“Why are you here?”
Upon hearing Han Xiao’s footsteps, Feidin opened his eyes and revealed a courteous smile. However, a distant look could be seen in his eyes.
Feidin truly felt disgusted with the current employment mission of the Black Star Army. Wiping out an entire race had touched his bottom line, and his attitude toward Han Xiao had changed because of this.
“I wish to seek your help. It is the same request as before. I hope that you can attempt to communicate with the Subterranean Mutants,” Han Xiao said slowly.
“Didn’t I reject you already? My answer is the same,” Feidin replied without even thinking. He knew that this war was not wrong, but he did not wish to be the accomplice of a massacre.
Han Xiao was not too surprised. Based on his understanding of Feidin, he knew that Feidin was a kindhearted individual.
“You misunderstood me. The same reason isn’t the same as before…” Han Xiao then briefly described his idea of a migration before saying with a smile, “If we can establish a bridge of communication, this hypothetical situation may become reality.”
Feidin’s eyes brightened up, and he stood up abruptly. “Are you serious‽”
“You know my reputation.” Han Xiao smiled.
Feidin looked at Han Xiao and revealed a warm smile that would cause youthful girls to shriek in excitement. “I didn’t misjudge you after all. Let’s go. I will do my best to help you.”
They smiled at each other.
Seeking help from Feidin was Han Xiao’s decision. He had decided to protect the Subterranean Mutants.
It was not out of the kindness of his heart but his desire for growth.
The benefits of the Sunil employment would be gone after the completion of the mission, but migrating the Subterranean Mutants would leave him with future benefits. This was akin to planting two different kinds of crops in the same piece of land.
The Subterranean Mutant race was a race with great potential, and there was a chance for them to develop into a new NPC resource. There was value for Han Xiao to make such an investment. While the initial investment would not be a small amount, Han Xiao had the capital at the moment to have a few additional investments.
Telepathic communication would resolve the problem of communication. If the Subterranean Mutants could come to an agreement with him and willingly leave Planet Sunil, he would not need to capture them one by one, and it would save him a lot of trouble.
However, the Subterranean Mutants might not be able to understand the concept of the galaxy and planets. They had not even explored the entire planet before. Thus, the only solution would be to let those Subterranean Mutants feel the threat of death and control them with fear.
Thus, massacres still could not be avoided.
Apart from this, there was another reason. The accomplishment of saving an entire race was much greater, and the players would enjoy playing the role of being saviors much more. Thus, this would help create a better sense of belonging to the Black Star Army.
Of course, his Favorability with Feidin was also another reason. Han Xiao did not want the crops planted in his backyard to escape from him.
…
Half an hour later, the expedition forces set up a temporary camp, and their illumination equipment lit up the dark underground world. The Sunil armed forces were currently on guard outside the camp.
Herlous had already received his next order and led the army to the coordinates of the second nest.
As they approached the nest, the vanguard forces met a large group of around three hundred mutants.
“Woah, they are much uglier than in the pictures.”
Many players revealed looks of disgust with some players turning pale. The Subterranean Mutants that had the appearance of bugs looked like monsters with unpardonable sins in this superficial generation.
These Subterranean Mutants also spotted the expedition forces and gathered together as though they were curious about these creatures that they had never seen before.
Tuk tuk tuk!
The next moment, the cannons were fired!
The Sunil soldiers remained expressionless as they fired their cannons without any hesitation. The cannon fire broke the silence of the underground world and illuminated the darkness. The dense wave of cannon fire landed on the bodies of the Subterranean Mutants and reduced them to meat paste.
“Advance!”
The sergeants of the various squads roared, and the Sunil force marched forward in neat rows and synchronized steps.
Rumble!
Right at this moment, a rumbling sound could be heard from the direction of the nest, and the ground began to tremor. It was the sound of thousands of beasts approaching them.
“Defensive formation! Hold your ground!”
The Sunil forces adjusted their formation swiftly and prepared themselves for the impact.
Boom!
A black wave flooded over from all the different tunnels. The second nest was also home to millions of mutants.
Right at this moment, Herlous’ voice thundered.
“Black Star mercenaries, all weapons free!”
The army of players charged out, and rainbow-colored lights covered the entire battlefield.
Boom!
Both waves collided with each other, and war broke out!
…
At the same time, Han Xiao arrived at the Sunil research facility with Feidin and borrowed the few Subterranean Mutants that they captured alive previously.
The ten or so Subterranean Mutants were locked up separately and were not allowed to come into contact with each other. A small pile of Prophecy Stones was placed in the middle for them to establish telepathic connection.
“You are the expert; I shall hand them over to you,” Han Xiao said.
Feidin smiled and released his psychic energy.
The Subterranean Mutants used the Prophecy Stones as a communication hub. As long as a Psychic could tune his psychic energy to the same frequency as the mutants, he would be able to communicate with the mutants.
After a period of adjustment, Feidin’s eyes lit up. “Success!”
Just as he said that, his expression immediately became weird.
“What’s wrong?” Han Xiao raised his brows.
“Er… things are slightly different from what I expected,” Feidin said with a weird tone. “Accept my mental connection. I will pull you into the conversation.”
Han Xiao nodded and did not reject Feidin’s mental connection.
The instant he accepted the connection, his vision was split into two. One was the real world, and the other was a vast white colored space without an end in sight. This was the telepathic space, and he could cut off the connection at any time.
The Subterranean Mutants and Feidin were also in this space, and their locations were the same as in reality. They all took on the appearance of glowing bodies, and only their silhouettes could be seen.
Before Han Xiao could even react, he could hear the mutants chattering away.
“Eh? Another one of our brethren.”
“Why do they look slightly different? They’re too ugly.”
Han Xiao was stunned for a moment and never expected the Subterranean Mutants to treat him as one of them. The mutants must have thought that the only ones who could enter this telepathic world were their own kind.
These Subterranean Mutants then changed the topic and began to chat among themselves.
“Why are we locked up?”
“I don’t know. Also, you asked this question before.”
“Those long creatures look so strange. They actually feed us food and take away our feces.”
“Haha, I understand! Our feces must be their food!”
“I see! I understand too! So, the more we excrete, the more they will feed us!”
“How sick, there are actually those who eat feces.”
“Hehe, I just had a nice, big sh*t. They will definitely have a full meal.”
; “Woah, how amazing.”
Just what is this nonsense… Han Xiao listened until his mouth cramped up. However, this conclusion was truly sensible from the perspective of the mutants.
He had thought that these mutants would be filled with hatred but never expected their conversation to be so casual and light-hearted…
Chapter 623 - One Batch at a Time (1)
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
While the picture was completely different from what Han Xiao had expected, Han Xiao received quite a bit of information from their conversation.
The Subterranean Mutants had the ability to think logically and had a certain level of intelligence. However, their ability to recognize and differentiate the different races was not fully developed yet.
After knowing that Feidin was able to communicate with the Subterranean Mutants, Han Xiao terminated the mental link.
“We can definitely communicate with them through the Prophecy Stones. If we make use of the mine, we should be able to communicate with the entire nest,” Feidin said.
“Then let’s find a nest to try.”
Han Xiao nodded and had a target in mind.
…
A thick bloody smell filled Nest No. 2, with puddles of blood all around. This was the scene after a massacre.
The faces of many players turned pale as the scene before them was truly too shocking. Even after completing a small part of their mission, the players could not be happy. Many of them could not help but turn on the green filter mode.
Only the Sunil warriors were completely calm. They were far too used to seeing such a sight and were completely indifferent toward it. Furthermore, they had lost some of their soldiers in the previous battle, and their armor was full of cracks.
Herlous led the vanguard troops ahead and destroyed the entire nest. He killed millions of mutants, and the remaining few escaped in fear, taking with them a portion of the Prophecy Stones.
The logistics troops began to mine the Prophecy Stones, and the main troops reorganized their formation on the spot. They used flamethrowers to burn up the corpses of the Subterranean Mutants.
Herlous held onto his Battleship Slicing Blade and was resting by the side. Previously, he had been the tip of the spear and was like moving meat grinder, single handedly killing tens of thousands of Subterranean Mutants. His strength was far from Han Xiao’s, and he consumed a great deal of stamina in the battle.
After a while, a soldier ran over and gave a military salute.
“The mining is complete. Commander, please give us your next order.”
“Return to the temporary camp and replenish our ammunition.”
While the Subterranean Mutants were not strong, their numbers were frightening. Cleaning up a single nest had exhausted over sixty percent of their ammunition, and almost all the players had some injuries.
If they continued to attack the nests, the number of casualties would definitely increase. Thus, Herlous decided to return to camp and rest for a few hours first.
The troops marched back to their temporary camp, and Herlous saw two figures appearing in the camp—Han Xiao and Feidin.
“Why are the two of you here?” Herlous welcomed them with a questioning look on his face.
Han Xiao did not reply to the question and looked toward the troops. “How are the casualties?”
“There are very few casualties, but…” Herlous brows were furrowed. “This is only the first battle, and there are many nests all around the planet. The number of casualties isn’t ideal. The deaths of the Sunils will be too severe, and we can only rely on our mercenaries.”
The mine detector that Reynold had developed was already in use, and Han Xiao had deployed a few dozen spaceships to scan the entire planet. In just a short few days, they had already found a few dozen underground mines all over the planet.
Some of the nests were large and some small. The largest had a population of a few hundred million while the smallest had millions at the very least. The total number of Subterranean Mutants underground had reached a staggering few billion.
The moment he thought about the staggering number of enemies, Herlous’ heart sank.
Furthermore, the positions of the other nests were different, and new underground tunnels had to be made in many locations. Without the undying Black Star Army, it was no more than a dream for the Sunils to wipe out the mutants. Only the Black Star Army would be capable of such a feat.
Han Xiao knew what Herlous was thinking about and briefly explained his plan of migrating the mutants. “I am here to communicate with the Subterranean Mutants. If I can convince a portion of the mutants to submit to us and get the mutants to convince other mutants, we will be able to greatly reduce the number of enemies.”
Herlous’ eyes lit up. He would naturally be willing to do so if it would reduce the number of casualties when cleaning up the mutants. “Do we have to change our strategy?”
“No, continue to attack the nests of the mutants, but there isn’t a need to chase those who escape. I want to plant a seed of fear in their hearts as it will make it easier to persuade them,” Han Xiao said slowly.
Compared to killing, this was a much more efficient method.
After leaving the camp, Han Xiao and Feidin paid a visit to the second nest and caught up to the mutants that had escaped.
The number of casualties in this tribe was disastrous, and upon discovering Han Xiao and Feidin, a fight could not be avoided. However, they could not threaten Han Xiao in the slightest.
Han Xiao summoned his Mechanical Army and killed a path toward the Prophecy Stones that these mutants were moving. They then infiltrated the mental network of the mutants.
The next moment, all the attacking mutants suddenly paused. If they had expressions on their faces, they would surely have looked dumbfounded.
In their knowledge, only those of their kind were capable of connecting to them mentally. However, Han Xiao had just killed them and was obviously not their kind. This situation confused the Subterranean Mutants, whose intelligence was not fully developed.
“Who are you?”
In the mental network, many of the mutants revealed emotions of shock.
“I am Black Star, an emissary from the galaxy…” Han Xiao then briefly explained what was going on with ‘appropriate’ changes.
He threw the entire blame of massacring the Subterranean Mutants to the Sunils, and Han Xiao described the Sunils as though they were demons. He then described himself as someone willing to help their race and a friendly emissary who was convincing the Sunils to stop their massacre. He then promised that he could stop the slaughter on the condition that they surrendered and moved out of this planet.
To allow the mutants to understand what was going on, Han Xiao had also briefly mentioned some basic knowledge of the universe and some of the benefits that they could receive.
The efficiency of a mental connection was extremely high, and the entire race fell into deep thought. It was as though they had just listened to the preaching of a heavenly book.
To the galactic residents, what Han Xiao had just said was no more than common sense. However, it completely changed the view that the mutants had of the world. In their eyes, the underground world was their entire world, and the planet and galaxy were completely new concepts.
The Subterranean Mutants viewed those who came from above ground as their enemies, and the Sunils treated them the same.
A mutant that seemed to be the leader of the tribe then took the initiative to communicate with Han Xiao.
“We are willing to surrender. Please do not hurt us anymore.”
Almost all the mutants knelt down on the ground and displayed their intent to submit.
The tribe leader treated Han Xiao extremely respectfully. The words that came out from Han Xiao’s mouth far exceeded the boundaries of his knowledge and was far too shocking to him. Because of their undeveloped intelligence, they treated Han Xiao as a god-like figure and beg
an worshiping him.
The persuasion process was far easier than he had imagined.
But thinking back, it was not too surprising. The intelligence of the Subterranean Mutants was no different from children. They did not understand any complex feelings such as glory or humiliation, and their view of hatred was also extremely basic.
The Subterranean Mutants had not grown out of their bestial nature. Beasts that were afraid would reveal signs of submission. This tribe that had been massacred by Herlous was already thoroughly frightened.
The Subterranean Mutants did not have any natural predators, and they could feed on the rocks underground without fighting with each other. Thus, they lived in peace and rarely experienced battle. At the very most, they would have small conflicts with other tribes. As such, their race was extremely simple.
The only downside was that they were far too ugly. It was probably because the underground world was far too dark, and no one could even see their appearance. Thus, they just grew as they wished.
With the ability to communicate, Han Xiao could now understand the structure of their civilization. After a series of questions, Han Xiao finally had a clear understanding of the Subterranean Mutant race.
The Subterranean Mutants knew that there were other nests near them, and they would occasionally fight each other to snatch Prophecy Stones. The structure of their society was at the caveman stage, and every tribe had a tribe leader with the development of every tribe being different. There were some with more intelligence and others that were more boorish. Their culture was starting to sprout into many different kinds of flowers.
If they developed according to their original path, the Subterranean Mutants would take many more years before the various tribes combined into a civilization with intellect and began forming kingdoms. With his interference, their development speed will be shortened by thousands of years.
“What do we need to do?” the tribe leader asked obediently.
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