Chapter 161: The Ued Delight of the Heart of the Swarm

  "Finally back."

  Returning to the snow-covered forest , Alex stretched zily, a long sigh esg him. Beside him, Ikaros let out a yawn, looking as if she had just returned home from a long jouro celebrate the new year.

  "It’s much more fortable here, Master."

  "Yeah, I think so too."

  Alex didn’t particurly dislike the Zerg, but their obsessive o cover the p with Creep was maddening. It was as though these fanatics couldn’t live without spreading the Creep everywhere. At first, it was mildly iing to watch, but seeing the same blood-red terrain day after day was exhausting. Uhe Zerg’s "diligent farming," Char had pletely lost its once-blue skies and white clouds. Noart from some spared trees and rivers, everything else was bed in Creep and dominated by Zerg structures.

  Holy, Alex felt like he was living in Saya no Uta—staying too long in this kind of pce would drive anyone insane. Even though his body had been modified, his aesthetise remai a normal human level. There was no way he could stoop to the Zerg’s standards.

  Ikaros clearly shared his ses. She preferred adorable animals and sunny skies to the Zerg’s catastrophic ecological expansion.

  But, oh well. That’s a problem for another world.

  "Let’s take a break first," Alex said while snapping his fingers. Instantly, the air before him began to ripple and distort, materializing into an invisible servant that promptly started ing the chairs ahough they had been away for over ten days, the remained retively , likely due to the snow-sealed enviro. A quick sweep was all it needed.

  Meanwhile, Ikaros sat down and resumed pying with the adorable kitten. Alex, oher hand, slumped into a chair, opened his Map of Myriad Dimensions, and began reviewing his test gains.

  The map revealed something new.

  As soon as Alex opehe thie, it flipped to a page by itself. A proje of a blood-red p appeared, rotating like a 3D hologram. This was Char from the Predator world. Having beeed to a "free world," it was no longer just a "world instance" and ed as a unique dimension accessible to Alex.

  This meant Alex could enter a the world as freely as he could the "Mind, Teique, and Body" free instances. And like those, time spent in the Predator world wouldn’t exceed five minutes in his current world upon his return.

  Still, it wasn’t without its bes.

  For starters, Alex could now explore Earth in the Predator world freely, even stog up on food and other supplies for his journeys. Of course, he also made sure to warn the Zerg to steer clear of the sor system. Humanity in that world wouldn’t be able to leave their system for the fifty years. After that… well, it would depend on their lud whether the Zerg decided to give them a ce to survive.

  Alex was curious to see what would happen when humanity finally broke free of the sor system only to discover they were merely livesto the Zerg’s pasture.

  But that was far into the future.

  pleting the Homeworld quest had rewarded Alex with two items: the fixed skill [Heart of the Swarm] and a unique ability called [Dimensional el].

  [Dimensional el] ecial summoning ability desigo work with free worlds. Using it, Alex could summon minions from these worlds without occupying soul stones or summon slots. However, it had a limit.

  At its current level (E), [Dimensional el] had a cap of 100 points. Through experimentation, Alex figured out the summoning costs: creatures like Zerglings and Xenomorphs cost one point each, Hydralisks and Roaches cost ten, Mutalisks and Lurkers cost thirty, and Ultralisks cost fifty. Leviathans? pletely out of reach.

  In practical terms, Alex could summon up to 10lings or Xenomorphs, 10 Hydralisks or Roaches, 3 Mutalisks, or 2 Ultralisks. For now, this didn’t seem particurly useful.

  After all, the main world wasn’t like the Predator world. Here, there were plenty of individuals who could rip Ultralisks apart with their bare hands. Without an army of tens of thousands of Zerg, it was ughable to think the Swarm could quer anything.

  Thankfully, the Predator world operated on so ohere could match the sheer madness of the main world’s powerhouses. Otherwise… who knew what might happen?

  However, [Heart of the Swarm] turned out to be a pleasant surprise for Alex.

  When it was merely a skill tied tan’s soul stone, Alex didn’t find it particurly remarkable. It allowed unication with and trol over the Zerg, but that was it.

  But when the Map of Myriad Dimensions solidified the skill, Alex finally uood its true potential.

  Or rather, whe of the Swarm] became part of him, Alex finally grasped why Kerrigan alrocimed, "I am the Swarm."

  Because now, he was the Swarm.

  Even now, it remained a profound and subtle feeling. Alex could sense tless Zerg deep within his soul. They felt like his subjects, his subordinates, or even actors under his dire. Yet, they were also something more. It was as if, wherever Alex directed his gaze, the Zerg would instinctively follow, their focus mirr his own.

  To put it in an imperfealogy, Alex resembled a ductor. When he waved his baton and poi something, tens of thousands of Zerg would shift their attention to the same spot.

  It was a miraculous sensatioe this synicity, the Zerg were not mindless puppets as Alex had initially assumed. Instead, they possessed thoughts of their own. In his mind, it felt like a whispering crowd behind him. For example, if Alex looked at a rabbit, the Zerg would also focus on it, discussing among themselves whether it looked tasty, how weak it seemed, or what the most effit way to hunt it might be.

  Of course, this chatter didn’t affect Alex’s own judgment. He only heard the Zerg’s mental exges wheively chose to listen. It was like tuning into barely audible background hat required extreme focus to notice, ensuring it didn’t disrupt his daily life.

  But the real significe y elsewhere—Alex’s mind was now tightly iwined with the swarm.

  One is all, and all is one.

  While this ability didn’t seem to have any immediate special effects, Alex was keenly aware that it might solve a longstanding of his: the threat of mental manipution from entment magic.

  After studying magic, Alex had e to uand the principles behind entment and illusion spells. Entment magic targeted an individual’s mind, influeng or trolling it through magical interference. Although mental fortitude could resist such spells, the cept of "mental resilience" was ily vague. No one could guarantee immunity from mental attacks.

  For most people, siheir minds were indepe, they had little hope of esg mental trol uhey were lucky enough to experiene dramatic memory fshback or receive timely encement from a figure tied to their past.

  But Alex was different.

  Now, if an enter tried to trol him, they wouldn’t be dealing with just his mind—they would have to manipute the tless Zerg ected to him through the Heart of the Swarm. The enter would o affect the minds of millions, possibly billions of Zerg to succeed.

  And this was only the beginning. As the swarm tio expand, the number of Zerg lio the Heart of the Swarm would grow expoially—far beyond the scope of what any mage could handle. Even if someone somehow mao trol all those minds, they’d likely colpse from sheer exhaustion before succeeding.

  From a certain perspective, Alex had effectively gained a unique form of immunity to mental manipution—a bonus buff, so to speak.

  But now, what should he do ?

  Thinking about this, Alex g Ikaros, who ying with the kitten.

  He had finally severed ties with the Temple, but hiding out in this isoted pce forever wasn’t a viable solutioill needed power, money, aory. Being a mountain bandit or self-procimed king of some backwater area ointless and would only invite bigger problems.

  There was also the matter of the Temple’s relentless pursuit. Many of Alex’s soul stones were effectively off-limits for now.

  Kerrigan’s, for example, was pletely unusable. The Temple would undoubtedly focus heavily on any traces reted to her. Simirly, Malthael’s stone was out of the question. The Temple was still on high alert, likely analyzing every detail of Malthael’s arrival. Alex had no iion of unleashing an apocalyptic event or creating a hell oh, so Malthael was not an option.

  The same went for Arthas—he had to remain sealed.

  As fic… Alex could theoretically bee an adventurer, masquerading as a mage or joining a merary group to quietly gain strength. But he quickly dismissed the idea. Fina had warned him that every mage’s spells carried a unique signature. If someoracked him down, it could lead to even bigger plications.

  Fine. His trump cards were off-limits. The time for pay-to-win summoning hadn’t arrived yet. That left him with…

  Alex stared at the soul stone in his hand, deep in thought. After a moment, a sly grin crossed his face as a pn formed.

  It seemed there was only oh forward.

  (End of Chapter)

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