Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Above the star map behind Tang Dingyuan, a crystal clear starship icon representing the Black Wind fleet suddenly disappeared into a golden dotted line that plunged into the Federation's hinterland like lightning.

Those ships emerged in a golden whirlpool, attacking the Federation Resource Collection and Fargo Refining Base directly!

This scene silenced all senior members of the exiled Government and placed a heavy burden on them.

This is the case with wars in the stars and oceans, unlike wars between countries that lived on the same planet in ancient times and were almost “flat”.

Countries living on the same planet, with “land” as their main frontier, often have clear frontiers, and enemy attacks can only break through frontiers, slowly moving from frontier to inland and even core.

Even if you master all sorts of flying magic treasures, you have to fly all the way along the border, except for the very few special combat units that have been repaired to very high levels, which are difficult to jump directly into.

Stereoscopic warfare in the universe, but by no means.

The ocean of stars is so vast that there are so few great thousand worlds where humans can survive and develop their civilization. Each great thousand worlds is an island, connected by a "bridge of jumps” that can cross four dimensions of space.

The Federation of Stars and Glows does not govern all the star seas between the seven great thousand worlds, it can only be said that there are seven small “cosmic islands”, it is difficult to distinguish the true frontiers from the core areas, the enemy can completely bypass some of those worlds, directly attack the unprotected soft ribs, the defensive difficulty is conceivable.

“It is only at this juncture that we and the Federation have been declassifying the above situation, which has been going on for the past decade. ”

Tang Dingyuan continued, "This is also confirmed by the statements of Ding Zhengyang and many rebels who, once successful, will cooperate with the Imperial Convention and the Black Wind Special Forces infiltrating the Federation, causing havoc and chaos within the Federation and creating opportunities for the Black Wind Fleet to strike.

“The war between the Empire and the Federation has already broken out, and victory is likely to be decided before the Black Wind fleet truly emerges - this is the moment!

“The presence of immortals within the Federation is not only a superficial immortal like the Imperial Palace, but a higher, deeper, more critical figure - this information, although thrown by Lu Qingdust to seduce Ding Zhengyang and others to start a rebellion, is highly credible according to our judgment!

“This man has enough energy to create an excellent opportunity for a Black Wind Fleet raid, at least to transmit such valuable intelligence to the Black Wind Fleet, where the main force of the Federation - the original fleet - is ambushed.

“Conversely, as long as we can pull this guy out, it's possible to know the jump point of the Black Wind Fleet ahead of time, and that's almost half won!

“The latest situation I want to share with you today, that is, Ding Zhengyang, Cheng Xuansu and others launched a massive rebellion at this moment, which can also explain one thing - the Black Wind Fleet is almost ready, no matter what the plot, it is about to start! The situation is so critical that our covenant with the Federation of Stars and Glows is also necessary… go further! ”

Don took a long pause and looked at Choi Lingfeng around him.

Choi Lingfeng coughed softly and continued: “Gentlemen, we have received the latest news that the Xingyao Federation will announce a state of ‘supreme war' after the new election. This is an unprecedented event in the history of the Federation. Even the Battle of the Heavenly Circle 30 years ago, they entered a ‘state of first degree war'.

“This time the Federation is to elect a true 'Speaker of War', whose powers have been expanded over those of the peacetime Speakers.

“We were supposed to send an 'election observation mission' to examine the emergence of the latest president of the Federation, but it was interrupted by the rebellion of the immortals. Now the situation is different between us, the Federation and the Empire. The size of the election observation mission should also be expanded, not even limited to the 'election observation' link, but to deeper cooperation with the Federation in military, economic and political aspects…!

“The Imperial Expeditionary Army could be in front of us at any moment, even for the next second - you must be aware of that and, in this context, rethink our relationship with the Federation and reflect on our common future!

“So Captain Tang and I have decided, and communicated with the federal side, to continue in the name of the 'General Election Mission', but to triple the size!

“The first stop of the mission will be in Tianhuan, where one of our senior corps of officers will be stationed to negotiate the details of the formation of the 'Joint Operations Battalion' at the 'Second Motherport of the Original Fleet’, and at the top of the Federal Army.

“The second stop is the 'Hundred Flowers City' star jump centre between the four boundaries of Tianhuan, the Tree Sea, the Underworld and the Crystal, which is the crossroads of the seven largest worlds of the Federation, the most prosperous trading city, where our trade and economic delegation will discuss with a high-level negotiating mission in the federal economic and trade sector how the ‘Starship Economy' of the Firefly can be fully integrated into the federal economic system, including the unification of currencies between the two sides, the elimination of tariffs, the allocation of internal taxes… and a range of issues arising therefrom.

“Having left both the Senior Officers' Corps and the Trade and Economic Delegation at the Federal Centre for Military and Trade, the remaining General Election Observation Mission went directly to the Federal Capital, Uranus, where, according to the timetable, the results of the Federal Elections could be revealed just in time, when the latest federal policy in the state of the highest state of war could be known and a new ‘government of war' could be negotiated… on how to merge the two sides.

“Gentlemen, to this day, let go of the fantasy, we have fled for a thousand years, there is no way back, right here, right now, to fight back, all the way back to our ancestors' homes, to the center of the star sea! ”

……

Federal Standard Time, it's already midnight.

But on the hundreds of "sub-ships” of the Firefly, and even in various compartments, there is no uniform sleep time, and the vast Star and Sea Battle Castle is still lit, such as the thousands of fireflies gathered together to unleash the faint light of life.

Only in the core compartment, a "meditation deck” covered by crystal domes with a direct view of the stars and the stars in the sky, with a few minutes of late-night silence.

After Li Yao followed Choi Lingfeng, the two of them slowly walked on the empty meditation platform, under the bright starlight, just the two of them.

“In three days' time, the mission will depart. ”

Li Yao looked at the back of Choi Lingfeng's immersion in the starlight and asked, "Mr. Speaker called me here. Is there anything else you want to tell me? ”

“Nothing, I just wanted to say ‘thank you' to you, no matter who you are or what your purpose is, at least you have brought new hope to the five words' Republic of the Stars and Seas’ … ”

Choi Lingfeng looked beyond the crystal dome, such as the sparkling star sea, and suddenly said, "Besides, if you are truly a simple 'Red Lotus man' who fled here to avenge the fairy fixer, you could not easily find other fixers... I would like to know that you, like this, discovered the ambitions and intentions of the Federal High Golden Heart Moon, and the so-called ‘Orthodox Government’ is not as perfect as you imagined. After the dark side of 'Rebirth Plan’ and so on, would you be very disappointed? ”

Li Yao thought slightly and shook his head: “Disappointment is not enough, but it is a pity that the great enemy is now a practitioner, but we must be careful, even suspicion and suspicion are a little..."

“There's no way, maybe this is people, this is humanity, it's hard to cultivate anything completely. ”

Choi Lingfeng smiled and said, "Captain Lin, have you heard of the porcupine of winter? ”

Li Yao blinked: "Porcupine in winter? ”

“Porcupines are large rodents with long, hard needle pricks, erected outwards like hedgehogs, in case of beasts bigger than they are. ”

Choi Ling Fengdao, “Whenever winter is too cold, porcupines will crowd together to warm up, if they divide too much, they will not be able to warm up, the cold wind will run between them; but if they are too close, they will be stabbed by each other's spikes.

“So it evolved into a scene where the porcupines kept arching and arching toward their peers until they were stabbed by their spikes before retreating outward, but shortly after retreating, they were forced by the cold wind to arch again toward their peers, eager to get a little warmth until their peers stabbed them again.

“We and Xingyao Federation, probably just like these two porcupines. Under the threat of the cold wind, we all want to warm up the group, but we can't help but get stung by each other's innate spikes. This‘ spike ’is our only weapon in the past to protect ourselves in the mouth of the beast. Without these‘ spikes’, perhaps we would not have waited for winter to arrive and would have lost our lives! ”

“I believe that even a dumb porcupine will eventually find the right distance not to stab each other but to share everyone's heat, otherwise the species should have been extinct! ”

Li Yao couldn't help but say, “Not to mention people? I don't believe in the high echelons of Starlight Federation, not even porcupines. ”

“You don't understand that sometimes what I fear is not the Federation of Stars, but… ourselves. ”

Choi Lingfeng sighed, the Phantom, “After all, it is not the true human empire that gave birth to the monster 'Black Star Emperor Wu Yingqi', just us, the Republic of the Stars and Seas!

“It was the Republic of the Star Sea that gave birth to such a monster as the Black Star Emperor that our ancestors fled, and in the millennium in exile we experienced so much darkness and despair that we touched the bottom line of normal humanity countless times.

“Yes, now I can safely say that 'bad practitioners’ and ‘fairy practitioners' are different.

“But after Ding Zhengyang threw that question, I wondered more than once, is everything really environmental and has nothing to do with Daoism?

“I was lucky enough that during my tenure as a councillor, there was no time to make painful choices.

“But if my luck with the Firefly were any worse, we would have suffered a catastrophe and lost a lot of resources to sustain only a tenth of the people on board, would I have dared to launch a" rebirth plan "to randomly kill 90% of the people?

“If I did, would I be a bad practitioner or a fairy practitioner? ”