973 Master Thief
In a galactic war, the support and supply lines based off the stargate traffic were very important. The expeditionary dynasty troops planted stargates continuously along the way, connecting them into a rapid channel that could be used to advance and retreat as they liked. In order to prevent the enemy from ambushing their stargate stations, each time the passage was extended, some personnel would be stationed there. So, the deeper they went into the Dust Light Star Cluster, the number of troops led by each dynasty officer would also decrease.
As the attacking side, the dynasty had to continuously extend the supply lines, but this was where the advantage of the military was shown—they had the capital to squander their resources like this.
Because the size of the frontline troops would gradually shrink while the intensity of the battle would gradually increase, the commander of each army would be a young officer with tremendous prospects within the dynasty. All of them had to gain rich experiences in interstellar warfare.
As for how luxurious this lineup was, Han Xiao recalled that almost all of the mobilized officers were people who would be high-ranking in the military in the future. Among them, there were at least three who had power that was not below that of Teny, and they also commanded other large army corps of the dynasty.
Facing such a group of famed generals, the Kunde Race was at a complete disadvantage. Even if the dynasty troops were reduced, the Kunde Race still did not stand a chance.
After being asked by Han Xiao, Teny changed his previous style and began to allow the Black Star Army to undertake more war tasks, and he especially took care of Nero.
In almost every battle, the troop that Nero belonged to would be assigned key combat missions, which gave them plenty of chances for battles.
It was just nice that most of the graduates of the Super Academy were assigned to different teams within this troop. The continuous high-intensity and high-risk battle placed these young students under a huge load. Even Nero was also overwhelmed. He found it strange, wondering if their troop had somehow offended the army commander.
Because of the continuous high-pressure battles, Nero’s machinery became seriously worn out. He had lost nearly half of his entire inventory. When there was no battle, he could not rest as well, having to work hard to repair his machinery, for fear that he would be unequipped for the next battle.
It was at this time that Nero was extremely grateful to Reynold.
... Isn’t it just not sleeping? When I was being forced to study, I quickly learned this ability.
Oh, this was not figurative. It was literally expressed on his character interface as a talent:
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[Advanced Fatigue Resistance] – +500% Physical Recovery Efficiency when at rest, -60% Physical Loss Rate. Reduces the negative status of ‘Mental Fatigue’ caused by lack of sleep, capped at the maximum of ‘Slight Mental Fatigue’.
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A gifted person could develop talents even by not sleeping, and Han Xiao did not know whom he could reason this with.
However, the other graduates did not have Nero’s experience and were totally exhausted. Even Mia did not have time to chat with him over the phone.
Since there was no way for him to guess the commander’s mindset. It was useless even if Nero wanted to curse at him. He could only grit his teeth and continue to do battle, not knowing that he had been arranged to do so by Teny.
A high-pressure battle would result in casualties, and this could happen even in a real-life combat simulation. However, Nero’s team was quite well off in this regard. They were all fatigued but had not met with any deaths yet. Through the frequent battles, their bonds were molded deeper.
The Crimson Dynasty had an overwhelming advantage in this war. Several days passed in a flash, and the various dynasty fleets steadily advanced, crossing multiple star systems to arrive at the Kunde Race’s border.
With the main force holding fort, the Reconnaissance Troops moved out first, splitting into various regiments to infiltrate the Kunde Race in advance to obtain intelligence. These scouts included both remotely controlled unmanned drones as well as ground combat personnel.
It was no surprise that Nero’s squad was selected as scouts to perform the dangerous mission.
Whilst the dynasty troops were exploring the Kunde border, a secret mechanical army quietly sent by Han Xiao followed his guidance to arrive near the Kunde mother planet.
...
On one of the black planets that looked like a desolate planet, a large number of exploration satellites were suspended in outer space, as well as a canopy camouflage device used to cover the planet’s surface. If one broke through the camouflage detection using the mechanical soldiers, they would see the true appearance of the Kunde mother planet. It was sapphire blue in color. The color occupied most of the surface area, and on top of the ocean floated various floating cities.
“Turns out, the actual look of the planet is like this.”
The mechanical soldiers stopped in outer space, far away from the planet, and all of them turned on their stealth camouflage. Han Xiao’s technology and Mechanical Force buffs were enough to prevent the Kunde mother planet from detecting this group.
Among one of them was a mechanical host bearing Han Xiao’s avatar, which was currently carefully observing the planet.
After the opening of the Flickering World in his previous life, Han Xiao had come over to perform missions here. At that time, the Kunde mother planet had completely changed its appearance after being modified by the dynasty.
Because the dynasty had stormed in, most of the population on the Kunde mother planet had basically moved away, but the Kunde Race did not implode their mother planet. On it was left many facilities, and one last fleet was stationed there to temporarily manage the place. This was where one of the core quantum network nodes of the Kunde Race was located.
“Let’s start.”
Han Xiao stretched, and with a thought, he entered the field of vision of the quantum network.
His vision turned black, leaving only the light clusters representing the nodes of the quantum network. They varied in brightness and were connected to each other with delicate light rays, which represented the information flow to form the network structure.
Han Xiao directly locked onto the main quantum network node of the mother planet, turning into a stream of light as he approached it. The firewall of the node appeared in front of him like a layer of dynamic data, and in his eyes, loopholes and gaps existed everywhere.
He did not wish to alarm the Kunde Race, so he decided to slip through the holes of data within the firewall and open a backdoor instead of directly hacking in.
The other party’s quantum network skills were trashy, with all the permissions they set as good as nil in front of him. It was as though he had arrived in a home whose owner was not present, but he had the tools to open anything within the doors. There was no need to ask for permission; he could just do what he wanted.
Quickly, the Kunde’s database lost all its defenses, and strips of data appeared in front of Han Xiao, like a dessert waiting to be enjoyed.
“Phillip, copy and pack up their databases.”
Han Xiao snorted.
His goal was only their imperfect Spacetime Splicing Technology, but since he was there, he might as well take everything.
Phillip began to work, but it took a while for an entire cluster of data to be copied. Taking advantage of this period, Han Xiao simply checked all the objects connected to this node.
Through reverse tracking, it was possible to locate the whereabouts of the fleets in the Kunde Race.
“Let’s see where the troops of the Kunde Race lie...”
Glancing at the data of the coordinates on the star map, Han Xiao’s eyes lit up, and he found some interesting intelligence.
He saw that Kunde’s fleet was roughly divided among four groups. Among them, the core fleet mainly consisting of the commanders was hiding within the territory, the second moving off to intercept the frontal combat troops of the dynasty on the front line. The third consisted of the fleet carrying the evacuated civilians and was already far from the Kunde Race’s territory.
But what attracted Han Xiao’s attention was the fourth fleet. They separated into countless teams, approaching their territorial borders. It seemed as though they wished to form an encirclement, but at such a distance, it was not practical. Thus, they should be more involved in performing other special missions.
Based on his current knowledge, Han Xiao would definitely not be at a loss. He quickly came out with a hypothesis.
“There are three possibilities... One is escape, another is to cover evacuation, and the last is to make special arrangements. Escape can be ruled out, and the evacuation is happening on the opposite side, which is not on the way. Thus, there is only special arrangements. As for what kind of special arrangements...”
Han Xiao narrowed his eyes. According to his knowledge, the most likely scenario would be that they intended to bury a large amount of Primordial Psionic Energy at their borders and catalyze its expansion to allow it to swallow up all the stars and planets around it, leaving nothing for the dynasty.
This was not a blind guess; there were too many of such examples. Many of such desolate universe belts were actually man-made, caused by the catalysis of the Primordial Psionic Energy.
“Kunde wants to turn their homeland into a killing trap, luring the dynasty into it to kill them. Heh, very cruel. Before running, they want to take a bite out of the dynasty.” Han Xiao shook his head.
Only civilizations that had not come into contact with the Primordial Psionic Energy would dare use such a thing indiscriminately. The formation of a natural celestial body took billions of years, and the probability was random. However, Primordial Psionic Energy would engulf everything it passed through, turning the area into a vacuum zone, barren and without material resources.
Moreover, if the pollution was not controlled, it would expand indefinitely. As it expanded, the engulfed area would increase faster and faster, and by that time, one could only run as though the apocalypse had arrived.
In his previous life, there was no detailed information about how the dynasty dealt with the Kunde Race. Han Xiao did not know if the latter had adopted this scorched earth plan, but the celestial bodies within the Dust Light Star Cluster were well preserved, meaning that even if implemented, the dynasty had stopped it.
Thinking about it, Han Xiao prepared to send this information to the dynasty, which would definitely improve his Mission Rating.
“Primordial Psionic Energy might be frightening, but it needs a certain procedure to expand to a certain scale. Thus, the dynasty has enough time to solve this problem.”
Han Xiao secretly nodded, his mood relaxed.
He originally just intended to copy the Spacetime Splicing Technology. He did not expect to have an unexpected harvest.
After a while, when Phillip had completely copied the data, Han Xiao left the backdoor program and cleared any traces of his visit. He then released his quantum network vision, ordering the mechanical unit to return.
The Kunde mother planet disappeared in the vision of the mechanical host. From the beginning to the end, his visit did not alarm anyone, a master thief.
A peak Beyond Grade A Virtual Mechanic was unparalleled in stealing intelligence and was a fearful existence for even the three universal civilizations.
...
At this moment, their home had been ransacked, but the Kunde upper echelons did not know anything about it and were still in a meeting.
It was related to Supers.
In the room, the Kunde leader glanced at everyone, speaking in a deep voice. “The enemy’s Super technology has given their warriors powerful individual combat power. According to the data of our spaceships, their technology is a method for individuals to practice on their own. With this method, a person can grow so strong that they even have the power to destroy a planet. We are proud of our warriors, but they are not worth anything in front of such Supers.”
Everyone wore a heavy expression. The superpower system was a type of technology that required luck to discover, and the Kunde Race was just like Han Xiao, obviously on the blacklist of the Goddess of Luck.
The Super Star Cluster level civilization behind the scenes had mentioned the existence of Supers but did not give the methods for producing Supers over to the Kunde Race. Thus, they did not possess a Super system.
“Supers, this is what we are sorely lacking,” the Kunde leader slowly replied. “Everyone, since we’ve decided to leave our ancestral homeland, if we can also obtain this technology from our enemies, that will help us in the rebuilding of our civilization.”
“You mean...”
“I want to find ways to capture some of the frontline Super as experimental material. As long as I can obtain their bodies, we will be able to study the principles along with the mysteries of the system.”
“In that case, the combat principles of the frontline troops will have to be tweaked.”
Everyone perked up and began discussing the idea.
They all wanted to have a strong personal power and long life, not to mention that they were people in the upper echelons who had been holding onto power and authority. Authority was always derived from power.
They coveted the Supers, and now they not only planned to destroy the dynasty with the scorched earth tactic but also wished to grab the new technology that they did not possess from the dynasty.
...
A few days later, on the Kunde national border, a section of the Reconnaissance Troops were advancing in secret.
This unit possessed more than twenty warships, and most of them were ships from the Black Star Army. They consisted of small combat teams, and not only Nero but also Mia and a whole bunch of other graduates were present.
They had already been within the Kunde territory for several days, but they had remained vigilant along the way, ready to respond to encounters. Yet, they did not meet a single enemy along the way.
In the cabin of one of the battleships, a large group of the army warriors gathered around the star map to discuss their current situation. Nero pinched his chin and could not help but voice his suspicions.
“This is strange. When we had yet to arrive, we met enemies that would intercept us daily. However, now we’ve entered their territory, why is there no one to restrict us?”
Hearing this, everyone turned to look at him but did not speak.
Not far away, Mia stood with her arms crossed. She raised her brows and confidently said, “Maybe the enemy think that they cannot stop the dynasty and have all retreated.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple.” Nero shook his head.
This time, Nero’s and Mia’s team were on the same battleship, and there were several other combat teams accompanying them.
After experiencing the baptism of war, Nero’s actual combat ability had improved, but his personal temperament did not change much. After all, he still had his baby face, and however fierce he looked, it only made him more adorable.
On the other hand, by confirming her strength in battle, Mia had become more confident.
Hong!
At this moment, the fleet had arrived at the preset target location and exited hyperdrive.
Outside the window was a planet, their exploration target, which was suspected of being a Kunde colonial planet.
On the surface of the planet, they could clearly see that there were traces of cities.
Seeing this, everyone’s expression tightened.
“It seems like we’ve found the correct place. Everyone, focus.”