"Oh, N! Damn old Billy!" Medusa and **fu leaped up simultaneously: "You old bastard, you stole my experience points!"

The skeleton monsters let out strange, jarring laughter, pouring one after another into the mouths of the giant pythons. The next instant, the pythons' bodies suddenly disintegrated, accompanied by a fine 'hissing' cutting sound. The python bodies turned into countless thin strips of flesh and gushing blood that rained down. With dull thuds, thirty snake skeletons, stark white with not a trace of flesh clinging to them, slammed onto the ground. Nearly a thousand skeleton creatures leaped and danced around these bones, then vanished in flashes of white light.

Billy, wearing a white lab coat and thick black-rimmed glasses, the former lead combat commander of the Hell Angels Mercenary Group, shot out from the dense woods with a 'whoosh'. He leered at the thirty skeletons and grinned smugly: "Hello there, dear Medusa! Hello there, dear **fu! Ah~~ the air is so fresh, the sunlight so beautiful, what a delightful morning for a thorough dissection of a group of pitiful Romans. Truly magnificent!"

"Oh yeah!" Billy shouted gleefully, shaking his hips in excitement. He crowed smugly: "Federation Major General, Federation Major General! Hahaha, this credit is mine this time! Sorry, apart from the two freaks, Banruo and Mohe, I'm the third among the old brothers to get a general's star!"

"Damn it!" Medusa and **fu were so angry their noses nearly skewed sideways. The hideous venomous python glared fiercely at Billy, and the heavy neutron cannons mounted on **fu's shoulders began charging.

Billy stiffened his neck and backed up a few steps, shouting: "Rules, everyone must abide by the rules! Ouch, didn't we agree? Whoever snags it, it's theirs!"

Just as Medusa was about to team up with **fu to teach this old cheapskate a lesson, an urgent call suddenly came over the communication channel.

"Three hundred kilometers west, a Roman heavy armored brigade has launched an assault on Highland H1375! Brothers, first come, first served, a heavy armored brigade, and it's front-line reinforced! A full three thousand Romans, eight thousand Elven thralls, and nearly a thousand bio-beasts—lots of credit waiting for you!"

"Oh yeah!" Billy, Medusa, and **fu roared simultaneously, turning their forces and galloping west. Medusa shrieked hysterically: "A heavy brigade. Whoever dares compete with this grandma, I, I'll fight them to the death!"

Somewhere on the Thirteenth Star, deep within the command center two thousand meters underground in the core area of a massive mountain range. Banruo frowned, scrutinizing the battle reports flooding in from all directions. Mohe, wearing only a pair of small shorts, was running frantically in circles around the command center, which had a diameter exceeding five hundred meters, carrying a two-meter square alloy ingot. Glistening sweat slicked the floor.

In the cavernous command center, only a sparse dozen or so refined, scholarly civilian officials from the Hadwor Corporation were handling the incoming intelligence; all other combat personnel had been deployed to frantically seize glory.

Banruo suddenly slammed the battle report in his hand onto the table, irritably barking: "Notify those bloodthirsty bastards, I understand not leaving a single Roman alive—we can't expose that our unit possesses thousands of Jieshi and tens of thousands of Fighters and Espers. But they shouldn't keep accidentally hitting friendly forces!"

Sighing in frustration, Banruo continued: "In the past year, they've eliminated over two hundred thousand Romans, but they've misfired on over three thousand friendly troops. That even includes the former Sector Commander, Lieutenant General Rodman. This is not good, this is not right, this will attract the investigation team from the Ministry of Military Affairs!"

Mohe suddenly stopped, heavily dropping the alloy ingot on the floor, panting as he roared: "Big Brother, stop playing the hypocrite! Of course, I realize that phrase is unfair to you, given your objective physiological condition prevents you from engaging in that specific profession! But if it wasn't for me leading the charge that accidentally hit Lieutenant General Rodman and sent him back to Earth for treatment, would you have a Major General's insignia on your shoulder? Could you even command the Thirteenth Sector?" Banruo angrily grabbed a defensive grenade and hurled it at Mohe. Mohe snatched the grenade out of the air and crushed it into a useless lump of scrap metal. He chuckled sinisterly: "Alright, alright, it's just a few idiots who wouldn't yield the way who got caught in the crossfire, eh? Ah, accidents happen, right? **fu and the others are about to be promoted to General, and we're still short on authorized positions."

Nodding helplessly, Banruo narrowed his eyes and began calculating.

A year. A full year it had been. Banruo and Mohe, the brothers, had led their armies into the Thirteenth Star War Sector for a year.

Ever since the brothers led their fiercely formidable and savagely bloodthirsty comrades into battle, they immediately inflicted devastating blows upon the Romans. In just three months, the brothers earned their Major General ranks, and their army transformed into the 1st Armored Mechanized Division, totaling fifty thousand authorized personnel.

Hadwor Defense Corporation promptly supplied the brothers with fresh blood; the old guard from the Hell Angels Mercenary Group rushed over. The Siren secretly established and partially formed White Hall Knights Templar also secretly supplied the brothers with a large number of Espers, including many high-tier ones. Half a year later, although the army officially under their command numbered only fifty thousand, the forces the brothers actually controlled exceeded one hundred thousand. Leading this pack of wolf-like, fierce soldiers, they directly annihilated half of the Roman forces in the Thirteenth Star Sector.

The accumulated military merits of the brothers long surpassed what was required for promotion to Lieutenant General, but their advancement was stubbornly blocked by the Thirteenth Sector Commander, Lieutenant General Rodman. Relying on his backer, General Vagari of the Earth Federation Expeditionary Force on Paradise Star, Rodman even usurped a considerable amount of the brothers' merits.

Thus, a spectacular friendly fire incident occurred. The specifics have become an eternal mystery, but the result was that Lieutenant General Rodman, along with the upper half of his body...

The Thirteenth Star Sector had thirty-five heavy divisions of the Earth Federation, totaling over two million personnel including logistics and auxiliary units. After Banruo took over command of the sector, the opposing Romans were almost completely routed. However, hundreds of Earth Federation high-ranking generals and officers were 'accidentally' hit. These positions were subsequently filled by veterans from the Hadwor Corporation.

"That was too obvious!" Banruo shook his head vigorously and ordered: "Contract the defensive line, let the Romans gain some advantage. Hmm, we can let them capture a few key forward strongholds. Let them blow up a few supply depots ahead of us, showing a general collapse on our side."

He shot up from his seat, Banruo shouted harshly: "Recall all of Medusa's forces; they don't need to reinforce H1375 Highland. Abandon all six highlands completely. Deploy the special task force that General Vagari transferred over a month ago to the front."

"Brilliant!" Mohe laughed joyfully: "Should I go take out that special task force?"

"No need!" Banruo said calmly: "Roman reinforcements are also arriving; let them fight a dog-eat-dog battle... Send an urgent communication to the Ministry of Military Affairs, claiming we are under a ferocious counterattack and require massive reinforcements of personnel and supplies!"

He stomped his foot hard, Banruo sneered coldly: "Remember what the Boss said: we have achieved his objective, don't overdo it."

Mohe shrugged helplessly: "Alright, I'll listen to you, big brother. So, I'll order the brothers to put on a grand show of defeat!"

Suddenly, a military officer analyzing intelligence looked up with a strange expression. He coughed lightly and said in an odd tone: "Boss, the Romans are playing hardball!"

Mohe strode over to the officer and grabbed him by the head: "Damn it, we are Federation Generals now, call us General, stop calling us Boss all day like a bunch of riffraff. Hmm, what? Hey... this is really fun, Big Brother! The Roman commander opposite us in the Thirteenth Sector has been replaced by the First Prince of the Roman Kingdom, Hesso-kin'! Tsk tsk, outstanding military achievements..."

"Hm?" Banruo hurried over, quickly glancing at the intelligence, and his brow immediately furrowed.

The intelligence came from the Military Intelligence Bureau. The commander of the Thirteenth Star Sector, under the Roman Kingdom's 13th Consecutive Star, had been replaced—Hesso-kin', the First Prince of the Roman Kingdom, known as the foremost genius of the Roman Kingdom. According to the intelligence, this Prince had actually been leading the elite forces of the Roman Kingdom's First Royal Regiment into battle for a year, though he hadn't publicly announced his colors until now.

Only after a year of fighting, having accumulated massive military merits, did Hesso-kin', having gained the appreciation of the majority of the Roman Kingdom's ruling officials, finally declare his presence and arrive at the Thirteenth Star, already known as the 'Hell Battlefield.' With Hesso-kin's arrival, not only did the thirty elite regiments of the Roman First Royal Regiment accompany him, but also five hundred of the Romans' newest manufactured first-class warships—new-model first-class warships reaching two thousand one hundred meters in length.

And Hesso-kin's adjutant was also familiar to Banruo and Mohe—the most outstanding young man of the current generation from the Roman Kingdom's Tenth Electoral Family, the Menopoulos Family, Borphus Menopoulos! This fellow had consistently followed Hesso-kin', also accumulating vast military merits on the battlefield.

"So that's how it is, then, Highland H1375..."

While Banruo was still pondering, the comprehensive command platform in the command center suddenly lit up with over thirty screens simultaneously. All thirty-plus highlands in the Thirteenth Star Sector controlled by the Earth Federation Army were attacked at once. Ear-piercing alarms blared continuously, and streams of real-time battlefield information rapidly scrolled across the screens.