827 Black Star Army? Never Heard of I
After Han Xiao’s fleet left Planet Pangurus, the guild players who stayed behind could not wait to make their moves.
The four largest Chinese guilds pretended not to be involved while secretly gathering the members of the other guilds who had stayed behind, including the guilds of the Thunderstorm club, Fanatics club, Rivervale club, and many more.
The number of members in these guilds who had stayed behind was around sixty to seventy each; they were mostly studio players who took on manual labor jobs from guilds and charged them a fee. They were more organized compared to normal guild players, who were much larger in terms of numbers.
Hundreds of players gathered and discussed the plan.
“The Russians and Australians have insufficient manpower. They left fewer than twenty people per club. There’re a total of about a hundred people on each side.”
“However, they’re not splitting up, and the hundreds of them are mining together.”
Although the Russians and Australians had established an agreement with the four largest Chinese clubs, the guild players who had stayed behind all stayed together to do mining. The Russians were led by the Power and Glory guild, and the Australians were led by the Kangaroo Boxing guild. They each gathered in one place of their own and had close to about a hundred people on each side, which was close to the number of people the top tier Chinese guilds had. It seemed that this was safer and would prevent them from being attacked.
However, never would they have thought that the Chinese top tier guilds would work together against them.
The Chinese guilds discussed for a while and decided with a plan. They had the absolute upper hand in terms of number, so they decided to split into two groups and attack the Russians and the Australians’ resource points. The grouping was decided very soon, and they started the operation.
…
At the Kangaroo Boxing Guild’s resource point, dozens of Australian players were hard at work in the mines, wearing the Worker Bee Armor, placing the resources into their armor, and transporting them back to the mini guild warehouse on the ground time after time.
There were many warehouses that belonged to the various Australian guilds, and there were patrolling studio players around. Although they moved as a group for safety, this did not mean that they were sharing resources. These warehouses were bought by the various guilds from the army using their own funds, and they were quite expensive. They were equivalent to their stronghold at the resource point.
At this time, groups of well-equipped first-tier guild players appeared in the patrolling players’ sights and were charging right toward them from afar.
“Gather immediately! Our resource point is being attacked!”
These Australian club guilds hastily summoned those who were mining for resources, but it was too late. The close to three hundred first-tier guild players rushed right into this resource point.
The Australian players who rushed back from the mines clashed with those players instantly.
A scrimmage erupted in the blink of an eye!
Boom boom boom!
Pugilists blasted the backlines with energy flames, Espers threw out all sorts of colorful energy of different abilities, Mages constantly channeled spells, and Psychics nonstop used AOE psychic attacks…
The Mechanics made the greatest impact.
Version 3.0 was the version where Mechanics shone very brightly. This was because the Mechanic players would finally be able to learn the ability that would completely evolve their combat method in this version—Compression Technology.
Compressed orbs expanded on the battlefield one after another, turning into artilleries, mini mechanical soldiers, mechanical traps, and all kinds of equipment.
Be it financial power, combat capability, or manpower, the first-tier Chinese guilds had the complete upper hand and very quickly thrashed the Australian players. While they sent some people to the revive point to keep attacking, they started to attack the guild warehouses of the Australians and very soon destroyed all of them. The resources that the Australians had been collecting all this time were now robbed as loot.
The resource point became a mess. After they completely depleted the Australian players of their daily maximum revive count, the first-tier Chinese guild players retreated with the loot.
About a hundred souls hovered above the revive point and watched them leave with rage in their eyes.
Meanwhile, the Russians’ resource point was treated equally.
…
“Our resource points were destroyed‽”
Inside a certain transport s.h.i.+p of the main fleet, Vodka was shocked to receive this news from the member who had stayed behind.
After hearing that the first-tier Chinese guilds were the ones who did this, he was furious. He immediately sent messages to the guild presidents of Long Sky and Dynasty and questioned them, “Why did you attack our resource point‽”
Jade Green Sky pretended to be confused. “What are you talking about? When did we do such a thing? You’d better have proof, or I’m suing you for slander.”
“Just moments ago, the resource point we left on the planet was destroyed by your Chinese guilds members. The players were sp.a.w.n-camped and finished their revive counts. They won’t be able to revive in the next six in-game days. Why did those Chinese guild members attack us‽”
“Well, ask them, not like we’re the ones who did it.” Jade Green Sky held back his laughter.
“We buy equipment from you guys, and in exchange, you promised to provide protection to us,” Vodka said furiously. “You’ve violated our agreement!”
Jade Green Sky knew exactly what tricks these foreign guilds had been pulling—these guilds bought equipment from them on the surface but secretly worked together with other Chinese players to secretly enjoy the full ten-percent discount.
Morning Snow Twilight Frost smiled faintly. “We did not know about this in advance. After all, those first-tier guilds have their own thoughts too. They’re not working under us. We’ll ask them about it. Don’t worry, I’ll try to convince these guilds.”
“That’d be for the best.” Vodka nodded.
As Vodka ended the communication, he was extremely displeased. These first-tier guilds working together against them was connected to the four largest Chinese clubs no matter how he looked at it. This might happen again in the future.
He contacted the captain of the people who stayed behind and said, “After you revive, I’ll send some funds to you guys for you to buy some alarm devices in the army, such as automatic artilleries, traps, and laser formations. Deploy these around the new resource point, buy as many as possible, don’t be afraid to spend… By the way, give up on your current location and look for a harsher location to mine resources.”
On the other side, Morning Snow Twilight Frost and Jade Green Sky were discussing the matter as well.
“This attack will make them cautious and cause them to spend more money on unnecessary defense measures. These first-tier guilds never planned to attack them frequently, so we can just say that this is because we convinced these guilds and kept our promise. When these people build a new resource point and have recovered for some time, we shall organize an attack again. By then, there will be a new batch of resources stored in their warehouses, and it will all be robbed. As this goes on, the profit they gain from their resource points will be extremely limited. All we have to do is force them to turn this into a large guild war so that we can completely obliterate their guilds’ core members with our numerical advantage.”
“Cunning as always.” Jade Green Sky gave him a thumbs up.
Morning Snow Twilight Frost shook his head. “Sadly, they did not send their professional players here, or we would have been able to help the club eliminate some opponents.”
Pro players were the pillars of clubs, so clubs took the safety of the pro players very seriously. Of course, they did not dare send the character of their pro players to someone else’s territory. One of the reasons the Chinese clubs were targeting the foreign guilds was also to protect their own pro players—if the foreign guilds built a stable foundation in their own territory, the chance of them causing the Chinese pro players trouble would not be negligible at all.
The others could come here from another Star Field, but they could not go to another Star Field, so the Chinese guilds were actually on the more pa.s.sive side. This was why they had decided to work together to compete with the foreign guilds and guard their profit.
…
A few days later in another Star Zone, the Great Cosmos Corps fleet led by Kikiga was slowly heading toward the location of the marker. Other than the main s.h.i.+p, which was dozens of miles long, there were thirty or so guard battles.h.i.+ps. All the warriors who were awoken were training. There were around a million people.
Inside the main s.h.i.+p, Kikiga rubbed his hands with antic.i.p.ation—he loved plundering and was looking forward to the war.
“How long till we arrive at the marker’s location?” Kikiga asked this question many times every single day.
“Chieftain, the location of the marker has been moving for the past few days. I think that this is the enemy’s trick to confuse us, so we’re now heading toward the location where the marker was activated first. It’s not very far away,” the team leader of the operators said with resignation. He had to repeat this many times every day.
“The faster the better. I can’t wait,” Kikiga said with a wild tone.
This time, one of the operators yelled, “Chieftain, three unknown targets are approaching us!”
“It’s not meteoroids, right?” Kikiga was shocked.
In his mind, very few could travel in the universe like them, so his first thought was to a.s.sume that they were meteoroids.
“It doesn’t look like it. They’re flying toward us! Chieftain, I request to enter alert status!”
“Overreacting,” Kikiga murmured and waved. “Alert then.”
The fleet activated its various weapons very quickly and waited with focus.
Not long after, the three s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps with Psionic Prime and the others on them slowly stopped before Kikiga and their fleet.
“Real s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps?” Kikiga was shocked.
The operator quickly said, “Like I suspected, they can indeed track our marker and have very advanced technology. They can travel in the universe, too.”
Kikiga sized the three s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps up for a while before suddenly laughing.
“What are you afraid of? Look at those three s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps. How strong can they be when they’re so small?”
Indeed, the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps that Psionic Prime and the others were in looked tiny compared to the main s.h.i.+p of Kikiga’s fleet.
To Kikiga, the size of s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps was directly proportionate to the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps’ power.
“Also, look, they only have three s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps. We have more than ten times that number. We will be able to beat them with ease. What are you guys panicking for? Embarra.s.sing.” Kikiga shook his head.
The rest thought that what Kikiga said made sense and felt relieved.
“Chieftain, what should we do now?”
“Looking at their s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, it’s clear they’re from a small civilization that has just started to travel the universe and don’t know what fear is,” Kikiga replied, “which is why they dared track our signal. Humph, as seniors, we have to teach them a lesson and make them understand the taste of fear.”
This time, an operator smiled and said, “Chieftain, they’ve sent us a message and said that they want to communicate with us.”
Hearing this, everyone laughed and agreed with Kikiga—only a civilization that had just started exploring the universe would be this naive.
“What did they say?”
“Let me see… They said that they belong to the Black Star Army and told us to immediately deactivate our weapons and not resist…” This person burst into laughter before he finished the sentence.
As if the others were infected by him, almost everyone on the bridge burst into laughter. The room’s atmosphere was filled with joy.
“Hahaha…” Kikiga could not stop laughing. “Quick, reply to them.”
“What do we say?”
“Ask them if they have heard of us, the Great Cosmos Corps. Hahaha…” Kikiga was almost tearing up from laughing.
The Black Star Army? What sh*t is that? Never even heard of it, yet they think they’re famous?
Don’t they know that the Great Cosmos Corps is the ruler of the universe? Wanting us to stop resisting and give up… I’ve never heard such a funny joke.
Kikiga gasped for air and suppressed his laughter. “These arrogant natives really are the fountain of joy, always makes me laugh…”
Before he could finish, he almost burst out laughing again.
“Chieftain, should we attack?”
“Hmm, eliminate them… no, don’t kill them. Capture them and give them to the Great Emperor. The Great Emperor will definitely think these guys are funny, too.” Kikiga guffawed.
As everyone was laughing nonstop, the team captain of the operators felt his heart skip a beat as he noticed something that they had previously overlooked.
When they came into contact with natives in the past, there was no way to communicate with them as they had different languages.
These natives, despite meeting us for the first time… why do they know our language? Why are they able to communicate with us‽
He trembled. As he was about to report this abnormality, those three s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps changed.
The cabin of those three s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps opened, and black machinery gushed out. Suddenly, blue-gold lightning appeared out of nowhere and landed on every machine, causing a blinding surge of light.
“What are those?”
The smile on the faces of Kikiga and the others disappeared as they watched this with confusion.
The next moment, a silver beam of light instantly penetrated the s.h.i.+eld of their main s.h.i.+p and its body, leaving a huge hole!
The ‘tough’ s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p armor could not have been more fragile in the face of this energy beam!
Everyone was stunned. Before they could react, the violent trembling shook them onto the ground.
The deafening alarm rang instantly, and the lights inside the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p all turned red.
Woo!
“Alert! Alert! s.h.i.+eld broken, hull damage increasing, 7.8%… 8.6%… 10.3%… Please take measures as soon as possible! Please take measures as soon as possible!”
With one attack, the main s.h.i.+p’s defense had been completely obliterated.
Kikiga did not even climb up. He sat on the ground, his eyes filled with disbelief, his face covered in despair.
What… just happened‽