199: You dare hit me... no, you really dare to hit me?

Time passed by imperceptibly.

The grand construction plan for the Tianjin Seat slowly unfolded like a ten-thousand-mile landscape painting.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the universe, the void tremors of Cetus V89 had almost finally come to an end.

The combined fleet, where everyone already harbored their own ulterior motives, swarmed directly into that star system which had been nearly blasted to bits.

It is worth mentioning that this time, The Empire's plan was to have The Consortium's fleet launch an attack on them, while The Consortium's plan was to launch an attack on The Empire's fleet.

The strategic goals of both sides reached an uncanny consensus.

And so—

Within ten minutes of landing, the conflict between the two sides began.

First, the squads sent by both sides to control the star marker's transmission functions clashed. After a brief exchange of fire, The Empire emerged victorious.

Subsequently, a scene much like this unfolded:

The Consortium: "We express our strongest condemnation regarding your Marines' rash attack on our forces."

The Empire: "Oh, I'm so scared. We're shameless, so what are you going to do about it? Hit me if you have the guts!"

The Consortium: "We are here to cooperate and solve the problems here! Can you stop thinking about internal strife every day!"

The Empire: "What solution? You are the problem here."

The Consortium: "$%...&￥%Y%￥...￥%..." The Empire: "Keep barking. Hit me if you've got the balls."

The Consortium: "Screw you! If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get! I've put up with you for a long time! To hell with you! This is entirely your fault!"

The Consortium: "I've prepared for this day for too long! I'm going to kill you all today!"

(Profanities and insults)

However, because The Empire controlled the star marker acting as the communication relay station, when external parties queried their communications, they would hear a dialogue like this:

The Consortium: "Regarding your... launched attack..." The Empire: "Scared... don't... hit us..." The Consortium: "We are here to... internal strife!"

The Empire: "Solve... the problems here..." The Consortium: "#￥%...&*&*...%￥%...&*"

The Consortium: "Screw you! I've put up with you for a long time! To hell with the problem! I've prepared for this day for too long! I'm going to kill you all!"

(Profanities and insults)

In short, The Consortium's fleet, configured to annihilate The Empire's fleet, crashed head-on into The Empire's fleet, which was configured to annihilate The Consortium's fleet.

For a time, both sides fought until they were battered and bloodied.

But in the end, The Empire's fleet, which had modified a portion of their Warp Engines, gained the upper hand and crushed The Consortium's fleet at Cetus V66.66.

When the heavily damaged Empire fleet emerged, The Empire immediately fired the first shot of the propaganda war, widely releasing a massive amount of news across the entire Order Alliance—

"Ignoring the Great Enemy of Mankind, The Consortium fleet Attacks Allies!" (Image: A large number of destroyed Empire Warships and The Consortium's fleet firing)

"Was The Consortium's Attack on The Empire Premeditated?" (Image: Dialogue records transmitted from Cetus)

"Traitors to Humanity! Scum of Civilization! The Backstabbing Consortium Does Not Deserve to Exist!" (Image: Consortium soldiers captured while attempting Boarding Actions on Empire Warships)

Although The Consortium's stance was a total denial and a strong condemnation of The Empire for "releasing false information,"

And they also released a barrage of speeches condemning The Empire for "distorting the truth" and "failing to distinguish right from wrong," attempting to shift the blame for their own acts of war onto The Empire—

While objectively speaking, both sides were actually talking nonsense,

Only the side that survived could become the survivors who "tell the facts."

Following this, The Empire invited a large number of "authoritative" media outlets from within the Order Alliance to conduct one interview after another with The Empire soldiers who successfully made it out of Cetus V66.66 alive.

And these "authoritative" interviews were almost the only source of information for certain armchair analysts.

Thus, through viral word-of-mouth, The Consortium was quickly pushed to the center of the controversy.

Gradually, the situation began to spiral out of control. Just as the high-ranking officials of The Consortium finally realized that things were not as simple as they seemed,

Two more pieces of news struck like thunderbolts, completely panicking the Marshal who had inherited his father's position and the group of Consortium leaders—

The first was that The Empire produced so-called "decisive evidence," namely an interrogation video of a captured Consortium officer.

In the video, the man wearing a Consortium military uniform personally admitted that the Cetus incident was privately planned by The Consortium.

And The Consortium's selfishness had led to a terrifying consequence—hundreds of billions of people on Cetus V66.66 had lost their lives.

Whether that officer made a choice out of self-preservation under The Empire's threats and inducements, or whether he truly was someone in the know,

Under The Empire's instigation, this matter quickly became the fuse that ignited public outrage against The Consortium.

Even more fatal was that the Military Alliance, which had remained uncharacteristically silent since the start of the incident, finally made an official statement after the video was leaked—

The Secretary-General said only one sentence:

"Humanity cannot forgive The Consortium for the hundreds of billions of souls who died in vain, and The Consortium must pay the price for its own stupidity and arrogance."

That's right, that behemoth holding humanity's supreme military force had, for the first time, taken a side in its public stance.

This statement shocked almost the entire Order Alliance.

For a time, rumors that the Military Alliance was going to break tradition and begin full-scale intervention in Order Alliance affairs flew everywhere.

It wasn't until an elite fleet from the Military Alliance—suffering from a "brief electronic equipment failure" and "IFF device malfunction"—"accidentally" intruded into the home base of a small regime that these rampant rumors finally stopped—

Because they realized that the Military Alliance really dared to take action this time.

In short, with the endorsement of the Military Alliance, The Empire finally had the confidence.

With all old and new grudges combined, the call for battle within The Empire was currently reaching a fever pitch.

Thus, on a day without any warning, the very next second after declaring war, they launched a reckless assault on The Consortium's border—

Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Warships suddenly exited the Void Channel by force, slamming hard into The Consortium's hastily arranged "border fortification clusters."

Originally, according to The Consortium Ministry of Defense's initial plans, these fortifications could have played a role in resisting the enemy.

But they couldn't withstand the fact that the funds had been skimmed far too aggressively—

You take a bit, I take a bit, he takes a bit; everyone took a bit.

Vast amounts of energy currency turned into small amounts of energy currency, then into small amounts of credit points, and finally directly into small amounts of credit point loans.

In the end, the amount that reached the grassroots level wasn't even enough to repair existing public works, let alone build emergency fortifications.

As a result, on the first day, The Empire broke through The Consortium's lines of defense from over a dozen directions.

Then, with various fronts coordinating with each other, they launched pincer movements on multiple sides, causing over a dozen Cosmic Army Legions of The Consortium to have their designations wiped out in a single day.

The front line was pushed back nearly half a star cluster—of course, this wasn't because they couldn't fight further, but because they could only fly that far in a day.

Only then did The Consortium completely panic. They first held a "Managed Democratic Vote" on the Wartime Conscription Act—

(The question sent to the citizens was: "Did you eat tonight?")

(Answering "Yes" was considered consent, because being able to eat your fill meant there was a surplus in production to support more troops.)

(Answering "No" was considered consent, because the fact that you didn't eat meant The Empire was the reason you had no food; now go perform military service to fight The Empire so you can eat.)

And so, the proposal passed unanimously.

Furthermore, their Grand Marshal also signed an incredibly insane document—the Wartime Conscription Archive.

That document announced that all foreign-registered vessels still stranded within The Consortium's borders would be incorporated into The Consortium's battle sequence.

And all stranded foreign personnel would be regarded as spies unless they left through diplomatic bond means.

They would either serve as Amnesty Soldiers or be hanged directly.

The implementation of this document undoubtedly caused a large number of protests.

But when faced with those dark muzzles and gun barrels, most people still chose to become Amnesty Soldiers—

As for if you ask about the few who had backbone?

You'll know just by asking the newly joined Amnesty Soldiers what they've been eating lately.

Among these foreign personnel, there was such a group of people.

They had ridden the wind of conviction, bringing knowledge to the borders of civilization, only to be trapped by this document and instantly plunged into danger—

That's right, they were the civilian teachers heading to teach at that academy in Tianjin Seat V89.

They were one of the core components of the cultural education that Xi Hai valued most—

And now, these precious talents had blatantly become mere line-fillers...