Chapter 1 The Glistening World, the Renault Star Cluster, the Jiladdon Galaxy

In the realm of war, a joint exploration team from the Krentish Empire was methodically executing its pre-set plan. The fleet, engaged in a sweeping search, resembled a paint brush, slowly turning the grey, unexplored regions of the star chart into explored green areas. The star gate transportation network within the first star sector was gradually being constructed. Planets were surveyed, detailed information was entered into the database, and numerous space buoys were left in the explored areas.

The exploration on the War Realm side was uneventful. The Jiladdon Galaxy had plenty of resource planets, but so far, they hadn't encountered a single indigenous civilization.

Hebber had been idle for the past ten days or so. The massive fleet was operating according to plan without requiring his command, so he found a star to hone his Qi.

On the surface of a scorching red star within the star sector, Hebber walked. Plasma star energy with a diameter of tens of kilometers formed a moving vortex, rotating around him. Stimulated by Qi, his cells devoured the intense surrounding radiation at a special rhythm, converting it into his own energy. Patches of dazzling, white-hot color appeared on his skin.

Han Xiao's Stellar Furnace Training Method came from Hebber. Every martial artist was a fitness addict; they felt uncomfortable if they didn't train for a day.

*Hoo…* Hebber exhaled, expelling excess energy from his body. What he exhaled were solar flare-like arcs of energy, like a red foehn wind.

He pushed off with both legs, and the enormous force turned into an expanding shockwave. The surrounding crimson energy vortex was instantly dispersed. Hebber, covered in dense Qi flames, broke through the star's powerful gravity, and shot up like a beam of light into the universe, quickly leaving the star's outer region and returning to the fleet stationed outside.

Walking into the spaceship, Hebber casually draped his cloak over himself and accepted the communicator handed to him by his subordinate. It was a message from the Krentish side.

"Your Excellency Overlord, we just received a message that the Commander-in-Chief has issued a directive to the Black Star Army, ordering them to eliminate a local power."

"Attack a local power?" Hebber paused. "The Empire's exploration code does not allow the arbitrary use of violence."

"Our people stationed on Beacon Star have found out that Black Star encountered a special situation. The local power is a band of raiders entrenched in the center of the star cluster. They were discovered by the Black Star Army by chance. The Empire wants the star data accumulated by this local power, so the Commander-in-Chief has authorized the Black Star Army to eliminate them."

Hearing this, Hebber frowned slightly.

They were developing steadily, while the Black Star Army was already out hunting?!

If the Black Star Army obtained the accumulated intelligence of the local power, it would be a considerable achievement, allowing them to obtain data on a large number of planets at once.

Originally, the star system they were exploring was more fertile, and their exploration results could steadily surpass the Black Star Army. Unfortunately, that Black Star guy had a bit of luck…

Hebber shook his head.

He didn't want to see the Black Star Army achieve this result, but he could only watch helplessly, feeling somewhat frustrated.

"Your Excellency Overlord, our commander has a bold idea…" At this moment, the Krentish liaison officer said again.

"Another scheme against Black Star?"

"That's right, we plan to…"

"Alright, enough nonsense." Before the other party could finish speaking, Hebber interrupted, "I have reached a truce agreement with the Black Star Army and don't want to provoke them now. You'd better not do it either. There's no point in this."

With that, he hung up the communication.

The Krentish Empire was still unwilling to give up, not wanting their nemesis, the Black Star Army, to achieve success. Hebber didn't want to fool around with this group of pit-diggers.

The commander sent by the Krentish Empire this time was a radical from the secret war, so he held deep hostility towards Han Xiao. He simply intended to snatch the Black Star Army's credit to disgust Black Star. In Hebber's view, the success rate was slim, it would provoke dissatisfaction from both Black Star and the Empire, and it wouldn't have much impact on the Black Star Army. It was simply not worth the loss.

In the Glistening World, Hebber really didn't want to be hostile to Black Star. With such a big pie, it would be better to honestly explore their own area. To undermine each other with the Black Star Army would only benefit other imperial allies who would participate in the exploration in the future.

…

In the previous life's Version 4.0, when the players entered the Glistening World, many star clusters had already been explored. Numerous external forces had moved in and were fighting each other, so the players had plenty of combat opportunities… but the current situation was different.

Now it was only Version 3.0. Han Xiao allowed the players to access the Glistening World storyline one version early. While gaining an advantage, he also faced a different environment from his previous life. In the early stages of exploration, there were only the Empire and its allies, who were all on the same side, so the players lacked the faction war storyline and didn't have many combat opportunities.

Therefore, once the [Eliminate the Great Universe Legion] mission was released, all the players who followed the Black Star Army to explore the Glistening World actively participated in this collective action. This mission had no limit on the number of participants, and the vast majority of players chose to participate.

Han Xiao was happy to see this happen. Because the players were currently in different exploration teams and were relatively scattered, he casually arranged for tens of thousands of spaceships to regroup these players, forming an expeditionary fleet.

This expeditionary force had only a small number of army NPC soldiers, and most of them were players.

Because it would take a lot of time to reach the central area of the Gaolu Star Cluster from here, Han Xiao didn't plan to have the players stay on the ships all the time. That would be wasting the time of these quality laborers. He planned to have the expeditionary force conduct linear exploration along the way, surveying some of the planets, making the best use of everything.

Similarly, to facilitate the players' return, they would also have to establish stargates along the way.

In this way, the Black Star Army's exploration plan also changed. The main force slowly explored the border star systems, Hadaway led the first task force to open up the passage from the southern to the eastern part of the star cluster, and the second expeditionary force of players opened up the second passage from the southern to the central area of the star cluster. This was equivalent to fighting on three fronts.

As a result, the army's manpower was further thinned out, so Han Xiao instructed Sylvia, who was stationed at the Shattered Star Ring headquarters, to send out a second batch of fleets as soon as possible to replenish the manpower of the exploration team.

After the development of the first two versions, the players now had the power of Grade B. Millions of army players were already able to stand alone, and Han Xiao was quite relieved.

As the versions changed, the players' strength would become stronger and stronger, gradually growing into a force that could not be ignored, gradually shedding their cannon fodder status and slowly stepping onto the stage of the universe.

After sending out the player expeditionary force, Han Xiao left them alone. He directed the fleet to survey resource planets every day according to the plan, and used his free time to expand the mechanical army. No accidents occurred during this time, and everything was peaceful.

Two more star sectors were surveyed, and more than a month passed in the blink of an eye.

On this day, Han Xiao finally received a report from Phillip that the player expeditionary force heading to the center of the star cluster had finally encountered a scout unit of the Great Universe Legion.

…

The scout unit was encountered by a player squad that was deploying space buoys. They only had one small reconnaissance ship, carrying only three hundred players, while the enemy scout unit had three battleships.

The battle broke out immediately. As soon as the scout unit discovered the players, they rushed up to engage in boarding action, preparing to capture the enemy with their numerical advantage and interrogate them for information about the Black Star Army.

Shells hit the shields of the small reconnaissance ship, causing a series of explosions, but the flickering shields remained unyielding.

"Warning! Spaceship is under attack. Shield energy remaining 97.1%… 99.7%… Charging complete. Threat assessment in progress… Assessment complete. The enemy's firepower is unable to penetrate our shields. Threat level: Extremely Low."

The hundreds of players in the spaceship looked at each other.

The Black Star Army's spaceships adopted advanced Galaxy-level technology, and even had Star Cluster-level standards in some aspects, such as the energy core, weapons, and shields. In comparison, the Great Universe Legion's spaceships were too backward. Without a huge numerical gap, they could not pose a threat to the Black Star Army's spaceships at all.

The boarding action was exactly what the hundreds of players wanted. After the three enemy scout ships approached, they were about to dock, when a dozen assault pods were ejected from the side of the small reconnaissance ship, "biting" through the three enemy ships and embedding themselves in the hulls.

The players in the assault pods were like tigers unleashed from their cages, rampaging through the enemy ships, mowing down enemies left and right. All of these players were basically above level 100, while the enemy crew members were mostly ordinary people.

Before long, the hundreds of players cleared the enemies inside the enemy ships and seized the three spaceships.

On the other side, Attimo, who led the main force, also received news that one of his scout units had encountered the enemy and lost contact.

However, he did not receive the image data that the scout unit should have sent back. The combat power of the Black Star Army was still unknown to him.

"Before losing contact, the scout unit only sent back news of encountering the enemy, and then the connection was cut off. We don't know the process of their battle with the enemy," the adjutant said in confusion.

"The same as with Qiqijia…" Attimo narrowed his eyes, a rare hint of solemnity flashing in his eyes, "The enemy's quantum technology may be superior to ours…"

When the battle broke out, Phillip used the quantum network to invade the enemy's intelligence and forcibly blocked their communication, in order to prevent the army's intelligence from being leaked. The same thing happened when Qiqijia encountered Youzu, so to this day, Attimo still did not know how many spaceships the Black Star Army had or how high their combat power was.

On the contrary, Phillip figured out the location of Attimo's main force from the quantum link, and was recalling the exploration squads stationed outside, ordering the expeditionary force to march straight toward the enemy's main force.

No matter what kind of war, the importance of intelligence could not be ignored. The army's virtual technology crushed the enemy, and the Great Universe Legion was like a group of blind men in comparison.

Since dominating the "universe", Attimo had not encountered an enemy who could make him feel pressured, but the Black Star Army that suddenly appeared shook his confidence of winning every battle.

This might be the most powerful opponent he had ever encountered.

"Black Star Army, not bad." Attimo said in a deep voice, "I'm willing to call you the strongest."

"However… meeting my fleet will not change your fate in any way!"

Attimo's eyes were cold and stern, full of confidence. He had brought all his combat power this time, a full 100,000 battleships!

This was the fleet he had accumulated over the years, and it was the foundation of his rule over the "universe".

In his mind, such a large force was enough to sweep away all enemies.