Chapter 818 - Black-sheep-wall! (1/2)

The main ship crossed the stargate and arrived at the Flickering World immediately from the Shattered Star Ring.

There were dynasty’s fleets stationed on this side of the stargate too.

Han Xiao looked outside the window at the masses of star lights distributed around.

Unlike that prosperous Star Field in his memories, the Flickering World was still very primal and desolate. It did not have any traces of being developed before. The quantum network was silent; the only quantum network signal that he could connect to was the dynasty’s military base station channel. This meant that this new Star Field was not open to the public.

“Beep beep…”

As soon as the main ship crossed the stargate, it received a communication request from the dynasty’s military.

After the communication request was accepted, a 3D projection appeared. It was an old dynasty officer and a familiar face.

Hila glanced at the dense number of badges on this person. She looked at the military ranking badge on the sleeve of his army uniform and concluded that this person was a dynasty admiral, a well-established upper echelon of the military.

This person’s eyes were locked onto Han Xiao. He slightly raised his head and smiled gently.

“I’m Tarrokov, the commander in chief of the development team of the Flickering World. Your Excellency Black Star, welcome to the Dawn Star Cluster.”

“Commander.” Han Xiao nodded.

Tarrokov was someone he was familiar with. In his previous life, when the players were active in the Flickering World, Tarrokov was also the commander in chief of the dynasty’s troops stationed in the Flickering World. Back then, many of the missions were distributed in the form of military documents, and they were all signed by Tarrokov. He was in charge of the dynasty’s troops in the Flickering World; all the dynasty missions came from him, so of course, the players were familiar with him.

Now that he had come to explore the Flickering World, Tarrokov would be considered as his semi-boss. Tarrokov would be contacting the dynasty’s many allies on behalf of the dynasty, relaying the dynasty’s orders to them. Han Xiao knew that he would be seeing this guy a lot for quite a long time.

Luckily, Tarrokov was a very senior military boss, and he was very gentle and steady, easy to get along with. This was also the reason the dynasty had sent him to take care of the matters in the Flickering World.

“Bloodshed Land and Klent arrived at the Flickering World two days ago. Come with your fleet as quickly as possible. When you’re here, we will discuss the field exploration plans.”

“Okay.”

Han Xiao nodded, and Tarrokov hung up the communication.

Han Xiao opened the 3D star map. The current map of the Flickering World appeared before everyone’s eyes. Only the Dawn Star Cluster was marked as green and completely explored, which had a rather complete star map. The other ninety percent or so of the area was all gray and had no details.

The dynasty had built many strongholds in the Dawn Star Cluster, among which the main stronghold was on a planet at the border of the Dawn Star Cluster that connected to the unexplored area. The planet was named Planet Lighthouse, signifying its place as the lighthouse that guided the explorers’ return.

The gathering location marked by Tarrokov was there.

“It will still take some time till all the fleets cross the stargate.” Aurora pressed here and pulled there on the operation table, bringing up the gathering countdown that was calculated by the artificial intelligence.

Officers with important jobs such as Sylvia, Herlous, Reynold, and Lagi had all remained in the Shattered Star Ring to maintain the army headquarters’ operations. Han Xiao had only brought some of the army’s officers along this time, such as the Black Star Guards. Most of them did not have any jobs to do usually, and they were now assigned to different posts to take care of different matters in the exploration team.

The tons of non-combat knowledge that Aurora had learned could now be of use. She became Han Xiao’s administrative officer and was responsible for the miscellaneous matters.

“Phillip, plan the route,” Han Xiao said.

“Roger that, hum…”

An illuminated line immediately appeared on the star map, marking the quickest route to Planet Lighthouse.

The dynasty knew the importance of transportation and had built many military stargates in the Dawn Star Cluster to allow frequent jumps, tremendously reducing the traveling time within the Star Cluster. These were all marked on the star map. However, this was only the case during the closed exploration period. Han Xiao knew that once the Flickering World was open to the public, the dynasty would recover some of those military channels.

Han Xiao thought for a moment and said, “Split a few engineering fleets out from the main fleet and build the quantum communication stations for our army in the Dawn Star Cluster. Let the dynasty know about it. Tell them that this is for us to interact with the people in the Shattered Star Ring headquarters more easily.”

It was the countless base stations and network nodes everywhere in the known universe that allowed the quantum network to exist in all places. However, as the Flickering World had no such stations, it had yet to connect with the quantum network of the known universe and could only redirect signals from the dynasty’s nodes and base stations. This move from Han Xiao was to plot out the army’s network base stations here. When the Star Field was open to the public in the future, they would become natural intelligence channels. Usually, this was an authority only high-level civilizations had.

However, now, this was one of the privileges given to the dynasty’s allied forces. The dynasty would not stop him.

The army’s battleships passed through the stargate one after another. Very soon, they all arrived at the Flickering World and immediately headed toward Planet Lighthouse in hyperdrive.

There were currently no outsiders in the Dawn Star Cluster, so the trip was smooth. After traveling for a few days and through dozens of military stargates linking the various strongholds, they crossed the entire Dawn Star Cluster, and Planet Lighthouse was within their sights.

A planet surrounded by countless battleships appeared outside the porthole.

On a tiny planet, the dynasty’s direct exploration team, the Bloodshed Land’s exploration team, the Klent Kingdom’s exploration team, and the late to the party Black Star Army’s exploration team gathered. The number of spaceships gathered there exceeded a hundred million!

It was marvelous!

Among which, the dynasty’s direct spaceships had the highest number. They made up to about seventy percent of all the spaceships.

Not far away from the planet, there were many stargate stations coexisting but were yet to be activated.

The surface of Planet Lighthouse was covered by machinery and metal, not showing even the slightest soil. The dynasty’s exploration team used the dynasty’s well known ‘Foolproof Planet Base Expansion Pack’ on Planet Lighthouse. It flattened the ground through high pressure, increased the planet density, changed its landscape, and modified its crust, directly turning this planet into a Planet Grade Military Base.

The fleet stopped outside the atmosphere. Han Xiao and the Black Star Guards took a small spaceship and landed on Planet Lighthouse’s dock.

Whoosh!

The hatch opened.

Han Xiao stepped onto the metal dock, looked across at the metal buildings, and fixed onto the most conspicuous building far away.

It was a few-thousand-meter-tall building. All the buildings around it looked like dwarfs under a giant. This was Planet Lighthouse’s stronghold headquarters.

There were already officers waiting at the dock. After they did their formal military greetings, they invited Han Xiao and the rest to board the ground carrier and head to Planet Lighthouse’s headquarters together.

Whoosh!

As they traveled across the buildings on the planet’s surface, the sound of wind howled outside their carrier.

Han Xiao observed around and realized that the buildings on the surface were mainly hangars and warehouses. Countless carriers and mechanical assistants were transporting trucks of resources like hard working ants.

Seeing that they were looking around, the officer explained, “Planet Lighthouse is the logistics base of the exploration team. A large amount of supplies and resources are stored here.”

Han Xiao nodded. The three Star Clusters that would be explored in the first stage were Renault, Garu, and Crown, all neighboring Star Clusters of the Dawn Star Cluster. Planet Lighthouse was located at a crucial junction and was the best transit station.

The ground distance was very short, and they arrived at the Planet Lighthouse headquarters very soon. Through the anti-gravity lift, they came all the way to the middle level at the headquarters, more than 1,400 meters above the ground.

Following the instructions, they walked into an enormous strategy conference room. There were already many people in the room. Han Xiao narrowed his eyes and immediately saw Heber—with his tiny-mountain-sized body, he was the most conspicuous.

Heber turned and looked over. Their eyes clashed in midair. Heber’s eyes had no emotions in them. He sat still on his seat and did not move before casually nodding in greeting.