A pang of sweetness bloomed in his chest; the pressure emanating from the Great Array, once fully formed around him, struck Gu Xechen's internal organs, causing a minor injury. A mouthful of blood surged to his throat, but he forcefully swallowed it down.

Staggering back into the mothership, Gu Xechen recalled his Golden Armor Puppet, whose brilliance had dimmed, its Golden Crow Skyfire core energy nearly depleted. He coughed dryly a few times, then swiftly flashed to the bridge, loudly ordering Ducat to immediately initiate the warship's escape. Observing the effect through the display screen, the massive Demon-Subduing Heavenly Thunder Array was slowly sinking into the depths of the Sun. At this rate, it would be swallowed by the star in about a day, triggering the boundless lightning contained within.

The fleet tore through several high-floating Sun Baits and rapidly neared the planet controlled by the Second Roman Kingdom. Gu Xechen summoned the Water Venerable, seized from the Heath Empire, and vast quantities of True Origin Mystic Water manifested as a hazy black mist enveloping the colossal mothership. The fleet evaded the alarm systems set up by the Romans... gradually closing the distance to less than one hundred light-seconds from the ninth planet of the Thirteen-Star Cluster.

The fleet moved with extreme caution. Twenty-one hours had passed since Gu Xechen deployed the Demon-Subduing Heavenly Thunder Array. In three more hours, the array would be absorbed by the Sun, unleashing the immense thunderous power sealed within. This energy was enough to provoke an unusually massive solar storm. According to calculations jointly derived by Xiao and Ducat, this storm would sweep across the entire Thirteen-Star Cluster, disrupting all normal communication and surveillance systems; every electronic component would cease to function for half a month.

Moreover, the solar storm's effects did not end there. The Romans' cutting-edge positioning and navigation systems would become utterly useless, and the vast majority of their vehicles would fail to start.

For half a month, the Romans would be trapped on the planet's surface, unable to move. The cities of the Second Roman Kingdom on the eighth, ninth, and tenth planets of the Thirteen-Star Cluster would be completely isolated.

Given the Romans' pampered nature, once deprived of transportation, they would certainly not exert themselves by walking everywhere in harsh weather. For half a month, they would cling to their cities, ignoring whatever transpired elsewhere. In a solar storm of such immense scope, they wouldn't even need to worry about enemy attacks.

In the cargo holds beneath the super-mothership, ten biological production lines were operating at full capacity, churning out a biochemical agent supplied by the Thunder Martial Kingdom. Three of the mothership's cargo bays were already packed to the brim with this pale green agent, ready for immediate deployment.

This agent was a highly volatile, highly diffusive, and highly persistent hibernation drug. As its name implied, anyone anesthetized by it would fall into a dormant state, remaining asleep for at least a month unless awakened by external force. It was secretly developed by the Thunder Martial Kingdom specifically for capturing slaves on planets with lower-level civilizations. Using this agent, the Thunder Martial Kingdom had secretly trafficked the populace of dozens of planets with nascent civilizations into slavery.

Exhausting the mothership's raw material reserves, Gu Xechen finally produced two million tons of the hibernation agent within twenty-four hours. Under ideal conditions, another million tons of this agent would be enough to plunge every living creature within tens of thousands of kilometers into unconsciousness.

The mothership rapidly closed in on the ninth planet. Out of some instinctive caution, the Second Roman Kingdom had established its capital on the ninth planet. Of course, this was merely a psychological comfort, as the eighth and tenth planets could offer no practical defensive support to the ninth; it was merely a self-soothing mechanism employed by Heisuo Jin.

The mothership pressed tight against the ninth planet's atmosphere, poised to breach it. Just then, the Demon-Subduing Heavenly Thunder Array left behind by Gu Xechen erupted. A visible speck of violet-blue pure light burst from the surface of the sun in the Thirteen-Star Cluster, agitating the entire solar surface. A furious solar storm instantly erupted from the star's surface, visible, seven-colored intense light rapidly swirling outward in all directions. Within a mere fifteen minutes, it had swept across the entire Thirteen-Star Cluster.

The Papal State and the Pantheon Federation, being closest to the Sun, suffered immediate devastation. All their armed and reconnaissance satellites in outer space were instantly destroyed, and the electronic systems of every warship were obliterated. On the ground, radar and electronic command systems for air defense were ruined, and even the guidance systems of solid-fuel surface-to-air missiles were damaged by the intensely penetrating solar particles embedded in the storm. In just over ten seconds, the Papal State and the Pantheon Federation were thrown back into the age of gunpowder weapons, stripped of all high-tech equipment.

The First Roman Kingdom's outer space satellites were also all destroyed. Over ninety percent of ordinary warships had their electronic systems completely wrecked. Of the hundred super-motherships docked in space, more than sixty failed to erect energy shields in time; their electronic systems were thrown into chaos. Approximately sixty percent of all electronic systems suffered damage from the solar wind.

The Second Roman Kingdom's outer space satellites were completely destroyed, and over seventy percent of its warships had their electronic systems crippled. The super-motherships, already fewer in number than those of the First Roman Kingdom, were fortunate; only a small portion sustained damage. The remaining thirty-odd motherships retained some combat capability, roughly equivalent to the residual strength of the motherships commanded by Luo Yuehao and Pol Pot. As for the three planets controlled by the Earth Federation—the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth—all outer space satellites were destroyed. There was no warship damage. Ground forces sustained some electronic damage, but losses were capped at thirty percent, maintaining full combat strength.

After all, three hours before the solar storm hit, Ducat, as the defense commander of the Thirteen-Star Cluster, had ordered all troops to consolidate their defenses. Thus, the loss...

Of course, things couldn't be pushed too far. Ducat only ordered the space patrol fleets to return to base for repairs; he hadn't ordered the ground troops to raise anti-electric barriers. Otherwise, the thirty percent electronic damage sustained by ground forces could have been entirely avoided. However, that would have been too conspicuous; others would immediately realize the solar storm was connected to the Earth Federation. Why rush to take the blame? Gu Xechen would never do such a thing.

When the solar storm hit, the Thirteen-Star Cluster plunged into chaos. Except for the Thirteenth Star, which maintained sporadic communication with Paradise Star, the other twelve planets had temporarily reverted to a primitive state. No transportation. No long-distance communication systems. Travel essentially meant walking, and communication meant shouting—a chaotic state indescribable in words.

One thousand triangular fighters, shields fully raised, swept out from the mothership. Bucket after bucket of hibernation agent was dumped into the ninth planet's atmosphere.

As the capital of the Second Roman Kingdom, the ninth planet was home to virtually all Romans and their Spirit race servants. The two billion-plus Romans, along with their servants, had constructed nearly a thousand cities of varying sizes on the planet. The distances between cities were vast; essentially, every city was built to the standard of a scenic resort.

It had to be admitted that the natural environment of the ninth planet was not just a little better than Mars; it was superior by a factor of several hundred. The Roman penchant for luxury and enjoyment was manifested here to the extreme. They strived to ensure every individual had ample living space, and every residence required beautiful scenery nearby, leading them to live in sparse, dispersed arrangements. This, in turn, meant their scattered cities lacked sufficiently strong defensive capabilities.

The hibernation agent spread rapidly through the atmosphere. About an hour later, the agent reached its saturation point, and one by one, Romans collapsed, their eyes rolled back.

Gu Xechen instructed Peng Hua and the others on the Lu, said a few words, and then departed the mothership alone. Peng Hua followed, pulling out several storage rings and releasing the super-sized transport ships stored within. The black masses of ships hovered in the air like a dark cloud, descending upon the Romans of the ninth planet like ominous fate.

Gu Xechen flew over a Roman city of three hundred thousand inhabitants. He traversed it from one end to the other. With every slight flick and tremor of his Waterfall Sleeves, the roofs of all buildings instantly flew off, and the Romans and their Spirit race servants inside were lifted into the air, swiftly sucked into the holds of the hovering transport ships. The Hadwar mercenaries had already entered the transports, excitedly piling the Romans—sorted by family unit—like livestock.

Naturally, Romans residing in the same building were considered one family and piled together. But the Romans who had collapsed while walking down the main avenues presented a problem regarding identification. The Hadwar mercenaries had no interest in determining their familial ties; they simply heaped them onto the ground haphazardly. Naturally, anything valuable on these Romans and Spirit race members was stripped clean by the mercenaries. Countless meaningful Roman family crests and medals fell into the hands of the mercenaries.

Inevitably, some Roman noblewomen were groped by these mercenaries, but as long as they didn't push boundaries too far, Ducat, who supervised from the side, pretended not to see anything.

Looting a city of three hundred thousand people took only three to five minutes for Gu Xechen, given his Void Realm cultivation and his god-like Waterfall Sleeves divine ability. Gu Xechen’s escape light was swift; the hundreds of kilometers between cities could be crossed in the time it took to brew a cup of tea. Therefore, the total time spent attacking one city was about ten minutes.

In one hour, Gu Xechen, accompanied by the wolf-like Hadwar mercenaries, had plundered nearly a million Romans and a corresponding billion Spirit race servants.

And the Romans, having lost all means of transport and with all communication equipment disabled, remained completely oblivious to the pillaging operations of Gu Xechen and his crew. Gu Xechen worked tirelessly without rest, while the mercenaries aboard the transport ships rotated shifts. Half a month later, Gu Xechen and his exhausted crew, their vision darkening from fatigue, had plundered over four hundred million Romans and more than a billion Spirit race individuals from the ninth planet.