152: There was no betrayal small enough to be tolerated.

There were not many aliens in the fortress; most of the defensive lines were maintained by a small number of aliens leading a bunch of Traitors.

Under normal circumstances, these defensive lines were a joke that would collapse at the slightest touch—even if they did not collapse, they were nothing more than speed bumps in front of the advancing refrigerator mecha.

After Gunnar led his team to capture the fortress's central control room and reactivated the defensive facilities, those anti-intrusion facilities began to operate again according to their pre-written programs.

The fortifications beneath their feet also became the enemy of the aliens.

Even the stupidest guys among the Traitors now realized what had happened.

Consequently, a large number of Traitors who had betrayed humanity once again betrayed their alien masters.

The garrison began to surrender in organized units; at first, it was the human Traitors, but later, even the aliens mixed into the ranks of those surrendering.

In response, only one sentence echoed in the soldiers' headsets: "When dealing with aliens, there are no prisoners."

In short, in less than half a day, this fortress had changed hands.

No, that was not all; it should be said that the entire planet had changed hands—this fortress was the last facility on Planet Two to change hands.

…In the fleet floating in orbit, on the Bridge of the storm, Xi Hai felt a deep sense of unreality as he looked at the "Planetary Occupation Complete" message transmitted by Oran:

Wait, what?

Occupation and clearance completed in less than a day?

I knew it would be fast, but not this fast! How many tens of thousands of men did the Marine Corps even bring?

It was only after seeing the report that the shock in his heart subsided slightly, but it was replaced by a surging anger—

In the report from the Marines, a large number of slaughter sites were discovered on this planet.

Bottomless corpse pits, sites where living people were collectively burned…

This was not a method like orbital bombardment used to eliminate survival threats—this was using slaughter as a form of entertainment!

Such methods caused Xi Hai to have a stress response—because in his past life, there had once been such an army, and their descendants still refused to admit the mistakes of the past to this day!

Of course, the most egregious part was that the Marine Corps also discovered slaughterhouses specifically for processing people, as well as a large amount of machinery for making canned goods—were they making canned goods out of humans?

This was absolutely inverted and chaotic!

This was no longer just simple aliens! He had to strike with a heavy fist! The kind that could kill eight cows with one punch!

He set aside the half-read report, opened the Marine Corps' collective command channel, and loudly ordered: "See if any of the alien high-ranking officials still have fresh brains, and use memory extraction to pull it out for me!"

"Extract the location of their home planet for me!"

He really had to fire a bunch of small rockets at them.

Closing the communication, he continued to pick up the report and read. It mentioned that although not a single alien was willing to surrender, the Marine Corps had captured a large number of "human auxiliary forces"—in plain language, Traitors.

Those Traitors were now all shouting that they were forced, but they probably never hesitated when helping the aliens bully others—after all, aliens would not force those who were unwilling; they would just turn on the canning machine. The only ones who could become human collaborators and keep doing it were the ones who did it voluntarily.

However, Xi Hai always felt that executing this bunch of Traitors directly was letting them off a bit too easily. Their crimes of betrayal should be judged, and their shameless acts should be exposed—

But it was impossible for Xi Hai to act as the judge himself, like he did with the few Traitors from the Taxation Department before, because there were too many people, and there might be more and more people needing to be judged in the future. He did not have that much time.

He needed a specialized institution to accomplish this—after a brief thought, Xi Hai realized what he needed: he needed the Inquisition.

Of course, not the Inquisition of the Empire that embodied all kinds of reactionaries; what Xi Hai needed was a stable and efficient judicial trial institution, where some members would accompany the army, preferably serving as Political Commissars, responsible for the soldiers' psychological work…

As he thought about it, even Xi Hai felt it was absurd. What kind of superhuman institution was he imagining?

He was still penniless and destitute, not even having a single law in place.

Forget it, things had to be done one step at a time. He had already confirmed the status of the void energy engine and had initially reversed the combat thinking of the First Mobile Fleet, which meant that the recovery of the remaining seven industrial star systems could be completely handed over to the First fleet, and he could go back.

After returning, there would be a bunch of things waiting for him—first of all, the reserve of professional talent had to be increased. Speaking of this, he really needed to set up an institution similar to a university—at least a vocational school.

And laws; the Lacray Empire did have ready-made ones, but many clauses were not applicable to his current situation. For starters, a ninety percent tax rate was not something humans could pay; not even playing the multitude stars would one dare to collect that much.

And that "Mandatory Eight-Hour Work Ordinance," the first sentence was that eight hours of work must be maintained; the second sentence was that work content included sleeping, eating, entertainment, and other behaviors, and the work area was all areas outside the "post"; the third sentence was that during non-working periods, any matters related to work were strictly prohibited, and one could not act in any work area. Wasn't this just a sixteen-hour workday with a different skin?

Ninety percent tax, sixteen-hour workday, how did you maintain social stability? Huh? Answer me!

In short, this thing couldn't be used without modification, and even if modified… it still couldn't be used. It was very troublesome.

Sighing, Xi Hai closed the report in his hand, dialed Oran's communication, and said: "Oran, I have seen your efforts, but now I must return first."

"The remaining seven star systems are left to you."

"Remember, you must root them out before the aliens can gain a foothold!"

Oran was stunned for a moment after hearing Xi Hai's words, then immediately replied: "Yes!"

Subsequently, he asked again: "Supreme Director, what about those Traitors?"

Facing this question, Xi Hai only calmly replied: "In any case, when they chose to turn their weapons against their own kind to please the aliens, they had already betrayed all of humanity."

"For humanity today, no betrayal is too small to be tolerated."

Oran was suddenly shaken, and something in his heart instantly became clear, so he shouted loudly: "Yes!"