Chapter 1 A Month Later

A month later.

The Pioneers held back the attacks of both the Ancient Star Desert and the Crimson Dynasty while launching counterattacks through the Black Star Army. The fleets of the three factions invaded each other's territories through gaps in the defensive lines, and the directions of the fleet attacks formed a jagged shape on the tactical star map, resulting in a stalemate.

At this moment, a colony star located in the outer star area of the Ancient Star Desert was under attack by the Pioneers. The sky-covering Pioneer fleet and Black Star fleet were fiercely fighting with the planetary defense fleet while launching airstrikes on the cities on the ground, precisely bombing the city's shields in an attempt to blast open gaps and drop landing pods.

The light yellow, semi-circular light curtain, like an inverted bowl, enveloped the entire capital city of the colony star, enduring the continuous bombardment from the sky. Blue-black energy expansion clusters exploded on the shield, and rapidly moving arcs of electricity flowed endlessly across the surface, quickly reducing its durability. The city's shield flickered intermittently, extremely unstable.

Considering the various factors of the civil war, the local army forcibly closed the underground shelters, not allowing citizens to enter. Countless citizens could only hide in their houses, shivering, while the city's ground defense forces gathered, looking up at the sky. The dazzling explosion lights filled their vision, and the deafening rumbling explosions were like heavy hammers pounding on their hearts. Despair radiated from everyone's eyes.

Crack!

The city's large shield finally couldn't withstand the attack, and cracks spread out before everyone's eyes. Then, the entire shield, like a shattered eggshell, cracked open with holes, and the whole structure rapidly collapsed.

In the next moment, dense, small black dots appeared from the horizon, falling rapidly with trails of fire, like dense meteorites, smashing towards the capital.

The city's anti-air defense guns immediately opened fire, firing bursts of light towards the array of landing pods, exploding into clusters of fireworks in mid-air.

The shields of some landing pods were broken, and they were blown into pieces halfway. However, more landing pods crashed into different locations in the city with a roar, splashing up clouds of dust.

Overlooking from high altitude, the dark mass of legion players poured out of the landing pods, blooming in full force within the city. This batch of about several thousand people formed small teams that moved quickly.

Equipped with detectors that covered the entire process, they marked all threat targets carrying weapons to distinguish between enemy soldiers and citizens. The landed legion players were skilled in sweeping away the enemy's ground forces.

Battles quickly broke out in various locations in the city. The players exchanged fire with the ground forces. Although they were at an absolute disadvantage in terms of numbers, these players were basically all Grade B, while the enemy still consisted mostly of ordinary soldiers, and their armor only gave them a certain amount of combat power.

Grade B was the backbone combat power in the interstellar world, each of them having combat power comparable to an army. Demolishing a building was as easy as playing a game. Furthermore, players were unlike normal Grade B characters; they didn't worry about being focused on and fought without any scruples.

The ground defense forces were horrified to find that these interstellar mercenaries charged forward through the gunfire, fearlessly advancing and quickly cutting into their positions, activating their unstoppable mode. As long as an encounter broke out, the players could quickly defeat the enemy, destructively slaughtering batches of ground troops, leaving no one alive wherever they passed.

On the tactical view, the small black dots representing each landing pod team moved rapidly across the city map, and the red dots representing the enemy scattered throughout the city were quickly eliminated, becoming increasingly sparse.

In the center of the city, the administrative building had already been stormed by seven teams of players, completing the massacre floor by floor.

In a certain room, a Grade B warrior from the Ancient Star Desert knelt on the ground, his eyes wide, staring intently at the movements of the person in front of him. The person in front of him suddenly pulled out a slender blade that pierced his throat, bringing out a spurt of blood that splashed on the wall.

Life force drained from his body, and he slumped down, blood gurgling out, forming a pool of blood.

"This guy's level is quite high. I only have 37% of my health left." Kuang Dao held the high-frequency katana in one hand, shaking off the blood on it. Mecha Force triggered the mechanism, allowing the blade to retract into the hilt. Then, he inserted the hilt into the long slot on his armor's forearm, and the magnetic link clicked, adhering the hilt tightly.

The silver-black armor he was currently wearing was equipment exclusive to Mecha Warriors, with folded mechanical weapons hidden everywhere.

The bodies of the guards lay scattered in the room. Jiang Cheng Guild and team members were all nearby, having just worked together to eliminate the enemies in this room. They were now using automatic repair tools to restore the armor's durability and incidentally scavenging the equipment from the bodies on the ground.

Fierce gunfire came from the direction of the room door. The killed Grade B general seemed to be quite important, attracting a large wave of enemies. Feng Yue was guarding the door, deploying a large number of lethal mechanical traps and electromagnetic kinetic energy turrets using compressed orbs, continuously firing. With a Grade B Mechanic guarding the door, ordinary troops couldn't break through at all and were suppressed in the corridor corner, their several charges only leaving a pile of corpses behind.

Feng Yue usually liked to play with the Jiang Cheng team, and Kuang Dao was willing to bring reliable Mechanic players along, so the two had always had a good relationship.

Since the 3.0 version allowed Mechanic players to access compressed orb technology, they immediately became the most popular choice for teaming up, becoming the darlings in everyone's eyes. Mechanic players no longer needed to slowly deploy mechs, and the speed of setting up the field was improved, so their role was magnified all at once. Now, whether it was running dungeons or doing combat missions, each team basically had to bring a Mechanic to cope with various situations. Of course, each Mechanic player's equipment was different, and the situations they could adapt to also varied.

"I wonder how many Grade B enemies there are in this city."

Xie Xiao Jian, the vice-captain of the team, injected himself with a cell vitality catalyst to restore health and chatted casually.

Kuang Dao looked at the real-time battlefield map. "There shouldn't be many left. The defenders of this city are almost all killed by the others. Hao Tian and the others are downstairs. They've already killed four Grade B monsters."

"So lucky. Including this one, we've only killed two along the way." Xie Xiao Jian looked envious.

Grade B was an elite and would give a lot of kill experience rewards. Moreover, the Grade B elites all had names and surnames, and each had an additional kill mission. In addition to experience, they could also receive extra remuneration from the Pioneers. In the past month, players had been keen on dealing with Grade B enemies.

For the current first-tier players, ordinary players might not be a match for Grade B elites in a one-on-one fight, but a team of five could basically defeat an ordinary Grade B. Even if small-Boss-level Grade B enemies were more difficult to deal with, most of them were within the range of defeat – Grade B used to be strong in the eyes of the players, but for the current players, killing Grade B had become a regular operation.

There were only a dozen or twenty Disaster Grades in a galactic civilization, so they could only be encountered in key battles. Therefore, in other colony star battlefields, thousands of Grade B players were basically invincible.

Before long, the defenders of this city were completely wiped out. The players returned to the landing pods and were taken away by the ship's tractor beam, then dropped to other cities to be thrown into a new round of combat.

...

"Frontline reports, three more colony stars have been captured by the Black Star Army's Undying."

On the Ancient Star Desert's executive planet, haggard high-level officials gathered together, staring at the strategic star map with frowning faces.

"The Black Star Army's Undying are too terrifying. There's no way to restrain them." An officer said dejectedly, "So far, eighteen... no, twenty-one colony stars have been taken from us."

If the enemy only had fleets, they wouldn't have a headache, but the Ancient Star Desert was helpless against this group of "Undying."

Millions of Grade B interstellar warriors were probably more than their entire civilization's Grade B count, and what was even more excessive was that this group was undying, with almost zero casualties.

The high-level officials of the Ancient Star Desert could only watch as the resurrecting players retook colony stars one by one.

The Black Star Army's Undying troops had always been famous in the Shattered Star Ring. This time, they personally experienced it, and everyone present felt despair.

Such enemies were too terrifying. Whoever controlled such a terrifying trump card force could have a place in the universe!

The Black Star Army's intervention made the Ancient Star Desert see little hope. There was no chance of winning if this continued. It was estimated that the Pioneers could win the civil war in about a year.

However, surrender was impossible. No one was willing to give up a galactic civilization. They could at least hold on for a year, and maybe they could usher in a turning point. While resisting, the high-level officials of the Ancient Star Desert were secretly looking for help and planning their escape routes.

"That bastard Cesilin actually defected to the Pioneers and took away his direct subordinates. I didn't expect that he would be a traitor!" The leader of the Ancient Star Desert gritted his teeth. "We were clearly the ruling party cooperating with the Black Star Army. How could Black Star help the Pioneers for no reason? Cesilin must be behind this. There's no other explanation!"

Speaking of Cesilin, hatred appeared on everyone's faces. If it weren't for this guy's betrayal, how could they have fallen into such a desperate situation!

"This ingrate, I've never treated him badly. I gave him power, I gave him wealth, I gave him everything I could. What dissatisfaction does he have? Why did he betray me!"

The leader of the Ancient Star Desert angrily slammed the table, lamenting, "He actually told me that our ideals were different... What a joke! Look at what he did. In order to implement his so-called ideals, he didn't hesitate to let so many compatriots die in vain. Did he think he was a great man by doing this?! We were ruling well, but because of him, this civilization will lose its most orthodox ruler. He deserves to die!"

Hearing this, the high-level officials present looked at each other, but no one agreed, and their expressions were speechless.

They were very aware of their situation. Others were qualified to say this, but they were not. They had done a lot of dirty work over the years. Ordinary people didn't know what the Ancient Star Desert was like, but they did.

In their opinion, the leader was so angry that he had lost his mind and started talking nonsense.

However, at this moment, the leader of the Ancient Star Desert suddenly stopped scolding. His movements paused, and his angry expression froze for a moment. He suddenly calmed down, slowly stood up, and said faintly, his tone not like the same person:

"It seems that you are very troubled. I may be able to help you."

The high-level officials present were stunned, and suddenly their faces changed drastically, and they stood up abruptly.

This phenomenon... the leader was being mind-controlled?!

The leaders of galactic civilizations would receive Disaster Grade level magic and psychic enhancement in order to avoid being mind-controlled by others. At least the Disaster Grade level could not silently control the mind of a galactic civilization leader in front of everyone.

Who did it?

Could it be Super-A Grade?!

"Who are you?!" An officer looked wary and secretly sent a message to the adjutant, asking all the Disaster Grades left behind to come over.

"Don't be nervous. I have no malice towards you. As for my identity, I don't plan to tell you."

The leader of the Ancient Star Desert said expressionlessly, his body being manipulated. "You only need to know that I will provide you with martial power and resource support to help you fight against the Black Star Army."

The high-level officials were skeptical, looked at each other, and decided to pretend to agree first, no matter whether it was true or false. At the same time, they were also worried that they or their companions were also mind-controlled. This mysterious person obviously had such ability.

"What do you want?"

"Don't worry. I don't want anything."

"Then why are you helping us?"

"I don't care about your Gular civilization. I'm just very interested in the Black Star Army's Undying. The longer you persevere, the longer my observation time will be."

The 'Ancient Star Desert leader' narrowed his eyes. "My proposal only has benefits for you and no harm. Do you accept it?"

Everyone looked at each other and hesitated before nodding.

"Very good. I will have someone contact you as soon as possible... By the way, I will also give you a suggestion. You can try to issue employment to the Black Star Army's Undying."

Everyone was stunned.

"The Black Star Army is our enemy. You want us to ask the enemy for help? What do you mean?"

"That group of heavens... Hehe, that group of Undying has a unique set of rules. Some behaviors cannot be judged by logic. How do you know if it will work if you don't try?" The 'Ancient Star Desert leader' said playfully.

As soon as he finished speaking, the leader of the Ancient Star Desert suddenly shuddered, his eyes became dazed, and he suddenly realized what was happening. He quickly touched his body.

"The person controlling me has left?!"

Everyone secretly breathed a sigh of relief and hurried forward to support the leader.

"Do you remember what you said when you were being controlled?"

"I remember everything. I just couldn't control my body at the time, but my perception was still there."

At this moment, the Disaster Grades left behind quickly arrived. After listening to what happened, he looked serious and examined the leader of the Ancient Star Desert. His expression became more and more solemn.

"How is it?" the leader of the Ancient Star Desert asked.

"All of your mind defense enchantments have been broken, and it was done in an instant. Those enchantments are enough to resist the continuous intrusion of a Disaster Grade psychic for more than ten minutes. The person controlling you is definitely a Super-A Grade."

The leader of the Ancient Star Desert's expression changed slightly. The word "Super-A Grade" carried a lot of weight for a galactic civilization.

Among the five Super-A Grades in the Shattered Star Ring, only Sisko and Austin had the ability to intrude into minds...

Perhaps it wasn't these two, but a Super-A Grade from another Star Field?

Thinking of what the mysterious person had just said, everyone's expressions were strange.

They had received help in this way, which they had not expected. However, in any case, things had finally taken a turn for the better.

Although they still didn't know who this guy was, since he was also a Super-A Grade, he wouldn't be afraid of the Black Star Army, right?

"By the way, he also told us to ask the enemy for help. Isn't this a joke?! Could the Black Star Army turn around and help us?"

The most confusing thing for everyone was this suggestion. It was clearly a futile act, and they had no idea what the meaning was.

"... Anyway, we have no way out. Let's give it a try." The leader of the Ancient Star Desert nodded.