During the hour it took for the Third Legion to head toward Jump Point 90 and rendezvous with the Eighth Legion, more than thirty pieces of evidence exposing the Meng family’s murder of other races broke continuously on the Xingyu network platform.

This not only caused a sensation within Danse, but even alarmed the neighboring Shengya Empire.

#Danse Aristocratic Meng Family Slaughtered Nearly Sixty Races#, #Danse Meng Family#, and #Danse Civil War# topped the hot search list with massive, overwhelming popularity.

“I’ve been following this from the start; the Meng family truly has no bottom line.”

“Doing evil for a century before being exposed? No, really, has it gotten this chaotic inside Danse?”

“Honestly, it would be better to just be absorbed into Shengya; at least this kind of thing would never happen in our empire.”

“If not for being a fan of the Second Prince Li Xiao, I wouldn’t even bother paying attention to Danse’s filthy business.”

“Will the Danse civil war affect us? Apocalypse Constellation is right next to Nanming Constellation QuQ”

“I feel like the Danse Royal Family can win, but it’ll be very difficult; the ones suffering in the end will still be the general public.”

“Shouldn’t our border defenses be strengthened a bit? What if the fighting spills over here?”

The Shengya military reacted swiftly. Less than half an hour after the hot searches fermented, a military spokesperson stated publicly that they would closely monitor the situation in Nanming Constellation while strengthening border patrol work along the Apocalypse Constellation side facing Nanming Constellation to ensure the safety of the public.

The moment the military at the Shengya border moved, news reached Meng Jian’s ears immediately.

“The number of patrolling legions has doubled, but currently they are still within Shengya territory and haven’t crossed the buffer zone,” reported Lin Xu, adjutant to Meng Zai.

Meng Jian looked at the positions and numbers of the Shengya legions marked on the map.

“Keep monitoring them. Report any movement to me immediately.”

Meng Tu finished reading the report document: “The Royal Family should also have misgivings; perhaps they will choose peaceful negotiations.”

Meng Jian let out a disdainful cold snort: “Then let’s see when those two brothers bow their heads to us.”

“Sir! The Eighth Legion has crossed Jump Point 90 and bombarded three of our warships!” Meng Tu’s adjutant shouted toward them frantically.

The corner of Meng Jian’s eye twitched: “What?! When did they come over?! Why was the intelligence delayed for so long?!”

Meng Tu’s adjutant: “Just now! Our defense control system failed to disable their light cannons!”

Meng Jian and his son hurriedly rushed to the front of the monitoring console and looked at the surveillance screen, where a thirty-second replay played on a split screen.

The Third Legion had suddenly broken through the jump point, engaging head-on at extreme speed with Legions 39, 68, and 72 that were laying in wait there.

All light-energy weapons of the three legions had been disabled, leaving them with no choice but to settle for launching missiles instead. Unexpectedly, the Third Legion retaliated directly with three light cannon blasts.

The missiles were struck mid-transit by the light cannon blasts, instantly neutralized, while three warships blew up into cosmic dust.

In a split-second clash, ten armies followed out behind the Third Legion, protecting the Eighth Legion in the center in a trapezoidal formation, instantly sweeping through the entire encirclement with unstoppable momentum.

The gap between both sides’ weapon tiers was far too wide; no matter how many people they had on their side, it was useless—they were simply no match.

Meng Jian was completely baffled: “Was our system hacked?!”

The adjutant spoke at top speed: “I’m having them check right now!”

Just as he spoke, a communication request from the Technical Department automatically popped up on the monitoring console.

The Head of the Technical Department appeared in the frame: “There are no traces of the defense control system being hacked.”

Meng Tu’s face looked terrible: “Then why couldn’t it suppress their light cannon firing system?!”

Head of Technical Department: “Currently, we can only speculate that the enemy possesses anti-interception equipment more advanced than ours; confirming details will require further investigation.”

“Impossible!”

Meng Jian slammed a hand onto the monitoring console, “How could I not know what equipment the Third Legion has?! If the military factory truly developed better equipment, they would supply it to me first; how could they give an advantage to that bastard Yi Yongning?!”

The Head of the Technical Department said with difficulty: “It is merely a guess; we will investigate as quickly as possible.”

Meng Tu’s adjutant looked at the Yi family army on the screen flying out of the encirclement. Anxious as a cat on a hot tin roof yet not daring to cross Meng Jian, he lowered his voice to ask Meng Tu: “Sir, they’ve broken inside—what do we do next?”

“If the Royal Family could be stopped this easily, we wouldn’t have been pushed to this point in the first place.”

Meng Tu was actually calmer than Meng Jian, “Proceeding according to our original plan will do.”

Adjutant: “But—”

Meng Tu glanced at Meng Jian’s unsightly face: “There’s no need to worry for now.”

Just as they were speaking, Meng Zai came over from the Intelligence Bureau, his expression looking no better than Meng Jian’s: “One good news, one bad news; which do you want to hear first?”

Meng Tu: “What bad news?”

Meng Zai had a foul tone: “The modified human matter was leaked online; the Royal Family was probably investigating it long ago.”

Meng Jian snapped his gaze back from the monitoring console: “Exposed to what extent?!”

Meng Zai pulled up the Xingyu network platform: “Exposed down to our underwear.”

On the Xingyu network platform, an account named LIX had posted a long video containing personal accounts from up to a hundred military cadets.

“My name is Wei Wen, a first-year student at the First Military Academy. One month ago, I was deceived by a classmate into joining a so-called secret military research project. Supposedly, using a newly developed blood agent could comprehensively boost physical fitness and pheromone control, granting stronger five senses.”

“I failed to resist the temptation. The blood agent indeed significantly boosted my strength, but at the same time, my body suffered severe damage. If I don’t receive regular injections of the blood agent, I will die.”

Reaching this point, Wei Wen’s voice choked up slightly, “In order to live, I had no choice but to follow the Meng family’s orders. Only by completing the tasks they gave could I receive blood agents. I’m sorry, I know I was wrong…”

The video switched to a second student, who gave a self-introduction followed by an account of becoming a modified human.

By the sixty-fourth student, the screen switched to Lin Shuo.

From here onward, all the remaining accounts were from students who had received invitations but didn’t fall for the trick.

“My name is Lin Shuo, a second-year student at the First Military Academy. A year ago, I was coaxed into participating in a secret military research project. They claimed they favoured my qualifications, that I was one of the very few candidates who met the standard to boost my strength without paying any price, yet they made no mention of the experiment’s side effects.”

“Many excellent classmates around me mistakenly fell for the trick. The Meng family utilized everyone’s trust, turning all modified humans into pawns in their hands to turn around and deal with the Royal Family. Their intentions are extremely sinister and utterly shameless!”

This post had already blown up. Meng Jian didn’t go check the comments, asking with a stiff face: “Just this kind of video lacking proof or evidence?”

“More than that.”

Meng Zai pulled out several more pages, “Add these on top. Even if it doesn’t constitute a complete chain of evidence, releasing it at this time is already impactful enough.”

On the pages were clips of students going crazy inside ward isolations, clips of various legions arresting modified humans, clips of modified humans using blood agents, as well as footage and evidence regarding supply bases and the transportation trade of blood agents.

“A bunch of useless trash! Our entire bottom line was gutted out, yet they didn’t notice a single thing!”

Meng Jian was so angry his chest felt tight. He motioned for his adjutant to come over, “Write a statement to clarify immediately!”

The adjutant hurriedly complied.

“No need to be so angry.”

Meng Zai drew a cigarette from a pack, “Reputation is just a thing like that. Sometimes you risk your life to preserve it, but once it’s gone, it’s actually a relief. What is reputation worth in front of absolute strength? Even if they aren’t convinced, they can only bottle it up.”

“You sure have a lot of confidence,” Meng Jian said in a poor tone.

Meng Zai: “Because I just received good news—the Royal Family designated the Gao family as the main force to deal with us.”

Meng Jian’s tightly furrowed brows suddenly smoothed out: “How much did the Yi family send?”

Meng Zai: “Accounting for around 10%, mostly Gao family troops. The specific deployment ratio was probably decided based on our scale on this side.”

Meng Jian: “Li Ji’s intention?”

Meng Zai: “I heard it was proposed by Li Xiao. After all, the troops on Yi Yongning’s side are hard to move; what tricks could they pull? They can’t just leave their base camp unattended, right?”

Meng Jian was silent for a moment, then suddenly burst out laughing.

The group of officers around him were all somewhat confused.

Is he driven mad by anger? What about the current situation could possibly make someone laugh?

Meng Jian gestured to his adjutant: “Gather everyone and call an operational meeting immediately!”

Adjutant: “Yes!”

Third Legion.

Yi Yongning, who was connected with Yi Lian, saw the footage of the legion sweeping across the battlefield and finally understood why Li Xiao insisted on entering Nanming Constellation through the same jump point as Li Ji.

Hearing the report from the Technical Department, Yi Lian excitedly asked Li Xiao: “Second Prince, can this anti-interception program be applied to the entire military? If the entire military can be equipped with it, we’ll have even more confidence fighting the Meng family army!”

Li Xiao: “Not for now. It isn’t just a program issue.”

On the other side of the screen, Yi Yongning received his adjutant’s report and relayed it to Li Xiao: “Headquarters has issued an official warning to all garrison bases in Nanming Constellation, telling them to sever ties with the Meng family army within one hour and publicly state their positions. Those that fail to do so past the deadline will all be handled as rebels.”

Li Xiao: “Calculate the statistics in time and take this opportunity to block the blood agent transport chain. The Meng family currently doesn’t dare face us head-on.”

Yi Lian nodded: “The Meng family definitely thinks we have a new anti-interception system in our hands. Coming up would be pure suicidal behavior; we can accomplish a lot before they find out.”

Yi Lian’s adjutant looked at the troop deployment map of both sides on the monitoring console: “The enemy forces are indeed retreating overall.”

In another screen, Gao Wanxin remarked: “Arrangements have been made. The Second Prince has studied abroad over these years and learned quite a few things, actually developing such a high-end anti-interception system.”

These words sounded like praise yet also like probing. Li Xiao perfunctorily brushed it off: “An accident.”

“Babe, come over for a second.”

Song Jin was sitting in the rest area not far away, waving at Li Xiao.

“What’s wrong?” Li Xiao walked over there.

Yi Lian cast a glance over.

He didn’t know what Song Jin was busy with; ever since arriving at the legion, Song Jin spent most of his time working alone at his terminal. Could he be catching up on homework? What a diligent kid.

Li Xiao bent down to lean close to Song Jin’s screen. The two put their heads together, chatting about who-knows-what. Song Jin suddenly pinched his own right shoulder. Li Xiao noticed and immediately helped him massage his shoulder, looking like an unconscious habit.

Yi Lian silently retracted his gaze: “…”

The Second Prince is way too good to Song Jin—he’s practically treating his partner like a son.

At the same time, the Gao family army entered Nanming Constellation from various jump points with relatively weak defenses, taking control of nearby medical space stations first.

Military starships forcibly docked, while fully armed soldiers surrounded entryways from various metallic corridors. All guard AI were instantly disabled under the control of military equipment.

The squad leader of the action team confirmed the range and issued orders to team members: “Act according to plan!”

Team members: “Yes!”

All members split up, forming ten-person groups that rapidly entered various blood storage areas to search for blood agents.

The space station guard team discovered the anomaly and rushed to the blood area, running straight into the legion action team.

“Who’s there! Drop your weapons immediately!” The guard team raised machine guns.

Both sides aimed guns at each other, and the action team squad leader stated his identity: “This is the 14th Legion Vanguard Marine Squad. Suspecting this space station of transporting illegal blood, we are conducting a comprehensive search according to law! Confiscate illegal blood and blood products—”

Bang!

Gunfire echoed through the metallic corridor.

The guard team fired first. The squad leader waved to his members: “Handle all resisters as rebels!”

Team members: “Yes!”

Continuous gunfire resounded through the entire space. Soon, the action team confiscated a large amount of blood agents in Blood Sectors Three and Nine, taking them all back to the legion.

When the Gao family acted, Meng Jian received news that nearly thirty medical space stations had been hijacked.

Before finishing listening to this intelligence, news arrived that riots had broken out inside quite a few legions.

Listening to the report from a subordinate of the Second Legion, Meng Zai felt his head growing twice as big. He poured himself a glass of red wine, chugged it down, and smashed the glass directly onto the floor.

“Those two Royal brat kids sure know how to cause trouble for us! Intentionally releasing the news of cutting off the blood agent supply right before starting the war—causing panic inside the ranks!”

Meng Jian said with a dark face: “Who told you to manage things so loosely normally?!”

“Is this a problem with my management?!” Meng Zai was already in a bad mood, exploding directly upon hearing this.

Meng Tu felt annoyed in his heart, yet still had to think of ways to mediate between two bad tempers.

Out of the corner of his eye, seeing a soldier bringing tea over, he placed two cups of tea in front of his father and brother respectively: “Both of you calm down. Arguing won’t solve problems; let’s first think of a way to appease the modified humans’ emotions.”

“You make it sound easy—appease how?”

Meng Zai rapped his hand against the tabletop, speaking furiously, “The Royal Family exposed that modified humans will die without blood agent supplements, and now they’ve confiscated the blood agents. If you were a modified human, could you stay calm?”

“So modified humans dying without regular blood agent supplements… is true?” The soldier serving tea suddenly chimed in.

Meng Zai was about to answer, then froze abruptly.

The soldier rapidly drew a sidearm from his back waist, pointing it tremblingly at Meng Jian, so angry his eye corners were wet and his face flushed red. His pheromones surged out like a released flood: “You lied to me! Not a single person in the Meng family is good! All of you go to hell—!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The soldier pulled the trigger repeatedly.

In a flash of lightning, Meng Tu pulled Meng Jian behind the conference table.

Meng Zai took a large step sideways, pulling his gun and shooting the soldier dead.

The soldier had just shifted his barrel preparing to shoot toward Meng Jian when a bullet struck his head. He jolted violently, tumbling heavily to the ground.

Meng Jian was beside himself with rage: “Screen all sectors immediately! Do not allow any modified humans to appear in front of me!”

Adjutant: “Yes!”

While the Meng family was overwhelmed dealing with and appeasing modified humans, Li Xiao and his team obtained a preliminary list of rebel distributions.

Within the designated time, 807 garrison bases had failed to publicly state their position, including 36 Grade-A key bases and 159 Grade-B bases.

As for why it was a preliminary list, it was because among bases stating their positions, there might be those agreeing outwardly while disobeying in secret, while among bases that hadn’t stated their positions, there might be cases where rebels were suppressed and control was reclaimed.

However, there were solutions to all these problems.

Gao Wanxin: “First have the bases that stated their positions guarantee they won’t provide any form of help to the Meng family army, accepting supervision from internal personnel and the public.”

“You guys handle those details; as long as the goal is met, the form of supervision isn’t important.”

Li Xiao marked out the Grade-A and Grade-B bases, “For now, let’s take down these 195 bases first.”

Saying this, Li Xiao circled Garrison Base N001-Sector One: “This base is of Super-A specification; I will handle it. The other 35 Grade-A bases will be allocated by you based on legion combat capability—be sure to seize command authority as quickly as possible.”

Gao Wanxin: “Do you want to use the garrison base forces to supplement our own troops?”

Li Xiao shook his head: “There isn’t that much time to distinguish friend from foe. Ensuring these people stay obediently at their posts is more beneficial to us.”

Gao Wanxin nodded approvingly.

“I agree with your opinion.”

Yi Yongning looked at the various intelligence data in his hands: “The number of Meng family troops is still far greater than ours. Even if we only handle these 195 bases, considering the possibility of being attacked by Meng family armies and needing to safely evacuate civilians near the bases, I’m afraid our forces won’t be enough.”

Li Xiao: “As for personnel, I’ll think of a way.”

Song Jin had a lollipop in his mouth, looking at his screen as he chimed in casually: “The numbers of the Meng family army can be trimmed down another wave. Quite a few students from various regions have arrived. Xiao-bao and I also have some fair-weather friends who can barely be put to use. Speed is paramount in war; let’s spread out the situation first. Cowering before even starting the war means losing half the battle.”

Yi Yongning and the others: “…”

Xiao-bao?

Li Xiao nodded: “We’ll react as moves come. The person who should panic right now is Meng Jian, not us.”

Song Jin smiled: “To make our odds of winning higher, early momentum-building is indispensable. I’ll handle this matter.”

Just as Nanming Constellation was filled with anxiety and unrest, 07 and 09 jointly hacked into the ten largest media companies in Nanming Constellation, replacing all large advertising screens on urban streets, sky-crafts, and public transport exteriors with specific text—

【Recycling traitors, rebels, and modified humans: exchange for military merits, military ranks, or stainless steel washbasins.】