A giant black dragon appeared above the sky, making the daytime in Eimiral seem like night.
Just as Feng Lianzhu had anticipated, he and the Atavists could afford to wait, but Major General Laurie, trapped on the planet Eimiral, and others could not.
After he arrived at the hotel where the Atavists resided, the council hall of the Eimiral Star Alliance was attacked. Five councilors were captured, and it took the sacrifice of two-thirds of a special forces unit to barely rescue the injured Prime Minister of the Alliance.
On the day of the attack, Major General Laurie, having the five councilors under control, used the official website of the Alliance Council Hall to give a speech to all the planets in the Alliance.
Feng Lianzhu and the others were watching TV in the cafeteria at that time. The Alliance had banned them from the internet, but they could still watch such official news channels on public broadcasts.
The Atavists, having seen Major General Laurie before, knew he was one of Feng Lianzhu’s people. They just didn’t quite understand why such an imperial general would have dealings with a primitive star and thus be held hostage by Lord Kirates, forced to obey his orders.
Major General Laurie’s first words were: “Dare to cut off the internet, and I will chop off these councilors’ fingers, one every minute. If we run out of fingers, we’ll move on to toes. Let’s see how long they can last.”
In the video, the councilors still looked dignified, maintaining calm expressions, with several energy guns pointed at their heads.
Major General Laurie was playing with a blade as thin as a cicada’s wing in his hand. The knife, like a toy, danced on his fingertips, making one worry he might hurt his fingers. He was dressed in military uniform, with his buttons undone, sitting somewhat casually on the table, looking ruggedly handsome.
Lizard watched the man on the TV blankly. He remembered the time when he and Major General Laurie were beaten up by Feng Lianzhu together. He was fine due to his scales, but Laurie ended up looking like a beaten pig. Who knew that by turning around, he would become the young and handsome Imperial Army General again.
Laurie then addressed the camera: “It seems you have no intention of cutting off the internet, so I will begin my speech.”
He put away the blade, buttoned up, jumped down from the table, and transformed into a neatly dressed, upright Imperial Army General.
Two faces, each with its charm, made many Alliance citizens feel it was a pity for such a face.
This was Laurie’s intention, ever since he saw Feng Lianzhu reveal his face and break the underground arena, declaring “If you want to fight, then we will fight” in a majestic manner in the arena. He fully realized that aura, appearance, and tone can give completely different meanings to words. This time, appearing before the Alliance, he had to fight a beautiful battle.
Laurie’s speech was nothing but exposing the dark side of the Alliance. No matter who ruled, it was impossible to be entirely fair and just. The Empire was like this, and so was the Alliance. Each of these self-righteous councilors had blood on their hands. Laurie disclosed this in front of the people, causing a stir.
Then, he cited countless examples, from the lives of the Atavists to those of ordinary people in the Alliance, to prove that the current Alliance was quite corrupt, no longer suitable for leading a vast interstellar collective.
Major General Laurie did not deny the mistakes the Empire had made. The thousands of years of imperial throne disputes indeed caused countless deaths and injuries, affecting many civilians. But more than seventeen hundred years had passed, and for the people of the Alliance, these had become stories recorded in history books.
After admitting the mistakes, he presented evidence, stating that the founders of the Alliance actually fanned the flames during the imperial throne disputes. Without the push from these founders of the Alliance, the empire’s people would not have suffered so heavily a thousand years ago. The current Alliance was no different from the original, merely a policy to fool the people. Now, the Alliance was no longer fit to lead the people. In contrast, the Empire, having learned from the past, changed the succession of the royal family to a public election system, ensuring that the situation of throne disputes would never happen again.
Which would the people choose: a regime rotten from its roots or one that has learned its lesson and sincerely reformed?
Such incendiary words, naturally, were not something the Alliance’s higher-ups wanted broadcasted across the entire Alliance. But Laurie had preemptively set the stage. If the speech was cut off midway, it would show the Alliance’s guilt, their disregard for their councilors and the residents of Eimiral, and that everything he said was true.
Laurie, with his blond hair, blue eyes, handsome face, and magnetic voice, had a strong ability to bewitch. As he spoke, many began to question the Alliance online. Even as the Alliance officials continuously deleted posts and controlled public opinion, such words still spread.
Laurie also mentioned the recent great excavation on Eimiral as an example of the Alliance’s disregard for its citizens. Construction was rampant on the capital planet under the guise of searching for terrorists, leading to the arrest of countless residents. The police stations and detention centers were overflowing. They completely ignored the livelihood of the citizens, even closing all interstellar ports on Eimiral, greatly troubling the lives of the capital’s residents.
The Alliance was actually searching for a missing young dragon specimen, but this was something they dared not reveal. They had to find other excuses to pacify the populace, leading to widespread grievances, which Laurie skillfully exploited.
After Laurie’s speech, the chief executives of 17 planets immediately responded to the call of the Imperial Army and declared their independence from the Alliance. These were planets that the Imperial Army had infiltrated over many years. Taking advantage of the martial law on Eimiral, they seized the opportunity to take control, securing the voice of the governing personnel at the first opportunity, without the Alliance catching any wind of it.
Certainly, there were a few major cases that caused disturbances, but it also proved that the Imperial Army had been planning for a long time.
Laurie and his people dared to take such bold actions also because Eimiral was understaffed. Their forces were entirely devoted to searching for the young dragon specimen, leaving the central areas vulnerable, which allowed Laurie and others in hiding to take control in one fell swoop.
It was regrettable not to capture the Prime Minister, but with these councilors as hostages, Laurie and his people were not worried about their own safety.
His speech across the Alliance was a signal, with the Imperial Army using the 17 secretly infiltrated planets as bases to launch a total attack on the Alliance.
Excluding mining planets and primitive planets, the Alliance had 89 inhabited planets, 17 of which were occupied by the Empire. With Eimiral in chaos, the remaining 71 planets received the signal from the Imperial Army to initiate a full-scale war.
The Imperial Army promised, “We will never use heavy weapons to attack planets, nor harm any buildings or residents on the planets. We are only here to rescue the people oppressed by the decaying Alliance.”
For a time, the hearts of the people on Eimiral were unsettled, even the soldiers responsible for guarding the Atavists were momentarily distracted.
The officer in charge of watching over Feng Lianzhu and others said, “Turn off the TV, go back to your rooms, no watching, don’t gather together!”
During such critical times, it was crucial to keep a strict watch on these Atavists to prevent them from finding opportunities to stir up public sentiment online.
Unexpectedly, Feng Lianzhu stood up, his arm turning into a bamboo branch, and said to the officer, “Please give me a smart device. I want to post some updates using my personal account.”
“No!” The officer, seeing Feng Lianzhu’s transformation, pupils contracting, became tense and raised his gun at Feng Lianzhu, “Now is not the time to deal with you monsters. Keep quiet, or all of you will be transferred to a prison planet!”
“Monsters?” Feng Lianzhu murmured, “No matter how the Alliance claims to treat Atavists fairly on the outside, deep down, you still consider us as different.”
The officer realized his slip of the tongue, but it didn’t matter. The surveillance was under their control, and they could completely delete that segment.
Feng Lianzhu firmly said, “I’ll ask again, give me a device to access the internet, so I can post an update. If you disagree, we will have to use restricted weapons.”
Restricted weapons… The Atavists looked at each other and started to back away, wanting to be as far from Feng Lianzhu as possible.
The officer, not yet realizing what he was about to face, said to a few soldiers, “This is a dangerous individual, put a collar on him!”
The collar was meant for suspects with a violent history and convicted criminals, and should not appear in the residence of Atavists. Yet, the soldiers brought out many collars.
From the beginning, the Alliance intended to force the Atavists into compliance.
Since you are not benevolent, then do not blame Feng Lianzhu for releasing a cosmic-level beast.
“System, help me leave a message for Pang Kirates. I will soon exchange worlds with him, let him act according to my message,” Feng Lianzhu said.
Since completing three tasks in a row, he and the young dragon could switch worlds at any time. Feng Lianzhu had not used this ability before, mainly because Eimiral had always been dangerous, and he did not want the young dragon to be exposed to danger.
Now that the young dragon had fully matured, they feared no one in the interstellar realm.
Suddenly, intense light emanated from Feng Lianzhu’s body. In the blink of an eye, the figure before the soldiers vanished, replaced by a dragon that grew larger and larger.
Pang Kirates, having received Feng Lianzhu’s message, arrived at the hotel from his mountain of gold coins but did not find Feng Lianzhu. Knowing that Ah Zhu had gone to the game world again, he felt unhappy. Casually, he took out a few warships from his pouch and handed them to Lizard and others. Then, with a left and right sweep of his dragon wings, he blocked the bullets fired at him by the frightened soldiers.
For the matured Kirates, these weapons were no more than an itch.
With a roar to the sky, he pushed away dozens of soldiers, spread his wings, and the building with over forty floors above the hotel was nothing as he flew straight into the sky.
Lizard and the others scrambled into the warships, barely escaping being crushed by falling debris.
At this moment, Pang Kirates’s body grew even larger, darkening the skies of Eimiral, a planet that had never known night due to its two suns.
Countless panicked residents looked up to see a giant dragon whose wingspan could nearly cover the entire sky, its roar causing those with genetic levels below C to cover their ears in agony.
“He’s even bigger!” exclaimed Lizard and others from inside the warship, shocked by the sight of the black dragon, ten times larger than the one they saw on the primitive star.
“My God! It’s the adult Kirates!” The informed members of the Alliance turned pale. They dared to study the specimens of juvenile Kirateses that had died, but they could not confront an adult Kirates dragon.
The more they researched, the clearer the terrifying nature of this creature became.
After the roar, a deep voice echoed from the sky, reaching every member of the Alliance: “Humans, mere… ants… aspiring… for the power of gods, it’s time… to pay the price.”
“Price, what price?” The people screamed and cried. Was it the end of the world?
First, the Imperial Army launched a full-scale attack, and then a giant black dragon appeared in the sky, turning the day on Eimiral into night.
Dolphin 66, always on the primitive star and constantly monitoring Eimiral through the star network device, decisively followed Feng Lianzhu’s instructions, posting about Kirates, genetic interventions, the appearance of Atavists, genetic levels, and genetic enhancers online.
The secrets that the Empire and Alliance had painstakingly concealed for over a thousand years were exposed for the first time.
Author’s Note:
Fat Dragon: Why is the message Ah Zhu gave me so hard to recite? I stuttered through it, and why was the part about paying a price especially highlighted not to mention asking for gold coins? Why can’t I ask for gold coins?
Still, I have to listen to Ah Zhu, feeling a bit wronged.
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See you all tomorrow, muah (ใฅ๏ฟฃ3๏ฟฃ)ใฅโญ?๏ฝ