Two clone soldiers shouldered open the doors to the Presidential Palace meeting room, and as Gu Wuchen stepped inside, he immediately heard a shrill, accusatory female voice leveling harsh reprimands. “Do you have any idea whose interests the Hans Chamber of Commerce represents? It belongs to the great Prince Yuri of the Hees Empire—Hees’s enterprise!” “Allowing you to become a vassal of the Hees Empire is the opportunity our empire grants your Vol Federation.

Many others covet this chance to become our vassals and are never given it!” “You, a mere president of a two-star civilization, what are you? Can you even conceive of the power wielded by the nobility of a high-level civilization, even the most insignificant knight among them?” She was a middle-aged woman clad in a deep purple cloak, topped with a crimson plume, and adorned with five or six large rings set with all manner of gems—a hundred times more nouveau riche than any upstart. She possessed no notable beauty; all she commanded was an arrogant haughtiness and the distinct sense of superiority derived from a higher civilization.

Slightly corpulent, she paced back and forth before Du Meng in a swaggering manner, her incessant, sharp scolding contrasting sharply with Du Meng, who sat still on the sofa, his silence as deep as an abyss. Unlike the withered and small figures of Du Li and Du Lang, Du Meng was tall and imposing, built as powerfully as the Dharma Protector statues flanking a temple entrance. A crisp, dark blue Zhongshan suit fit him perfectly, lending him an indescribable masculine aura.

His features were sharply carved, and while slightly rugged, this only intensified his robust masculinity. He sat firmly on the sofa, half his face obscured by the shadow cast by the curtains, which somehow made the invisible force emanating from him saturate the spacious meeting room. The woman, who was still gesturing sharply towards Du Meng, swayed as she moved, resembling a large, clumsy white goose.

Her gaze swept across Du Meng’s face without pause, like the greedy proboscis of a fly. Hearing the sound of Gu Wuchen entering, the woman immediately seized the long, thick fur stole hanging around her neck with both hands, striking a rather seductive pose as she half-turned toward them. The four experts in black uniforms standing in the corner of the meeting room instantly advanced several steps towards Gu Xuchen, adopting a posture of loyal defense.

Flicking his Five Water Dragon Whisker Fan lightly, Gu Xuchen shook his head at the woman: “Enough nonsense. From this day forward, the Hans Chamber of Commerce will receive no produce whatsoever from the Vol Federation.” The woman shrieked in shock, turning fully around to stare at Gu Wuchen with undisguised disbelief: “What did you say? Say that again?” Gu Xuchen waved his fan again, smiling maliciously: “We will no longer do business with the Hans Chamber of Commerce.

We pay no heed to whatever relationship your former president had with you. However, our current President is a good friend of His Highness Prince Hailis of your nation. Therefore, the Hans Chamber of Commerce will receive none of our products!

The mention of Hailis’s name was highly effective; the woman and the four expert bodyguards all changed expression simultaneously. The woman turned her gaze sorrowfully towards Du Meng, sneering coldly as she pointed at Gu Xuchen: “Who is he?” Du Meng stood up, forcefully clapping his palms against his lapel to brush off phantom dust. He boomed: “This gentleman is a special advisor to our Vol Federation.

Politics, economy, military, culture—in short, we consult his opinion in all fields. If he says we stop doing business with your Hans Chamber of Commerce, then we stop doing business with you!” The woman still attempted to use the influence of her backing to intimidate Gu Xuchen and Du Meng, but Gu Xuchen had already signaled a group of insectoid soldiers to enter. These cold, pitiless, inhuman bio-soldiers savagely lunged forward, shattering the limbs of the woman and her four expert bodyguards with compound fractures before unceremoniously tossing them back toward the battleship from which they arrived.

The woman thrashed about in agony, screaming threats of war. Gu Xuchen and Du Meng exchanged a look and then burst into shared laughter. War?

Against the hundred transport vessels and the dozen or so escorting warships, large and small, hovering overhead? Gu Wuchen tilted his head toward Du Meng, who muttered a few words into his communicator. Immediately, the trading fleet of the Hans Chamber of Commerce encountered a nightmare scenario.

A hundred unmarked warships, large and small, swarmed in from all directions. All ships moved at an impossible speed, opening all their weapon emplacements from a distance. Their fire control radars simultaneously locked onto every vessel in the Hans Chamber of Commerce fleet.

Faced with an overwhelming material advantage, the Hans Chamber of Commerce fleet let out a single, hysterical roar before raising the white flag in surrender. A horde of Hadwor mercenaries screamed as they stormed the Chamber of Commerce ships, herding all members and security personnel into a central location. These wolf-like mercenaries brazenly revealed their true colors: they were full members of the Broken Hook Experts Group, the third-ranked pirate organization in the Star Alliance!

They were deliberately seeking revenge against the Hees Empire because it had destroyed a covert outpost the Broken Hook Experts Group had established in the Hees Imperial Capital. Every member of the Chamber of Commerce was stripped bare; not even a pair of underpants remained. Regardless of gender, all Chamber members were cleaned out and tossed into the smallest, most dilapidated transport vessel, flanked by two 'pirate warships' that 'escorted' this transport ship out of the star sector.

The vicious pirate leader roared threats at them, promising that if they felt aggrieved, they should find their patron, Prince Yuri of the Hees Empire, and tell him the Broken Hook Experts Group was waiting. The woman leading this merchant fleet felt her heart nearly bleed away. These hundred large transport ships were laden with rare goods procured from the Spiral Star Domain, including substantial amounts of contraband.

The total value of the cargo exceeded nine hundred billion Star Alliance gold coins, a considerable income even for Prince Yuri of Hees, whom she served. She swore she would have revenge for this insult. Gazing through the viewport, the woman stared intently at the receding Vol Star, teeth gritted as she hurled the most venomous curse imaginable at Gu Wuchen.

Soon, something happened that filled the woman with stark terror: all the male entities within the cargo hold pressed toward her, their eyes fixed on her with menace. Accompanied by a shriek that could not be clearly distinguished as joy or alarm, the woman was surrounded by a throng of one hundred enemy Chamber members, and soon, roars and moans erupted continuously. Those damnable 'pirates' had not been honorable; after forcing the Chamber members onto the transport, they had tossed in several biochemical bombs loaded with the most potent aphrodisiac agents.

This woman was the daughter of an important figure within the Hans Chamber of Commerce; having suffered such a humiliating loss, she was certain to rush back and stir up trouble with her superiors. Gu Wuchen was precisely waiting for her to do just that. Gu Wuchen remained on Vol Star for half a month, assisting Dukat and the others in completely stabilizing control over this two-star civilization and establishing preliminary planetary defense systems at several key locations across the surface.

Fu Ya. Ming secretly transported three hundred large anti-air cannon platforms from Yafik Star to Vol Star. With the powerful mechanical abilities of Dukat and Xiao Xiao, these platforms were all installed and calibrated.

Vol Star now possessed the anti-air capability to resist an invasion by thirty standard fleets from a four-star civilization. Coupled with the super-motherships and other vessels hidden on several large rocky asteroids near Vol Star, this region of space had become a death zone for any entrant, even for a five-star civilization. Over a billion Earth immigrants had settled on Vol Star, beginning their new lives of propagation and rest.

The native inhabitants of Vol Star had not even noticed their arrival; all information was sealed, and the Earth immigrants resided exclusively on a vast continent designated as a nature reserve, maintaining virtually no communication with the natives. The Vol Star government, led by Du Meng, immediately established ambassadorial relations with the newly formed Yafik Empire. The Yafik Empire opened an embassy in the Vol Star capital and proposed extremely generous immigration policies.

According to the Yafik Ambassador to Vol Star, Mr. Linghu, the Yafik Empire was in its nascent stage and had a small population, thus warmly welcoming official citizens of the Vol Federation to immigrate. The Empire offered excellent material living conditions and superior job placements for immigrants.

The citizens of the Vol Federation went into a frenzy at the prospect of transitioning from two-star citizens to citizens of a high-level four-star civilization. Applications poured into the Yafik Empire’s embassy like snow, and Ambassador Linghu worked day and night approving them. A massive number of Vol Federation citizens soon boarded high-speed passenger vessels and were relocated to various planets controlled by the Yafik Empire.

All immigration was handled unit by family, with individuals randomly resettled, minimizing the chance of them encountering their compatriots within Yafik territory. Any city left empty by emigration was quickly and quietly occupied by Earth immigrants. Almost no one realized that the Vol Federation had changed masters.

Over two hundred million Vol Federation citizens, either willingly or through enticement, chose to immigrate to the Yafik Empire, leaving only the Earthlings on Vol Star. This entire immigration process took only two months. After two months, not a single native Vol Star inhabitant remained.

While the immigration project was in full swing, a small warship stealthily approached Vol Star. Prince Hailis of the Hees Empire conducted an informal visit without alerting anyone. When the visibly anxious Hailis appeared before Gu Wuchen, Gu Wuchen almost failed to recognize the Prince, who had thinned out dramatically.

“What happened to you? Did you suddenly marry a hundred wives?” Gu Wuchen teased Hailis. Compared to the Prince he had met two years prior, the current one looked like a dried-out reed, seemingly on the verge of mental and physical collapse.

Taking the glass of wine Gu Wuchen offered, Hailis slumped into the vast, soft sofa and gulped down several mouthfuls of strong liquor. After coughing violently, a faint smile touched Hailis’s now gaunt face: “I heard from a certain disgraced, foolish woman that my people caused her trouble on Vol Star, which made me suspect you had returned. Combined with intelligence I received earlier regarding the Yafik Empire...

Heh, that name sounds pleasant. I knew you had returned.” Gu Wuchen sat across from Hailis, watching him with uncomprehending eyes. Where was the spirited Hailis from before?

Six super-motherships, dozens of super-warships, plus a billion cubic units of Starlight Silver—surely that wasn't insufficient to keep Hailis well-fed? Why had he withered to this state? Snatching the bottle from Gu Wuchen’s hand, Hailis poured several more drafts of hard liquor down his throat.

Only then, breathing heavily, did he begin recounting the events of the past two years. Initially, just as they had predicted, upon returning to the Hees Empire with six super-motherships and immense Starlight Silver, Hailis received the highest praise from Emperor Tartarus Hees. The court ministers lauded him extensively, and the position of Crown Prince seemed destined for Hailis’s grasp.

Then, a person who would incite eternal hatred appeared—the current leader of the Broken Hook Experts Group, a man with a strange self-proclaimed title: Daoist Mu. The enraged Daoist Mu presented something to Tartarus Hees—the details remained unknown—but instantly, his status in the Hees Empire became akin to that of an Imperial Grandfather. Daoist Mu demanded to know the whereabouts of Jin, his daughter.

Hailis, who had previously dealt with Jin, fell into misfortune. Daoist Mu seized him and brought him to the Yafik Kingdom, waiting passively like a heron by a pond for Jin’s reappearance. While waiting, Hailis endured immense terror.

It seemed another force was also searching for Jin, and Daoist Mu was clearly in conflict with this force, resulting in battles that left rivers of blood. Shortly thereafter, the experts surrounding Daoist Mu suddenly vanished. Daoist Mu abandoned Hailis and, aboard an ultra-small warship, slipped into subspace, stealthily following a strange fleet.

That fleet seemed to search subspace for several months, following some unknown marker, before finally confirming a direction and relentlessly pursuing it. Daoist Mu, indifferent to Hailis's fate, abandoned him to fend for himself, continuing his pursuit of the fleet. Hailis, rescued from his survival pod by a Hees Empire rescue team, believed himself freed from disaster.

Eagerly returning to the Hees Empire to claim the throne, he was struck by a revelation like a thunderbolt from the heavens: his second brother, Yuri Hees, possessing a special 'spirit vein,' had been taken as a disciple by Daoist Mu and proclaimed the Imperial Crown Prince. As for Hailis, Tartarus Hees had effortlessly claimed ownership of the six super-motherships Hailis commanded. Even his fiefdom star had been repossessed by the Hees Empire.

Tartarus Hees’s public excuse was that Hailis’s conduct had seriously damaged the national security of the Hees Empire, thus stripping him of the majority of his authority. That might have been the end of it, but Hailis’s mother also suffered repercussions, her status in the Imperial Palace plummeting. Furthermore, her maternal clan’s influence within the Empire faced calculated suppression from both Tartarus Hees and Yuri Hees.

His mother’s family began to view Hailis as a disaster, immediately withdrawing their support and aligning entirely with Yuri Hees. The current Hailis possessed only the title of Imperial Prince, a small manor spanning three square kilometers within the Empire, a bank account holding merely several dozen kilograms of Starlight Silver and a few hundred thousand Star Alliance gold coins, along with one small warship and its necessary crew—no other influential personnel remained. “My friend, my ally, Gu, this is my plight!” Hailis stared at Gu Wuchen with eyes that seemed large and bright due to his extreme thinness, weakly groaning: “Can anyone tell me why?

Why did I suffer all this?” Gu Wuchen frowned. He understood precisely why everything Hailis described had occurred. Those who clashed with Daoist Mu likely originated from the Polaris Empire.

Hailis had simply been caught in the crossfire; it was fortunate Daoist Mu hadn't eliminated him as collateral damage. As for Yuri Hees, for this fortunate individual, Gu Wuchen felt only boundless pity… Daoist Mu proclaimed himself the true heir of Kunlun, a disciple of the Three Pure Ones. This title held weight in the Star Alliance, but pitted against genuine Kunlun adherents like Daoist Zheng—who possessed an extremely strong sectarian bias—Yuri Hees’s fate was likely sealed toward an unpleasant end.

Hailis looked blankly at Gu Wuchen, forcing a dry laugh: “I have nothing left. Even my mistresses married others, taking my illegitimate children with them! He raised the wine bottle and drained it to the last drop, snarling: “My seven bastards have all become someone else’s children!

Those damned bitches—if I ever regain my power, I will make them and their families pay!” His fingers lightly stroked the fine bristles of the Five Water Dragon Whisker Fan. Gu Wuchen smiled at Hailis: “My Prince, is there any other news? Hmm?

You traveled all this way just to tell me this?” Hailis paused, then spoke hoarsely: “Yes, there is one other piece of news. The Hees Empire and three other five-star civilizations will jointly form an Intervention Force to act against the Yafik Empire. The Spiral Star Domain cannot permit the existence of a single five-star civilization; it is too dangerous.

The Yafik Empire could potentially unify the entire Spiral Star Domain, causing unease among all neighboring states.” The Spiral Star Domain spanned tens of thousands of light-years, containing thousands of civilizations large and small. If the Yafik Empire truly unified it, it would command thousands of administrative stars and millions of resource stars, its population and resources approaching those of a six-star civilization. For the advanced civilizations bordering it, this proximity would feel like a thorn in the side, a constant discomfort.

“An Intervention Force, you say!” Gu Wuchen gently scratched his chin. He looked kindly at Hailis: “My friend, do you still wish to become the Emperor of Hees?” Hailis stared at Gu Wuchen in horror: “What do you mean?” Gu Wuchen shrugged, stating calmly: “Nothing much. Just asking if you are willing to become the Emperor of Hees.” He extended a hand toward Hailis: “If you are willing, take my hand.

In one month at the most, I will make your wish come true.” Immense confidence surged from Gu Wuchen’s crimson eyes into Hailis’s body. He stared dazedly at Gu Wuchen’s eyes and grasped his hand firmly. Gu Wuchen smiled with satisfaction.

He activated his communicator to Fu Ya. Ming. “Fu Ya, I need to leave for a few days.

Strengthen your connection with Dukat, mobilize the troops, and prepare for war. We might be fighting a major battle soon.” Gu Wuchen looked at the emaciated Hailis, whose withered face was flushed with excitement, and smiled softly: “The Yafik Empire and the Hees Empire joining forces against the Intervention Force. Stay in constant contact.

I will head to the Hees Empire immediately.” Hailis held Gu Wuchen’s hand tightly, as if it were the final lifeline saving his existence.