Endless Horde: Through the Eyes of a Godking

Chapter 818: A Ruse

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The Bug Empress has spent the past 50 years drowning in anxiety…

It’s not like she wanted to. She is being forced to feel this way because of humans.

50 years.

To her, or anybody who’s reached the same level of strength as her, this was but a comma—a very brief pause in their lives. This much time could pass by without her knowing. It’s not even long enough for a nap.

Originally, there’s nothing for her to fear about the passing of time, especially something this brief.

Alas, she’s troubled by humans—restless creatures utterly enslaved by progress. Creatures that don’t stop, won’t stop, and can’t stop pushing themselves forward.

The Bug Empress has learned the hard way what happens when humans are given enough room to breathe and develop, and she swore that if she could, she’d never give them that opportunity.

And believe her, she tried. She tried so damn hard, especially within the past 50 years, to put a roadblock in their way.

Whether through sending more of her children to the Heavenly Star Chaos Realm’s Dimensional Gap or other means, she tried it all.

But nothing worked.

With Gibson sitting at the helm of the Space Marines, her plans were being ruined before she could even make them. It’s like he’s accounted for every single thing she could think of using and had already made ample preparations for them.

He’s always several steps ahead of her, and it’s infuriating.

And those metal toys of his posed immense danger to her children. It doesn’t matter how many she sends; all of them end up the same—vaporized.

To make matters worse, the void outside of the dimensional gap has been particularly harsh for her children. They’ve been incredibly unlucky lately, causing delays in reinforcements and establishment of nests.

Whenever they try to create more nests, their progress will just stall for some random reason. It’s like the void was being especially cruel to them. It didn’t matter where they went, either. Even if they scanned the area multiple times before going there, somehow, at some point, they’d experience troubles.

The Bug Empress was especially helpless against this because she can’t fight it. This was just how tricky and unpredictable the void outside of dimensional gaps were. All she could do was to keep pushing forward anyway, because compared to the unpredictability of the void, giving humans more time to progress was even more terrifying for her.

The Bug Empress had been in this state for the past 50 years already, and she didn’t even notice. She’s been running herself ragged, drifting just outside of the range of Gibson’s railguns, searching for gaps in the formation to attack or exploit.

She so badly wants to stifle their progress as soon as possible that her anxiety just climbed to the roof.

Her children could feel this too, and it made them frantic and mad.

In the end, her anxiety didn’t help. Calm or not, the deed was done. 50 years have already passed, and while she’s running herself ragged, humanity has kept progressing during that time.

If there had been any spots she could’ve exploited in the past had she retained her calm, those were gone now. Gibson has successfully bolstered, reinforced, and thoroughly upgraded the defensive lines of the Space Marines, and they’ve long since been ready to hunker down for as long as they need.

The Bug Empress, immersed in her own anxious delusions, has completely missed this part. All she thinks about is figuring out a way to have her children harassing the frontlines again, pressing humanity into stillness and halting their progress.

They can’t be allowed to develop any further. That’s her verdict.

And Gibson knows exactly what she’s thinking. They’ve been enemies for so long that he could read her own thoughts back to her.

So, he gave her what she wanted.

To her delight, she discovered one that humans suddenly faltered. They slacked off, relaxed, and lowered their guards. As soon as she saw this, she pounced.

She directly dropped down nests and parked them right in front of their yard. She watched in delight as humans hurriedly scrambled to defend, throwing bodies forward to hold down the fort.

The bugs overwhelmed them, so much so that they suddenly found themselves back to square one—with the frontlines constantly occupied by bugs and their guns and cannons firing nonstop.

She watched this go on for more than a year without stopping, and only then did she finally feel somewhat relieved.

Just in case, she blessed the nests before she left, making sure that they would constantly produce incredible amounts of bugs to harass humans and stifle their progress.

As she returned home, her thoughts churned.

She thought that Gibson had finally left the frontlines. The space marines wouldn’t have relaxed with him around, so this was the only logical conclusion.

He shouldn’t be returning there anytime soon, and that’s great. At least he couldn’t do any more damage or help the space marines progress some more. With their soldiers permanently occupied, the Bug Empress can allow herself some space to relax and pay attention to other things.

But…was this truly the case?

Did Gibson really leave? Did the space marines stumble, slack off, and get a little too confident because of their brief reprieve?

Of course not. Gibson wasn’t that stupid, and neither were the Space Marines with or without him.

Gibson hasn’t left. He’s still there, sitting at the helm of the Space Marines Army, watching all of this unfold. And even if he wasn’t, there was no way that the Space Marines would falter like this.

Who would want to be stressed by bugs again? It hasn’t even been that long since they were freed from their constant harassment. The people who had seen what that period was like were still around. And without the tumors that are polluting the command, how could the Space Marines—humanity’s toughest and best guardians—falter?

But if they didn’t, then what’s this all about?

A ruse. That’s what.

A simple, well-timed, and deliberate ruse.

Gibson gave what the Bug Empress wanted but on his own terms.

He knows that she won’t really disappear unless she sees humanity’s progress stifled again. As long as the defensive lines remain clear and dominant, the Bug Empress will continue to buzz around like an annoying fly.

And while they could endure that, they’re also risking the chance of her going full-blown crazy over them.

As much as Gibson has prepared the defenses well, the Bug Empress isn’t one to be underestimated. She could deal some serious damage if she really wanted to.

That’s why, instead of having her anxiously flying around the frontlines, we might as well show her what she wants so she can relax and leave.

The Space Marines making a mistake and slacking off? That’s a fabulous lie they weaved. It’s so ridiculous that even Gibson couldn’t believe that it worked.

All the frantic mess, them scrambling to fill the gaps and desperately holding down the fort? All of this were lies.

The people who were firing the weapons weren’t even space marines at all. None of them were humans.

They were clay golems courtesy of one of Berk’s children. They created fake people to man the guns and the cannons. These fake space marines were extremely convincing, and the Bug Empress bit the bait.

Of course, not all of them are fake. There are a few real space marines out there, just to make the scene even more convincing.

On top of this, Urek dropped by and enchanted two clay golems to make them look and feel more real through his illusions.

Through this, the clay golems sold the act, and the Bug Empress finally left. The real space marines are now able to take a short vacation from their duties.

More importantly, through this, Gibson could hide his real purpose from the Bug Empress.

He’s creating a weapon that could actually pose a serious threat to her.

No, he’s not talking about the railguns he created in the past. Don’t get him wrong, those are nice, but at most, all they could do is hurt her badly. They can’t kill her at all; she’s way tougher than that.

Of course, creating a weapon that could actually kill a creature like her was a long and arduous task. Gibson might have to spend centuries or even millennia to complete one.

And of course, he couldn’t do it under the glare of Bug Empress. That’s why he deliberately weaved this convincing lie to shoo her away.

Gibson knows that this lie can’t run forever. At some point, the Bug Empress will return. She would periodically check the state of the frontlines in person to confirm what’s happening.

More importantly, she hasn’t forgotten about them—the Human Sovereigns. She knows that they’re trying to make a breakthrough. And she would want to see if any of them succeeded or not.

She won’t relax completely unless she confirms everything. And they have to be prepared for that.

But since the lie has worked, the next part would be easy.

’Fortunately, she could be so stupid sometimes.’