"Damn it!" the grizzled leader cursed his mother, tossing a cigar to the 'battered' Gu Xiechen. (For the complete novel, visit Shiliu Literature Website)

Taking deep drags, Gu Xiechen puffed smoke and mumbled indistinctly, "Jieshi. The Holy Unicorn has deployed a Jieshi. My brothers and I couldn't resist them at all."

"I know!" The grizzled leader stood up, walked over to Gu Xiechen, and slapped him hard on the shoulder. "Rest up for a few days, don't overthink it. Missions fail; it’s normal. As mercenaries, you have to get used to it."

Taking a deep breath, the grizzled leader sneered, "In the two days before you returned, I already received intelligence. The Holy Unicorn actually has a Jieshi, and they dared to send him after us for revenge? I’ve already dragged this to the Military Department and the Special Management Committee of the Federal Council—this legal battle is going to be a long one!"

Gu Xiechen smoked the cigar down to the stub in a few gulps, rubbing his hands vigorously to crush the butt into dust. Frowning, Gu Xiechen stated coldly, "It wasn't just me who escaped."

The grizzled leader nodded, a hint of schadenfreude in his eyes. "A key member of the Asian Dao Alliance also escaped. We failed to silence the target, so they’ll have to take the blame! The Asian Dao Alliance has already started holding the Holy Unicorn accountable for this matter, but since they possess a Jieshi after all—and Jieshi have legal immunity—then..."

Shrugging, the grizzled leader looked at Gu Xiechen and sighed, "If only you were a Jieshi! That black crystal sphere, what a waste!"

Gu Xiechen paid him no mind. He certainly needed the Zakla crystal to stimulate his Jie, but he didn't want outsiders knowing he possessed one. Although he had successfully escaped Zurich, Gu Juechen knew he was alive, and it was necessary to keep a trump card hidden. Looking at the grizzled leader's thick beard, Gu Xiechen could only shake his head helplessly before rising and leaving his office.

The next few days passed in uneventful calm. The grizzled leader colluded with the Nine Nethers Dao faction to put pressure on the Holy Unicorn, and the lawsuit had already reached the Special Management Committee of the Federal Council—known colloquially as the Non-Normal Human Management Committee, an official body specifically tasked with managing, coordinating, and communicating among Earth's various ability users.

The lawsuit had nothing to do with Gu Xiechen. It was merely a power struggle between mercenary groups leveraging their backgrounds and patrons. At this point, Gu Xiechen lacked the strength to involve himself.

Lying in the medical pod, savoring the pleasure of his deliberately injured body slowly recovering, Gu Xiechen squinted, pondering other matters.

"Jack, don't disappoint me! I'll give you three years; let's see what you can develop into!"

Jack hadn't returned to the Ice Cap Base; Gu Xiechen had dropped him off midway. Gu Xiechen needed to gradually build his own power base, and Jack was the first chess piece he had deployed. "Hmm, this guy is shrewd, cunning, and skilled, though his combat power is a bit lacking, he should manage well enough."

"It's just the first trial run; it wouldn't matter even if he died." With his arms crossed, a sliver of sinister brilliance flashed in Gu Xiechen's eyes.

The viscous recovery fluid in the medical pod suddenly drained with a hissing sound. The pod's hatch was thrown open violently, and the stunning physician Maria glared down at Gu Xiechen, roaring, "You lazy bum! You’ve been lazing around the medical center for five days over these minor scrapes! Get out now! The brothers are out there bleeding their guts out, and you're here relaxing comfortably. Do you even deserve the sponge between your legs?"

"You!" Gu Xiechen, naked and furious, pointed accusingly at Maria.

Maria grinned wickedly at him, "What about me? Either get out, or I have a thousand ways to make you cry! I just mixed up a special aphrodisiac here, one specifically for elephants. Want to give it a try?" She flicked her five fingers gracefully, and a slender high-pressure injector twirled deftly at her fingertips, the sharp needle catching a cold glint of light in the air.

"This is your domain!" Gu Xiechen scrambled out of the medical pod in disarray, hastily pulling on his clothes. He shot Maria a vile middle finger before fleeing the medical center as if running for his life. It wasn't until he reached his own quarters that Gu Xiechen noticed with surprise—why hadn't he run into anyone on the way?

He checked the base's internal network on his bedside computer and realized that the massive Hell's Angels Mercenary Group had been completely deployed over the last few days. Several star mining company sites had reported sightings of beast swarms. Their company security personnel had suffered heavy casualties, so all ten thousand main combat troops of the Hell's Angels Mercenary Group had been urgently hired by the wealthy mining corporations. However, since Gu Xiechen had been 'healing' in the medical center these past few days, he hadn't received the notification!

"So much money!" Gu Xiechen stared blankly at the compensation rates displayed on the screen. Each mercenary earned five thousand Federal Credits per day, plus a massive insurance payout, and an extra one million bounty for killing an attacking beast. The prices these mining companies were offering were astonishing.

"Off-world colonies? Mines?" Gu Xiechen's eyes swirled. "These mining companies must have Zakla crystal deposits, right? If..."

Zakla energy crystals were strategic materials strictly controlled by the Federal Military; ordinary people couldn't access them. If Gu Xiechen wasn't willing to raid the Hell's Angels armory, he'd have to look at other options.

As he was mulling over this problem, the screen suddenly changed, and a dark-skinned Lieutenant General in a Federal Army uniform appeared. The black-as-charcoal general issued a cold, ruthless command: "The Aurora Power Station on Greenland has been attacked. Per the Earth Federation Mutual Defense Act, the Hell's Angels Mercenary Group must immediately mobilize all forces for relief! Those who disobey will be shot on sight."

A piercing alarm blared throughout the Ice Cap Base. The grizzled leader's curses flooded the broadcast system.

"I swear to your mother! I only have an Internal Guard Regiment left, and it’s understrength! Mobilize all forces? Where am I supposed to find people?"

After thoroughly venting his 'fondness' for the mother of the Black General, the cursing grizzled leader roared menacingly, "Evil Dragon, you are currently the only fighter in the base! I'll lead the team myself; you come with me to the Aurora Station to see what’s happening! Damn it, that's a large-scale thermonuclear power plant; it absolutely cannot have problems!"

In less than a minute, Gu Xiechen donned his Stalker III combat suit, equipping himself with as many weapons and munitions as possible without hindering his mobility. Five minutes later, Gu Xiechen, resembling a mobile arsenal, arrived at the base's largest landing pad. Dozens of heavy twin-rotor helicopters had already started their engines, their muffled roar painfully vibrating his eardrums, and the fierce wind nearly knocked him off his feet.

The equally heavily armed grizzled leader was hopping around near the landing pad, cursing. He waved his hands, urging squads of Ice Cap Base Internal Guard soldiers onto the helicopters, while simultaneously ordering the base control room to activate all of the Ice Cap Base defenses. Seeing Gu Xiechen approach, burdened by a mountain of ammunition, the grizzled leader gave him an approving thumbs-up, then kicked Gu Xiechen hard, sending him tumbling into one of the helicopters.

Dozens of helicopters roared into the sky. The massive rotor wash churned up a silver-white column of wind above the polar ice cap, heading straight south, flying towards the Aurora Power Station located at the northernmost tip of Greenland, deep within the Arctic Circle.

Crouching next to the grizzled leader, Gu Xiechen frowned as he looked at the structural schematic spread out on the leader's lap.

The Aurora Power Station was one of the six largest nuclear fusion power plants in the Northern Hemisphere for the Earth Federation. The fuel in its reactor, if converted into nuclear bombs, amounted to at least twenty megaton hydrogen bombs. If the Aurora Station were compromised, let alone the malicious detonation of the reactor core, the mere leakage of nuclear material would be a catastrophe.

"The Aurora Station's garrison strength is at least fifteen hundred men! Although they are the weakest C-class garrison units in the Federal Army, still..."

The grizzled leader punched the floor of the helicopter. The entire aircraft shook violently, nearly causing it to drop. The pilot cursed in extreme anger, but the grizzled leader just shrugged and made a face at the pale-faced occupants inside the cabin.

Gu Xiechen studied the complex blueprint of the Aurora Nuclear Power Plant and nodded. "That's right. No one inside the Earth Federation would risk destroying a nuclear power plant. It must be a harassment team from the Roman families. But the fact that the Military Department's Lieutenant General disregarded protocol to demand our emergency response means this harassment team isn't weak!"

Family harassment teams were a hallmark of the Romans. The Roman nation was composed of numerous large and small families who operated under a complex and precise evaluation system where military achievements and various accomplishments determined their importance and resource allocation within the national structure.

To gain more military merit for their family to rise in rank, or for the offspring of major families to boost their own standing, Roman family harassment teams frequently infiltrated Earth to launch attacks.

Major families formed their own teams, while smaller families banded together. In essence, they were like wolf packs harassing the Earth Federation everywhere, causing the Earth Federation endless headaches. The annual losses incurred solely from Roman family harassment teams amounted to hundreds of billions.

"It only took them twenty minutes to put the Aurora Power Station guards into a state of emergency, forcing the Earth Federation Military Department to issue a direct order to our mercenary group. This mission won't be easy!" Gu Xiechen held a thick cigar between his lips, slowly exhaling two plumes of smoke as he tapped lightly on the red dots marked on the Aurora Power Station schematic.

The grizzled leader's gaze shifted to the same spots. He forcefully tapped the map, then cursed his mother again. "I hate the Federal Mutual Defense Act! Not a single bit of compensation, just pure risk for no reward!"

The twin-rotor helicopters moved at incredible speed. The more than twenty-seven hundred Hell's Angels mercenaries arrived near the Aurora Power Station forty minutes later. ×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××× Here is the first update for today, comrades! Don't forget to vote and click... Votes, votes, votes!