CH 114.1

At dawn, after being disconnected for several hours, the Chu family’s flagship finally transmitted a message — they were suddenly attacked by a large group of Zergs after crossing the Smith Defense Line, and their communication signal was also interfered with by the Zergs’ neural waves, making it impossible to contact the outside world. They have now cleared the Zergs and escaped, hovering above the target garbage planet to rest and prepare to land to find the location of the teleportation field.

It wasn’t until this moment that Xiang Lingyun learned that the Chu family flagship had actually been disconnected. He had previously thought that Chu Rong himself had not received the mission and only led the team close to the coordinates of the Chu family flagship because he did not trust the Xiang family and wanted to return to his own flagship first.

But now it seems that Chu Rong actually trusted the Xiang family very much, which is why he was willing to let the Xiang family accompany him, rather than having Yuan Lie or He Hongjun accompany him.

After realizing this point, he felt somewhat happy for some reason, and then quickly suppressed this happiness, self-reflecting — how could he develop such a servile attitude so quickly after becoming a subordinate of the Chu family? No, as the head of a Great Family, he must be steady.

So, with a serious demeanor, he meticulously prepared a large amount of military supplies, thinking that the people on the Chu family flagship had just gone through a fierce battle, and their supplies might have been depleted, so they might need a little help.

Chu Rong accepted his kindness without any politeness, and then politely replied with a thank you.

Xiang Lingyun expressed his serious expression and said that it was unnecessary; mutual assistance in times of war was expected. But his back straightened a bit more, as if he were a junior academy student being praised by a teacher.

The weirdly harmonious and relaxed atmosphere disappeared after crossing the Smith Defense Line — beyond the defense line, the bodies of the Zergs covered the ground, mixed with some wreckage of small warships. The scene didn’t look anything like Fan Xiangnan’s description of a relaxed situation in the report.

Although the Chu family’s military abilities had always been the best among all the military forces, they didn’t even have time to clean up the battlefield now, indicating how bad the situation was at that time.

It turned out that the “escape” mentioned by Fan Xiangnan was just escaping from the predicament.

“Speed up and get closer, contact Fan Xiangnan again,” Chu Rong ordered with a frown, directly taking over the position of the Chu family flagship commander.

The officers of the Xiang family in the command center immediately acted upon hearing the order, their efficiency much higher than that of their own commander, which made the nearby idle commander stare wide-eyed.

Lin Zhen first dialed the communication of the Chu family flagship, but couldn’t connect. He frowned, then dialed Fan Xiangnan’s communication, still unable to connect. After that, he tried to dial the communication of Tan Shengwei, the captain of one of Fan Xiangnan’s squads, but still couldn’t connect. Feeling heavy-hearted, he looked sideways at Chu Rong and called out, “Commander.”

The two stood close together, and Chu Rong also heard the message of the failed connection. He frowned deeply, gesturing for him to continue dialing while urging the flagship to accelerate again.

At the fastest speed, they rushed to the top of the garbage planet. The flagship’s excellent scanning ability quickly fed back the scene below, but all they saw was darkness — the entire planet was shrouded in a thick, black cloud, and nothing could be seen.

When the scanning image was magnified, and the composition of those “clouds” was clear, they couldn’t help but gasp in shock — Zergs, densely packed Zergs, the things enveloping the entire planet were not clouds at all, but swarms of Zergs clustered together!

Seeing this, Chu Rong’s heart moved, first gesturing for the flagship to hover, and then contacting the various military commanders who had dispersed after receiving the mission.

The responses of the commanders came quickly. Except for General Neitaxi in the Empire, whose coordinates were far away, the other Federal military forces had all arrived near their respective coordinates, and some of them, who were faster, had already begun searching for the target location to launch an attack.

They had all encountered varying degrees of Zergs attacks, but they were not large in scale. With enough manually operated mechas, the soldiers quickly broke through the Zerg defense line and seized the initiative in the war.

Sure enough.

Chu Rong looked at the junk planet surrounded by Zergs below, his eyes gleaming with a cold light — the monster was most likely hiding here.

Before assigning tasks, he had analyzed the positions of each coordinate. Except for the garbage planet outside the Smith Defense Line and the Imperial border planet 56X where Neitaxi was located, there were more or less military forces stationed near the other coordinates, or there were other inhabited planets, making them less suitable for perfect concealment.

This time, the monster was seizing the opportunity to capture Qiao Zhiya. It definitely needed a perfectly concealed place to receive “food,” most likely within Federation territory. Setting aside the coordinates he had previously destroyed, this garbage planet outside the border line, which hadn’t been visited by anyone for decades, was almost the most suitable place.

“Speed up the destruction of the other coordinates, cut off the monster’s escape route!” he ordered, then closed communication with the other commanders, while spreading out his spiritual power directly downwards, breaking through the thick and sticky suppression of the Zergs’ neural waves, quickly locating the position of the Chu family flagship, and issued a command, “Everyone, prepare for battle and land at the target location!”

The intense spiritual power intimidation that flashed by just now made everyone come to their senses. Suddenly feeling bold, they loudly responded, “Yes!”

After receiving the order, soldiers from all levels quickly assembled, bringing with them the manually-operated mechas that they had only hastily familiarize themselves with a few hours ago, and gathered at the exit of various flagships.

Since the last battle, Chu Yan had not taken off his identity as a new recruit. At this moment, he also stood in the follow-up troops of the Chu family as a squad leader, waiting to disembark for battle.

“The Knight is very powerful. Don’t waste its strength.”

Suddenly, Xiang Kun’s voice came from behind. Chu Yan was stunned, shocked, turned his head, and then, when he saw Xiang Kun, who was wearing a new recruit uniform of the Xiang family, he almost couldn’t catch his breath. He nearly choked on air at the sight of the curious members of the squad around him. He hurriedly stepped forward, pulled Xiang Kun aside into a corner, raised his eyebrows, and said, “What are you doing here? And dressed like this? You, you’re not going to the battlefield too, are you?”

“I’m a technician.” Xiang Kun pointed to his chest badge, looked at him as if he were an idiot, paused, and suddenly said, “You only have S-level spiritual power. You can’t directly resist the neural waves of the Zergs and fight with spiritual power like your second brother, so the Knight can only exert half of its power in your hands… Chu San, use half of it, don’t just use one-fourth or one-eighth, and waste the effort Qiao Zhiya spent on the Knight.”

Chu Yan stared, his expression tensed into a knot, gritting his teeth. “Are you trying to sound nice before dying?”

Xiang Kun responded with a disdainful smirk, pointing to his eye sockets.

‘…Damn!’

Chu Yan was so angry that he wanted to punch him in the eye sockets, but it wasn’t appropriate, and his hand couldn’t lift, so he just glared at him fiercely, saying, “I’ll deal with you when I come back from fighting the Zergs!” With that, he turned around and returned to the team, his expression flat, not looking over here again.

While they were talking, the flagship had already landed at the designated height. After a round of bombardment, the Chu family flagship appeared not far away. The soldiers were almost ready to disembark. Everyone became solemn, standing silently, waiting for the hatch to open.

Xiang Kun retreated to the position where the technicians should be, watching Chu Yan, who was obviously a little taller than the others in the crowd, with a gradually disappearing smirk on his face, returning to his expressionless state, lips pursed, appearing somewhat indifferent.

With the childish expression of anger suppressed, the unrestrained behavior discarded, and a serious expression with lowered eyebrows and focused eyes, Chu Yan, who was watching ahead waiting for deployment, looked like a changed person. The military uniform fit him perfectly, and the sharp, murderous aura almost revealed itself the moment he straightened his back.

The members of the Chu family were born soldiers. Even Chu Huai, who entered politics, exuded an imposing presence when he picked up weapons. And this youngest son of the Chu family had finally grown up, becoming more and more like his second brother who had shouldered the banner of the Federation’s safety early on.

The new sword had already been unsheathed, waiting to be honed in blood to become another legendary weapon that shook the world.

The alert for battle readiness sounded, and all the soldiers scattered in unison, taking out their mechas and swiftly boarding them, then the flagship hatch opened with a rumble. Rows of mechas lit up with flashing lights as they started up, and then with a clatter, the hatch opened completely, and the steel giants floated in formation, one by one rushing into the sky occupied by the Zergs.

Xiang Kun’s gaze followed one of the small mechas, his hands subconsciously clenched, his brow slightly furrowed.

As if sensing his gaze, the small mecha turned its head before rushing out of the hatch, glanced back in this direction, clenched its fist slightly, waved, then turned back and rushed into the floating “clouds” outside.

With a rumble, after the soldiers left, the hatch closed, cutting off Xiang Kun’s somewhat dazed gaze.

“He’s gone. It’s time to go adjust the next batch of mechas. Sigh, tailoring the height and size parameters of these manually-operated mechas according to the soldiers’ physical conditions is really exhausting.”

A companion’s hand slapped his shoulder, bringing Xiang Kun back to his senses. He slowly withdrew his gaze from the hatch, raised his hand to touch the chest badge representing the technician, and replied softly, then turned and walked briskly towards his “battlefield.”