Yang Ying kept his word. He immediately addressed Idini, "Tell the rebels to immediately lay down their arms and surrender. I will have the entire army cooperate by broadcasting the final communication through loudspeakers."

"Understood." Idini paused for a moment, then spoke in Flinnian: "Soldiers, your battle is over. Put down your weapons quickly and surrender. In doing so, your lives will be spared." She then rephrased the meaning in Singerian.

"Too long," Yang Ying stated without hesitation. "Those routed troops won't have the patience to listen to the whole thing. Shorten it. Just tell them to drop their weapons, raise their hands above their heads, and surrender for their lives to be spared."

"Oh." Idini lowered her head and rephrased it in Flinnian once more.

This version was much briefer. Yang Ying had the message recorded and then broadcast it on a loop to the rebels using the military's onboard loudspeakers.

The attempt to persuade them to surrender indeed yielded results. Many rebel soldiers discarded their weapons and raised their hands, surrendering to the nearest Marines.

However, the battle robots remained on the field. Their remaining total was still around five hundred thousand. Unable to withdraw into the hidden armories, they turned around and resumed their tireless resistance.

Seeing this from the air, Yang Ying said to Idini, "Those robots refuse to surrender. It must be because of that base. If you want to negotiate—" Before he could finish, Idini cut in, "I know. Let me go and negotiate with the base commander."

Yang Ying nodded, arranging for Idini to establish contact with the rebel base. Meanwhile, he swung the nose of his aircraft back toward the Behemoth in space, leaving the follow-up work on the battlefield to the twelve clones led by Blade.

Meanwhile, inside the rebel base.

"Lord Walker, the invaders have sent a communication request."

"Connect it. Let me hear what they have to say."

The staff officer pressed a button on the control panel, and Idini's image appeared on the main screen.

"Hmph. A mere young girl, without even a single scale fully grown. She thinks she can negotiate with me? Do you underestimate Lord Walker this much?" Upon seeing Idini, Walker immediately felt slighted and flared up in anger.

Walker himself was a second-level psychic, possessing considerable gravitas in his every gesture, which caused Idini's breathing to catch. She had never conducted such a critical negotiation on a battlefield before, and she felt a surge of nervousness. Fortunately, having served as a lady-in-waiting in the palace, she had seen her share of high-stakes situations and quickly regained her composure.

"I am General Walker. If you wish others not to look down on you, you must also exhibit strength that cannot be overlooked. Looking at today's battle results, tell me yourself—do you think you deserve to be looked down upon?"

Idini avoided explaining that she didn't look down on him; instead, she adopted an imposing stance—I look down on you, a defeated general, so what are you going to do about it? The side at a disadvantage on the battlefield wasn't hers. Where would a victor beg a loser for a ceasefire?

Smash!

Walker slammed his fist heavily on the table and roared, "Are you here specifically to insult me?"

Idini put on an air of cold arrogance. "Certainly not. I am here to point out a way out for you."

"A way out?" Walker could guess what that way out was just by thinking about it with his heel tapping the floor. "You mean, surrender to you? Abandon our honor as soldiers?"

"Your honor vanished the day you betrayed the Kingdom! What honor are you even talking about?" Idini chided sharply. "If it weren't to minimize the bloodshed and prevent our kinsmen from losing their lives over this pointless war, I wouldn't even bother fighting for this path for you! I command you to immediately shut down all combat robots and surrender with the remaining officers and soldiers in this base. This is your only path to survival. If you refuse and choose to keep fighting, only death awaits you! I advise you not to throw away this chance for a petty matter of pride."

"Even if the entire army dies fighting, I will not surrender because of the words of a mere girl!" Walker shouted in a fit of pique.

The Chief of Staff approached him from behind and whispered, "Lord Walker, perhaps we should reconsider? If we keep fighting, there is absolutely no hope of victory. Their artillery fire is too intense; it's a guaranteed death sentence."

"Insolent fool!" Walker kicked the Chief of Staff away. He then barked at two nearby staff officers, "Confine this man to the brig. No one is to contact him. To speak such demoralizing words during wartime is outright treason!" He pointed at the Chief of Staff. "As long as I am here, I will not allow you to run rampant and lead my army back to that rotten, backward Kingdom! I will also report this to the Military Commission and have you and your entire family executed! It is a disgrace to me that a traitor like you serves in the same base!"

"You, you..." Idini pointed at Walker's furious expression. She hadn't expected Walker to be such a die-hard loyalist of the pseudo-Republic, rooted deep in his very bones. "You will certainly face judgment for this! Are you planning to take everyone in this base down with you?"

"Your firepower may be immense, but we have the will of the twelve sons of Flinn as our weapon. We are willing to sacrifice for the Flinn Nation, and I believe every soldier here would be more than willing!" Walker said menacingly.

"Nonsense! The soldiers outside the base have already started surrendering. How can you speak of willing sacrifice? Do not impose your will on them!"

"Silence them! Those cowards who cling to life will face the most severe punishment. Even their parents, wives, and children will face the harshest penalties! Their entire family will pay the price for their cowardice!"

As he spoke, Walker scanned his surroundings with blood-red eyes. The surrounding staff officers had been leaning towards surrender, but seeing the killing intent in Walker's eyes, they immediately lowered their heads, daring not to mention surrender again.

Although there were other tunnels leading to the underground armories, and the previous fifty gates were only a portion of them, Walker knew that even if he opened these armories, the light pillars from the sky would quickly destroy them, rendering the opening useless. It was better to keep them sealed, perhaps for future use.

"That stubborn fool," Idini muttered through clenched teeth, gnashing her silver teeth in frustration.

While she was negotiating with Walker, 4D, who was eavesdropping from a corner of the bridge, muttered to himself upon hearing their argument, "This person is truly barbaric, more contemptuous of life than the five hundred and sixty-two cannibalistic races I know of. At least they would raise the unnecessary ones like livestock for storage before eating them, not kill them pointlessly."

Just then, the bridge hatch opened, and Yang Ying walked in. He spotted 4D in the corner and asked, "4D, how did the surrender negotiations go?"

"A complete mess, Master," 4D shook his head. "The supreme commander of that base, Walker, is stubbornly insane."

As 4D recounted the negotiation process, Yang Ying frowned. He looked ahead to see Idini still arguing with Walker, who then let out a few cold snorts and severed the communication. Idini was so angry she nearly threw the paper cup holding her milkshake across the room.

Yang Ying shook his head, returned to his seat, and said, "Given the current situation, there's no hope of persuasion."

Idini returned to her seat, saying, "A foul temper, stubborn, and cruel. I've heard there are many such characters among the rebels, but this is the first time I've met one today."

"If that’s the case, we'll have to use the old method."

"What method?" Idini asked curiously.

Yang Ying paused for a moment. "Fight our way in!"

On the ground below, twelve specially modified Ghost fighters flew over the rebel base. The cockpits suddenly opened, and the twelve clones leaped out, falling downward under the pull of gravity. The Ghost fighters had already switched to autopilot, their canopies sealing shut as they began to patrol the skies.

Led by Blade, the twelve clones landed on the ground. Before them was the entrance to a tunnel leading into the underground armory. Since it had been hit by the Yamato Cannon, the entrance had been blocked by lava and molten steel, which had now cooled and solidified, sealing the passage tightly.

During this time, the Observers had already analyzed the structure of the underground base using X-ray vision, determining the locations of the armories and command centers.

Directly in front of the twelve clones was the weakest sealed point among the twenty tunnel entrances within the base, only two to three meters thick—easy to breach with just two or three passes of a cutting beam.

Blade stepped forward, drawing his golden lightsaber and plunging the tip into the seal, beginning to cut a circle.

After the span of a single breath, a golden blade suddenly pierced through the seal on the other side. After carving a circle, a foot kicked the opening clear, and a shaft of sunlight suddenly streamed in.

Blade and the other eleven clones burst into the rebel base's underground. Once inside, the twelve immediately scattered, their figures flickering as they moved toward the command center via short-range teleportation.

Walker was currently roaring in the command center, demanding that everyone in the base hold their positions and fight for honor and freedom. He declared that anyone attempting the "crime of treason"—such as retreating in the face of the enemy or even surrendering—was betraying the entire race, and anyone could execute them on the spot. Their families would also be executed as the families of traitors.

It was hard to discern any flavor of honor or freedom in these words, but the staff officers had already resigned themselves to their fate; at best, they would sacrifice their lives on Dolon Star to avoid being executed by their own people and implicating their families. If they dared to resist, the Chief of Staff was their example.

Walker seemed uneasy about his staff officers. He transferred a squad of high-grade combat robots from elsewhere to act as his personal bodyguards. Throughout the entire base, only Walker possessed supreme command over all robot units. Some staff officers who harbored rebellious thoughts immediately fell silent when they saw the red light flashing in the robots' optics and watched them occupy key positions in the command center. They could only suppress their thoughts and adopt a subservient demeanor outwardly to protect themselves. If you wish to know what happens next, please log in to Xinzhu for more chapters, support the author, and support legitimate reading!