On November 15, after nearly three months of expedition, Yu Lian finally returned to his loyal New Shenzhou Star Region. After fighting more than a dozen battles of various sizes, he had "reclaimed" two fallen star regions and the most important Southern Heavenly Gate, reopening the transportation route to the Commonwealth.
Of course, calling it "reclaiming" was really only true in name.
As everyone knew, in such a vast star region, the Blue Star Commonwealth had almost no defensible positions, nor could it field the military strength it had possessed before the war.
Fortunately, the Empire, which had suffered heavy losses, seemed to lack both the ability and the will to occupy those planets again, and had gathered almost all its main fleets around Terra.
Even in the Arm Region, only a few highly mobile patrol fleets remained, lacking capital ships. Rather than firmly maintaining the Empire's military presence, they were more like small boats that could make a quick getaway. Thus, the administrative agencies on the various planets raised the Blue Star Commonwealth's flag once more and reopened for business.
It was destined to be a very subtle period of history.
Of course, what gratified Yu Lian was that the orders he had issued before leaving New Shenzhou had also been carried out thoroughly.
The things that had embarrassed him so badly that he wanted to die—in other words, the more than one hundred statues of himself scattered throughout White Jade Capital—had all been toppled.
"If I truly deserve everyone's respect, then wait until I'm dead before saying so. Huge statues turn people into gods. Although we always call Nine-Ring adepts gods, we aren't gods. Precisely because we aren't, we need to keep our heads clear." Yu Lian had explained the matter to everyone this way.
"So you're about