Chapter 152 The Encirclement Begins

The gathering point for the Imperial Encirclement Squad was a military zone, a crucial inter-stellar domain transfer node. The army stationed here guarded a military stargate that led directly to the Shattered Star Ring.

The military stargate networks of the three great civilization universe class civilizations were extensive, centered on the Central Star Sea. The stargate network connected all star domains, which was one of the foundations for maintaining their rule.

After waiting for some days, the other Imperial allies participating in the operation arrived one after another. Once the seven were all present, they boarded the main ship of the Imperial fleet for this trip.

In the bridge command room, the seven gathered together, greeting each other.

Each person's friendship varied, but since it was a cooperative operation, it was necessary to familiarize themselves with their teammates.

When Han Xiao first went to the Imperial Motherstar, Kohler was also present, and the two had met before. The Sword Saint Fú was an Imperial ally that he was meeting for the first time.

"Black Star, Your Excellency." Sword Saint Fú nodded slightly, her long white hair tied into a braid, her expression cold and indifferent.

"Hello, this is our first time meeting, right?" Han Xiao also said politely, extending his hand to her.

Sword Saint Fú lowered her eyelids slightly, glanced at Han Xiao's outstretched palm, hesitated for a moment, stood still without the intention of shaking hands, and shook her head:

"I don't like anyone touching my body, sorry."

"Understood." Han Xiao didn't mind and retracted his hand. Many Beyond Grade As had different habits, and he respected the other party's wishes.

At this moment, Milizaus's magical avatar approached and patted Han Xiao on the shoulder. "For this encirclement operation, Saint Fú is our main point of attack. Her psychic power is very unique and has extremely strong mental penetration."

"It's not that exaggerated." Sword Saint Fú shook her head, her tone indifferent. "The Heterogeneous also has spiritual abilities to protect the soul."

"At least compared to other aspects, the soul is one of the Heterogeneous' few weaknesses."

Hearing this, Han Xiao nodded in agreement. Including his incarnations, he had fought the Heterogeneous three times. Combined with the information from his previous life, he had a good understanding of the Heterogeneous' abilities.

The Heterogeneous' most terrifying advantage was that he had collected abilities in all aspects in a targeted manner, making himself almost without weaknesses.

He had high-mobility abilities such as "Dimensional Rift" and "Teleportation", as well as abilities such as "Enhanced Self-Healing" and "Black Hole" to ensure the safety of his physical body. He also possessed various powerful attack, control, defense, transformation, and spiritual abilities. Compared to his material entity, the Heterogeneous' soul was not too exaggeratedly strong, so attacking from the soul level was a more efficient method.

The crowd chatted for a while before the fleet commander walked in. He gave a military salute to the seven Beyond Grade A experts and said in a deep voice:

"The fleet is ready. If you all have no other questions, we will officially head to the Shattered Star Ring."

As one of the three pillars of the empire, Milizaus had the highest status in the team. He turned his head and glanced around. Seeing that everyone had no objections, he exchanged glances with Han Xiao and nodded.

"Let's go."

"Yes."

The commander came to the console, issued instructions on the fleet-wide channel, his face solemn, and said in a deep voice: "The Heterogeneous encirclement operation officially begins, all troops set off!"

The Imperial fleet sprang into action, with warships spewing out propellant flames and entering the stargate one after another.

At this moment, Han Xiao's expression changed slightly.

Just as the commander announced the official start of the operation, his interface popped up with a mission notification…and two of them!

The first triggered mission was [Imperial Campaign: Fallen Ark (Repeatable)], a faction series mission that could be repeatedly completed. Han Xiao had done it once before.

The small objectives in the mission were to kill different numbers and types of Fallen Ark members, and the mission objective with the most rewards was the series dealing with the Heterogeneous.

Depleting a certain amount of the Heterogeneous' health would grant massive experience and Imperial Contribution Points, while eliminating a Heterogeneous incarnation would reward a Heterogeneous Advent Card—Han Xiao's Heterogeneous Character Summon Card was obtained from this mission.

The second mission was named [Three Great Civilizations' Nemesis].

[【Three Great Civilizations' Nemesis】]

[Mission Description: Chaos breeds order, and order incubates chaos. They transform into each other and oppose each other. The three great civilizations rule the explored universe and are the embodiment of established order, while the Heterogeneous is the spokesperson for chaos and tyranny. He pursues strength by any means and has been given the titles of "Slaughterer of Living Beings" and "Guide for Fanatical Believers." Criminals from all over the universe flock to his banner, spreading fear in the universe. The three great civilizations want to eradicate this cancer in the universe at all times. For this goal, they have united once again, and you have participated in this glorious action.]

[Mission Requirement: Follow the three great civilizations to deal with the Heterogeneous]

[Reward: Based on the damage dealt to the Heterogeneous (both the main body and incarnations are acceptable, calculated as a percentage of health), different levels of rewards will be given. Reaching 20% will grant 1 random reward, and reaching 75% will grant 1 [Character Summon Card—The Heterogeneous]. If the total health depleted from the Heterogeneous exceeds 100%, it will only be calculated as 100%.]

[Additional Mission Requirement: Cooperate with the three great civilizations to successfully capture or kill the Heterogeneous.]

[Additional Reward: Randomly draw three of the Heterogeneous' abilities. Each time, you can specify the type as a skill or talent. You can draw three times separately or draw all at once.]

"Jackpot." Han Xiao's eyes lit up.

Sure enough, the three great civilizations' joint encirclement of the Heterogeneous, a major event of this level, could not be without missions.

He had done the first routine mission before, so he glanced at it and looked away. The second mission was the key point, which seemed to have been triggered by the joint operation.

The three great civilizations' joint operation was largely driven by him, so it was equivalent to him indirectly creating this mission.

The Heterogeneous was full of treasures, and randomly drawing his abilities was extremely rewarding. Moreover, the mechanism for randomly drawing this time was different from previous missions.

The previous drawing mechanism did not allow specifying the type. Talents and skills would be drawn together, but this time it was more targeted. The quantity had also been broken through, reaching three times. Also, unlike the previous one-time drawing, it could be divided into three draws, meaning that the maximum number of random options increased from 5 to 15, allowing for more possibilities.

However, the more generous the rewards, the greater the difficulty.

The extent of the Heterogeneous' strength after evolution was unknown. While Han Xiao was happy, he was also quite worried about the success rate of this operation.

Han Xiao glanced at the crowd. The other Imperial allies looked calm. Although they knew they were setting off to deal with the Heterogeneous, they did not show any urgent expression. Among everyone, only he knew what it meant for this trip to be able to defeat the Heterogeneous.

This might be a battle that related to the fate of the entire explored universe!

It also related to whether he could develop steadily.

To eliminate the hidden danger of the World Tree, he would defeat the Heterogeneous even without rewards.

With this in mind, Han Xiao composed himself.

"The empire has created enough favorable conditions. The rest depends on actual operation…"

…

The Shattered Star Ring was a vast star domain, even larger than the Glimmering World. It was divided into thirty-one star clusters and controlled by four Super Star Cluster-grade civilizations. Its prosperity was comparable to that of the Star Spirit Sea, and it was in the second tier of the entire universe, with the Central Star Sea being in the first tier.

Because the three great civilizations strictly controlled the Central Star Sea, second-tier star domains like the Shattered Star Ring were occupied by countless forces. All kinds of people were more active here. For example, the Old Ones' nominal headquarters was located in the Shattered Star Ring.

Historically, the Shattered Star Ring had also been glorious. During the Exploration Era, it was the base camp of a quasi-universe-level civilization. This civilization was a strong competitor of the three great civilizations at the time, but unfortunately, it failed to survive the cruel Exploration Era War and disappeared into thin air.

At that time, many local Star Cluster-grade and Star System-grade civilizations were also destroyed in the war, leaving behind a large number of ruins. In terms of the number of ruins, the Shattered Star Ring was second only to the Ancient Star Desert. The number of barren universe belts was also very large and relatively densely distributed, making it a natural hiding place.

Because he had a mission to complete, the Imperial fleet did not delay along the way and arrived at the agreed meeting point.

A few days later, the Glorious Federation and the Arcane Church's teams finally arrived and joined forces with the Imperial fleet.

Han Xiao also saw the manpower sent by the other two.

Three from the Arcane Church.

One from the Glorious Federation.

Including the Empire, there were a total of eleven Beyond Grade As!

The Beacon Star battle was about the same scale.