Nanket paused, taking a swift glance at his wife, who shimmered like a jeweled platform, then chuckled and nodded: "Bolbot, excellent work!" Even as he spoke, Nanket’s eyes were locked on Bolbot’s retreating back, muttering indistinctly, "Where are you going? Why didn't you report to me first?"

Gu Xichen's fleet halted in the void of space. A thousand black, perfectly triangular fighters detached from the mothership and swiftly dissolved into the spatial barrier. One hundred warships, each ten thousand meters long, engaged their engines at full thrust, and the protective armor plating on every gun emplacement slid away, revealing high-energy cannons already fully charged.

Ten super-motherships paused approximately ten light-seconds from Gu Xichen’s fleet. A miniature high-speed transport detached from one of the carriers and flew toward Gu Xichen’s flagship. A signal emanated from the transport; Bolbot was aboard. He requested immediate boarding for a face-to-face meeting with Gu Xichen.

"A face-to-face meeting?" Gu Xichen frowned from his command throne. "What is this fellow planning? Still, we don't exactly have blood feuds, do we?"

Counting on his fingers for a moment, Gu Xichen realized his conflicts with Bolbot had always been minor skirmishes—nothing like the deep hatred of a murdered father or a stolen wife. Bolbot shouldn't suddenly turn hostile. Well, he had beaten up Bolbot’s father once, but Bolbot had also dealt a harsh blow to Nanket, so that hardly counted as lasting enmity.

"Let him in. All non-essential personnel, clear the command bridge," Gu Xichen issued an oddly specific order.

The operators in the mothership's command bridge rose and departed. Dukat and Xiao, who had just boarded hours earlier at the Twelve Star Base, swiftly took control of the entire vessel. Rùnhuá nimbly pulled out a collection of clinking, jangling formation artifacts from his person and began setting up a defensive matrix capable of enveloping the entire command bridge.

This artifact was a gift from True Man Baishui, offered in ecstatic gratitude after Gu Xichen gifted him a Celestial Artifact. Baishui had won this secret treasure of the Xuanji Sect in a bet with the Sect Master back in his youth; it was named the Chaos Heaven Great Formation. Though portable in its diagrammatic form, once activated, its defensive power was not inferior to the mountain-protecting arrays used by some major sects, capable of easily repelling over ten full-power assaults from a cultivator at the mid-stage Soul Transformation realm.

Siren, meanwhile, with a massive joint dangling from his mouth, hurriedly left the command bridge under Gu Xichen's orders, rushing toward the compartment where Arydia was currently in closed meditation. Gu Xichen had gifted three drops of Innate Holy Blood to both Siren and Arydia. Siren, possessing the Dark Angel lineage, easily digested his three drops, boosting his strength significantly. Arydia, however, lagged far behind Siren in power; absorbing the three drops would likely take her a full month. She was currently meditating aboard the warship.

Gu Xichen allowed the wait only because he anticipated a confrontation with Bolbot, and any fight would undoubtedly be noisy. Although the Chaos Heaven Great Formation shielded the bridge, it offered no guarantee against those ridiculously powerful entities he had sensed around Bolbot previously. Sending Siren to protect Arydia was simply necessary precaution.

The transport ship docked within a compartment of the flagship. After a full thirty minutes, Bolbot finally entered the command bridge alone.

Gu Xichen swept his divine sense across the entire vessel. Realizing Bolbot had truly come in completely unaccompanied, he clicked his tongue in surprise. "Such nerve. You actually came to see me by yourself?"

Bolbot spread his hands open, smiling slightly as he inclined his head toward Gu Xichen. "Why shouldn't I? Do we harbor any deep-seated hatred for one another?"

"Ah!" Gu Xichen stood up, shaking his head with a smile. "That’s precisely the question I was just pondering. We only have minor disagreements. Looking back now, those past little conflicts mean nothing, don't you agree? Senior Brother, fetch some fine liquor, the strong stuff!"

Rùnhuá, who had just finished deploying the Chaos Heaven Great Formation, cast a malicious glance at Bolbot. He let out a strange, grating laugh and strode out of the command bridge. In his mind, Rùnhuá calculated that Bolbot’s aura clearly possessed strength approaching the Void Realm of Dao Cultivation; ordinary strong liquor wouldn't suffice to subdue him... so, he would have to find a way to stir up trouble. It was clear from Gu Xichen’s tone that he intended to tamper with the drinks to make Bolbot uncomfortable, which was Rùnhuá’s specialty!

Dukat leaned casually against a radar control console, watching the overly cheerful Bolbot with cold indifference.

Bolbot glanced at Dukat, then suddenly walked over and bowed deeply. "Dukat, my brother, can you ever forgive me?"

Dukat remained silent. He frowned, turning to look out the viewport, his large hand gently stroking the head of Xiao, who was bouncing ceaselessly beside him. Lily, hiding in a corner of the command bridge, cautiously peeked out and shrieked toward Dukat, "Don't trust a word he says, Xiao... these Romanians, every single word is a lie."

Bolbot sighed deeply, straightening up. He looked at Dukat's back and said in a low voice, "I apologize for everything I did in the past. But, just as His Excellency Gu Xichen said, looking at it now, what were those old conflicts? Just minor disagreements, weren't they?"

Bolbot’s tone was sincere. Both he and Dukat now wielded power they couldn't have dreamed of before. With such vast influence, the old, petty grievances could truly be smoothed over with a knowing smile. Bolbot felt they were big men now; were those trivial squabbles worth holding onto?

CRASH. The air within the command bridge suddenly blasted outward in all directions. Dukat spun around, his heavy fist slamming into Bolbot’s face like a thermobaric bomb.

Bolbot didn't even grunt before being flung hundreds of meters away, slamming heavily into the command bridge wall. He left a human-shaped indentation in the thick alloy structure. A crimson fist aura, thick as a water vat and trailing a terrifying, soul-shattering shriek, shot from Dukat’s fist straight into Bolbot, blasting a huge crater in the ten-meter-thick alloy wall. The searing fist aura caused Bolbot’s skin to wrinkle and crackle.

"I... I can forgive the insults and the beatings you gave me; I can forgive everything you did to me!" Dukat roared. "But you insulted my mother; you tarnished her honor. She died partly because of you and the mothers of your cohort... I will never forgive that!"

Dukat stomped his foot heavily, bellowing, "You and the House of Holsum will be enemies forever!"

"Damn it!" Bolbot, shaking violently, struggled out of the deep indentation in the wall. He spat forcefully, his saliva laced with golden blood. He felt his jaw and muttered under his breath, "The hell, you almost knocked out my teeth! That nearly ruined my handsome visage! What a terrifying punch; I truly underestimated you!"

After a few coughs, Bolbot staggered to his feet from the floor. He swayed toward Gu Xichen and managed a dry smile. "Will my conflict with Dukat affect our relationship?"

After a moment of silence, Gu Xichen nodded sharply. "If Dukat wants you dead, I will use every ounce of my strength right now to eliminate you!"

With a sweep of his hand, twelve Golden Armored Puppets roared into existence in the command bridge, their twelve massive hammers, crackling with the fury of raging dragons, aiming directly for Bolbot’s head.

Bolbot blinked, then complained, "That’s hardly the action of a proper politician... I heard you are currently the Foreign Minister of the Earth Federation!"

Patting his Five Water Dragon Whisk Fan, Gu Xichen lightly flicked the feathers on the fan’s surface, laughing heartily. "To hell with the Foreign Minister title. When my brother needs me, I am just his brother. It's different with you Romanians; there are things you simply don't understand. If Dukat asks for it, I will start a war with the First Romanian Empire right now!"

"ROAR!" Dukat threw his head back and roared toward the sky. A rolling wave of heat swept through the command bridge, causing the bulkheads to hum loudly. After roaring his fury to vent, Dukat broke into an honest smile, shaking his head. "No need for war with them, Gu. This is between me and them. You two talk; I won't interfere in this matter!"

Striding over to a long-range communicator, Dukat sat in the operational seat and began haphazardly tapping the controls. Several light screens popped up from the console, and massive streams of data, unrecognizable to Gu Xichen and Bolbot, flowed rapidly down the displays like blue waterfalls.

Looking at Dukat with a placid smile, Bolbot adjusted his attire, flicked his gaze toward Lily hiding silently in the corner, and formally extended his right hand to Gu Xichen. "Bolbot, First Prince of the First Romanian Kingdom, current Commander of the Romanian Empire’s Knights of the Roman Order, and Chief Military and Political Officer of the First Romanian Kingdom, offers you his respects!"

Gu Xichen perfunctorily shook Bolbot’s hand. He asked flatly, "What is it you require?"

Bolbot nodded and stated plainly, "Setting aside your position as the Foreign Minister of the Earth Federation, you are still a businessman, a mercenary leader, are you not?"

"Huh?" Gu Xichen frowned at Bolbot, then suddenly laughed. "Are you intending to do business with me? Hmm, that is something worth considering!"

Lily cautiously pushed two sofas out from the lounge area in the corner of the command bridge, then darted back into the lounge like a startled fawn. Her habitual fear of Bolbot remained—it was an instinctive dread almost coded into the genetics of the Spirit Race. To the Spirit Folk, the Romanians were akin to a lamb facing a fierce tiger; they were natural predators.