"Damn it!" Bearded Commander cursed angrily and tossed a cigar to Gu Xiechen, who was "covered in wounds."
Taking deep drags from the cigar, Gu Xiechen puffed out clouds of smoke and said vaguely, "A Realm Master. Sacred Unicorn deployed a Realm Master. My brothers and I had no way to resist."
"I know!" Bearded Commander rose to his feet, walked over to Gu Xiechen, and gave him a hard slap on the shoulder. "Get some proper rest for a few days. Don't dwell on it. Mission failures are normal. If you're a mercenary, you have to get used to this."
Taking a deep breath, Bearded Commander sneered. "In the two days before you came back, I already received intelligence. Sacred Unicorn actually has a Realm Master, and they actually sent him to retaliate against us? I've already brought this matter before the military and the Federal Parliament's Special Management Committee. This lawsuit is going to be a long one!"
Gu Xiechen finished the cigar in a few quick puffs, rubbed his hands together hard, and ground the butt into powder. Frowning, he said coldly, "I wasn't the only one who escaped."
Bearded Commander nodded. He said with barely concealed glee, "An important member of the Asian Dao Alliance escaped too. They killed people but failed to silence everyone, so let them carry that blame themselves! The Asian Dao Alliance has already started holding Sacred Unicorn accountable, but since they do have a Realm Master, and Realm Masters have legal immunity, so..."
Shrugging, Bearded Commander looked at Gu Xiechen and sighed. "If only you were a Realm Master! Such a pity about that black crystal sphere!"
Gu Xiechen turned a deaf ear to the subject. He did need Zakra Crystal to awaken his Realm, but he did not want outsiders to know that he possessed one. Although he had escaped Zurich safely, Gu Juechen already knew he was alive. It was necessary to keep a few cards hidden up his sleeve. Looking at Bearded Commander's thick beard, Gu Xiechen merely shook his head helplessly before rising and leaving the office.
The following days passed without a ripple. Bearded Commander colluded with people from the Nine Nether Dao to pressure Sacred Unicorn, and the lawsuit had reached the Federal Parliament's Special Management Committee—commonly known among civilians as the Non-Human Management Committee, an official body specifically responsible for managing, coordinating, and communicating with Earth's many superpowered individuals.
The lawsuit had nothing to do with Gu Xiechen. It was a spectacle of mercenary groups using their connections and backers to crush each other. At the moment, Gu Xiechen did not yet have the strength to get involved.
Lying in a medical pod and enjoying the sensation of the injuries he had deliberately inflicted upon himself slowly healing, Gu Xiechen narrowed his eyes and pondered other matters.
"Jack, don't disappoint me! I'm giving you three years. Let's see what you can build yourself into!"
Jack had not returned to the ice cap base. Gu Xiechen had dropped him off midway. Gu Xiechen needed to gradually build his own power, and Jack was the first piece he had placed on the board. "Hmm, he's clever, crafty, and capable. His combat strength is a little lacking, but he should do well enough."
"It's only a first attempt. Even if he dies, it won't be much of a loss." With his arms folded over his chest, a sinister gleam flashed through Gu Xiechen's eyes.
The thick recovery fluid inside the medical pod suddenly drained away with a burst of hissing. The pod's lid was violently pulled open, and the beautiful physician Maria glared down at Gu Xiechen and roared, "You lazy bastard! You've been loafing around the medical center for five days over a few scratches! Get out now! The brothers are outside bleeding and fighting for their lives, while you're in here taking it easy. Can you really face that spongy lump between your legs?"
"You!" Gu Xiechen, naked as the day he was born, pointed at Maria in fury.
Maria pursed her lips into an evil smile at Gu Xiechen. "What about me? Either get out, or I have ten thousand ways to make you cry! I just prepared a special aphrodisiac meant specifically for elephants. Want to give it a try?" Her five right-hand fingers twirled lightly, and a slender high-pressure injection gun spun nimbly at her fingertips, its sharp needle casting a streak of cold light through the air.
"This is your turf!" Gu Xiechen scrambled out of the medical pod and hurriedly put on his clothes. He viciously gave Maria the middle finger, then fled the medical center as if running for his life. Only after returning to his quarters did he realize in surprise that he had not encountered a single person along the way.
After checking the base intranet through the computer by his bed, Gu Xiechen discovered that the enormous Hell Angels Mercenary Group had already deployed in full force over the past few days. Beast hordes had been spotted near the mines of several interstellar mining companies. Their own guards had suffered terrible casualties, so those wealthy mining companies had urgently hired all of Hell Angels Mercenary Group's main combat corps—nearly a hundred thousand mercenaries. Gu Xiechen had been "recovering" in the medical center these past few days, so he had not received the notice!
"They really are rich!" Gu Xiechen stared blankly at the prices offered by those mining companies on the screen. Each mercenary received five thousand Federal Currency per day, plus an enormous insurance payout. Killing a beast attacking a mine earned an additional one-million bonus. The prices offered by those mining companies were truly astonishing.
"Off-world colonies? Mines?" Gu Xiechen's eyes slowly turned. "Those mining companies must have Zakra Crystal mines, right? If..."
Zakla Energy Crystal was a strategic resource under military control by the federal armed forces. Ordinary people could not get near it at all. If Gu Xiechen did not want to rob the Hell Angels Mercenary Group's warehouse, he could only look for other options.
Just as he was considering the matter, the image on the computer suddenly changed. A lieutenant general in an Earth Federation Army uniform abruptly appeared on the screen. The dark-skinned lieutenant general, black as charcoal, issued a cold and merciless command. "Greenland Aurora Power Station is under attack. Under the Federal Mutual Defense Act, Hell Angels Mercenary Group is to immediately mobilize all forces and proceed to provide aid! Those who disobey will be executed without exception."
Piercing alarms sounded throughout the ice cap base, followed by Bearded Commander's curses flooding out from the broadcast system.
"Fuck your mother! I only have one Imperial Guard Regiment on hand right now, and it's not even at full strength! Mobilize all forces? Where the fuck am I supposed to find people?"
After Bearded Commander cursed and vented his longing for a certain black lieutenant general's mother, he roared roughly, "Evil Dragon, you're the only fighter still at the base! I'll lead the team myself. You're coming with me to the Aurora Power Station to see what the hell is going on! Damn it, that's a large-scale thermonuclear fusion power station. Nothing can happen to it!"
Within a minute, Gu Xiechen had changed into a Stalker III combat suit and loaded himself down with as many weapons and ammunition as he could without hindering his mobility. Five minutes later, Gu Xiechen, resembling a small armory, reached the base's largest landing field. Dozens of heavy twin-rotor helicopters had already started their engines. Their dull howls made his eardrums ache, and the oncoming gale nearly blew Gu Xiechen away.
Bearded Commander, equally armed to the teeth, was jumping around and cursing beside the landing field. Waving his arms wildly, he drove squads of ice cap base Imperial Guard Regiment soldiers onto the helicopters while ordering the base control room to activate every defensive system in the ice cap base. Seeing Gu Xiechen running over with ammunition piled on his back like a small mountain, Bearded Commander gave him an approving thumbs-up before kicking him into a helicopter.
Dozens of helicopters roared into the sky. The turbulent air currents stirred up by their massive rotors raised a silver-white pillar of wind over the polar ice cap, flying straight south toward the Aurora Power Station at Greenland's northernmost tip, deep within the Arctic Circle.
Crouching beside Bearded Commander, Gu Xiechen frowned as he studied the structural diagram spread out on the floor.
Aurora Power Station was one of the Earth Federation's six largest fusion power stations in the Northern Hemisphere. The nuclear fuel in its reactors, if converted into nuclear bombs, would amount to no less than twenty gigaton-class hydrogen bombs. If Aurora Power Station were damaged, then even if no one deliberately detonated the reactors, the damage caused by leaking nuclear fuel alone would be a catastrophe.
"Aurora Power Station has at least fifteen hundred guards! They may all be the weakest Class C garrison corps in the Earth Federation Army, but..."
Bearded Commander punched the helicopter floor. The whole helicopter jolted violently and nearly fell from the sky. The pilot cursed in outrage, while Bearded Commander shrugged and pulled a face at the pale passengers in the cabin.
Gu Xiechen nodded as he looked at the complicated structural diagram of Aurora Nuclear Power Station. "That's right. No one within the Earth Federation would sabotage a nuclear power station. It must be a Roman people family raiding team. But for a lieutenant general from the military to swallow his pride and demand that we provide aid, this raiding team can't be weak!"
Family raiding teams were a distinctive feature of the Roman people. Their nation was made up of clans large and small, with a complex and precise evaluation system. Military achievements and all manner of accomplishments determined a clan's importance within the national system and how many resources it received.
In order to gain more military achievements and rise through the ranks, or for the children of great clans to earn merits and improve their status, Roman people family raiding teams frequently infiltrated Earth to launch attacks.
Great clans formed their own teams, while smaller clans joined forces to form theirs. In short, they were like wolf packs, harassing the Earth Federation everywhere and giving it endless headaches. Every year, losses caused solely by Roman people family raiding teams amounted to hundreds of billions.
"In less than twenty minutes, they forced the Aurora Power Station guards to call for help and pushed the Earth Federation Army to directly order our mercenary group into action. This won't be an easy mission!" With a large cigar between his lips, Gu Xiechen slowly exhaled two streams of smoke and lightly tapped several red-marked points on the Aurora Power Station's structural diagram.
Bearded Commander's gaze fell there as well. He nodded hard at the map, then suddenly cursed again. "I hate the Federal Mutual Defense Act. There's not even a damn reward for this—it's pure suicide work!"
The twin-rotor helicopters flew at tremendous speed. More than twenty-seven hundred Hell Angels Mercenary Group mercenaries reached the vicinity of Aurora Power Station forty minutes later.
Today's first update is here. Comrades, don't forget to vote and click... Votes, votes, votes! (To be continued)
Before you continue