69: Chapter 69 Danzo Appears

Above the Hilton Hotel, a giant mothership over a hundred meters long hovered silently.

Its shape resembled a giant, slowly writhing steel stingray, its surface covered in dark red light patterns that looked like countless flowing blood vessels.

It hung there quietly, making the entire Washington Monument look like a toothpick stuck in the ground.

The Secret Service bodyguards responsible for the banquet's security subconsciously drew their guns.

Nearby Army units were also urgently mobilized; just as the armored vehicles rounded the street corner and before the remote weapon stations on their roofs could rotate into position, a blinding pillar of light suddenly lit up from the bottom of the alien mothership.

It projected straight from the belly of the mothership onto the plaza in front of the Hilton Hotel, with dark shadows rapidly sliding down from the top of the light pillar.

The moment they landed, the light pillar burst apart, turning into a blinding silver-white mist, causing everyone to instinctively close their eyes.

When they opened their eyes again, the plaza was filled with exactly one hundred fully armed Penguin Soldiers.

Standing two point four meters tall, they wore pitch-black alloy exoskeletons and held high-tech bolter guns. Their waists were hung with various tactical equipment, and they looked murderous.

But beneath the helmets were round, black-and-white penguin faces.

With beady eyes and pointed beaks, each Penguin Soldier had a single cowlick on its head that swayed in the wind.

Specifically, that signature 'crest' on their heads seemed to be some kind of integrated antenna module.

The hundred Penguin Soldiers raised their weapons simultaneously, their movements perfectly synchronized like a hundred precision machines driven by the same program.

Their synthesized electronic voices spread in all directions through loudspeakers, announcing in the language of Blue Star: "By order of the Chief of Staff of the Guga Planet Expeditionary Fleet, as of now, a ten-kilometer radius is designated as a military control zone."

"All armed personnel, lay down your weapons. Repeat, all armed personnel, lay down your weapons."

The Secret Service and National Guard on the hotel's perimeter reacted instantly, drawing their guns for a standoff.

Countless dark muzzles pointed in unison at the penguin legion, the two sides forming a tense circle fifty meters in diameter.

A young agent's finger was already on the trigger, sweat sliding down his temple.

The armored vehicles at the street corner also stopped, their remote weapon stations slowly rotating, barrels pointing at the dissipating silver-white mist beneath the mothership.

An officer leaned halfway out of an armored vehicle, shouting into his radio: "This is Washington D.C., there is an unidentified flying object hovering over the Hilton Hotel! Requesting air support! Repeat, requesting support!"

Just as the tension in the air reached its limit...

A pillar of light suddenly turned from deep purple to crimson. In the center of the pillar, a hunched and gloomy figure slowly descended.

He leaned on a metal cane, his extremely sharp and sinister gaze scanning everyone, sending shivers down their spines.

The cold synthesized electronic voices of the Penguin Soldiers ceased all at once the moment he touched the ground.

The hundred Penguin Soldiers turned simultaneously to salute him with their eyes, their movements as orderly as if they were a single person.

At this moment, no self-introduction was needed; everyone instantly understood who the true Commander here was.

Danzo slowly scanned the Secret Service bodyguards and Army soldiers still holding their guns in the plaza and spoke indifferently: "Take them down!"

Before his voice had even faded, the hundred Penguin Soldiers simultaneously pulled fist-sized silver spheres from their waists and threw them at the ground.

"Click! Buzz!"

The spheres burst upon impact, spraying out countless translucent filaments flowing with eerie blue energy.

Those threads were like living serpents, weaving through the air at speeds almost invisible to the naked eye, precisely wrapping around the wrists, ankles, and waists of every gunman.

The moment they were ensnared, the soldiers discovered to their horror that their bodies felt ten times heavier.

A two-hundred-pound brute was crushed to the ground like he'd been stuffed into a hydraulic press, screaming as his firearm fell and dented the pavement.

Someone pulled the trigger, and bullets hissed out, striking the Penguin Soldiers' breastplates, only to be instantly blocked by a layer of flowing light-purple energy shields on their exoskeletons; they couldn't even break the defense.

In just three seconds.

Around the entire hotel perimeter, dozens of Secret Service elites, over a dozen National Guard soldiers, and three sniper teams were all pinned to the ground by Gravity Anchors, like a swarm of insects preserved in amber, unable to even lift a finger.

Then, surrounded by a large number of soldiers, Danzo stepped into the Hilton Hotel.

"Bang!"

The banquet hall doors were punched open by a Penguin Soldier, the two gilded oak doors slamming into the wall behind them like cannonballs, letting out a loud boom like the low roar of a giant beast.

The chandeliers by the entrance shook from the impact, their crystal pendants clattering and crashing like a swarm of silver-white moths fluttering in a shaken cage.

The originally noisy banquet hall fell silent instantly. Three thousand pairs of eyes turned toward the door in unison, like a photograph that had been paused.

“Tap, tap, tap!”

Accompanied by the rhythmic tapping of a cane, Danzo walked in slowly, his cold gaze sweeping over every face in the hall as if looking at a flock of lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

Behind him, a dark mass of Penguin Soldiers had already formed a V-shaped honor guard, silently amplifying Danzo's imposing presence.

Everyone in the banquet hall was trembling; under Danzo's cold gaze, many ladies dressed in finery even felt their legs go weak, a warm liquid silently flowing down.

Seeing this, Chen Mu picked up a red wine glass and walked unhurriedly toward Danzo.

The gazes of the two men collided in the air, like two blades being unsheathed at the same time.

"Chief of Staff," Chen Mu smiled, "are you here to attend my inauguration banquet?"

"Chen Mu," Danzo's voice rasped, "you are too weak."

"Based on the comprehensive assessment of the Guga Planet Expeditionary Fleet Command," Danzo's voice suddenly rose half a pitch, "Blue Star civilization is a highly deceptive and dangerous species."

"Their voting records in the United Nations have been fully recorded and deeply analyzed by our intelligence department." His cane struck the floor with a heavy thud. "A species that can flip its position one hundred and eighty degrees within a week is fundamentally untrustworthy."

He slowly scanned the room; every person his gaze touched felt as if their heart had been squeezed by something.

"Therefore, the Commander proposes that, as of now, the control measures for Blue Star civilization be raised directly to the highest level."

"The armies, governments, and resources of all their nations will be taken over directly by the Expeditionary Fleet, and all resistors will be purged."

It was as if a silent bomb had been dropped into the banquet hall. The faces of three thousand people turned pale at the same instant; they knew very well that Guga Planet absolutely had the power to do all of this.