The exhilarated, bearded commander, clad in a full suit of high-energy armor and wielding a high-frequency plasma longsword, lunged into the trenches of the Aimei Principality army like a tiger bursting from its cage. Wherever the longsword passed, countless severed limbs and body parts flew skyward, the stench of scorched flesh from the superheated plasma drifting far on the breeze.

A group of fierce, wolf-like mercenaries from the Hadwor Defense Corporation howled and charged after the bearded commander. These men were uniformly equipped in the latest Hercules-series combat armor, wielding various high-powered weaponry, slaughtering the soldiers of the Aimei Principality as easily as a tiger among sheep. Alas, the vast majority of the hundred million elite soldiers gathered by the Aimei Principality were conscripts from one-star and two-star civilizations; some of their weapons and equipment were even relics from the Earth Federation’s ancient World War II era.

Facing enemies whose equipment and personal capabilities offered an absolute advantage—the Earth Federation troops and the even more ferocious Hadwor mercenaries—the soldiers of the Aimei Principality suffered catastrophic casualties. They perfectly demonstrated what it meant to be utterly routed and comprehensively defeated, with nearly a hundred million soldiers annihilated by the millions. In a mere three to five days, the Earth Federation forces completed a pincer movement around the Aimei Principality army. Whether in the sky or on the ground, the Aimei Principality was at a definitive disadvantage.

The Earth Federation forces suffered only three fatalities, with a dozen more seriously wounded. Even those three deaths were because their soldiers had broken formation and charged too far ahead, getting caught in the friendly fire of the naval bombardment. It was precisely because of these three deaths that General Poison Wolf severely chastised the ground army and space fleet commanders.

The current equipment level of the Earth Federation ground forces was absolutely top-tier among the Star Alliance’s five-star civilizations, while their space fleet equipment reached the pinnacle standard of six-star civilizations. To sustain casualties while attacking an army that mostly still used gunpowder weapons or even cold steel made Poison Wolf lose face.

However, regardless of this minor embarrassment, the operation on Paradise Star proceeded smoothly. Xiao Xiao kept his promise; he automatically destroyed all his clones and purged all sub-control consciousness embedded within Paradise Star’s defense systems.

Without his interference, the Federation army's true combat power could instantly annihilate the entire Aimei Principality force.

The fact that the Aimei Principality resisted for so long was purely because Poison Wolf indulged a perverse whim; he wanted to properly play with his opponents. In Poison Wolf’s words, this was an excellent opportunity for field training! Seven days later, the Federation forces, having transitioned to the counter-attack, annihilated every last soldier of the Aimei Principality—not a single living soul was spared. Simultaneously destroyed were the several thousand Romanians who had appeared strangely on the battlefield. “Annihilated” was perhaps not entirely accurate; upon realizing they were surrounded by the Federation forces, these Romanians immediately committed suicide, and their souls were instantly obliterated by a strange power. Gu Xiechen was unable to capture a single soul for interrogation to extract the intelligence he desired.

The current Grand Duke of the Aimei Principality, along with a host of high-ranking generals, became prisoners of the Federation army. Following the bearded commander's suggestion, these men were stripped naked and tied to crosses. Spread out in a large 'X' shape, a line of naked high officials from the Aimei Principality screamed helplessly, lined up along a scenic, beautiful stretch of beach, while a squad of well-trained Hadwor mercenaries approached them grinning, armed with various tools of torture.

Ten minutes later, Gu Xiechen obtained the confession he sought. The current Aimei Grand Duke recounted details such as the first time he experienced nocturnal emission at what age; all other major and minor secrets were disclosed without reservation. Gu Xiechen’s expression instantly darkened. From the Grand Duke’s testimony, he clearly saw the shadow of the Elder Council.

The black crystal shards and the practice of scattering their bloodline everywhere were all hallmark methods of the Elder Council. However, the ancestor of the Aimei Grand Duke family evidently held low status within the Elder Council, and their bloodline was impure. Thus, although the Aimei Principality was controlled by the Elder Council, the Grand Duke did not possess the Bloodline Ring that symbolized true authority. The Aimei Principality was merely an insignificant pawn for the Elder Council; in the Council’s orders to attack Paradise Star, they weren't even considered cannon fodder.

Just a probing pebble!

Gu Xiechen described to Poison Wolf the strength of the Star Alliance forces controlled by the Elder Council, and Poison Wolf’s face immediately grew grim.

“Those Romanians, were they trying to shift the blame onto us?”

Gu Xiechen nodded. It was obvious that the Romanians were trying exactly that. That was why, as soon as the Aimei Principality army arrived, those several thousand Romanians emerged to fight, solidifying the accusation that Paradise Star was connected to the Romanians. The Romanians themselves had already migrated and disappeared elsewhere, leaving the Earth Federation to take the fall. Whether the Earth Federation or the Star Alliance won, it benefited the Romanians either way. The most ideal outcome for them, of course, was for both sides to be mutually decimated, leaving the Romanians to rise to dominance.

Turning to Poison Wolf, Gu Xiechen smiled and nodded at him. "It all depends on you."

Poison Wolf took a deep breath, looked gravely at Gu Xiechen, and said in a deep voice, "I will handle it." Words were unnecessary. The two men had already divided their tasks: Poison Wolf would return to Earth to focus on developing population and strengthening forces, supplying Gu Xiechen with an endless stream of personnel. Gu Xiechen, meanwhile, would lead a contingent of elite warriors to defend Paradise Star against the continuous influx of enemies. With forty Death Star Cruisers, numerous White Wing battleships, and a group of Heavenly Immortal-level masters like Gu Xiechen, Paradise Star would not fall easily.

Gu Xiechen would strive to buy time for Poison Wolf, and for Fuya and Ming in Yafike, allowing them to accumulate more strength. Paradise Star must be held; otherwise, no matter where Gu Xiechen and his people fled, the Romanians would leak their whereabouts to the Star Alliance.

Since the Romanians had set such a trap, Gu Xiechen had no choice but to break it. What better way to elevate his own strength than through continuous, unceasing warfare?

Half a month later, a task force composed of three three-star civilizations appeared in the Paradise Star sector.

Under the command of the seasoned bearded leader, Paradise Star’s defense fleet—one hundred White Wing battleships escorted by thousands of Star Alliance standard Level One warships—swarmed forward. Just as the combined fleet completed its spatial jump and before they could raise their energy shields, they were subjected to a furious barrage, effortlessly shattering the fleet composed of over eight hundred Level One warships and thousands of auxiliary vessels.

Then, only seven days later, a fleet comprising one four-star civilization and five three-star civilizations poured into the Paradise Star sector. Waiting for this combined fleet were three high-yield antimatter space bombs. The antimatter bombs, equivalent in yield to billions of tons of nuclear explosions, detonated the instant the flagship of the four-star civilization entered real space. The immense blast warped that segment of space, churning up a minor energy tidal wave in subspace, utterly annihilating the remaining ships that had not yet initiated their spatial jumps.

Three days after that, a coalition force made up of four three-star civilizations arrived enthusiastically in the Paradise Star sector. These four three-star civilizations were all composed of advanced non-human lifeforms; one race was an exceptionally rare, purely psychic entity—in traditional Earth terms, a congregation of born demons.

Greeting these four three-star civilization fleets was a formation of five hundred White Wing battleships arrayed in a crescent firing sequence. A single volley from their main batteries reduced the entire fleet to nothingness. At the moment the fleet was destroyed, the purely psychic race escaped their vessels, manifesting as streaks of emerald green and morbid blue faint light, rushing towards the Paradise Star fleet. Overseeing the fleet, Yan Hualè leisurely pulled out the Nether Fan and greedily absorbed millions of ghosts and living entities into it, converting them into a thread of pure vitality within the fan.

Gradually, the incoming alien civilizations grew more numerous, the size of the fleets larger, and the variety of bizarre, high-level lifeforms more inconceivable. While Gu Xiechen and his people were broadening their horizons, the difficulty of combat was also steadily increasing.

Three months after the initial attack by the Aimei Principality, a peculiar alien civilization—one only classified at the two-star civilization level—inflicted significant casualties on the Paradise Star garrison.

This race consisted of entities with no discernible biological traits; when they curled into a ball, they were indistinguishable from ordinary meteorites. This species sustained all their life energy from a fist-sized core of highly concentrated Uranium housed within their bodies. This Uranium core could also actively absorb various forms of stray radiation energy from the cosmos. These beings, calling themselves the Meteor Clan, rarely died naturally; the older they grew, the stronger they became.

Hundreds of thousands of Meteor Clan members disguised themselves as a natural minor meteor shower, plunging into Paradise Star’s atmosphere and landing across the planet. These individuals, measuring three to twenty meters in diameter when coiled and five to fifty meters tall when fully extended, were impervious to conventional weapons. They continuously emitted intense nuclear radiation contamination, while jets of superheated flame erupted from their bodies. They were like fiery demons crawling out of hell, inflicting massive casualties upon the Federation ground forces.

Gu Xiechen and his companions, who were busy commanding the space fleet from orbit to destroy incoming enemy fleets, could not return in time. Only the giant spirit god, left to garrison Paradise Star, swung his great double-headed axe, slaughtering the Meteor Clan members like a mechanized harvester. No single Meteor Clan member could withstand the second swing of the giant spirit god's axe. Where he passed, vast swathes of scorching rock fragments flew everywhere. In a mere half an hour, nearly ten thousand Meteor Clan members died horribly under the giant spirit god’s hands.

The hundreds of thousands of infiltrators regrouped, forming a massive, unstoppable army that charged fearlessly towards the giant spirit god.

But the giant spirit god lived up to his reputation as the fiercest general under the Heavenly Court. Wielding his two great axes tirelessly, he fought the Meteor Clan members for an entire day and night, slaying close to two hundred thousand enemies.

The remaining two hundred thousand-plus Meteor Clan members, realizing they could not defeat the giant spirit god, decisively chose self-detonation. The power unleashed by the explosion of the high-concentration Uranium cores within their bodies was immense; the weakest self-detonation was equivalent to one hundred thousand tons of standard TNT. The simultaneous detonation of over two hundred thousand Meteor Clan members created an unimaginably horrifying impact. The largest continent on Paradise Star was instantly turned into a dead zone, vaporizing over three and a half million Federation soldiers who were deploying various defensive structures on the surface.

Had the critical facilities of the Paradise Star military base not been situated deep underground, this single mass nuclear event would have wiped out eighty percent of the ground forces. Fortunately, these underground installations had not been skimped on; all defensive structures were built to withstand a direct hit from a multi-megaton nuclear blast, and the thick strata absorbed a portion of the blast’s power, allowing the millions of Federation soldiers on that continent to miraculously survive.

Rushing back to Paradise Star, Gu Xiechen and his group were fit to burst with rage. After using the Taiyin Xuan Pearl to completely eliminate the radioactive fallout dust from the explosion, Gu Xiechen mercilessly unleashed a massive, artificially generated energy surge in subspace, turning the main fleets of several four-star civilizations gathering in the distance into cosmic dust.

Because of the lesson taught by the Meteor Clan, Gu Xiechen and the others were forced to shift the space battle closer to Paradise Star. All fleet engagements were now confined to close-range space, no more than one hundred light-seconds from the planet.

This effectively meant they were forced to concede a safe landing zone where the alien fleets could achieve a relatively safe staging point after jumping into the Paradise Star sector.

The consequence of the Paradise Star fleet’s withdrawal soon became apparent. Seven four-star civilizations and thirty-nine three-star civilizations—a combined fleet—poured out of subspace simultaneously. They had ample time in space to organize their formation: nearly ten thousand Level One warships and over two hundred thousand auxiliary vessels formed three standard shock formations, blacking out the void as they charged toward Paradise Star.

For such a foolish act of attacking fanatically without fully understanding the enemy’s capabilities, Gu Xiechen's only recourse was to deploy three Death Star Cruisers.

The three Death Star Cruisers activated in space, unleashing countless beams of light that tore through the void. The Star Alliance Level One warships, standard for four-star civilizations, exploded one after another under the powerful bombardment of the Death Star Cruisers. The firepower of the Death Star Cruisers was overwhelmingly potent; even a single secondary turret designed for anti-air defense possessed the firepower of a standard five-star civilization’s heavy anti-air cannon. With hundreds of thousands of such cannons firing simultaneously, the combined fleet was reduced to nothingness before they could even fully grasp the massive size of the Death Star Cruisers.

The civilizations rushing towards the Paradise Star sector in the early stages were all low-level. Even the few four-star civilization fleets interspersed among them were the most inept and poorly performing among their rank. In just four months, over three hundred civilizations arrived sequentially in the sector, but aside from the terrifyingly aberrant Meteor Clan, none had managed to harm the Federation forces.

When the war officially broke out in the ninth month, and after Poison Wolf had successfully supplied over twenty million newly trained soldiers to both Paradise Star and the Thirteenth Star Defense Zone, the first fleet led by a five-star civilization finally appeared. The scale of this fleet could only be described as colossal: there were two hundred and seventy thousand Star Alliance standard Level One warships, and the total number of large, small, and auxiliary vessels exceeded one million.

This was a joint fleet led by the Vak Empire, a nation ranked in the middle tier of five-star civilizations, comprising three five-star civilizations, thirteen four-star civilizations, and ninety-seven three-star civilizations.

Facing such a massive combined fleet, Gu Xiechen ordered all forty Death Star Cruisers to retreat into the nebula near Paradise Star to conceal themselves. All White Wing battleships and the super-battlecruisers manufactured by the Romanians also hid within that nebula belt spanning tens of thousands of light-years. A sparse collection of several dozen Star Alliance Level One warships from the Yafike Empire patrolled above Paradise Star, while tens of thousands of armed satellites opened their energy collection panels, their black muzzles—though only 200mm caliber—aimed outward.

Feigning weakness, luring the enemy deep in. Gu Xiechen deliberately presented such an empty and seemingly defenseless posture to lure the enemy close to Paradise Star, wanting to test the true strength of Paradise Star's defensive system. After dismantling so many main cannons from the Roman super-motherships to encircle Paradise Star completely, no one knew if the defense system was reliable without actual combat testing.

The self-detonation of the Meteor Clan had destroyed some of the primary defense cannons, but over the preceding months, Poison Wolf had delivered more defensive equipment. Gu Xiechen had managed to construct the defensive matrix even sturdier than before.

The enemy fleet cautiously approached Paradise Star. Countless small probes flew in all directions; the enemy commander was clearly an extremely cautious individual. He must have learned of the destruction of the preceding vanguard fleets, so he adopted a strategy where any failure to advance was a success in itself. The immense fleet contracted into a defensive formation and crept toward Paradise Star.

Dozens of remotely controlled Level One warships along their path were easily crushed by the combined fleet, and the tens of thousands of armed satellites densely peppered in the space surrounding Paradise Star caused only negligible trouble.

The 200mm caliber energy cannons couldn't even penetrate the shields of the enemy's transport ships, let alone pose a threat to their warships.

Finally, the massive combined fleet of over a million vessels, large and small, arrived above Paradise Star, pressing down like a dark cloud in the outer space zone, a mere two light-seconds away from the planet.

At that moment, the bearded commander gave the order, and all the heavy anti-air cannons on Paradise Star, along with the main cannons salvaged from the super-motherships, simultaneously spewed forth brilliant beams of light. The firepower discharged by the heavy anti-air cannons, with calibers exceeding a hundred meters, was far beyond what Star Alliance standard Level One warships could withstand; one shot often pierced through a dozen or even several dozen warships, large and small.

The power of the main cannons salvaged from the Roman super-motherships was even more terrifying. These cannons, modified for shooting by Ducat and Xiao Xiao, unleashed wildly potent fire. Often, a single blast would result in a curtain of exploding fire in the space ahead, and when the light dissipated, not a single warship remained in the cannon’s line of sight—not even moderately sized fragments were left behind.

With the first full salvo from the Paradise Star defense system, the vast, enormous fleet was annihilated in an instant.

With this successful trial, Gu Xiechen finally felt confident enough to assure Poison Wolf: unless all six-star civilizations of the Star Alliance attacked together, Paradise Star was impregnable! He also transmitted a reassuring message to Fuya and Ming far away in Yafike, informing them that all was well, and that these continuous enemy attacks were merely sharpening stones for the Earth Federation to establish itself in the cosmos.

Little did he know, upon receiving Gu Xiechen’s message, Fuya and Ming immediately mobilized a secret transport fleet, sending millions of Yafike warriors to Paradise Star. According to Fuya and Ming, the benefits could not be enjoyed by Gu Xiechen alone; the Yafike warriors were also subjects of Gu Xiechen, so they too would come to Paradise Star to undergo the tempering of bloody warfare! A resigned Gu Xiechen accepted this contingent of warriors. By this time, a full fifteen months had passed since the initial attack by the Aimei Principality! During these fifteen months, the frequency of enemy fleet arrivals had escalated from one wave every three to five days to new fleets joining the assault on Paradise Star daily. The jump gate connecting Paradise Star and the original Earth Federation mineral planet, the Alpha Sector, had been captured by the joint fleets. The joint fleets occupied all the ore planets in the Alpha Sector, transforming them into administrative worlds suitable for habitation, officially establishing a forward base next door to Paradise Star. The number of primary Level One warships gathered in the Alpha Sector’s joint fleet now exceeded one million.

Just as Gu Xiechen was preparing to deploy the Death Star Cruisers to utterly destroy this massive joint fleet, an incredibly potent aura suddenly manifested in the Paradise Star sector.

It was an immortal being with at least the strength of a Heavenly Immortal Third Grade! The high-end power of the Star Alliance had finally appeared in the Paradise Star sector!