The moment Yan Qing arrived at the operational cabin, several military academy teaching assistants rushed over to surround him.

For this expedition, their primary responsibility was assisting Xiang Hong in managing all matters related to the student interns.

“Dean Yan, what on earth is going on? We heard Director Xiang has gone missing!” a Beta assistant wearing round glasses asked anxiously.

Yan Qing continued walking inward as he explained, “A front-line regression occurred in Sector 22, and Temporary Medical Department Two was hit by an evolutionary beast tide. By the time I woke up from the commotion, I could no longer establish contact with him.”

The young assistants sucked in a sharp breath. The nature of their jobs meant they would never actually set foot on the absolute front line, but they hadn’t expected disaster to strike even under these conditions.

Yan Qing sought out the Major in charge of cadet intern affairs to formally take over Xiang Hong’s pending tasks.

“What did the military academy say?” the Major asked.

Yan Qing: “There haven’t been any new directives issued for the time being.”

The Major rubbed his eyes exhaustedly. “I’ve been with the Corps for so many years, and this is the first time I’ve ever encountered this kind of situation.”

Yan Qing asked inconspicuously, “Are you referring to the front-line regression, or a leading faculty member mysteriously vanishing on the battlefield?”

“Both,” the Major sighed softly. “In the past, whenever we encountered a beast tide of this magnitude, at least two full legions would be deployed to reinforce us. I have no idea what the high command is thinking this time—they haven’t made a single mention of reinforcements.”

His tone was heavily laced with an underlying resentment.

Yan Qing followed his train of thought. “Is the scale of this tide truly that massive?”

Major: “It has already reached Level $B2$. In our history, the highest-grade beast tide to ever assault an inhabited planet was an $A2$. We are only two levels away from that.”

A two-level variance was an astronomical disparity, but the current situation was perilous nonetheless.

Yan Qing systematically organized the documents in his hands. “The high command must have their own calculations.”

“What calculations? It’s just a bunch of top-tier power players locked in a political feud, using us grunts down here as playthings,” the Major scoffed dismissively. “The royal family simply wants to flex their presence, so they’re completely blind-firing commands. Letting an absolute layman issue operational directives… I truly don’t know how they intend to clean up this mess in the end.”

Yan Qing had been preparing to leave, but hearing those words caused him to pause slightly. After a brief moment of reflection, he noted with feigned curiosity, “If my memory serves me correctly, His Majesty graduated with perfect scores across all disciplines of Military Command and Strategy during his time.”

Leaving the dumbfounded Major in his wake, he turned and departed without a single backward glance.

The surrounding teaching assistants traded subtle, highly nuanced glances. When even a minor Major under the Qi family’s umbrella dared to openly slander the royal family in a public workspace, one could suddenly comprehend why the Crown was putting the squeeze on them. If they didn’t implement strict discipline soon, these factions would be walking right over their heads.

The round-glassed Beta assistant adjusted his frames, asking with absolute bluntness, “A Level $B2$ crisis shouldn’t require three legions to mobilize, right? Back when the $A2$ crisis broke out, only three legions were deployed, and its sheer volume was several times greater than a $B2$.”

Noticing the Major glaring over, the other assistants promptly dragged the honest Beta away.

Imperial Capital Planet, Military Headquarters, Meng Jian’s Office.

Meng Jian reviewed the intelligence reports dispatched from the front line.

The defensive line in Sector 22 had collapsed backward, teetering right on the precipice of the absolute critical boundary. Of his two Ferryagents, one was officially missing, and the other had lost his specialized extraction kit.

“What the hell do they think they are playing at?” Meng Jian slammed his pen violently onto the desk. “Where is Qi Shoude? Have him get his ass over here!”

“General Qi is currently pulling a shift at the Command Center, systematically adjusting the defensive layout for Sector 22,” the adjutant explained hesitantly. “Furthermore, the front-line regression was brought to General Yi’s attention directly by the Second Prince. General Qi appeared to be completely in the dark as well.”

“Li Xiao? Him again!” Meng Jian irritably grabbed two walnuts, rolling them aggressively across his palm. “What happened to those two Ferryagents?”

The adjutant broke down the reports received from the lower tiers. “By all accounts, it appears to be a sequence of pure accidents. It just so happened that the Second Prince was present at that specific location.”

Meng Jian narrowed his eyes slightly, his expression turning deathly dark. “The extraction kit was truly plundered by flying insects?”

The adjutant nodded. “The guards and Jin Lin were both eyewitnesses to the event. Furthermore, Li Xiao and his group were already secured inside their rescue vehicle at that exact moment.”

Ever since the day he had been systematically dismantled by Li Xiao’s blunt rhetoric, not a single piece of good news had graced his desk. The Raven squad had long since exited the board, and the footage of Li Xiao’s vehicle self-detonating was still trending at the top of the hot search boards. The Fifth Legion’s ineffective rescue protocols, combined with their botched logistical distribution and that absolute trainwreck of an official clarification notice, had turned them into an absolute laughingstock.

Tarring the Qi family’s reputation yielded zero operational benefits for him now. It would serve his interests far better to bring this war to a flawless conclusion and salvage whatever shred of dignity remained. Yet, things were progressing entirely against his wishes; the layout was steadily slipping beyond his absolute control.

The adjutant asked tentatively, “Could the Second Prince have discovered something?”

Meng Jian shook his head. “Execute a total sweep of every single location Li Xiao has set foot in.”

Adjutant: “Understood.”

Within the infrastructure of the Fifth Legion, no one would stick their neck out to help Li Xiao conceal assets. If that kit had truly been pocketed by the prince, a thorough search would expose it with ease.

“Furthermore, regarding this front-line regression—”

Before Meng Jian could finish his directive, an assistant knocked rapidly and entered the room.

Assistant: “Sir, media outlets have broken the story regarding the tactical crisis in South Sector 22! It is spreading across the network at an astronomical velocity!”

The adjutant gasped. “This quickly?!”

Assistant: “It was published by an authoritative, mainstream media house. The war on Planet S80 has already generated far too much controversy; any slight ripple is immediately weaponized by journalists to harvest traffic.”

“Suppress it!” Meng Jian barked sharply.

The assistant spoke at a breakneck pace: “We already attempted to kill the story, sir. It is entirely impossible to suppress at this stage.”

Meng Jian pondered the situation for a few moments. “Then cease all suppression efforts. Deploy assets to manipulate the narrative flow.”

Assistant: “Understood!”

Across the various virtual platforms, the hashtag #S80 Front-Line Regression blasted its way to the absolute top of the trending boards at record speed. Beneath the related hot-topics, several battlefield correspondents were broadcasting live from the perimeter of Sector 22, making the staggering density of the insect swarms visible at a glance.

[FRONT-LINE EMERGENCY! The defensive line in South Sector 22 has collapsed backward; the insect tide is on the verge of breaking through the absolute containment perimeter!]

The comment sections below were absolute chaos:

–“Everything was perfectly fine yesterday! I thought the war was on the verge of wrapping up!”

–“Good grief, this beast tide is proving exceptionally brutal to clear.”

–“Why hasn’t the high command deployed reinforcements to support them during a crisis of this magnitude?!”

–“I heard from a highly reliable insider source that the military elite wanted to send reinforcements long ago, but the royal family suppressed the order to flex their authority.”

–“The Crown continuously executes disastrous strategic blunders just to validate its own existence. My heart bleeds for the refugees. If this keeps up, their homes will be entirely erased.”

–“Can they stop playing political games with human lives?! This is driving me insane. Can’t the military leadership simply authorize troop deployments on their own accord?”

The Warship, Residential Cabins.

Song Jin sat with a sweet bun clamped between his teeth, typing out a message to transmit to his father, Shen Sinian, back on the distant Ice Planet. Looking up to see Li Xiao reviewing the trending updates on the network, he slid over and rested his chin against the prince’s shoulder, rapidly scanning the feed alongside him.

Catching sight of the top-voted comment, he let out a mocking snort.

“What are you laughing at?” Li Xiao asked, reaching up to gently remove the sweet bun from his lips.

Song Jin smoothly snatched the bun right back. “Certain entities aren’t even bothering to camouflage their agendas anymore.”

Li Xiao tapped open the top comment. The thousands of replies nesting beneath it were a uniform sea of text: “+1”, “It is difficult to disagree with this logic”, and “Professional matters should be left to professional leadership.”

The Meng family’s manipulation of public opinion wasn’t a recent development; they had standard operating procedures for shifting any and all institutional failures onto the Crown. Because of the systemic information asymmetry, ordinary citizens possessed no means of unearthing the ground reality. Over time, they were effortlessly led by the nose by the Meng family’s narrative handlers.

“If the military command is completely decentralized, the Danse Empire will fracture into five sovereign territories right where it stands,” Song Jin remarked, wrapping his arms around Li Xiao’s waist from behind as he contentedly munched on his bun while holding his beauty. “Once a total, uncontained war erupts, let’s see if these citizens keep howling like rabid dogs.”

“They will still howl. They will simply adopt a different pitch,” Li Xiao murmured, composing a text summary of the events in Sector 22 to transmit to his older brother, Li Ji.

Song Jin: “Shifting from angry howls to pathetic whimpers?”

Li Xiao couldn’t help but chuckle. “The civilian population’s willingness to vocalize their grievances is inherently a good asset. Our responsibility lies in structuring a pathway for them to aim their weapons at the true enemy.”

Public opinion was a double-edged sword; victory belonged entirely to the party capable of mastering its hilt.

Song Jin stared into those laughing eyes. “Are you genuinely optimistic, or do you simply not care?”

More often than not, Li Xiao projected an aura of absolute detachment—as if he had positioned himself purely as a spectator on the sidelines of reality, allowing no individual and no event to truly pierce his inner sanctuary. Even though the man was anchored right before his eyes, he left Song Jin with an elusive sensation that he couldn’t quite grasp. It felt as though if he blinked for a fraction of a second, this person might vanish into thin air.

“The sugar syrup is dripping,” Li Xiao noted softly.

Song Jin snapped back to reality, frantically adjusting the orientation of his bun. “…”

Turns out, the thing that vanishes if you blink is the syrup.

Seeing Song Jin staring at the pastry with a look of profound contemplation, Li Xiao asked, amused, “What is it?”

“If you leave the most delicious things for the very end, you might lose the opportunity to experience them entirely,” Song Jin murmured, locking a deeply meaningful gaze onto Li Xiao. “Therefore, one must consume it ravenously before it possesses the chance to disappear.”

Li Xiao: ...

To think he managed to extract a profound philosophical epiphany out of eating a common bun.

Imperial Capital Planet, Danse Royal Palace.

Li Ji was taking a post-dinner stroll through the imperial gardens. Hearing an emergency briefing relayed by a subordinate, Special Assistant Old Liu approached the emperor, who was currently occupied with feeding his pet crocodile.

“The defensive perimeter in South Sector 22 has collapsed backward. The virtual networks are erupting into chaos once more,” Old Liu reported.

“Are those old fossils at the Military Bureau aware?” Li Ji asked casually.

Old Liu: “General Yi and General Qi have already revised the defensive deployments, but it hasn’t reached the scheduled window for routine briefings yet. The formal reports have not been submitted to the palace.”

Li Ji tossed the final slab of raw meat from his platter into the enclosure, taking the linen towel proffered by Old Liu to meticulously wipe his hands. He offered no further commentary.

Seeing his demeanor, Old Liu added carefully, “The networks are universally aiming their spears directly at the royal family.”

“An ancient parlor trick. It lacks novelty,” Li Ji noted, turning to walk down the stone path.

Old Liu hurried to keep pace. “Then I shall immediately instruct our media assets to issue a formal clarification.”

Li Ji: “There is no necessity. Someone else will handle the execution.”

As they crossed a sprawling manicured lawn, a sudden flash of white materialized within their field of vision, rocketing directly toward them at a frantic velocity. Old Liu scrambled to position himself protectively in front of the emperor.

Li Ji gently pressed Old Liu’s shoulder down, reaching out with a single hand to cleanly capture the white, fluffy blur. To his surprise, it turned out to be a tiny kitten, barely two or three months old.

A Beta attendant sprinted over in a frantic rush, bowing deeply in absolute terror. “Deepest apologies, Your Majesty! I have disturbed your peace!”

Noticing the attendant wore the uniform of the Imperial Menagerie, Li Ji casually handed the kitten back over to him.

Once the Beta text walked away, Old Liu observed the lingering gaze Li Ji cast toward the kitten’s departure. He noted with extreme caution, “It bears a striking resemblance to the civet-fox kitten you gifted to the Second Prince all those years ago, sire.”

Back then, to ensure the Second Prince wouldn’t discover the true origin of the gift, the Emperor had explicitly crouched in ambush along a corridor he knew the young prince would traverse, stealthily releasing the civet-fox cub right into his path the moment he approached. The Second Prince had indeed fallen desperately in love with the creature, refusing to let go of it the moment he cradled it in his arms.

“And what of it?” Li Ji’s expression turned utterly glacial. “It was slaughtered in the end anyway. It would have been far better to have never gifted it at all.”

Old Liu choked on his words. Had I known it would trigger this memory, I wouldn’t have breathed a word about it.

On the return path to the administrative wing, seeing that the emperor’s mood had taken a severe hit, Old Liu desperately scrambled to rectify his blunder. “The Second Prince was far too young back then, sire. Now, he definitely possesses the absolute capability to safeguard what is his. Perhaps we should—”

“There is no need.” The image of that striking, golden-haired youth flashed across Li Ji’s mind. “He has already discovered his own civet-fox.”

Old Liu was completely bewildered by the cryptic statement. “I have received no intelligence regarding the secondary palace taking in a pet, sire.”

Li Ji offered no elaboration. Halting his steps, he lowered his voice to demand, “What is the status of Song Jin’s background investigation?”

Old Liu: “He originates from an ordinary, minor noble household based right here on the Imperial Capital Planet. We have verified the data trails multiple times; every single metric aligns flawlessly with the official records.”

An ordinary, minor noble?

Li Ji didn’t believe a single syllable of those analytical conclusions. Either his intelligence network had been thoroughly infiltrated by adversarial factions, preventing the ground truth from surfacing on his desk, or Song Jin’s true background was of such a gargantuan magnitude that even the Emperor’s classified espionage apparatus lacked the clearance to parse it.

Xiaoxiao, that brat… what exactly is the board he is currently structuring?

Returning to the main office, Old Liu approached with a leather-bound folder, presenting it with deep respect. “The preliminary itinerary for the imperial tour has been structured, sire. Please review it.”

Li Ji flipped open the document, scanning the itinerary rapidly. In half a month’s time, he would officially depart the Imperial Palace to initiate his month-long tour of the sovereign sectors. This was an annual institutional mandate, but he harbored a distinct intuition that this year’s tour would proceed with anything but smooth sailing.

“Summon Yi Yongning to the palace immediately.”

Old Liu: “Understood!”

While the digital storms across the virtual networks were escalating to an absolute fever pitch, Yi Yongning clocked out of his shift and returned to his residence. The moment he caught wind of the prevailing narrative online, he spat out a furious curse: “Shameless scumbags!”

Swiping open his virtual platform, he directly shared the broadcast published by the most authoritative media outlet, appending a line of text before smashing the publish button.

[The Marine Corps commander for South Sector 22 suffered a sudden, unmanaged psychological breakdown, leaving front-line tactical deployments entirely unexecuted! The Marine Corps’ Commander-in-Chief abandoned his institutional duties and actively suppressed critical military intelligence from reaching headquarters, directly triggering the defensive regression! This crisis bears absolutely zero correlation to the royal family’s strategic directives. Cease allowing your narratives to be manipulated by bad-faith actors!]

This single dynamic update blasted through the entire virtual network like a nuclear payload. As one of the five General-rank officers commanding the imperial armed forces, any statement issued under Yi Yongning’s digital signature carried a monumental, undeniable weight.

The comment sections exploded instantly:

–“I never expected Old Man Yi to be this jaw-droppingly direct, Hahaha! I absolutely love this energy!”

–“If the Old General puts his name on it, I believe it implicitly.”

–“Good grief, he named names directly! You can tell the old man is absolutely furious at this point.”

–“A psychological breakdown on the absolute front line… heavy stuff. Was the tactical pressure truly that immense?”

–“I can sympathize with a military officer falling ill, but is this Commander-in-Chief position simply a joke to that old fossil?”

–“The reality remains that the royal family refused to authorize reinforcements, which directly triggered the front-line collapse. Stop trying to scrub the Crown’s record clean, old man.”

Yi Yongning sat down at his dining table. Catching sight of that final comment, he slammed his chopsticks onto the table and fired off a direct reply.

[You comprehend the layout better than me? How about I vacate my seat as a General-rank commander and let you run the imperial forces instead?]

A massive wave of “Hahahahaha” responses swarmed his reply within seconds.

–“The Old General is far too savage!”

–“I’m dying of laughter. Look at what these internet trolls have pushed this elderly statesman into.”

–“Keyboard warriors truly choose to believe only the illusions that flatter their biases.”

–“Out of all the comment sections under this trending topic, this is the only corner that still retains a shred of basic human sanity. The rest look like they’ve been hexed by a cult.”

The internet troll, thoroughly dismantled but fiercely recalcitrant, doubled down with an aggressive follow-up:

–“This garbage only works to deceive illiterate commoners like you. I can’t believe people are actually buying this state propaganda.”

Yi Yongning abandoned his meal entirely. Digging through his classified logs, he extracted a specific snippet of the battlefield communication footage and blasted it directly onto the public platform.

[Had the Second Prince not issued an emergency notification to headquarters out of his own volition, those absolute sons of bitches would still be fast asleep at the wheel!]

Within the shared video frame, Li Xiao stood anchored beside a military tent. The sky above was a chaotic vortex of rampaging insects, and personnel could be seen sprinting past the lens in a disorganized scramble.

Li Xiao: “The Marine Corps commander for Sector 22 suffered a sudden psychological collapse. Operational commands were not being executed properly, and no one stepped in to manage it. Six hours ago, I communicated directly with the Marine Corps’ Commander-in-Chief. He clearly didn’t take the matter seriously at all…”

The comment sections inverted completely:

–“Ahhhhh, it’s the Second Prince!”

–“I officially declare that Old Man Yi’s stance is the absolute truth!”

–“That Commander-in-Chief must face severe institutional prosecution!”

–“Thank goodness I didn’t rush to pick a side. As expected, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Crown. There are always bad-faith actors rushing to slap a stigma onto the royal family the moment a crisis breaks out.”

While Yi Yongning was scrolling through the shifting tide of public comments, his terminal vibrated. It was a text from his youngest son, Yi Lian.

Yi Lian: Old man, you suddenly turning this aggressively savage is terrifying me. Have you been possessed by some unholy entity?

Yi Yongning: Get lost!

Beside the dining table, the butler poured him a fresh cup of hot tea. “Will executing actions to this extreme trigger a severe retaliatory response from the Meng family faction?”

“If the sky collapses, absolutely no one gets to escape the fallout,” Yi Yongning remarked, picking up his rice bowl once more. “As long as the two individuals sitting at the apex of the board can hold their ground, there is absolutely nothing to fear.”

By the second day following the comprehensive restructuring of Sector 22’s defensive deployments, the tactical crisis had been fundamentally brought under absolute containment.

Up on the warship, Li Xiao, Song Jin, and the other three cadets had spent three consecutive days executing operational tasks under Yan Qing’s leadership. The front line had successfully been pushed back into the absolute wilderness sectors; it was estimated that the war would reach total resolution within a week.

On this particular morning, Li Xiao and Song Jin woke up precisely on schedule. Prior to deploying for their assigned shift, they navigated toward the medical sector to receive their routine therapeutic lamp exposure.

The exact moment they stepped into the diagnostic chamber, the hushed murmurs of several wounded soldiers caught their attention.

“Another one bit the dust over in Special Sector C. They rolled the corpse out past 5:00 AM.”

“Could it be some manner of highly contagious plague? Can a standard psychological disruption truly claim a life this rapidly?”

“If it were a contagious plague, they would have been quarantined over in Sector D, wouldn’t they?”

“Three fatalities have already been logged within these past two days alone. Furthermore, another four individuals have been issued critical condition notices.”

Li Xiao and Song Jin exchanged a highly calculated glance, walking over to stand beneath the therapeutic lamp sector without betraying a single shred of emotion.

With Jin Lin’s specialized kit permanently removed from the board, the Modified Humans lacked a pathway to secure timely biological replenishment. As it turned out, they couldn’t even survive past a baseline threshold of three days.

With personnel losing their sanity and being shipped back to the warship for emergency containment on a daily basis, Special Sector C reached maximum capacity by the sixth day. The administration was forced to temporarily reassign the adjacent Sector E to function as an extension of the psychiatric wing.

A profound sense of dread rippled through the warship’s population; the common consensus pointed toward an uncontained plague sweeping through the ranks. Evolutionary species carried a terrifying array of lethal viral strains; being infected by any random variant was more than enough to claim a soldier’s life.

Receiving first-hand intelligence logs transmitted by Li Xiao, Li Ji issued an imperial decree: if any instance of fraudulent reporting or systemic concealment of casualties was unearthed, the responsible officers would face immediate suspension and formal prosecution.

In an instant, the medical units became exceptionally frantic. The front-line operational units were breaking down systematically—if it wasn’t a failure manifesting in one sector, it was a crisis erupting in another. Fortunately, the conflict boundaries had been successfully pushed into the uninhabited wilderness, preventing the chaos from inflicting catastrophic damage upon the civilian residential zones.

Li Xiao, Song Jin, and their crew pulled a grueling, all-night shift to extract personnel from the field. By the crisp dawn that marked the total resolution of the war, they finally delivered the absolute last batch of wounded soldiers to the rear medical base.

Drenched in a foul cocktail of sweat and grime, their combat uniforms thoroughly caked in filth, they stood together to greet the rising sun.

“It is finally over,” Qian Can groaned, rolling his neck as he extended a massive, exhausting stretch. “Peace truly is a beautiful thing.”

Song Jin’s face soured instantly. He took two sharp steps backward, his expression laced with absolute revulsion. “Do not raise your arms. There is a literal string of intestines hooked onto your sleeve.”

“Holy shit!” Qian Can whipped his head left and right, violently shaking his arm to fling the mass away. “I was wondering why I smelled so aggressively rancid!”

Jiang Hao promptly steered Qin Le away from his vicinity. “You don’t smell any sweeter than that tissue right now, man.”

Yan Qing approached hastily from the opposing corridor. “We will initiate our return flight past noon. Find a location to secure some rest first.”

Li Xiao nodded in agreement. He and Song Jin navigated toward a wash station to thoroughly cleanse their hands first. Soon after, Jiang Hao and the others returned carrying standard breakfast trays.

The uniforms they wore were arguably filthier than the muddy terrain outside. Abandoning all pretense of decorum, they picked a random spot to sit down. Basked in the crisp, early winter morning light, they enjoyed a rare moment of absolute tranquility while eating amidst the sprawling ruins of the battlefield.

Qin Le: “I want to wash my hair so desperately.”

Jiang Hao: “An oily scalp has its perks, man. It saves you thirty years of mid-life hair loss.”

Qian Can sighed contentedly, “There is a profound, grounding sense of security that manifests when the dust finally settles. It feels amazing.”

Song Jin: “Not necessarily.”

Li Xiao turned his head to look at him, assuming he was about to articulate a tactical deduction regarding the Modified Humans.

Song Jin systematically finished the last of his boiled egg, puffing out his cheeks as he chewed. Leaning in close to Li Xiao’s ear, he murmured in a low, dangerous drawl, “I have successfully accumulated thirty boxes. Exactly when do you intend to let me touch my fill?”

Li Xiao: ...

Has he truly still not turned the page on this transaction?