Run, Brothers—Sprint Champions

In outer space, Sparta and the others, now fully recovered from their injuries, flew through the sky.

They had even eaten a meal on the four-armed aliens' planet. It did not taste good, but it was not exactly bad either.

Jayce flew ahead of the group, his gaze fixed on the wristband around his arm.

The wristband showed several hundred red dots not far ahead of them.

That color indicated that someone was requesting support.

Soon, the group arrived at the location of the red dots.

There was no battle as they had imagined, only silent ruins. Corpses littered the void, and the wreckage of warships drifted without power.

Sparta hovered in space, his eyes sweeping across the devastated battlefield.

The bodies of Viltrumite Warriors floated silently in the vacuum, but even more corpses belonged to unfamiliar alien races.

In an instant, he guessed that those alien races were all members of the Anti-Vitrum Alliance.

"We're too late."

Among the countless corpses, Sparta found no signs of life.

Jayce stepped forward and carefully examined the nearest body.

"We weren't the only ones surrounded and attacked by the Anti-Viltrum Alliance."

He withdrew his gaze and stood at the edge of the ruins, his expression complicated.

Sparta spread his hands and asked curiously:

"So what do we do now? Continue the conquest mission?"

Jayce fell silent for a moment before replying expressionlessly:

"No. What matters most now is figuring out how to survive the days ahead."

"The conquest mission has become a full-scale war between the Viltrumite Empire and the Anti-Vitrum Alliance."

"A conflict between two behemoths isn't something a few million or tens of millions of people can easily influence."

In a war of such scale, individual strength was no longer the key factor in deciding victory or defeat.

Only by continuously increasing their own numbers could they gain a foothold here.

Surely Emperor Algor, with his infinite wisdom, understood that as well. Reinforcements should already be on their way.

With that thought, Jayce opened the galaxy map and zoomed in.

Several million red dots requesting support flashed across the map.

Sparta looked at Jayce, who had sunk into thought and seemed unsure how to feel, then asked:

"So are we going to support them?"

In his view, they had only two choices.

They could help the warriors requesting support and drive back the Alien Warriors surrounding them.

Or they could continue the conquest mission and help the Empire expand its territory.

Of course, there was a third option.

They could take part in neither mission, find somewhere to hide, and safely ride out this massive war.

But he did not dare say those words aloud.

Jayce slowly shifted his gaze from the galaxy map and looked at the six people remaining in the squad.

With their numbers, supporting any battlefield would be a drop in the bucket. They might even be wiped out entirely.

To preserve the squad's remaining strength, Jayce finally made his decision:

"We will neither provide support nor conquer."

"It's not that we won't provide support or conquer. We'll provide support and conquer slowly, provide support and conquer gradually, and, above all, provide support and conquer strategically."

Sparta froze for a moment. Why did that sound strangely familiar?

Unable to remember, he did not dwell on it and continued asking:

"In that case, what are we going to do?"

A confident expression appeared on Jayce's face as he pointed at the coordinates of a certain star system.

"First, we'll find somewhere safe and observe for a while."

The moment he said that, the expressions of everyone else, Sparta included, became subtly strange.

Sparta silently blinked, then tested the waters in a lowered voice.

"Sir, you aren't planning to become..."

He did not say the words "a deserter," but the meaning was obvious.

"What are you thinking?" Jayce said coldly.

"We don't have any intelligence. Acting rashly would be suicide."

"The purpose of this is not only to gather intelligence, but also to carry out a strategic retreat."

"Remember this: only by staying alive can we continue serving the Empire."

Jayce kept a stern face filled with righteous conviction, as though he were truly thinking for the Empire.

Sparta sucked in a breath and leaned his head back.

The average Viltrumite lifespan was less than a hundred years. It was not that they could not live past a hundred, but that under normal circumstances, they all died on the battlefield.

No wonder you're the officer. No wonder you can live for several hundred years.

Live on, then. Who could possibly outlive you?

Being a deserter in the Empire was a serious matter, yet Jayce could make desertion sound so grand and righteous that he even elevated it to a strategic level.

That was the charm of language.

Sparta secretly glanced at the other squad members and found that although their faces were stiff, an inexplicable light flickered in their eyes.

Fortunately, they were all young warriors who had only recently come of age and had not undergone the Empire's deep brainwashing education.

Otherwise, Jayce would probably be cosplaying space junk right now.

Jayce looked at the silent group and knew their hearts had already wavered. Silence was as good as agreement.

"Very good. Since no one objects, we'll proceed with the plan."

With that, Jayce brought up the star map, found a desolate and remote planet, and led everyone toward it.

It was a planet with a natural satellite, a small moon orbiting the larger planet.

It was also an unrecorded planet, a place no Viltrumite had ever set foot on.

Sparta followed at the back of the group, watching Jayce lead everyone into that desolate planet.

At the same time, he was thinking.

Jayce was clearly an elite warrior hardened by countless battles, someone who had passed the Empire's harsh selection process and loyalty education.

Why was he so skilled at choosing to avoid battle?

And during the two months they had spent together, his personality had differed from the usual stereotype. He showed a little more humanity.

Whenever Sparta was about to teach foul-mouthed Clayton a lesson, Jayce would always appear in time to stop him.

He would even verbally lecture Clayton.

This was something unseen in other squads, something that should not even exist.

Sparta narrowed his eyes and stared hard at Jayce's back as a bold thought suddenly surfaced in his mind.

Was Jayce actually an alien race hidden within the Empire? Was he not a pure-blooded Viltrumite?

Just then, Jayce suddenly turned around, his voice breaking Sparta's train of thought.

"Keep up!"

Sparta came back to his senses and accelerated to catch up with the group.

But his doubts over whether Jayce was truly a Viltrumite only grew deeper.

The group landed on the surface of the desolate planet, with yellow sand beneath their feet.

As far as the eye could see, there were no trees, no rivers, and no signs of life—only a faint breeze.

Jayce looked around at the group and gave the order:

"Spread out and investigate. See whether there is any civilization on this planet."

"Maintain communication at all times. Report immediately if you find anything unusual."

"Remember, we aren't here to conquer. Don't provoke any conflict with the natives."