A tongue of flame erupted from the cannon's muzzle, the massive roar leaving Gu Xechen's ears ringing deafeningly. (This book is reprinted from Literature Net .6.) A fireball blossomed atop the watchtower to the left of the forward camp gate; five mercenaries standing there were atomized in the burst of fire, their bodies dissolving into bloody pulp. Shrapnel from the tower, mixed with gore and flesh, rained down with a patter-patter sound.

Gu Xechen eagerly grabbed a shell and presented it to Xin Jia. With practiced ease, Xin Jia flicked the cannon's latch open; the shell casing, still trailing smoke, clanged out. Xin Jia snatched the shell Gu Xechen offered and rammed it into the breach, then slammed the latch shut with force. He hit the firing stud, and another shell screamed forth—this time, the watchtower on the right side of the gate rocketed into the sky.

Two armed helicopters immediately lifted off from the camp, bearing down on Gu Xechen's position with palpable killing intent.

A single armor-piercing round was loaded into the breach. Xin Jia hefted the cannon with one hand, firing without even aiming, a casual blast. One helicopter was pierced clean through from nose to tail with a hole a foot in diameter. The aircraft disintegrated in mid-air, three pilots tumbling out, engulfed in fire and black smoke, plummeting into the dense forest below. One second later, Xin Jia fired again, and the other helicopter also erupted into a sheet of flame before crashing down. A torrent of burning aviation fuel splashed down near the camp gate, making the dozens of mercenaries scrambling to exit scream in agony.

Xin Jia split his mouth into a wide, somewhat simple and honest grin. He hammered round after round into the camp gate, sending the mercenaries trying to flee scattering like rats, heads tucked low. Several were singled out by Xin Jia's shells; their bodies ruptured in a blaze of light and thunder, sending vast sprays of gore flying out to engulf their comrades. The camp gate was instantly transformed into an inferno.

Siren and Aredia, leading the white-clad figures of the Dawn Squad, charged furiously toward the gate. However, with a hundred meters still to go, Xin Jia aimed with pinpoint accuracy and fired directly at Aredia. His shot was even more precise than a-level sniper using a rifle; the armor-piercing shell sped straight for Aredia’s brow as he ran at full tilt.

Aredia reacted with lightning speed, launching a fist-sized fireball forward almost the instant the shell left the muzzle. The fire orb and the shell collided in mid-air with a deafening boom, the resulting shockwave blasting every mercenary within a fifty-meter radius backward. Siren, who was at the very front, was swept sideways by the blast, staggering precariously. A high-explosive grenade landed squarely on him. Siren roared heavenward as a heavy layer of silver light erupted from his body. The shell detonated, sending Siren flying dozens of meters, yet he tumbled lightly in the air and landed safely, not a single hair harmed.

"Huh?" Xin Jia frowned from the depths of the jungle. "What kind of protective treasure is that? Hmm, looks faintly familiar... The Primordial Spirit is incomplete; I can't quite recall."

He hoisted the ammunition crates, piled into a small mountain beside him, and charged into the jungle with the cannon slung over his shoulder. He moved like an elephant trampling a rice paddy, deliberately leaving a massive trail of disturbance in his wake. Despite his immense bulk and the heavy load, Xin Jia maintained an impressive speed, keeping a constant distance from Siren and the others, periodically turning back to launch a surprise shot at Siren.

Infuriated by the bombardment, Siren and Aredia confirmed that Gu Xechen was alone and therefore relaxed, following the tracks Xin Jia was deliberately leaving.

The moment Siren appeared, Gu Xechen had already slipped away lightly from Xin Jia. He scrambled up a colossal tree, shedding the appearance of a brute at several dozen meters up. In the crook of a branch, he changed into a uniform belonging to the Holy Unicorn Mercenary Corps, then smeared his face with streaks of garish grease paint. Gu Xechen slid down the trunk with practiced ease and stealthily crept toward the camp.

With the high-level threats like Siren and the others pursuing the distraction, no one remained in the chaotic camp capable of challenging Gu Xechen. The mercenaries gathered on this planet belonged to six main corps of the Holy Unicorn Mercenary Corps, and they were largely unfamiliar with one another. Gu Xechen strode boldly, still smelling of gunpowder and carrying a sniper rifle, right into the camp—straight into the Hercules transport vessel being used as a temporary field hospital.

A few mercenary guards were posted near the transport's hatch, but their attention was completely fixed on the smoke, fire, and explosions raging at the distant camp gate. Nobody noticed Gu Xechen.

Entering the transport vessel with surprising ease, Gu Xechen couldn't help but curve his lips into a smile. But the smile vanished quickly, replaced by an expression of deep sorrow and distress. His steps became unsteady, as if he had just taken a bullet to the thigh. Following the aisle lined with wounded soldiers, he navigated smoothly downward, passing through three storage decks, until Gu Xechen successfully reached the vessel's engine room.

There were no guards in the power core, only a dozen rotating technicians.

Gu Xechen swept into the engine room with an aura of coldness, easily knocking out the technically skilled but physically weak technicians.

He went to the secondary auxiliary control console, expertly removed a panel, and pulled out eighteen wires from the console housing. Reconnecting these eighteen wires to the control panel, Gu Xechen quickly tapped out a 512-digit code on a small keypad.

A light screen descended from the engine room ceiling, and a virtual electronic face materialized before Gu Xechen. A wooden, synthesized voice declared, "Commander, please issue your orders!"

Like any arms corporation, the Gu Corporation had installed backdoors in every warship they manufactured. Gu Xechen was exploiting the most bizarre of these—using the engine room's auxiliary console to directly command the entire transport ship's master computer.

He pried a storage chip free from the tape binding his wrist and calmly issued his command: "Connect to the Federal Public Channel and repeatedly broadcast all data contained within."

A mechanical arm descended from the ceiling, and a data jack extended from it. Gu Xechen inserted the chip into the connector, then ordered, "After thirty repetitions of the data transmission, activate the transport's self-destruct sequence. Also, send the self-destruct command to all nearby Pangu-class master computers."

The electronic face remained impassive, and the equally emotionless voice responded to Gu Xechen’s orders: "Acknowledged, Commander!"

The data within the chip was scanned into the transport's master computer. Outside the bridge, a thick communication antenna slowly rose. The transport transmitted a powerful signal outwards at maximum power.

The signal swiftly traveled via a communication satellite orbiting the planet, deployed by the Holy Unicorn Mercenary Corps outside the atmosphere. This satellite relayed the signal to a relay satellite beyond the wormhole, which processed and compressed the signal into an ultra-high-frequency pulse suitable for propagation through subspace, shooting it into the wormhole. A set of three communication satellites within the subspace received the signal and forwarded it to the communication satellite on the other side of the wormhole.

That satellite broadcast the pulse signal to every communication satellite in the Alpha Star System. Because Gu Xechen was utilizing the public channel broadcast mode, the signal was received not only by the Holy Unicorn Mercenary Corps' few relay satellites in that system but also by over twenty satellites secretly established by organizations such as the Earth Federation Council, the Earth Federation Military Command, the Earth Federation Academy of Sciences, several major Earth Federation mining corporations, and other factions like the Asian Dao Alliance, the Vatican See, the East Siberian Council, and the Non-Human Races Joint Delegation.

These satellites immediately fed the pulse signal into the subspace communication satellites positioned at several fixed jump points within the Alpha Star System...

In just three hours, the pulse signal reached Earth, where the communication departments of all the aforementioned organizations simultaneously decompressed and played the data.

Five minutes later, a shimmering light screen appeared before all the major figures of the Earth Federation. They simultaneously saw Gu Xechen, radiating an ethereal, otherworldly calm, standing atop the crown of a towering giant tree.

Dressed in a complete set of Daoist robes and cloak, yet sporting a completely bald head, Gu Xechen remained silent for a full minute before raising a hand and pointing behind him.

The camera shifted, revealing to everyone an endless vista of primeval forest. The view then rapidly changed, showing herds of beasts moving through the woods, flocks of birds soaring overhead, and scenes of wind whipping clouds and fluctuating weather.

Gu Xechen's low voice resonated: "Fellow compatriots of the Earth Federation, what you are seeing now is a brand-new planet."

The planet's relevant data streamed across one corner of the screen like a tide.

The first update is here; more satisfying moments are coming soon... Comrades, send those recommendation votes pouring in...