Finished. "Bravo!" Blade proclaimed, raising a hand as if to salute the conclusion of the performance. Yafey smiled faintly, acknowledging the compliment.

A flash of light illuminated the command center as Yang Ying materialized. In the time since, he had toured hundreds of raw material depots, successfully gathering over three billion tons of rare resources—a harvest unlike any seen before.

The scarce resources intercepted from Flyn Kingdom two years prior, taken from Fiann, amounted to less than a quarter of this haul, yet they had been sufficient to expand the Trannyu'an fleet to two hundred thousand warships. This new acquisition alone guaranteed an expansion to one million.

"Your Excellency Yafey," Yang Ying stated, "we owe this success to your song. Our forces were spared the necessity of risking sacrifice to assault the fortress. This battle owes much to your contribution."

"I simply wished to avoid unnecessary bloodshed," Yafey replied with a chuckle. "This fortress is taken, but Koor Star lies ahead. I must return to consult with the others on the next operational plan. Would you two care to join?"

"Very well," Yang Ying agreed. "To thoroughly eliminate the Kusta Star people in the Dida Star Sector, thorough planning is essential."

In the Berkeley Star Sector, since the capital star of the Burke Empire fell to the Protoss, the empire had begun to fracture. With the disappearance of the Imperial family and the cabinet ministers, the enfeoffed royal relatives and local great nobles had all declared independence. They pooled their depleted fortunes to form an allied army, agreeing that whoever contributed the most to driving the Protoss out of the Berkeley Sector would inherit the throne.

Faced with this disintegration, the Supreme Council, after reviewing the counsel of frontline commanders like Gaber and Tyrot, decided on a preemptive strike, aiming directly at the largest noble houses.

The first target was the acting leader of the alliance, Prince Kuntadar, the full brother of the Burke Emperor. He commanded the domain of an entire planet. Following the fall of the capital, he had dispatched envoys far and wide, rallying numerous great nobles to support his bid for the throne as the new Burke Emperor. The concept of the noble alliance itself had originated with him.

Prince Kuntadar was a man of immense ambition. His home world was named Kuntadar. Within his domain, he held absolute authority over the economy, military, and personnel—a power greater than that wielded by the Burke Emperor. The planet was predominantly industrial, possessing an exceptionally robust heavy industry base, capable of churning out thousands of assorted warships daily if all factories operated at full capacity.

Since the Protoss deployment into the Berkeley Sector, Prince Kuntadar had aggressively expanded and amassed military strength. However, every imperial decree ordering him to deploy troops to aid the throne was met with evasion. Excuses ranged from insufficient troop training to supply shortages. In essence, he had hoped to stand by and watch the powerful fight each other into exhaustion.

But when the Protoss actually captured the capital, Prince Kuntadar panicked, as did the other great nobles who shared his cautious outlook. The combined fleet of the Protoss and mercenaries was now nearly equal in strength to the entirety of the remaining Burke Empire forces.

If they were granted a year or two for reorganization and recruitment, recovery would not be impossible. The logistics of a Burke Empire fully mobilized for total war were vastly superior to one caught unprepared. At that point, reconstituting a fleet of two or three million might even be feasible.

Yet, everyone knew the Protoss would not squander this opportunity or grant them time to recover. Thus, uniting to the maximum extent possible became their sole recourse.

"Tell those shortsighted fools that today the Protoss target me, but tomorrow it could be any of them! If they don't organize a massive army to rescue me immediately, I will surrender outright! Let them all perish!"

A furious roar erupted from Prince Kuntadar's chambers.

The high-ranking officers, splattered with the Prince's spittle, lowered their heads deeply, silently cursing: He dares call others shortsighted? What difference is there between what those great nobles are doing today and what you did yesterday? Is it only permissible for you to ignore the Emperor, but not for other nobles to ignore you?

Had anyone in the Supreme Council overheard this exchange, they might have gained a deeper insight into the short-sightedness of the Burke nobility. By this point, even many outsiders recognized that unity was the only path for the Burkes. Yet, a great number of nobles still chose not to join the alliance, prioritizing their own interests. In their view, possessing an army meant they held leverage for negotiations with the Protoss; surrendering that military command to Prince Kuntadar would likely mean never getting it back.

In times of chaos, command of the military was paramount. These great nobles preferred being labeled shortsighted over facing the terror of losing control of their armies.

Those armies were their private forces, the accumulation of generations, sometimes dozens of generations, of accumulated family wealth—assets that absolutely could not be relinquished. This was a pervasive sentiment among the great houses.

In the end, only two hundred thousand fleet assets arrived to support Prince Kuntadar, coupled with the Prince's own fifty thousand private troops, totaling just two hundred and fifty thousand.

They faced a combined fleet composed of fifty thousand carriers and five hundred thousand mercenary warships.

Although mercenary vessels were vastly inferior in performance and size to the warships of the Burke nobility's private forces, their mentality was their advantage. They had already captured the Burke capital and decimated the empire's main regular forces; what did they have to fear from these private armies?

Thus, outside the Kuntadar Hengyan System, a battle commenced.

The outcome was never in doubt. Prince Kuntadar's forces disintegrated after only half a standard hour. Nearly seventy percent of the twenty great noble private armies surrendered unconditionally. Another thirty percent attempted to retreat, but under the interception of carrier-based fighters...

The Prince's fifty thousand private troops fought to the last, eventually being overwhelmed by the mercenary fleet in a sheer numbers tactic. Prince Kuntadar himself was captured shortly thereafter on Kuntadar Star.

Following this victory, the Protoss forces reorganized their carrier fleet and mercenary fleet into smaller, scattered units, sweeping through and crushing the remaining pockets of resistance.

It was fortunate that all the allied races were occupied with their own expeditions, leaving no one to interfere, which allowed the Protoss operations to proceed so smoothly. One month later, the Berkeley Star Sector was, on the surface, entirely under Protoss control.

At the same time, the Gesing United Fleet had completely suppressed the Dida Star Sector, eliminating or driving out all Kusta Star people rule.

The Gesing United Fleet had suffered significant losses in the recent major engagements. While these losses were a mere fraction compared to the Kusta Star people, coupled with troop exhaustion, the need for warship maintenance, and logistical concerns, the time for respite had arrived.

The United Fleet halted its advance, beginning the process of consolidating its gains.

Specifically, this involved deciding how to reconstruct governance on the occupied worlds of the Dida Star Sector. These planets had suffered under Kusta Star rule for extended periods, making any hasty decisions ill-advised.

For Yang Ying, this presented an opportune moment. According to a secret pact signed earlier with Yafey, the Trann Corporation would become an integral part of the postwar reconstruction effort, intervening in every facet of rebuilding: resource development, the establishment of the new order—the Trann Corporation would have a voice in all of it.

Ultimately, Yang Ying had no interest in holding political power. Ruling over aliens, especially those in the Dida Star Sector, appeared to be a liability rather than a source of profit for the foreseeable future. The Dida Sector would inevitably remain turbulent; the Kusta Star people would not cease their resistance and would launch wave after wave of insurgencies, trapping any new rulers in a quagmire.

Yang Ying sought only more resources and more territories capable of providing them to expand his own military forces. His objective was clear. If he desired a ruling status, he could pursue it decades later when the imprint of the Kusta Star people had faded and the timing was more opportune. The most critical developments currently were unfolding in the Perseus Arm, centered on the Zerg.

After the eighty primary Zerg Brains launched with a total force nearing eight hundred million, they swiftly reached their designated target worlds. They descended upon the dead surfaces, releasing the Zerg armies to commence their conquest.

For the Zerg, the problems of conquest faced by the Humans and the Divine races simply did not exist. Firstly, their potential enemies had already been swept clean by the True Human Empire, essentially eradicating most lifeforms. Secondly, even if remnants survived, the Zerg had only one response: consume them.

The Zerg required organic matter; they needed various metallic elements as well, which could reinforce their chitinous armor, but subjects other than the Zerg were largely superfluous. The Zerg were a race tending toward internal perfection. If another species' efficacy fell short of the Zerg standard, consuming them—reforming their biomass and various life essences into the more perfect Zerg form, thereby achieving greater efficiency and one hundred percent compliance—was far preferable to establishing a system of governance for them to obey. Why not?

While the Human and Divine expeditions achieved their respective gains, the Zerg reaped the greatest harvest, completely occupying eighty planets.

In just one month, thousands of Zerg hives materialized across those desolate worlds littered with ruins. Although the devastation of war and pervasive contamination had caused a massive loss of organic material, leaving many planetary surfaces scorched earth devoid of any green, the Zerg were unconcerned. They were not delicate organisms; they could thrive even in the most hostile environments.

This was because the Zerg contained an entire, complete food chain, encompassing everything from the lowest producers to the apex carnivores.

Creep was the foundational producer of this chain. Under the control of the Zerg hives, the fungi within the Creep could convert various terrestrial substances into organic nutrients for the Zerg armies. While the Zerg still benefited from external organic matter, the Creep could sustain their most basic survival needs in its absence.

At this time, the expeditionary forces of the various races were entering the Perseus Arm, heading toward the formerly inhabited worlds.

After this chapter, Star in the Palm has surpassed one million characters. I urge everyone to cast more monthly tickets to support it. This book has been written for eleven months, and if nothing unexpected happens, it will conclude within this year. The time remaining for Diamond to campaign for monthly tickets is short. I was initially considering writing about the extragalactic systems after concluding the Imperial arc, but based on the current subscription rates, it simply cannot support a much longer continuation.

To write this book, Diamond has withstood considerable pressure from home. However, given the current situation, that resistance is failing. Updates next month might be somewhat irregular; I ask for everyone's understanding.

I must also apologize again. I spent over forty minutes contemplating this section, deleting and rewriting, wanting to share my true feelings, yet fearing that saying too much would displease readers. People read on Qidian for enjoyment; reading an author's frustrated complaints rarely brings happiness.

Again, my apologies that this chapter was posted so late. The third chapter will have to wait until tomorrow. Diamond is quite lazy; I must have disappointed everyone."