Tens of thousands of Bioships appeared on the outskirts of the former Taesci Territory.
The Bioships of the Void Insects were not as big as those of the Chthonian Empire, but they were slightly bigger or of a similar size to that of the Dresden Arcanum Empire.
Not to mention there were countless upon countless of them. The fleets of the Void Insects were not the strongest or largest, but they were using of their enormous numbers to win the fights.
It was evident that across even the Endless Void, there were very few factions that could contend against the Void Insect Fleets in terms of firepower or sheer numbers.
Upon arriving within the system, all Bioship launched fire at Weissmann and me as we were in the middle of nowhere, thus practically the best targets for their weapon systems.
Of course, while this action could be seen as useless, I saw several of the ships that looked very threatening, and the energy levels of several of those fired rounds were reaching the threshold of Tier 12.
The Hivemind probably wanted to test the waters before it would fight personally, or was it trying to drown us in pure numbers? Who knew? It could be anything. Still, I needed to wait until it showed itself, or in the case when it didn't show itself, I would need to lure it out.
I created a protective shield around Weissmann and me did the same, as the incoming rounds and energy projectiles and mainly that weird biological objects they were using as ammunition just tickled our shields.
Most of the incoming projectiles were actually just some kind of weird bio-organic matter.
The Bioships of the Hivemind typically used so-called living ammunition or often fired other insects as ammunition.
Still, seeing that the waves upon waves of the salvos they were sending at us were not yielding any results, after several minutes, the Bioships stopped altogether, and we were just waiting for what would be happening next.
I personally predicted that this would be the time when the Hivemind would be making its move, and as I thought, indeed, it happened.
Soon, all of the Bioships started creating something akin to a wall around us, probably some sort of psionic formation to either power up the Hivemind or just to suppress or attack us two.
Instantly, I could feel the pressure of the Hivemind, as it was directly attacking my mind; based on its psionic nature, this was the most common type of attack it was doing.
Unfortunately for it, I had cast countless mind protection spells, and during my entire life, I always put a lot of effort into being resistant, if not immune, against these types of attacks.
Even Weissmann was completely unaffected by it, aside from just a slight headache, but soon the attack stopped, as the Hivemind revealed itself in its full glory, seeing that its attempts failed.
It was hard to tell if they were genuine attempts of attack or just some probes to gauge our power, even though I was leaning toward the testing method. The thing was very intelligent, and it didn't have sufficient data for combat, so it was obtaining them right here and now.
The appearance of the Hivemind was rather a weird amalgamation of human and Void Insect; the Hivemind was tall, around six meters, with a humanoid appearance, though it had clear bug heritage.
"This would be fun... I hope."
I stated quietly as Weissmann frowned at me, but I looked at the Hivemind with the anticipation of a good fight and a good scheme that should be effective. There was nothing better in this world than to see how everything was going according to the plan.
"Chthonian Emperor and Arcane Emperor."
The Hivemind said in a raspy voice, which actually sounded like thousands of voices amalgamated together as one, which was indeed pretty fitting, considering it was the collective consciousness of the entire Swarm.
Both of us were ready for the fight to erupt any second, with me acting as the main fighter and Weissmann acting as my support. His destructive capabilities and survival abilities were nowhere near mine, so this was a logical configuration of force.
"You have played me very well, Devil."
So, in the end, it was able to identify that I had used it... certainly, the intelligence of the Hivemind was terrifying; even now, I could see that it was constantly calculating how the fight between us would go.
Because of that, we were having the conversation, as it was basically stalling for time or whatever. Ironically though, I was doing exactly the same thing; through my connection with the Architect as I was calculating countless possibilities for the fight to go and end.
"Indeed I have... you have to excuse me; that is in the fundamental nature of the Devil species. The scheming and plotting against our enemies are in our blood as using brute strength and power to kill those who defy us."
I answered with a smile which wasn't a smile at all, as I could swear the Hivemind's brows twitched in anger at my answer. Yet, such was the truth about the devil species; we were using our natural cunning and schemes to get victory in a combination of brute power.
I could see the Tier 11 bugs were exiting the Bioships and waiting for some kind of command from the Hivemind, as the bugs were too had their own plans in this situation.
Apparently, the Hivemind has learned from its past mistakes, and right now, it is more careful about interacting with me.
"If you allow me one question before we start the dance, why the Astral Boundary? From what I know, this Universe, while being particularly weak, is still protected by the Void Shroud and it shouldn't be possible to find its location from the Endless Void, not talking about entering it easily and huge numbers."
I threw out the most important and essential question in all of this worth of every soul in the Universe.
How the Hivemind managed to get into the Astral Boundary that easily because crossing the Void Shroud would generally require a very strong Tier 13 entity to achieve.
Void Shroud was basically a cloud of Void Energy that covered the entire Universe, making it almost impossible for anyone to enter it.
Surprisingly it was possible for the Tier 12 entities to leave if they had luck on their side, or they would be torn to shreds by the Void Shroud.