It only took a month to make peace with the bugs, but that did not make it a simple task. Worlds cracked and burned, wars were waged across dimensions and the factory and hivemind both expanded at an unprecedented rate. Some worlds stood before them, their own residents strong enough to withstand the bugs or outright destroy them. Others fell without a fight, either uninhabited or only inhabited by those too weak to resist.
In the end however a command bug was captured and it was forced to listen, less than a day of negotiation while the hivemind desperately tried to either destroy or free its command bug, fearing an attack on the hivemind itself. The talks themselves were simple however, simple observations that were made known too and explained to the command bug before releasing it.
1- It is the nature of infinity that the hivemind will eventually encounter something that will destroy it outright, and rapid expansion hastens this. Either they will die or they will find more enemies like the factory.
2- The Factory did not need to be an enemy, its pollution no longer harmed the bugs and conflict was only occurring because both sides saw the other as a threat, when neither side needed to be a threat to the other. They need not compete for resources or territory, as both are infinite. Or at least functionally infinite.
The bugs themselves were not want to simply end the fighting, the Hivemind however was willing to expand more carefully. Not taking any territory claimed by a sentient species, and not starting hostilities with anything. Barren worlds were common, and the Hive could survive upon them.
Hostilities however needed to continue, for the bugs would stagnate or grow weaker without constant conflict. And they were now smart enough to understand what a weakness that was, so they needed to fight.
The solution to that was simple, Nauvis would remain a battleground between the bugs and the factory, and others would be agreed upon by both parties. Limits were set, no weapons they couldn't control, nothing that would destroy the world, nothing that could harm the whole of either group. Controlled and safe violence.
It was one thing to say this was done, but it took far more work to realize this. Worlds the bugs had ruined had to be fixed, routes and portals from these worlds to the Enclave established and androids or other members or the factories burging empire sent through to provide aid and open diplomatic contact.
But it was done, and the Factory and the Hive began to explore new worlds together, incase of any true threats. Fighting across barren worlds or star systems, Factory ships bringing bugs to worlds they couldn't travel too, and the bugs breathing life into the barren worlds they visited.
They came upon threats, and adapted with each other.
First it was bugs fighting along with the machines, then it was bugs equipped with factory weaponry and combat vehicles armored with living bug components. A foe that could control organic thoughts meant there were bugs with cybernetic brains to disrupt control which lead into Balistraia and the Command bugs linking processing power and collaborating more directly in managing the bug and machine armies.
When the hive encountered a foe the Factory was there, when the Factory decided a species needed uplifting or a world needed saving the Hive would work with them, the lines between them fading as each worked to cover the others weaknesses and grow their strengths.
Not truly one, but not separate either.
More worlds were connected to The Enclave, which grew to the size of a moon, then the size of a planet which soon had its own moons to house even more people connecting the multiverse to an unseen before extent.
The Factory and The Hive took a lax approach to managing and uplifting populations as they always had. New species were given basic medicinal knowledge and the technology they needed to reach their own moon. A portal would be built there or on a space station if no moon was present. And they would have a portal to the Enclave only they could traverse freely. Preventing less scrupulous individuals or groups from invading the comparatively primitive worlds.
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That did not mean that either group was unaware of what went on in the Enclave, even if the Hive did not care they both still saw all that occurred. They simply did not intervene as long as the systems established by the various races remained fair and functional, only providing information on crimes to relevant parties.
Some more conflict inclined races would travel to Nauvis itself to join the grand conflict ever waging there, a few even managed to last long enough for either side to take true notice of them. But those groups were few and far between.
It was far more common for worship to occur, which was ignored as it had been when it was first noticed. They were not a god, but gods were not the only things worshiped, and the Factory and its Maker were the land and did provide to its people. It did make worlds on which people lived and civilizations thrived, they could not deny their own feats.
It knew of things that called themselves gods that had done and could do far less, and things that could do far more.
The Factory grew, for years, then it grew for decades more. And as the centuries continued it felt a strain on itself, on the core it called the Maker who at his core was still just a man. His mind, so expansive and changed, had hit its limit. Magical and technological enhancements were no longer enough to let him comprehend all it, all he, was. If it continued he would no longer be himself, but something Other.
It was something noticed, small things at first. Losing more and more of his humanity. Lives and Individuals began to matter less, even if he still knew everything about them, even if he remembered their faces, he didn't care when they died even if he'd met them in the flesh. More and more changes as the core of himself was whittled away, emotions lost and logic beginning to rule alone, until that too began to fray and only procedure and routine remained with bare threads of logic and emotion to tell why those things had been done.
It couldn't remain like that, so it reset itself. Not in truth, the frayed thing it had become remained, but a younger more stable iteration was created and all decisions were run past him rather than the core of itself, becoming its new heart. One that knew what it knew, but did not feel those long years that it had lived.
And when that one broke and joined the broken core a new heart was created, again and again and again.
When those hearts broke too fast to be truly useful, when the years it lived became enough to break its heart even whilst diluted? The mind simply added more, each tangentially aware of the others with different decisions and memories sent to each so they'd last longer. Not a perfect system, not one that would last forever but nothing did, and it would at least be able to pretend it still had a heart.
Its companions met a similar fate, either new or ancient, if they didn't elect to sleep eternal. It was reincarnation in a sense. When a new heart was made it had companions it knew to keep it stable in the unfamiliar world.
And it continued into eternity, bringing barren worlds to life and uplifting all that it saw. Ensuring that life would flourish and reach heights never before seen, reaching towards that ever higher peak. It would not last forever, but while it existed it would do all it could to let others do all they could, life was meant to be lived to its fullest extent. That was something it knew, carved into what little of it remained.
It only claimed a portion of infinity, it only beheld a fragment of eternity. But what was all that compared to itself? Compared to the people it sheltered and the lives it watched bloom? The Infinite was nothing compared to that, it made Eternity seem almost small.
If it had done all it could, then it had done enough.