by <unknown>
Han Xiao took a short rest before walking in the direction of the base. Along the way, the participants of the disaster relief effort rushed about, brushing past him to save people. While no one stopped in front of him, all of them would nod toward Han Xiao as a sign of respect, their expressions carrying a hard-to-express gratitude.
After entering the base, Hila came over and looked him over once. She paused for a while before asking uncertainly, “Are you really not injured?”
“If you’re injured, you can tell me. I can treat you,” Aurora hurriedly added.
“I’ve faced a lot of such incidents.” Han Xiao waved his hands as he boasted with a straight face.
“… Whatever floats your boat.” Hila paused for a while and decided not to say anything more.
“Hehe, Sis was really worried about you just now.” Aurora giggled.
Without waiting for Han Xiao to look over, Hila hurriedly explained, “If you died, then we probably would have died as well.”
Han Xiao rolled his eyes in response and commented, “Being able to help me is better than saying anything.”
Hila had never accepted Han Xiao’s invitation directly, but this time, she did not deny anything. She slowly said, “I’ll practice hard with the Dragon Emperor and become strong as quickly as possible.”
“Me too!” Aurora raised her hand.
At this time, Bennett walked over from the side, his expression one of sorrow.
“The outer areas of the Sanctuary have almost been completely destroyed and can only be rebuilt. The losses of the Six Nations were even greater, with cities being completely reduced to nothing.
They are currently busy with disaster relief efforts, so let me thank you on their behalf for the reinforcements sent. Otherwise, the losses would have expanded even further. It is estimated that a total of twelve million people have been killed on Planet Aquamarine, and the number of injured and crippled might be several times this number.”
“That’s better than expected.” Han Xiao nodded.
DarkStar’s assault had only lasted around ten minutes but had already caused millions to perish. Their efficiency was shocking, and if not for the mercenaries, Nagakin, and the players, the casualties would have been much greater.
As for the Godoran reinforcements, they had actually come very quickly, attributed to the hyperdrive station that Godora had installed early on. If DarkStar was given more time, it would no longer have been a problem of deaths and injuries but rather if there were any living people left.
The destruction of the cities was even more serious, basically becoming scrap, and they all had to be rebuilt.
“Were those attackers from DarkStar?” Bennett asked.
Han Xiao only nodded.
“Abominable…” Bennett’s expression was filled with helplessness and fury. Even if he clearly knew who the enemy was, he had no way to deal with them. He did not even possess the qualifications to talk to them and could only swallow this bitter pill. His eyes were filled with vengeance and hatred.
“Relax. I’ll settle the problem of DarkStar soon. You do not need to worry.” Han Xiao smiled.
Patting the shoulders of Bennett, Han Xiao then moved past several people, walking deep into the base. He only left a dwindling silhouette in the eyes of Hila and the rest.
Those few people seemed to see an illusion where the departing shadow of Han Xiao leaving the planet intersected with his current departing shadow. Before they knew it, this old acquaintance had already grown to the point where they could only look up to him.
…
Returning to his room, Han Xiao took a bath before putting on a fresh set of clothes. The battle had greatly consumed his stamina, and the moment he relaxed, his stomach growled in hunger. He finished more than twenty high-concentration nutrition bars before he felt some form of stamina returning.
Knock, knock, knock.
Knocking was heard from the door. Herlous stood outside with a group of his officers.
Because the majority of them had gone to support the Six Nations, they had only returned a while ago. Upon hearing of Han Xiao’s battle results, the group was stunned and even thought that their captain had been mistaken for someone. Only after confirming this fact did they then accept it and immediately ran over to find Han Xiao.
The moment the door opened, everyone rushed into the room in an instant.
“I heard that you repelled three Calamity Grades, and even the main cannon could not hurt you!” Herlous had an expression of surprise, looking up and down Han Xiao before speaking in confusion. “When did you become so powerful? Why was I unaware of it?”
“If we have time, we can fight a round. Then you’ll find out.”
“This… better not.” Herlous shuddered out of reflex.
Their previous fight could barely be considered a spar, but now it would just be a one-sided beatdown. Herlous did not indulge in being abused, and it seemed like he could only beat his captain through playing cards.
Han Xiao smiled before turning around to see Sylvia staring at him with sparkling eyes.
“Teacher, I want to learn this!”
“Scram, why the f*ck do you want to learn everything?”
“No… I really want to learn!”
“You can stop thinking about it. That’s something that cannot be learned.”
The little face of Sylvia drooped down as she huffed. “Unfair. Why is it like this?”
On the side, Ginette batted her eyes and licked her lips. “Captain, turns out you were this strong. Should we one day… try it out?”
“You can find Harmon for that. I’m not interested.” Han Xiao’s lips twitched.
As though he had received a cue, Harmon scratched his head, turning over to look at Ginette as he snorted, “You want a fight? I can accompany you anytime.”
“I’m not talking about fighting!” Ginette’s face froze.
The oldest Volga curled his lips as he thought, Bullsh*t, how could that not be considered fighting?
All the officers were babbling on, and only Feidin smiled warmly as he asked, “Black Star, you’re not injured, right?”
“Nothing too serious.” Han Xiao nodded, sweeping his gaze across the room, before asking, “Where’s Aroshia?”
Aroshia did not follow the rest of the officers over to view… ahem, to visit him.
“She overexerted herself and has gone over to the reaction furnace to recharge.”
Han Xiao nodded in understanding. Because Aroshia was an energy body, the energy furnace was her best supply station.
The group of officers rambled on for a while, giving Han Xiao a headache. Thus, he eventually chased them out to help with the disaster relief whilst he stayed in his room to rest.
He did not need to stick his hands into the disaster relief as he had more important things to do.
The battle had resulted in him losing the majority of his machinery. The first task at hand was to rebuild his Mechanical Army, restoring the previous quantity. The second matter was to break through to the Calamity Grade as quickly as possible. He was already at Level 136, with his combat capability close to the great divide of Grade A. Most likely, when he exceeded Level 140, he would enter the realm of Calamity Grades.
The Level 140 Advancement happened to be the next Race Evolution, and this would result in a huge promotion.
It was just nice that his advanced class [Virtual Mechanic] was currently at Level 11, with the upper limit being Level 20. This meant that even if his total level reached 140, there would not be any Class Missions, only a Promotion Mission. Furthermore, he still had a leftover [Mission Completion Card] on hand, which could allow him to undergo his Promotion immediately.
However, while he was only separated from advancing by four levels, every increase in level at this point required a veritable ocean of experience. From Level 136 to Level 140, he required more than three billion experience.
The upper limit of Version 1.0 was Level 60, whereas the limit
for Version 2.0 was Level 90. However, the experience required to upgrade would only increase. In the future, the upper limit increase during each version update would gradually decrease as players required more time to upgrade.
At the beginning of the battle, Han Xiao had allocated all his stored experience to upgrade himself. If he wished to obtain another three billion experience points in a short amount of time, he could only turn to the players.
Godora was already quietly preparing for the final battle, while DarkStar was completely unprepared. He had to quickly recover his combat strength in order to obtain the right to participate. After all, [Godora’s Ally] was also a main storyline.
It seems like there’s a need to refresh the batch of knowledge and skills for the players. Since I also have plenty of funds in my account, I can freely choose the professional knowledge for the Pugilist and Esper classes, then copy it and sell it. I just need to change the prices from money to experience. Oh, that’s right. I also have the dungeon copy and can milk it for quite the sum.
Han Xiao had long become accustomed to such methods and conveniently opened the forums, looking at the current situation of the players.
Various posts on the forum came into view. In Planet Aquamarine’s board, most of the posts were basically about him, and the forum had exploded into conversation about his battle. Numerous screenshots and videos taken depicted the historical scene where he took the main cannon head on. The players had exploded in excitement!
The trending posts were all dominated by him once again.
Casually opening a few of those posts, he got goosebumps from seeing himself inside the videos.
All the posts put up by the players could be summarized using the few phrases.
Strong! Fantastic! Earth shaking! Explosive! I’m in love!
For those who had already joined the Black Star Mercenary Group, they were the happiest. Because the stronger their boss was, the more positive an impression people would have of them. In addition, there was still Dragon Emperor Ames on top, and just thinking about it, the future of their faction seemed quite bright.
This event can be considered an opportunity, to allow players to feel that the storyline for Planet Aquamarine has already ended, and it is the time to enter a higher stage, to lead them into the galaxy…
Moreover, according to the needs of Godora and the galaxy’s journalists, what had happened on Planet Aquamarine would be vigorously publicized. If he did not guess incorrectly, there would be many uninvited guests heading over to the planet soon.
Han Xiao’s eyes flashed. This would be a good chance for him to carry out the next phase of his plan!
Chapter 576. Always Causing Sensational News |
Godora’s actions had always been observed by the media. Especially after the battle of Planet Golden Gate, the majority of the news reports had praised Godora for their victory. As such, many galactic residents were looking forward to the next piece of news regarding Godora.
However, most of them never would have expected that the next news of victory would come so quickly.
The battleground this time was a backward planet called Planet Aquamarine!
Many people could not help feeling bewildered. If was perfectly reasonable for Godora to push DarkStar back, but how was a backward planet able to fight DarkStar off?
No one knew exactly what had happened and only knew rough details of the incident.
To the majority of the galaxy, Planet Aquamarine was no more than a low-grade planet. If not for it being one of the calamity planets, many of them would not even have known that such a planet existed.
As for Black Star’s reputation, the majority of the galactic citizens were not familiar with him. While Han Xiao was an individual to be taken seriously in the eyes of the various large organizations, who were able to guess that this incident was probably related to Black Star, Han Xiao was no more than a mercenary to the commoners. A mercenary was not a superstar, and they would not commit the name of a mercenary to memory. Han Xiao was only famous among the upper echelons.
On the galactic web, many people were extremely interested in the details of the entire incident. There were not many witnesses, and this was a juicy piece of news that all the galactic news agencies wanted to get their hands on.
After just a short few days, galactic news agencies from all over the Star System sent their spaceships over to conduct interviews and dig out the truth. Just how did Planet Aquamarine fight DarkStar off?
The backward planet of Planet Aquamarine, which was usually ignored by the entire galaxy, became the center of attention of the galactic residents for once. This was the first time that they had welcomed visitors from the galaxy who were also commoners.
…
Planet Aquamarine had also become bustling with activity.
With Godora’s aid, the Sanctuary and Six Nations had cleaned up the mess from the battle, and there were plenty of things waiting for them to do. All the spaceships from the various news agencies were blocked outside the atmosphere by the Godoran fleet.
Godora was not planning to allow those reporters to enter Planet Aquamarine. While there were safety considerations, there was also a deeper meaning behind their decision.
The regime of the Six Nations was completely clueless about the visitors from the galaxy. After all, they did not have the means to contact the galaxy.
Since the reporters were not able to contact the regime of Planet Aquamarine, they quickly remembered that the Black Star Mercenary Group had been mentioned in the previous reports as well. As such, they decided to contact the Black Star Mercenary Group instead.
“They’re finally here.”
Phillip passed the message on to Han Xiao. Those reporters were a key part of his plan, so he contacted Nagakin to order the fleet to give way.
The fleet commander received the order from Nagakin. Despite him not wanting to let the reporters in, he had received orders from the higher ups to follow Nagakin’s orders when they were on Planet Aquamarine. Furthermore, after thinking carefully, he realized that he would not want to provoke Black Star either, especially after seeing Black Star’s display of strength. As such, he could only unwillingly move his fleet out of the way.
All the reporters rushed into Planet Aquamarine excitedly. Many of the reporters were old and experienced in this field and immediately knew that something was wrong. They wanted to meet the Black Star Mercenary Group, and the Godoran fleet had to give way obediently. There were many hints behind this simple action.
Godora had to give face to the Black Star Mercenary Group!
Many of the reporters instinctively realized that while Black Star was no more than an ordinary mercenary in the eyes of the Godorans, it was extremely likely that Black Star had played a key role in fighting off DarkStar.
This group of reporters showed their respect to the regime of Planet Aquamarine and all landed in the Six Nations. Only then did the Six Nations find out about the visitors from the galaxy. The Six Nations were filled with both excitement and nervousness as they welcomed their guests.
This was the first time that the Six Nations and inhabitants of Planet Aquamarine had seen so many aliens of different races. When the reporters stated their reason for their visit, the upper echelons of the Six Nations swiftly realized that this was an extremely good opportunity!
This was a good opportunity for them to build ties with the galaxy!
All this while, the Six Nations could only unilaterally contact Godora and knew very little about the galaxy. This situation had only improved slightly after Black Star’s return.
DarkStar’s assault on Planet Aquamarine had drawn the attention of the galaxy to the planet. To a backward planet like Planet Aquamarine, this was a significant event. The upper echelons of the Six Nations welcomed the reporters with the best hospitality they could provide, and they all felt that it was a blessing in disguise.
While the Six Nations were not familiar with the customs of the galaxy, they
were extremely humble in the hospitality. At the same time, they showered the reporters with an endless stream of questions, and the reporters answered whatever they could without any arrogance. They would not look down on Planet Aquamarine. After all, this planet had just fought off DarkStar, and there was a need to show the most basic respect.
Very quickly, the upper echelons of the Six Nations found out that the reporters had initially been blocked outside the atmosphere and only managed to gain entry after Han Xiao’s intervention. They were immediately filled with immense gratitude toward Han Xiao. Because of Black Star, this planet had not been destroyed, and now, Black Star had given them the opportunity to contact the galaxy.
It was indeed right to hug Han Xiao’s thigh. The other party had already begun to fulfil his end of the promise to help them develop.
On the other side, the reporters also found out that the Black Star Mercenary Group was the main reason for the planet fighting off DarkStar, and their guesses were confirmed.
No wonder Godora had to give Black Star some face.
However, the Six Nations did not understand the details of the entire event. They could barely take care of themselves and had only found out after the entire incident.
The reporters then took pictures of the destroyed cities. It was all precious news footage. Following which, the reporters could not stop themselves rushing to the Sanctuary to interview Han Xiao.
Before the spaceships even arrived at the Sanctuary, they could see two gigantic circular mountains, which were obviously the outcome of the battle.
They had indeed come to the right place! The reporters became energized, and they took out their cameras to capture the footage of the battle.
The spaceships landed one after another, and the reporters walked out. Herlous was already waiting for them and calmly said, “Follow me to the conference room. Black Star will accept your interview.”
The reporters all nodded and quickly followed behind him. Their attitude was completely different compared to when they were meeting with the Six Nations.
While these reporters were not arrogant and treated the Six Nations as their equals, the inhabitants of those from a backward planet were different, and there were no common topics between them.