“Yes, they are dark regions. Regions the system was never in or that the system has cut off for one reason or another. The only power in the system is the power one brings with them.”

  “Why would anyone go to such a place?”

  She must have realized I wasn’t going to go back to sleep because she started to explain everything she could about the dark regions. The swarm of ships that had decimated the human fleet were the main cause. No one knew where exactly they came from, just that they were not from our galaxy.

  They also seemed to only serve one purpose. To multiply. This meant they consumed everything they could, and tried to consume things they probably shouldn’t. Entire star systems were stripped. Planets devoured as they consumed them. The last thing to go in the system was the star.

  Someone theorized that the energy the swarm got from consuming the star was what they used to get to the next systems. Or at least that was most of the time. There were rare cases of the star or system being left alone. Not that there was no reason for this.

  Those stars destroyed everything that approached. After all, there was little that could land on a neutron star or approach a pulsar without being destroyed one way or another.

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  Now, whatever drove the swarm seemed to have one major flaw. It could not innovate, research or do anything more than eat and grow. This left the universe in danger, but it did not directly threaten the network as it was out of reach. Or at least, that was unless the swarm managed to find a way to tap into the network.

  Taps like those used on a ship or planet. Taps that provided the energy one needed for any high-power applications. There was little the network could do on its own to deal with the issue. In fact, it could only cut off the lines in those areas. Well, that and give missions to those that were willing to help it.

  Of course, the system rewarded those that did any mission for it. Typically, in some sort of currency that could then be used to buy different things at a system shop. Things like access to different spells or blueprints. Heck, if you had the coin, you could get the system to make you nearly anything you wanted. With its advanced nanobots, it was able to create anything using the local materials. Supposedly even taking one element and altering it into another.

  “Is there any way one could get access to such nanotechnology?”

  “Hah, sure. The price is so high though that none of the races have it. Or at least none that have admitted it.” She had taken her time to tell me what I wanted to know, even answering my interruptions, I mean questions. I had more questions about the system, about the quests it gave out as well as how magic worked.

  My issue was, I had to go to the bathroom. I could feel my bladder and it felt fit to burst. Grumbling about it, I tried to push away from her. She didn’t let me go. I sighed as I tried again. “I need to go to the bathroom.”