Two hulking, eighty-meter patrol boats and three massive, three-hundred-and-fifty-meter-long Type-One transport ships lumbered out from the base of the Hell's Angels Mercenary Group. (This text is reprinted from Shilu Literature Net)

Nine pitch-black Earth Federation patrol cruisers hovered more than ten kilometers away; after a perfunctory challenge of the access code, they allowed Gu Xichen's small fleet passage into space.

The two barracuda-shaped heavy patrol boats boasted combat capabilities well above the standard. The Mustachioed Commander had paid a fortune to procure these two prized assets from decommissioned Earth Federation vessels. After modifications using parts sourced from the black market, these heavy patrol boats possessed firepower and maneuverability equivalent to active Federation Type-Three warships, though their defensive strength was slightly lacking.

As for the three Type-One transport ships, due to the inherent limitations of cargo haulers, the Mustachioed Commander had also spent a hefty sum on them, yet he had only managed to make them slightly faster than typical civilian vessels, adding minimal armor to critical areas, and equipping them with three small-caliber light cannons each on the bow and stern. These minor alterations granted the transports a degree of self-defense capability.

Gu Xichen was unfamiliar with piloting protocols; all operations were managed by the professional sailors of the Hell's Angels Mercenary Group.

The shipboard computers calculated the optimal trajectory. Utilizing the Moon's gravity for a course correction, the five fully loaded vessels gradually increased engine output. After accelerating for five days and four nights, the fleet approached two-thirds the speed of light. Upon a signal from the captain of the heavy patrol boat Cerberus, carrying Gu Xichen, the curvature drives of all five ships simultaneously ejected searing blue plasma streams. In an instant, they broke the light barrier and entered warp speed cruising in subspace.

Subspace warp cruising technology had been provided by the Romans; it was thanks to this technology that humanity had earned the right to venture beyond Earth and into the cosmos. During subspace travel, the ships advanced at standard light speed, but relative to real space—where Earth resided—their apparent speed reached a hundred times, or even greater.

After half a month in subspace, Gu Xichen’s small fleet burst out into a new stretch of stars. Orbiting a colossal, immense star was a chaotic band of planetary debris.

The Alpha Sector, located in the Third Spiral Arm of the Milky Way, was the first resource zone charted by the Earth Federation.

The Alpha Sector contained over a hundred resource planets, rich in the various rare metallic ores desperately needed on Earth. Currently, only three resource worlds were actively being exploited. Only one planet in the Alpha Sector, a small world roughly the size of the Moon, possessed a thin atmosphere and a primitive biosphere. Deep underground caverns on this planet were infested with powerful beasts based on complex, coupled carbon-silicon gene structures. This planet, designated 'Alpha One,' was the core world of the Alpha Sector. The headquarters of the Danube Heavy Metals Corporation was situated there.

Alpha One's excessively harsh natural environment precluded large-scale colonization. Only the Danube Heavy Metals Corporation's thirty thousand miners and a guard force of just over a thousand personnel were stationed there. Recently, the beasts from the underground pits had suddenly mobilized into a swarm, attacking the mining zones, resulting in catastrophic casualties among the thousand-strong guard contingent. Da Laiyin, the commander of the Seventh Regiment of the Hell's Angels Mercenary Group, had rushed over with twenty-four hundred mercenaries to provide protection.

Gu Xichen stood in the command bridge of the patrol boat, reviewing all the available data on the Alpha Sector. It was easy to imagine the significance of discovering a new wormhole in this sector. A new planet, viable for mass colonization, would inevitably ignite a frenzy to develop the Alpha Sector. According to Earth Federation law, once the Hell's Angels Mercenary Group secured mining rights to one-tenth of a new planet, they would gain the right to exploit one-tenth of the resource planets in the entire Alpha Sector!

Danube Heavy Metals Corporation, merely by initiating preliminary extraction on three resource worlds, had already propelled itself into the ranks of the Federation's top three mining conglomerates!

Gu Xichen clasped his hands behind his back and issued an order: "Tell Da Laiyin to find an excuse to gather half our brothers here to rendezvous. Do this without arousing suspicion among the Danube Heavy Metals people."

The five ships concealed themselves behind a derelict asteroid, ensuring that Alpha One's sensors would not detect their arrival. Less than two hours after Gu Xichen's command was relayed, a massive transport ship—unique to the mining corporation and exceeding five hundred meters in length—arrived, escorted by one heavy patrol boat, three light patrol boats, and six fast attack skiffs.

Gu Xichen's patrol boat docked with Da Laiyin's vessel, and Da Laiyin arrived with several officers from the Seventh Regiment to meet with Gu Xichen.

"Vice Commander!" Da Laiyin, a sturdy figure built like a lion despite his short stature, saluted Gu Xichen. The two deputy commanders of the Seventh Regiment behind him regarded Gu Xichen with an air of studied indifference.

Gu Xichen studied Da Laiyin for a moment before stating coldly, "Beard Uncle put me in charge of everything here. Our Mercenary Group will conduct initial surveys of this planet and establish an advance base on it. As long as we are the first to set up our base here and transmit the survey data back to Earth immediately, we secure one-tenth of this planet and the surrounding star territory! Any issues?"

Da Laiyin snapped to attention: "No issues!"

A staff officer behind Da Laiyin spoke up with lukewarm indifference, "With just the three thousand of us, how are we supposed to survey a new planet? Don't forget how many lives were lost during the initial surveys of the Federation's current colony worlds! I maintain my position: report this news to the Federation now. The Federation's bonus will be enough for all our brothers to retire comfortably."

Another deputy laughed coldly, "Of course, we concede that if we successfully survey this planet, our brothers will earn even greater rewards. But the risk is too high!"

Gu Xichen fixed his gaze on the two deputies, who met his stare with matching coldness. Gu Xichen shook his head and asked Da Laiyin, "Da Laiyin, you lead the Seventh Regiment. Are you afraid of danger?"

Da Laiyin took several deep breaths and nervously shook his head. "Fortune favors the bold, Vice Commander. We are mercenaries; we gamble our lives for gain—that is our nature."

"Then, I will make the decision!" Gu Xichen declared resolutely. "Everyone follow my orders: we are heading to that planet to establish an advance base and conduct a preliminary survey. Caution is paramount in all actions. If we discover any native aliens on the surface, we should strive to coexist peacefully with them!"

Gu Xichen pursed his lips and smiled faintly, "Hopefully, they are still in a primitive social structure. That way, we can appear before them as gods."

Da Laiyin and the officers behind him burst into loud laughter. This was indeed the most ideal scenario in interstellar development. A planet with a favorable natural environment and a large native population, if they were still in a pre-civilized state, would allow the Earth Federation to control them with ease. This would even provide the necessary labor for the initial development phase. Furthermore, natives were not considered Earth Federation citizens, meaning they would not require wages regardless of how much work they performed!

The two dissenting deputies also laughed, though their chuckles held a strange undertone.

Gu Xichen understood their state of mind; being able to laugh after their opinions were overruled demonstrated that their psychological resilience was quite strong.

"In that case, what about the movements of the Danube Company?" Gu Xichen inquired about the most crucial matter concerning Da Laiyin.

"They couldn't possibly know. The excuse I gave them was that we were hunting the beasts in the underground caverns, something they were eager for us to do," Da Laiyin replied with complete confidence.

"Excellent, let's move out!" Gu Xichen ordered. "Reinforcements from the Third and Fifth Regiments should arrive in seven days at the latest. We have sufficient manpower."

The two small contingents merged into one force, and under Da Laiyin's guidance, the small fleet reached one of the most chaotic asteroid belts in the Alpha Sector after three days of flight. Here, numerous meteorites whizzed by constantly, and interstellar dust ignited countless flashes of light as it scraped against itself in the void. The ambient temperature here dropped to a minimum of minus two hundred and ten degrees Celsius, while in regions where meteor activity was high, friction between debris flows and interstellar dust generated temperatures exceeding thirty thousand degrees Celsius. Each speeding meteorite left a dazzling fiery streak across the vast emptiness of space.

This was a forbidden zone for life, a hellish locale. It was difficult to comprehend how Da Laiyin, in his extreme boredom, managed to discover a new wormhole while piloting a patrol boat in such an environment.

Carefully evading dozens of fire streams kicked up by meteor collisions, and dodging the countless fragments scattered by the impact of two small meteors striking each other, the small fleet slowly approached the core of the asteroid field.

Rarely found here was an oval void spanning over fifty kilometers in diameter. In the center of this void, only thirty-odd scattered meteoroids of various sizes floated in the vacuum. At the very heart of these stones lay a pitch-black aperture that occasionally emitted vast quantities of far-infrared radiation. This hole was the most miraculous phenomenon in the cosmos: a shortcut wormhole capable of instantly transporting one to another star system.

Gu Xichen ordered the launch of several small armed satellites and magnetic levitation mines into the surrounding area, and hung three positioning signal beacons near the wormhole. Then, the small fleet boldly plunged into the aperture.

The moment the ship carrying him pierced the wormhole, Gu Xichen felt an intense sense of familiarity with something surrounding him, but he immediately dismissed this bizarre feeling. In this vast cosmos, so many things evoked a sense of déjà vu: stars, planets, small meteors—they had been witnessed in countless locations.

The occupants of the vessel experienced a wave of vertigo, immediately followed by a blinding light flooding through the high-strength ballistic glass at the front of the command bridge.

In the star field ahead hung a star roughly the size of the Sun, orbited by seven planets of varying sizes. Of these seven, the other six were unremarkable, gray, worthless rock worlds. Only the second planet shone with shades of emerald green and deep azure. The green represented forests and plains; the blue, oceans and lakes. From a distance, it appeared that the surface of this planet, twice the diameter of Earth, was over sixty percent ocean and about thirty percent landmass.

The planet’s atmosphere was extremely dense, at least three times that of Earth’s. Satellite remote sensing showed the upper atmosphere choked with turbulent currents, with streaks of visible white energy waves hurtling across the atmospheric top at speeds approaching sonic velocity in several dozen major streams!

Gu Xichen, Da Laiyin, and everyone in the command bridge involuntarily gasped as they stared at the terrifying data.

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