Today's fourth update: Chapter 3648! 4/4!
It should be understood that amid the brutal competition among the myriad races, there were many ways to subdue other races as one's own vassals, but they broadly fell into two categories. The first was to conquer them completely through overwhelming force, crush their will to resist, and compel their submission. The second was to lend aid when that race faced a desperate struggle for survival, creating an unrepayable debt of gratitude that made them willingly attach themselves for survival.
The Pig Race's actions today appeared, on the surface, closer to the first kind—they had been defeated head-on by the Huang Race through force.
Yet according to the prevailing rules of "vassalage," the victor would generally need to suppress the defeated side on every front, seize control of its vital foundations, and even drive it to the very brink of extinction before the loser would completely relinquish its sovereignty and become a vassal.
Before the point of racial extinction, what race would willingly bow beneath another and let itself be plundered and bled dry?
Although the Pig Race had lost today's battle—and lost quite miserably—their losses were mainly in the morale of their Top-tier Combat Power and the Marshal's personal prestige. Their racial foundation—their Star Island, the majority of their living forces, and even their rear territory on Blue Star—had not been fundamentally shaken. They were still far from the desperate situation where refusal to submit meant extinction.
Yet Zhu Ganglie had so decisively announced this in public, and every Pig Race expert under his command—including the proud Tengshi and Liaoyuan—had not uttered a word of objection. Instead, their faces even faintly showed agreement and relief. The reasons behind this were rather complicated.
First, there was naturally the wager established by the leaders