Chapter 640: The News Breaks Out
The news of Su Ren’s death took the universe by storm when it finally became public.
The five great clans simultaneously announced to their armies that in seven days, mobilization for conquest would begin, and that every soldier should ready themselves for the campaigns ahead.
It was the first time in recorded history that a God who belonged to the righteous alliance had been slain not by the hand of their enemies in the Cult, but by the decree and blade of the Universal Government itself.
The revelation tore through the star systems like wildfire, spilling across trade routes, taverns, academies, and markets, sparking debates that turned heated, hushed, or outright violent depending on the crowd.
For many, it was cause for celebration.
"Finally," some merchants cheered as they counted their coins, "the Su Clan has been dealt a blow. For too long they’ve hoarded resources, taxed trade routes, and looked down on every other house. The death of their god is justice long overdue."
In backwater cantinas, miners raised mugs of cheap ale, slamming them together in drunken agreement. "About damn time! Let the five clans carve up their lands and share the spoils. Su arrogance won’t weigh us down anymore."
Others, however, reacted with nothing but dread.
The Su Clan had been a reliable ally, and their fall marked the start of turbulent times for the future.
"Why?" cried a farmer-turned-preacher in a village square on Veyar, his words echoing off cracked stone walls.
"Why would the Universal Government turn its sword against one of their own? If a god as powerful and ancient as Lord Su Ren could be betrayed, then what safety remains for anyone beneath their banner?"
Citizens gathered in clusters, whispering with distrust, while officials struggled to keep order.
The propaganda machines of the five great clans rushed to frame the event as a "necessary purging of dissent," claiming Su Ren had grown decadent, unfit to lead, his death a righteous execution for the greater good.
But the narrative did not convince all.
Rumors spread faster than official decrees.
Some claimed Su Ren had been negotiating secret treaties with the Cult, others whispered that he had discovered something dangerous, something the Universal Government wanted buried forever.
Still others believed his fall was orchestrated to send a message to the five great houses: none were untouchable.
For the soldiers, the reaction was more practical than philosophical.
In barracks across the universe, captains barked orders, drills intensified, weapons were sharpened, and transports fueled.
Soldiers accepted the announcement with grim obedience, though in private conversations they admitted their unease.
"It doesn’t sit right," one foot soldier muttered to his comrade while cleaning his sword. "We were trained to believe the Gods of the alliance were eternal. If one can fall, what does that make us?"
"To me?" his comrade replied, shrugging, "it makes the pay more dangerous, but it also makes the spoils greater. Don’t overthink it. Orders are orders."
The five clans, meanwhile, wasted no time.
Already they began parceling the Su territories on star charts, circling planets like predators dividing a carcass.
Fleet deployments were finalized, and the promise of war profits drew merchants and mercenaries alike toward the looming conflict.
Still, the undercurrent of doubt could not be silenced.
For the first time in centuries, the people of the righteous alliance were forced to confront an uncomfortable truth— that perhaps the Universal Government was not the infallible pillar of order it claimed to be, but a hungry beast willing to devour even its own when it suited their designs.
And in that realization, seeds of rebellion and suspicion began to sprout, subtle but undeniable, even as the universe turned its gaze toward the countdown of seven days before conquest began.
Meanwhile, across the universe, Su embassies and family businesses began to be looted, and Su Clan properties seized.
Since the commoners sensed weakness.
And since the Su name wasn’t one to fear anymore.
The repressed let out their pent-up rage like no other.
Shops draped in the Su crest were torn apart, their banners ripped down and trampled into the dirt.
Mansions once guarded by honor and wealth now burned, their flames licking at the night skies of countless righteous faction cities, while mobs chanted curses against the fallen God, whose very name they would have been afraid to mutter disrespectfully a few days ago.
Men who had once bowed respectfully before Su officials now dragged them into the streets, spitting on them, pelting them with stones, forcing them to kneel as if centuries of humiliation could be undone in a single day.
The brutality spared no one.
On planet Shayar, a young branch member barely sixteen was pulled from his carriage as he made his way to the Hangar Bay area to escape the planet, his terrified protests drowned beneath the roar of a crowd that accused him of crimes he had never committed.
His father was stoned to death beside him, his body mutilated before being strung up on the gates that once guarded their estate.
In trading colonies across the alliance, Su-owned warehouses were smashed open, their goods plundered like war trophies, while loyal retainers who tried to defend them were beaten into the dust, their pleas silenced beneath boots and fists.
Even the innocent suffered. Shopkeepers whose only fault was to rent their stalls beneath the patronage of the Su, scholars who had married into the clan generations ago, servants who had never raised a hand in cruelty, were all lumped together as villains by association.
Women screamed as their hair was torn, their faces cut with blades to mark them as Su dogs, while children wailed beside parents dragged away in chains, their blood spilling onto the very streets they once walked with pride.
It did not matter that many of these branch members had never held power, never levied unjust taxes, never lifted a sword in the clan’s name.
Just because they had left the Su controlled lands and were now living on other planets in the righteous alliance, which up till a few days ago were their allies, they were now targeted and ostracized.
To the mob, guilt was collective.
To the mob, blood was the only repayment for generations of perceived arrogance.
And so, as Su Ren’s body lay cold and the great clan faltered, his legacy was not only stained by political betrayal but drowned in the howling vengeance of those who had long awaited their chance to break the mighty Su name into dust.