Chapter 1 Black Star's Guerrilla Warfare

Just as Han Xiao used Emperor's Transmission to shift and change positions, single-handedly devouring another fleet, spatial rifts appeared around him again, and the troops that had just besieged him rushed to reinforce, pursuing relentlessly.

But this time, before Tedrian and the others could fully arrive, Han Xiao switched to another set of Emperor's Armor, disappearing again in full view. This time, he teleported to a "bait" force that hadn't been caught yet.

By the time Tree King, Tedrian, and the others arrived, all that was left for them was a field of fleet wreckage floating in space, and another corpse of a Sacred Tree Emissary.

"Damn it!"

Tedrian was furious, anger at being toyed with rising spontaneously.

Even though the World Tree Express was already fast in its own territory, with its support speed, it was still one step too late, allowing the outsider to kill another companion.

The other Sacred Tree Emissaries and Ancestral Spirits also wore grim expressions.

Their high-dimensional information vision had locked onto the target, and everyone thought this outsider had nowhere to escape. They never expected the opponent to have such methods, catching them off guard. Although the opponent's tracks were still impossible to hide, teleporting to another bait force that hadn't been caught yet meant they couldn't immediately lock onto Han Xiao's location and traverse space, so they could only re-track the trajectory.

The three major civilizations knew very little about the World Tree, but the reverse was also true. The World Tree Civilization was even less familiar with the explored universe, and it was also the first time they had witnessed the Emperor's Transmission methods.

"In that case, the traces of those other baits could turn into the outsider's main body at any time, full of danger. It is very possible that we will be counter-killed..." Roxiliam looked serious, as if facing a great enemy.

Everyone thought of the outsider's fighting power just now and couldn't help but feel a chill—they could chase, but who would be unlucky after catching up was hard to say.

"This outsider must want to nibble away at our forces through this method. As long as we split up to pursue, there is a risk of being counter-killed. But we can't not chase. Letting this level of individual power roam freely in our territory... Speaking of which, what kind of civilization does the other party come from, to send such a high-level Esper to venture alone? Could it be that this civilization has many high-level combatants of the same level?"

Overman frowned, his tone a little uneasy.

At the thought that the outsider was not only strong individually but also possessed such a highly mobile, unsolvable method, most of the people present felt a strong sense of fear.

Just one person had caused them so much trouble, rampaging through their territory, which was simply a provocation to the entire World Tree Civilization.

Originally, it was a one-sided hunt, but the outsider not only didn't flee in panic, but instead turned them into prey. Everyone didn't expect to fall into a passive position in their own territory, which had never happened before.

Having fought in the universe for many years, which opposing civilization didn't carefully probe when contacting them? They had never seen such an arrogant guy.

"...No matter what, this problem must be solved." Tedrian said in a deep voice, "Wake up those invisible guys and have them all join the chase!"

He hadn't thought of a way to solve the outsider's strange teleportation ability for the time being, but since the outsider's goal was to counter-kill isolated troops, then increasing the number of people in each pursuit force, so that the opponent would be restrained and unable to cause damage before they could provide support, was a useful method.

However, Tedrian was very worried that the outsider would again split off a bunch of bait troops. This kind of overt scheme forced them to divide their forces—originally, they could collect high-dimensional information samples during the tracking to lock onto which path the outsider's main body was on, but the opponent's teleportation method made every "bait" potentially transform into the main body, so there was no way to distinguish them.

After speaking, Tedrian turned to look at Tree King and nodded. "Tree King, what do you think?"

Tree King had been listening to everyone's discussion without interrupting, and only spoke slowly at this time:

"Wait until you surround him, then notify me... Also, I will clear this star field later and seal it off. Don't care about the losses."

After speaking, Tree King turned into a blue-green stream of light and disappeared, merging into the roots of the World Tree.

He had already made a wasted trip this time and estimated that he wouldn't be able to deal with the outsider for a while, so he didn't want to be toyed with together with everyone.

Hearing this, Tedrian and the others breathed a sigh of relief.

The planets in the World Tree Civilization's territory were no longer naturally formed but high-value planets that the World Tree "ruminated" out using information-state conversion. They could freeze the current evolution at any time, swallow it back into information-state storage, and then convert it in another location.

With such characteristics, the World Tree was like a mobile base, taking the entire civilization with it, changing the location of its base camp in the universe, and responding to various situations. It was almost born for war.

Clearing this star field meant letting the World Tree take back all the planets and living beings in this area. In this way, there was no need to worry about the outsider causing damage everywhere, reducing many worries.

Only Tree King was granted this level of control authority by the World Tree, allowing him to issue such orders to the World Tree. Others didn't have enough authority to do so.

However, the World Tree couldn't just leave whenever it wanted. After changing the location of its base camp, it needed to start "rooting" in this area again, turning it into its own information collection, "integrating" with each other. Some abilities could only be used in its integrated territory. For example, the World Tree Express could only quickly traverse in its own territory, like ubiquitous stargates, while in other locations in the universe, it couldn't descend as freely as it could now.

Buzz buzz buzz—

Just then, more spatial rifts bloomed, and more troops were summoned by Tedrian, rushing to support.

Among them were more high-level Sacred Tree Emissaries, thirteen Ancestral Spirits, who emerged from their slumber, as well as several Executors who arrived, and some senior military officers specifically responsible for foreign wars, and the team's scale snowballed.

Although the opponent was only one person, the World Tree treated him with extremely high specifications. This scale of army was more than enough for a universe-level war.

…

More than ten days passed in a flash in the pursuit battle.

During these days, Han Xiao had been wandering in this star field, dealing with the World Tree's forces' encirclement and suppression.

He split off bait troops time and time again, constantly using Emperor's Transmission to shift and change positions, cutting off the World Tree's pursuer forces, sometimes deploying the Throne, but sometimes just using primitive psionic bombs, mixing truth and falsehood. At the same time, he occasionally used the Emperor's Return function to repeatedly jump around, extremely flexibly, making the World Tree forces suffer unspeakably.

Emperor's Armor was simply a guerrilla warfare artifact. Using this tactic, Han Xiao achieved some results, and the number of Super A Grade powerhouses he killed accumulated to six.

But as the World Tree's powerhouses gathered, each encounter became more and more difficult to kill the enemy. Each pursuer force was assigned enough powerhouses to restrain him for a while. Then, in the blink of an eye, dozens of Super A Grades would appear as reinforcements, with peak Super A Grades appearing one after another, forcing Han Xiao to reduce the time of each battle and not dare to linger in one place.

Moreover, the World Tree's fleet was too large, surrounding the entire star field and constantly shrinking the encirclement. Han Xiao's guerrilla range also shrank accordingly, and the time it took for each bait force to be caught became shorter and shorter.

At the same time, Han Xiao also discovered that the navigation star chart had failed. The planets in this area seemed to have disappeared, making it impossible to accurately locate them.

"Could it be that the World Tree has swallowed all the nearby planets? To deal with me alone, they actually came up with such a grand plan."

In the empty space, Han Xiao sped along alone, secretly clicking his tongue in his heart.

This was a bit beyond his expectations. Only the World Tree, with its extremely rich resources, wouldn't care about this loss and would decisively clear the field.

After more than ten days of continuous guerrilla warfare, he had fought against the World Tree powerhouses nearly a hundred times and had seen a large number of "acquaintances." Except for Tree King, almost every pursuer had fought him.

Although he didn't have the opportunity to kill the enemy later, Han Xiao had gleaned a large amount of information about the World Tree powerhouses' attributes through combat information and learned the specific abilities of many opponents, all of which were extremely valuable intelligence.

"My guerrilla area is getting smaller and smaller. If this continues, I will soon be blocked. Moreover, I can't nibble away at the enemy's powerhouses now, so there's no need to continue the guerrilla warfare..."

Han Xiao's mind flashed.

The World Tree really had no way to restrain the Emperor's guerrilla tactics, but this was their base camp. They directly used their massive forces to suppress everything.

Guerrilla tactics were good, but facing the World Tree Civilization's crushing advantage in military strength and rapid support system, their effect quickly reached its limit.

"It's time to slip away."

Han Xiao nodded secretly.

Although he didn't complete the land grab this time, the harvest exceeded expectations. He not only obtained a large amount of important intelligence but also sent several World Tree powerhouses to the Western Paradise, which was higher than his expectations. He could already withdraw, and staying would definitely not be good for him.

However, before evacuating, Han Xiao wanted to find an opportunity to meet Tree King, glean the opponent's combat information, and explore their true strength.

…

"All the baits have been cleared, and only the last high-dimensional information trajectory remains. The outsider has not continued to split off troops. We can lock onto his main body."

In the command room of the main ship, Tedrian looked at the current situation, and the gloomy expression that had lasted for more than ten days finally cleared.

"We finally surrounded him. This outsider is too difficult to deal with."

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Heaven knows how they had spent the past ten days. An outsider had disturbed their peace.

The number of World Tree powerhouses participating in the pursuit was much higher than it had been ten days ago. Six high-level Sacred Tree Emissaries had come, seven of the thirteen Ancestral Spirits had come, as well as several military commanders and Executors. A total of about twenty peak Super A Grades with energy levels exceeding 71,000 had come, accounting for about two-fifths of the entire World Tree Civilization's peak Super A Grades. It could be said that they had given enough importance to the situation.

"Don't be too happy. Since he has this kind of teleportation method, he probably can escape."

At this time, a senior officer in military uniform said in a cold voice.

Hearing this, everyone felt a little helpless.

They naturally understood this principle, but after studying for more than ten days, they had not been able to crack the outsider's teleportation method. Their request had gradually decreased from killing the outsider to expelling him.

"Drive the outsider away first, and then consider what to do later. This time, we may have encountered the strongest civilization in history." Tedrian frowned and responded.

Just then, everyone's spiritual network suddenly received information that the pursuer force had finally caught up with the outsider's main body and shared the coordinates.

"Go!"

Everyone present had a stern look on their faces and immediately activated the World Tree Express, traversing quickly along the roots.

Before long, everyone's vision blurred, and they had already arrived at their destination.

They saw the outsider floating in space, not attacking the pursuer force as before. The pursuer force was waiting for reinforcements and didn't dare to take the initiative to attack. For a time, neither side moved.

Seeing this, many World Tree powerhouses turned into streams of light and shot out of the fleet, landing around Han Xiao and forming an encirclement. More reinforcements were also arriving continuously.

The number of Super A Grades present quickly approached a hundred, surrounding Han Xiao and staring at him intently.

Because this time they had cleared all the bait trajectories, the outsider couldn't use the previous guerrilla tactics to toy with them, so Tedrian notified Tree King.

Boom!

The figure of Tree King descended rapidly, and his aura swept across the entire field.

"Your Excellency Tree King."

Seeing this, Tedrian and many World Tree powerhouses greeted him in the spiritual network.

Tree King glanced at the situation in the field and nodded slowly. "We finally surrounded him. Why aren't you attacking?"

"This outsider looks confident and unafraid. He will probably use that teleportation method to escape our territory..."

Tedrian explained.

Just as the two were communicating, Han Xiao suddenly raised his hand, pointed at Tree King, and then hooked his finger. Energy fluctuations rose steadily, locking onto Tree King.

Seeing this action, everyone present understood what the outsider meant. He was provoking their Tree King.

Tree King glanced at Han Xiao indifferently, expressionless, and casually raised his palm, gently waving it downward.

"Deal with him."