“God of War” Lei Chenghu was quite right about one thing.
After mankind explored the three-dimensional universe by way of “space jump” and thereby conquered thousands of Sectors and ten times more resource planets, “attack” was always a hundred times simpler than “defense” in any universal war.
Lei Chenghu was not an external enemy. He was an important commander in the Imperium’s army and a seasoned general who had fought for two hundred years. Also, it was possible that he had the help of a certain mysterious force from the capital, meaning that he would know the maps, the distribution of troops, and the jump coordinates of various worlds of the Imperium perfectly.
He could choose his target free at will and appear at any space zone unexpectedly.
The defender, on the other hand, could not distribute all the troops to every world and every planet evenly, which would only be divided and conquered by the enemy. They had to focus the troops in certain areas.
The attacker boasted almost infinite initiative in the battle, albeit with one limitation that was the resource supply.
It was true that the attacker could choose a target without any restraint in the first jump and attack, but the decision and the battle to come would consume whatever fuel and ammunition they had.
If the first battle could not secure glorious results with sufficient supplies, it would be impossible for the attacker to perform a second jump. They would be trapped on the burning battlefield forever.
Such attack and defense were like the duel of two shooters with snaphances.
Snaphances could only be shot once at a time. Whoever shot first would definitely boast huge advantages, but if they missed their target, they would be losing all their hope.
So, the most important thing for the “second shooter” was to predict the Astounding Thunder Fleet’s primary target.
In the meantime, when the slogan “Honor the Majesty and Settle the Rebellions” was passed to every street in the capital and the ears of every elder in the Council of Elders, Lei Chenghu’s purpose couldn’t have been more obvious.
Yes. For the dissatisfied soldiers in the frontline and the interest groups from the remote, small worlds who had been greatly wronged, what could be a better place to lay waste to than the capital?
Theoretically speaking, the “rebellions” that were gathered in the Third Battle Area in a haste could never conquer the capital.
But anything was possible in a war. Didn’t Wuying Qi, who used to be a border general of the Star Ocean Republic, march to the capital, control the parliament, slaughter the MPs, cause a chain reaction, and eventually usurp the entire country in a similar strategy?
The lesson of the “founding emperor” was still vivid. So, the lords of the Council of Elders could not help but feel intimidated, fearing that the Council of Elders today would become the parliament of the republic a thousand years ago.
Ghost-like rumors were spreading in every street and alley.
Many people had learned that the flag of the rebellions had been raised everywhere in the universe and that they were about to sweep across the capital thunderously. Even if they could not conquer the capital, they would smash the heart of the universe into smithereens.
The intelligence from the more secret sources, on the other hand, stated with confidence that the investigation regarding the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance had raised public indignity in many fields. Right now, many people of the forces other than the four Kurfürst families in the capital had secretly taken the sides of the rebellions, or the “reformists”.
As long as Lei Chenghu’s fleet appeared at the edge of the Empyreal Terminus Sector, those forces would rise and cooperate with the Astounding Thunder Fleet to take down the capital!
The intelligence system of the four Kurfürst families ran crazily at a speed that was ten times higher than usual while they searched for the source of the rumors. Then, they did capture a bunch of stealthy guys successfully and even break into several of the secret bureaus of the reformists.
The interrogation on the captured reformists, however, gave them a piece of astounding news.
The reformists, headed by Queen Li Linghai, had worked hard in the capital for decades and compromised the critical nodes of the defense system of the capital, which was in fact not half secure as it appeared.
The devastating intelligence pushed the poisoned daggers into the throats of the elders.
The elders knew a thing or two about Li Linghai’s ambitions, but however wary they were, they had never considered her to be beyond the politics in the royal palace. It never occurred to them that she would raise such a powerful rebellious army outside the capital through such crazy methods.
Based on Queen Li Linghai’s infiltration on the capital and the powerful combat ability of the Astounding Thunder Fleet, if the reformists were to really lunge at the capital in a wild gamble without caring about the consequences, there was at least a twenty to thirty percent likelihood that part of the ground areas of the capital would be occupied.
If the two parties were to really have a huge fight on the ground of the capital, separating the heart of the Imperium into halves, the millennium Imperium would be ruined too.
The elders from the four Kurfürst families were not necessarily loyal and devoted to the name “Imperium”. Many ambitious guys even fantasized, more than once, how gratifying it would be if the Imperium collapsed apart, the dozens of worlds under their control grew independent, and they proclaimed themselves to be emperors.
However, those big shots in the Nascent Soul Stage and the Divinity Transformation Stage boasted a high computational ability and rationality. They were aware that the name “Imperium of True Human Beings” was the “greatest common divisor” for the interconnected, complicated interest groups.
The Imperium might be terrible and annoying, but without the Imperium, the hundreds of Sectors in its territory would be disorganized again and enter a new warring state that was even crueler than the past.
They would inevitably fight and brutalize each other until everybody was wounded and exhausted before the Covenant Alliance destroyed them one by one.
Now that none of the four Kurfürst families was confident of swallowing the entire universe, the Imperium became an entity that they had to protect.
To defend the Imperium, nothing could happen to the capital, because any massive war that happened to the capital would definitely raise a series of unpredictable chain reactions that would escalate into a storm sweeping across the entire Imperium!
“The rebellions must not enter the atmosphere of the capital!”
“The ambitions of the Astounding Thunder Fleet and the reformists must be exterminated at the cold vacuum at the edge of the Empyreal Terminus Sector!”
They were the consensus of all the elders.
To achieve their purpose, the military machines of the four Kurfürst families operated in the most vehement way.
One month ago, when the Blood Oath Alliance’s assassination took place, the four Kurfürst families had already dispatched tremendous elite warships of the families to jump to the capital to get things under control.
Today, without caring about the fuel and the attrition on the starships, they ordered even more elites in the fiefs of the families to reinforce the Empyreal Terminus Sector as fast as possible in order to replace the local garrisons whose loyalty was suspicious as they were very likely to be involved with the reformists.
In only twenty-four hours, more than fifteen fleets had jumped to the capital one by one.
Although the capital was best known for the incessant starships coming and leaving on the sailing routes, it rarely welcomed the simultaneous arrival of so many super warships. The ripples when they tore apart the four-dimensional space did not die down until a long time later, like the waves on an ocean.
Very ironically, both the “rebellions” of the reformists and the elites of the four Kurfürst families had been gathered rapidly for the same reason—to protect His Majesty who was brilliant, invincible, and infinitely great!
With the reinforcement of fifteen fleets, plus the ten or so fleets that were stationed in the capital in the first place, the total number of the fleets dispersed in the Empyreal Terminus Sector had almost reached a terrifying thirty.
The best troops of the entire Imperium of True Human Beings, other than those in the frontline, had all been gathered in the capital, waiting for the arrival of the Astounding Thunder Fleet.
The rebellions would definitely come. None of the elders had any doubt about that.
The rebellions, who did not have a base in the rear, had only enough resources for the daily consumption of the fleet for one month.
After each day, the scale of victory would be more inclined to the four Kurfürst families’ side. In the competition of determination, it would doubtlessly be Li Linghai, Lei Chenghu, and the so-called “reformists” who would collapse first!
However—
…
The Divine Rain Planet, lying in the core territory of the Li family on the second quadrant of the Imperium of True Human Beings, was a planet with abundant rainfall and resources that was particularly suitable for the growth of the crops that stored spiritual energy.
What was even rarer was that an assortment of rare crystals and mother lodes were hidden below the ground of the planet, which transformed the planet into a complex of industries and agriculture. It had a high rating among all the planets in the Imperium.The Li family, naturally, had established continuous farms and mines on the Divine Rain Planet, developed glorious metropolises that could accommodate ten billion people, and set up super-enormous universal docks on the orbit of the planet, which could produce almost all the warships below the rank of heavy cruisers.
In short, it was one of the most important core worlds of the Li family. It even had the responsibility to provide resources for the few neighboring Sectors.
That could be seen by the three gigantic space gates that covered the orbit of the Divine Rain Planet and could be stretched to a thousand kilometers long when fully unfolded.
The three space gates were like three enormous lighthouses in equilateral triangles. The brightness they emanated was enough to rip apart the four-dimensional space and transmit to the entire Imperium instantly, navigating the starships from every corner of the Imperium to jump to the Divine Rain Planet without any error.
In the No. 3 space gate of the Divine Rain Planet, since too many fleets from various worlds of the Li family had refilled fuel and ammunition in the place in the past twenty-four hours before they jumped to the capital, all the navigation staff had been exhausted.
Right now, the emergent mobilization finally came to a halt, and everybody was less anxious than just now. Many of them fell asleep in the operation booths that were still a mess. Even those who were still working were so fatigued that they could barely keep their eyes open no matter how their superiors scolded them. The few guys who had been refreshed by drugs, on the other hand, were hiding in corners whispering to each other about the reformists who had jumped out of the darkness all of a sudden and the spectacular show that they were about to perform in the capital.
Right now, a high-pitched alarm shrieked in the entire control center of the No. 3 space gate.
