262: Chapter 260 Code Name: Awakening of Insects

Thirteen days later.

The "Xinhuo" space station cluster—

A standard Lagrange Space City cluster surrounding Planet Three of Tianjin Seat V89.05,

This was the new headquarters of the Guardian Angel Legion.

A cluster of one Level 7 space station, one Level 6 space station, two Level 5 space stations, and one Level 3 space station formed a ring, occupying all orbits around Planet Three.

They were filled with industrial beauty, looking incomparably grand and spectacular.

However, the people here had no time to admire it—

The scent of gunpowder from war had already drifted right under everyone's noses.

"How are the defense arrangements coming along?"

The command center at this moment was a hive of activity.

Ever since Xi Hai made the decision at the meeting to support the uprising and go with the flow, the entire Guardian Angel Legion had begun around-the-clock deployment.

Julius held the operational plan in his hand, repeatedly checking for any oversights while questioning the several staff officers sitting beside him.

"Reporting to the Legion Commander! All defensive positions in the Siren Constellation are in place!"

"Reporting to the Legion Commander! Over 70% of the narrow salients have basically completed their relocation! Only our suicide squads remain!"

"Reporting to the Legion Commander!..."

"Good..." Listening to the orderly reports from the staff officers, Julius nodded slightly.

So far, everything was still going according to plan.

The areas where the uprising succeeded were not actually scattered. After all, the starting point of this turmoil, in the final analysis, was Ursa Major V12.22 where Norma was located. (See Chapter 236)

In other words, the areas of successful uprising were distributed in a radial pattern, roughly centered around Ursa Major V12.22.

The main areas involved Ursa Major, Siren Constellation, Aquila Seat, and the fringes of Tianjin Seat.

Of course, this didn't mean there weren't any in other places; it was just that they weren't as concentrated elsewhere, mostly being narrow buffer zones between several large regimes.

Relying on the superhuman industrial capacity within the Lagrange space stations (where all city defenses could be refreshed in an hour) and the travel capabilities of the Void Bubble Engines,

Within these thirteen days, the Legion had barely managed to link most of the uprising areas together. Using a combination of physical force and reason, they also overthrew some small regimes mixed in between, incorporating them into their own system.

As for the regions with successful uprisings, surrounded by enemies on all sides, most people chose to join directly when faced with the Guardian Angel Legion, which showed clear goodwill and support—

A significant portion of the leaders were even "their own people" sent out by Norma's side.

In short, in just thirteen days, Xi Hai's sphere of influence had undergone an astonishingly rapid expansion—

Leaping from a few hundred star systems in Tianjin Seat V89 to over sixty thousand star systems.

After confirming the implementation of the deployment, Julius walked toward a desk at the back of the command center, snapped to attention, and reported loudly:

"Reporting to the Supreme Director, the operational deployment has been confirmed and implemented!"

"All combat units are in position!"

After speaking, he handed over the report in his hand—it was the latest surveillance intelligence on the Allied fleet.

"Good," Xi Hai took the intelligence, flipped through it briefly, and then set it aside.

"Julius, this time, the operational command will be handled by me, you, and all the personnel of the Legion's headquarters staff."

"As the Legion Commander, tell me! Are you—ready?"

"Reporting! I am ready!"

Julius gave a heavy military salute.

"Good," Xi Hai patted Julius heavily on the shoulder and said:

"Do you know? At the end of the fourth era, the last Marshal of the Second Empire's Imperial Guard had the same name as you, Julius." (See Chapter 89)

"His name can be said to be legendary among humans today."

"I don't know if this is a historical coincidence, but I believe—you will be even more outstanding than him! So outstanding that when future generations mention the name 'Julius' again, the first one they think of will be you, not him!"

"Yes!"

Watching Julius's excited back, Xi Hai's eyes gradually grew sharp.

He picked up the operational deployment document from the side and flipped through it once more.

Over sixty thousand star systems—this was the sphere of influence he now controlled in name, the result of thirteen days of non-stop work.

One must realize that among the six top regimes, the Democratic Alliance, which had the smallest sphere of influence, only had an actual control area of about 200,000 star systems for its main government.

As long as he could hold his ground this time, the forces under his command could firmly establish themselves in current human civilization—not as a vassal of some regime, not as some secondary regime, and certainly not as some breakaway faction,

But as a member of the top tier who could truly and legitimately sit at the table,

Even if his purpose for coming to the table was, in fact, to flip it.

These past few days, the non-combat personnel of the Legion had been busy non-stop—they were constantly producing Pioneer Ships and then directly piloting them to those star systems where the uprisings had succeeded.

Subsequently, they would repeat this process in the new star systems, leaving behind only one Pathfinder base to serve as an industrial hub and a few technical advisors in the star systems where contact had been established.

To put it in a less-than-ideal way, it was like staking out territory.

But incorporating those uprising areas so rapidly wasn't because Xi Hai was greedy, but rather the best choice made out of realistic considerations:

First, excluding the areas influenced by Norma and the others, most of the insurgents just wanted to rebel—

They hadn't considered what to do after the rebellion; they only knew they wanted to kill those who had previously lorded over them, and they only knew they wanted to go on a killing spree.

Like ancient slave revolts, they had no manifesto, no long-term plan, and some places even destroyed every piece of production equipment they could get their hands on after the uprising ended.

If left to their own devices, new oppressors would immediately emerge among these people, leading to the birth of an incredibly bloody new order based on the most primitive instincts of the law of the jungle.

This new order might even be more backward than the old order before the uprising.

In fact, during these thirteen days, some areas had already shown such signs, only to be sternly corrected by the Legion's iron fist of love and justice.

As for the operational deployment against the Coalition, it was actually quite simple—

That fleet of the five-nation Coalition still had no idea what they were about to face; they still thought they were just going to suppress a bunch of rioting slaves.

As for the fact that night lamp had hacked their systems clean, not a single person among them had even noticed anything was wrong.

Now, before those Coalition forces had even left their assembly point in the Democratic Alliance, over twenty mobile fleets of the Guardian Angel Legion had already laid an inescapable net for them—

To annihilate them completely before the Coalition could react was the consensus reached by all command levels for this battle.

This first battle was all about exploiting the information gap.

As for what would happen after the Coalition was eliminated... Xi Hai indicated he already had an idea.

Well then—

Just wait for the prey to take the bait. He closed the frayed operational plan with a "snap" and casually placed the file on the desk.

And on the cover of that plan, a line of large characters was clearly written:

"Operational Plan No. 332, Code Name: Operation Awakening of Insects."

...