Xyrin Empire
Chapter 593: Spark

Chapter 593: Chapter 593: Spark

Not only did Lilina come back with us, there was also that unlucky Protos Vanguard—it was like a buy one, get one free deal.

How should I put this, although the vanguard met with misfortune and had their rear end blown up by a bunch of local pirates as soon as they set foot there, their enemies ended up even more miserable. The pirates who attacked the vanguard base were survivors of the East Sky Zone pirates that Lilina had routed. Due to the activity of the Holy Temple Army, those poor pirates had completely lost their territory and had been wandering the universe for over a month. Once the mysterious fleet known as the "Pirate Buster" disappeared, they, like animals awoken from hibernation, became active again. Then, unfortunately, they stumbled upon a safe base established within an asteroid belt. Embodying the spirit of plundering money, food, and territory, the brave pirates attacked this base that seemed to have no significant power backing it—hoping that, even if they couldn’t rule the roost, stocking up on some food would be good. The good news is that they managed to break through the base’s energy barrier and destroy the power supply to the defense turrets. The bad news is—Lilina just happened to step out for some fresh air and to check if the rebels had left.

That’s the whole story.

Afterward, the vanguard and the Holy Temple Army concealed themselves in deep space. Due to the massive ghost energy fluctuations caused by the Holy Temple Army when they left deep space, the rebels from the East Sky Region had taken notice of them. To avoid exposure, Lilina intended to hide for a few more days until the commotion settled before having the vanguard come out to report. However, we found her the next day, which saved us a lot of trouble.

"Are you alright now?"

On the way to the officers’ meeting room, leading Lilina, I looked down again at the petite girl beside me and asked with some concern.

"I’m fine, I’m fine!! Boss, when did you start fussing over everything—Okay, you’ve always been like this."

With a significantly impatient tone, the pesky fake lolita waved her hand and swaggered ahead, looking for all the world as if she was the leader, and I was just a follower. Listening to her lively and uniquely confident speech, I simply had to believe she was really okay.

I thought she would need a long time to vent, but she just cried a little upon seeing me, wiped her nose on me for a bit, and Lilina then declared her mood had been adjusted. I was utterly surprised by her lightning speed. If it were someone else, like the absent-minded Qianqian, or Pandora, the one who thrives in chaos, I would believe that someone who had been lost in another world for two months and just regained contact could adjust their mood and vent their frustration in such a short time. But Lilina’s situation was special.

She had already gotten lost in another world for the second time.

The first time, she was thrown into Azeroth due to a death-related transit, drifting for several years in a completely unknown world, facing the terrifying disaster of the Undead Catastrophe. That experience could have left permanent scars in her heart, considering she was originally just an ordinary female student. And this time, although it was short, with a large group of soldiers by her side, it inevitably triggered her similarly terrible memories. Even though I’m not a psychology expert, I could imagine how awful Lilina’s mindset must have been during those two months. That could be inferred from her behavior, which ranged from fanatically preaching to slaughtering pirates.

"Really, you’re such a hassle." Suddenly, a voice from below interrupted my thoughts. Lilina was looking up at me with a shining gaze at a forty-five-degree angle less than half a meter ahead of herself, maintaining a steady backward pace, "I’m truly fine, because this priestess knew that a certain do-gooder idiot would definitely come looking for me anxiously. There might have been a bit of panic at the beginning, but I pretty much let it all out when slaughtering pirates. Oh, and then there’s that Bonnie, a self-proclaimed private piracy group leader with noble blood, she brought me quite a bit of fun, so my situation isn’t that bad. In the name of the Lady Goddess, I’m still waiting to vent my fury by wiping out all the rebels in the universe, you know."

... Alright, the ill-tempered priestess with no proper demeanor had indeed made a full-blooded resurrection.

Big Sister, Visca, Sivis, and a bunch of high-ranking Heroic Spirits had already gathered in the officer’s meeting room, waiting for our arrival. When Lilina saw a group of familiar faces, she immediately leaped onto the sofa with enthusiastic joy and loudly proclaimed, "Everyone! The greatest Life Goddess’ Chief Priestess, Holy Temple Knight Order’s Knight Commander, and the mightiest Pope ever, I Ding Lili Na Dang am back~!"

"Lilina is still so lively."

With a gentle smile, Big Sister gave a slight nod in acknowledgment to a certain Fake Lolita who was trying to hide her excitement, then subtly turned to give me a faint, appreciative smile.

I felt instantly healed, including my system of morals that had been wounded by Lilina’s shameless remarks just moments ago.

As for whether this now seemingly high-spirited and upbeat Fake Lolita had cried or fussed in the past half-hour, Big Sister could easily guess.

"Your Holiness the Pope." "Lord Priest." "Lilina." "Lady Priestess."

These were the greetings from the other Heroic Spirits. Regardless of their usual demeanor, Lilina’s status as Dingdang’s highest spokesperson, and sometimes even embodying the Goddess herself, was established. According to their titles, they were like Dingdang’s retainers and gatekeepers; thus, they had to treat Lilina as their superior, much like how security guards must show respect to the chairman’s secretary—it was a must. And so, Lilina, who had been accorded respect by a host of emperors and generals, became even more haughty.

"Tsk, such a drag, delaying many military operations because of you."

Visca bluntly blamed her frustrations about not being able to fight to her heart’s content on Lilina, which was also her own way of greeting. Normally they got along quite well.

"Fight, fight, the Life Goddess teaches the lambs, impulse is the devil," Lilina unabashedly fabricated a doctrine of Dingdang, indirectly announcing that the Life Goddess Sect’s manual of teachings was soon to undergo its umpteenth revision. Then, standing proudly under the huge projection in the middle of the meeting room, she declared, "Let’s begin the war council in the name of the Lady Goddess! I must turn the tables this time!"

Over the past few days, the Imperial Admiral had been launching probes and sending out spatial sniffing signals deep into space, and with the information gathered by the Avalon system, we had roughly mapped out the "world map" for this universe. Now, the projection in the center of the officer’s meeting room was exactly this embryonic star map.

First, it can be confirmed that this is indeed a very small universe with a radius of about two hundred million to two hundred and thirty million light-years—compared to our universe, it is practically a sesame seed. Moreover, this world is a true prison; its structure is entirely static. It neither expands nor contracts, and all star systems maintain an impossible state of eternal stillness, preserving an absolute distance from each other without deviation by even a millimeter over eons. Further, the distribution of these star systems is uneven, with the vast majority of matter concentrated at the center of the universe. This includes races from other worlds that have wandered in, all of which are clustered within a gigantic galaxy at the universe’s center. Extending outward from there, the density of matter in space dramatically decreases, and it appears that the vast, empty areas were set up to shroud the universe’s core beneath an information blockade. The Big Nebula, with a radius of three light-years, is located right at the center of the universe. As for the position of the Big Nebula in the universe, the multiple measurements taken by the Imperial Admiral have led to a conclusion of great concern: it is perfectly equidistant from the "shell" of this world, with an absolute zero deviation.

As an artificially created space structure, this positioning is certainly intentional, but why the rebels would want the Big Nebula to be there, just like its function, remains a mystery.

"Without a doubt, the Big Nebula is one of the madmen’s lairs," Lili Na, standing on a small stool, jabbed a photon teaching whip across a star map, "When the Holy Temple Army first arrived in this world, we weren’t as lucky as you. The moment we showed up, I had to fight countless pirates. Though I wiped them out, it also drew the attention of those madmen... also known as the rebels you speak of. I can assure you that one third of their main force came out of the Big Nebula."

"That was a real firefight, fighting a positional war against twenty times the number of enemies," sighed the Priestess who had caused much trouble, eliciting an envious expression from Visca, who was listening in, "But the Holy Temple Army was besieged and intercepted by more than a hundred group armies from the entire East Sky Region. Despite fighting desperately, using guerilla warfare, setting traps, and ambushes, in the end, we had no choice but to seal ourselves off in deep space. This frustration, this vengeance, must be carried out by the loli!"

She really had the gall to say all that—you rush into a completely unfamiliar universe without even the most basic intelligence gathering or dispatching a vanguard, and you just zealously spread your teachings and obliterate pirates as if you’re scared that others won’t know you’ve arrived. Even if the leader of the rebel forces were someone as important as Silvia, they would have come knocking on your door immediately, right?

And to speak of being engulfed in a firefight... in the battlefield, you, the fake lolita, were just an extra, right? Overnight awakening to military aptitude and sweeping across continents the next day with your army—those are events that occur in fantasy novels. During those two months of fervent battle, Lili Na likely just muddied the waters by pulling the army this way and that. It was the Imperial commanders of various levels within the Holy Temple Army who were actually directing the battles. What could this chaos-loving crazy girl possibly have to do with any of it?

But regardless of all that, possessing the only information about direct and prolonged confrontations with the rebel forces, Lili Na certainly got her fill of showing off. The little girl waved her photon teaching whip around like a Nazi field officer: "The rebel bases are scattered throughout the entire universe. According to my guess, they should follow the same distribution pattern as other races in this world, scarce on the periphery and more numerous toward the center. The core of the Big Nebula is definitely packed with their ships. But apart from the indisputable main base at the core of the Big Nebula, their other bases are completely undetectable, possibly hidden like how I once concealed myself, in deep space beyond the eleventh dimension. As for the core of the Big Nebula... anyway, I wouldn’t dare charge in, and even if we did, we’d most likely encounter a deep space seal. Then we’d face the enemy’s strength," Lili Na said and pointed her teaching whip vaguely in my direction, "The Boss’s caution is very appropriate. The rebel forces are exceptionally strong and have always been at their peak in this world, while we are only halfway through our revival. At that time, the Holy Temple Army almost attracted the attention of all the rebel forces in the East Sky Region. I was later pursued by twenty times the number of enemies, which definitely wasn’t their entirety. The Holy Temple Army and the main force of the Empire are less than twenty times apart. That is to say, just the East Sky Region alone has more rebels than all our main forces combined. This isn’t a battle of crushing superiority; if we’re not careful, we might be the ones crushed."

"From a numbers perspective, there’s no way to fight,"

I smirked to myself, Lili Na sure brought some unwelcome news.

But this was also a situation that should have been anticipated. My troops in the Xyrin Army and Sandora’s were built entirely from scratch, with our only advantage being that Leader-level Apostles did not have to wait to evolve slowly. We started with two Emperor-level Apostles, but in just a few years, the forces we could expand were quite limited. Meanwhile, the rebel forces in this universe had dominated for who knows how many tens of thousands of years. Even if they never bolstered their numbers, they would still be equivalent to the forces of a world at the height of the Empire. We are currently fighting with a force that is midway through revival against the fully established Imperial dominions; the disparity is self-evident.

However, we certainly have our own advantages, and looking at the shimmer of excitement on Lili Na’s face gave it away.

"Now, let’s talk about the peculiarities of those rebels," sure enough, Lady Priestess had more to say, "First, as you all now know, they are unmanned drones, or rather made up of ninety-nine percent drones and one percent Apostles. Even that one percent of Apostles lacks the ability to think, so all the rebels are brainless. This is our advantage. Second," continued the Priestess, having recently come to a conclusion, "you all know the ruckus the Holy Temple Army caused before being forced to retreat. Eighty percent of the pirates here were wiped out. Two small kingdoms that were in the way of the rebels’ attack on the Holy Temple Army were directly annihilated. We drew the attention of all the rebels in the East Sky Region and made their large armies assemble, but according to information brought by the Boss, the East Sky Region returned to calm the very next day after the Holy Temple Army vanished! The United States still took ten years to recover post 9/11!"

"Pure logic response, and it’s short-range logic!"

Upon hearing Pandora’s externally equipped thought circuit, Commander Sivis of the black, long, straight hair immediately understood; as a result, I became even more perplexed.

"It’s like a game," Lilina said, explaining just for me, "You can lure countless monsters, tormenting them to their limits, but no matter how much aggro you’ve built up, as long as you use a strong stealth at the critical moment, all the monsters will act as if nothing happened and return to their original positions, oblivious and amnesiac to the preceding events. The reaction of the rebels to the disappearance of the Holy Temple Army is exactly like this. It suggests that the enemy doesn’t have an AI at all; they’re completely reliant on a few final commands to act! With this in mind, we just need to be a little more careful. By exploiting the enemy’s patterns of action and circumventing their numerical advantage, we should be able to manage!"

"Then there’s the third point," Lilina was getting somewhat addicted, "The East Sky Region is not like anywhere else in this universe. This is our best point of breakthrough for our actions!"

The East Sky Region is special, something I knew from the beginning, thanks to information from Fina.

This is the most chaotic place in the entire universe and where the most powerful forces converge. If other parts of the universe have periods of regular, calm cycles, then the East Sky Region is essentially always in a state of war, the only difference being that during conflict cycles, it becomes even more of a hellish mortal world.

There are no non-hostile forces in the East Sky Region. The biggest powers here include the Roland Gale Consortium, the Angel Army, and the Black Mist Pirate Union. The weakest among them are the Black Mist Pirates, a loose organization comprised of tens of thousands of pirate forces from several star systems. Although they don’t have fixed colonization stars, their army is vast and their tactics are cunning. Despite lacking a physical sovereign entity, they still managed to frustrate every country in the East Sky Region with their remorseless acts of raiding and plundering. However, after Lilina set fire to them, the Black Mist Pirates were slaughtered up to seventy or eighty percent, and it can be determined that they have been crossed out. Meanwhile, Roland Gale Consortium and Angel Army are in a long-term conflict, each occupying one-third of the colonization stars in the East Sky Region. The endless wars almost always result in border planets changing hands daily, and the remaining third of colonization stars are occupied by more than a dozen small kingdoms that are constantly at war. Many of these small kingdoms act as vassals of Roland Gale or the Angels, their political allegiances changing on average every forty-eight hours. Lastly, every force in the East Sky Region has a penchant for invading other Sky Zones, with Roland Gale Consortium and Angel Army frequently harassing Gotaque’s territory in the Western Sky Region during each War Era, while those small kingdoms are keen to trouble the scattered forces in the Southern Sky Region... In short, it’s chaotic, very chaotic.

The East Sky Region is also the most active area for the "Shepherds." The presence of the Imperial Fleet assembling and moving around here is not uncommon. They have permanent Supervision Teams stationed near every colonization star, and when wars break out between local kingdoms, they would even assemble small fleets to join the fray, their motives unclear, but always catalyzing the fall of an old kingdom and the rise of a new one. Therefore, when forces resembling the "Shepherds" — the Holy Temple Army — began moving in large numbers here, the local forces almost took it as normal. This was one of the reasons the colossal Black Mist Pirate faction was annihilated without a chance to resist. Afterward, the rebel action against the Holy Temple Army was short-lived and the majority of the witnesses were conveniently eliminated, resulting in most areas of the East Sky Region continuing their usual infighting as if Lilina had never appeared.

In such a chaotic place, often visited by the "Shepherds" themselves, it was the perfect setting for stirring trouble.

Lilina might be an unreliable natural-born airhead, but at the core, she’s an adult of the older sister caliber. Moreover, having clashed with many of the armies here, she delivered a cogent breakdown of the local situation: "Roland Gale Consortium adheres to efficiency and obedience. The populace is extremely united; their army possesses a rare sense of national consciousness and loyalty in this universe. Their leaders strive to integrate the chaotic technologies of various races, modifying and establishing a relatively standardized armada with the largest carrier group, sturdy heavy ships, and carrier-based aircraft as their ace in the hole. They are united in their intense loathing of the ’Imperial Army’ and pirates, tough as stone. In extreme cases, they even have instances of resistance against the Imperial Supervision Teams, but for some reason, the latter have always tolerated this disobedient ’Lamb.’ The Holy Temple Army’s massacres of pirates and skirmishes with the rebels had drawn their attention. I have had some contact with a few of Roland Gale’s colonization stars; therefore, the upper echelons of the Consortium are vaguely aware of the existence of two Imperial forces in the universe. We only managed to communicate with them once or twice before being scattered by the overwhelming rebel forces, so I’m unsure what their current situation is. On the other hand, the origin of the Angel Army is interesting. They were originally pirates, just like the Black Mist Pirates, but have since been whitewashed. The reason for their rapid rise to power is still unclear, but this massive state still retains some aspects of its pirate era. Their military is extraordinarily disorderly and disdains the arduous task of integrating the diverse technologies from various worlds. Instead, they hoard all the scientific technologies that appear in this world, cramming them into their forces, making their army a messy yet unexpectedly powerful fighting machine. They favor configurations like small combined fleets and hybrid turrets, similar to their former pirate identities. Plus... there might be rebel forces backing them."

"Sounds incredible, doesn’t it?" Lilina said, seeing the expressions of surprise and contemplation on our faces, and spoke with a triumphant air, "But this is the truth. The Holy Temple Army had friction with the colonies of the Angels while eradicating pirates. Every time the Angel Army couldn’t hold on, a small detachment of Imperial Rebel Army would come out and mess with me. This can’t be a coincidence. The Imperial Rebel Army, which acts upon pure logic without thought capacity, is secretly supporting a low-level civilization. That certainly has to do with their behavioral patterns. Although they’re not particularly military savvy, I always feel there’s something big at play here..."

I, too, felt there was something big at play and was eager to hear what kind of ingenious... or rather, cunning tactics Sivis, the only high-level military talent here, could bring to us, but a sudden incoming communication interrupted.

"Report to the Commander! Intelligence from the Western Sky Region: General Pandora reports that the rebel forces have gathered small detachments to attack Jetas Planet!" (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian (qidian.com) to cast your recommendation votes and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)