out of place.

However, with such a simple scene, the number of online viewers in the livestream skyrocketed from zero to a hundred thousand within just one minute of going live, and it continued to grow at a terrifying speed. The dense barrage of comments was like a white waterfall, nearly covering the entire phone screen.

"It's here, it's here! Finally! I've got my sunflower seeds, cola, and stool all ready!"

"Selling quick-acting heart-saving pills in the front row! The moment to witness a miracle (or a massive fail) has arrived!"

"Special Effects Faction, assemble! Brothers, I've already opened my screen recording software, ready to analyze the Streamer's CG masterpiece frame by frame!"

"The Realist Faction will never be slaves! I bet this month's instant noodles that the Main Streamer is definitely using physical items tonight! Just waiting for the Special Effects Faction to get slapped in the face!"

"I feel more nervous than the Main Streamer; my heart is practically in my throat!"

Li Jiajun looked at the boiling comments on the screen, but his face showed no extra expression. Facing the camera, he spoke in an extremely relaxed and casual tone, as if he weren't about to showcase some earth-shattering work, but was merely demonstrating a newly made figurine to a neighbor's brat.

"family, sorry to keep you waiting."

He held up something in his hand—a black controller that looked a lot like a gamepad, covered in various joysticks and buttons.

"The wind is a bit loud tonight, just right for letting some little things fly." He paused, a mysterious smile appearing on his face. "Next, please welcome my 'artwork.' I've given it a name—'The Hive'."

As soon as he finished speaking, without giving the livestream audience any time to react or comment, he extended his right thumb and, under the collective gaze of everyone present and the hundreds of thousands online, gently and decisively pressed the prominent red circular start button in the center of the controller.

"Click."

A faint sound, barely audible in the silent night sky.

However, the expected roar and light show did not come immediately.

The containers behind Li Jiajun remained motionless.

The entire field fell into a suffocating silence that lasted for three seconds.

After those three seconds of silence, the livestream comments instantly turned gleeful.

"Hahaha! How awkward! It's a fail! He pressed it and nothing happened!"

"I knew it! It's definitely a script! The Streamer is just putting on a monkey show here!"

"I'm cringing so hard I could dig out a three-bedroom apartment with my toes. Streamer, hurry up and think of a way to save face!"

The workers and Wang Defa also stood in the distance, watching the scene nervously, their hearts in their throats.

Just when everyone thought this was a complete farce and even the Realist Faction began to waver.

"Buzz—"

A low startup sound broke the silence without warning!

Immediately after, the top covers of those "toy storage boxes" disguised as ordinary freight containers behind Li Jiajun slid open smoothly to both sides, revealing bottomless, pitch-black launch ports inside.

The next second, a buzzing sound—denser and sharper than ten thousand hornets flapping their wings—erupted from those black launch ports! The sound wasn't loud, but it seemed to drill directly into one's bones, making the hearts of everyone who heard it twitch and their scalps tingle instantly!

Then, a scene appeared that was enough to make everyone's worldview collapse on the spot.

Thousands of palm-sized black shadows, like a bursting black flood, surged out of those open containers frantically and competitively!

They didn't scatter haphazardly; instead, they converged automatically the moment they took flight, forming thick columns of black "smoke" that soared straight into the pitch-black sky with an unstoppable momentum!

At the tail of every black shadow, a faint blue indicator light flickered.

Thousands of faint blue dots of light converged in the night sky, as if someone had forcibly torn down an entire brilliant galaxy and crushed it into a flowing, deep, and vibrant blue nebula.

In just a few seconds, this black torrent of drones completely blocked the searchlights' beams toward the sky, assembling in mid-air into a massive, writhing black "cloud" that constantly changed its internal structure.

Their movements were perfectly synchronized. Every turn and every hover felt like a super-organism with a unified consciousness, filled with a cold, suffocating, and absolute sense of order and oppression.

At this moment, it was as if the whole world had gone quiet.

In the livestream, the countless comments vanished without a trace in an instant.

The screen was empty and blank, except for Li Jiajun's face, which looked exceptionally calm under the searchlights, and the apocalyptic black canopy of drones behind him.

Everyone was stunned into silence by this unreasonable, grand reality that surpassed sci-fi movies and the limits of human imagination, forgetting even the instinct to type on their keyboards.

...

Thousands of miles away, in Middle East.

In that oppressive secret headquarters, Hassan, his adjutant, and a dozen professionals were staring intently at the livestream broadcast being transmitted via encrypted satellite signals.

The moment that black "cloud" of thousands of light points obscured the sky, the entire headquarters became so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

The adjutant, who had been rambling and was convinced they had been scammed, now had his mouth hanging open wide enough to fit a military ration tin. He stared blankly at the screen, his eyes wide as saucers, the color draining from his face at a visible rate, as if his soul had been sucked away by that black cloud.

The haughty professionals around him were also frozen in place as if under a spell. Some instinctively pushed up their glasses, while others let their pencils drop to the floor with a "clack." Every face was written with expressions ranging from doubt to shock, finally freezing into a complete blank.

A young technician responsible for signal analysis muttered unconsciously, "Impossible... such a massive volume of data exchange... how... how did they do it?"

Hassan, sitting in the very center, felt his body jolt the moment he saw the swarm take flight. It felt as if a powerful electric current had shot from his tailbone straight to the top of his head!

Then, with a whoosh, he stood up from his seat!

His eyes, hidden beneath his headscarf, stared intently at the flowing blue river of stars on the screen, his breathing becoming uncontrollably rapid.

Shock!

An unprecedented shock!

He hadn't held much hope before, but now, he was mesmerized—no, not mesmerized,

but terrified in a way he had never even dreamed of!

This wasn't some light show; this wasn't some artwork!

This was an army from hell! A steel legion capable of crushing all his enemies, one that couldn't even be locked onto by existing air defense systems!

All the doubts and anxieties deep in his heart were completely crushed by that sky-obscuring black cloud at this moment, replaced by an uncontrollable, volcanic eruption of wild joy!

"Allah be praised..."

He looked at the screen and muttered to himself in a trembling, hoarse voice that only he could hear, due to his extreme excitement.

"What... what kind of ultimate weapon have I bought..."