“Commander, what are your orders?” asked the second-in-command.

“Continue observation of the Alpha Sector. Anything else should be placed as a secondary priority,” said Jiang Fei.

After that, there was nothing else that could be done. As such, Jiang Fei returned to his commander’s quarters. He tried to take a nap but Velon’s words kept on resurfacing into his sea of thoughts.

“What does Velon mean…”

There was this odd attraction about the place. Jiang Fei could not forget the name ever since Velon spoke of it. Like a snake twirling around his heart, seizing it tight, he could not shake off the unrelenting thought to pursue this matter. Though the fact remained that he could not, not by any conventional means, and he hated that.

Although his heart wanted nothing more than to go there, logic dictated that he shouldn’t. If Theon claimed that even someone of his capabilities could not overcome the hazardous environment, surely Jiang Fei couldn’t either.

What mattered now was the question of how to travel there without being ripped apart by gravity. There were no ships, beasts, or Ultralisks that could take him there…

Suddenly, Jiang Fei shot to his feet.

“Not of this world…” he muttered.

If nothing of this world could take him there, what about ships from outside this universe, outside this dimension even?

Before this entire incident happened, Jiang Fei’s mind would never drift to things of other universes. It was akin to thinking about what you would wish for if you ever met a genie—a scenario that could never happen. But now, people from another universe, from a higher dimension, had literally come to his doorstep!

There was a chance that they might have ships that could withstand any kind of environment. Even if they didn’t have it right now, as a civilization that could traverse through space, time, and dimensions, they could easily design a ship that fulfilled Jiang Fei’s conditions. For them, it would only take as much effort as adding a line to a drawing.

“Could the ship that destroyed the Violet Fleet do it?” wondered Jiang Fei.

The super cube was incredibly powerful. If it could instantly obliterate all ships in sight, just a second after it emerged from the wormhole, then surely it could handle harsh environments such as a gravity well.

Jiang Fei shook his head and lightly slapped his cheek. Even if the ship could do more than travel to the Zwela Galaxy, there was no way he could hijack it, seeing as how he could not even penetrate the golden barrier.

Deciding that the effort alone would be impossible, Jiang Fei put a stop to that particular train of thought and went to sleep.

…

It had been more than two weeks since he had last seen any signs of activity from the Alpha Sector. As for the girls, the training room was still running smoothly without a hitch. Jiang Fei had obtained a good amount of resources to run the machine, and for the meantime, there was no reason to worry about running out of power.

During his free time, Jiang Fei made sure to visit the training grounds and show his face to the girls at least once every other day. It had now been close to a month since the girls started their training regime. Although it had only been a month for Jiang Fei, the girls had been training for close to three years.

Everyone knew how weak they were and did everything they could to train. When coupled with the energy-packed Ultralisk meat, the mind-boggling training caused the girls to show impressive results.

Isabella’s progress was particularly impressive. She had managed to increase her combat level from over two million to four million. Right now, she could even become one of the powerful Fleet Commanders of the Valsalrian Army.

Alexis, a Fleet Commander as well as the ruler of Redstone, had a combat level of around four million. According to Isabella’s growth report, she had not experienced any signs of slowing down. Unlike during Jiang Fei’s training, she was showing no indication of experiencing a bottleneck.

The progression of the other girls were not as over the top as Isabella’s. That being said, everyone had already surpassed the one million combat level threshold. After Isabella, the second most powerful girl was Hua Mulan, whose combat level was currently capped at two million.

Hua Mulan had it harder than Isabella, as she did not possess any cheat items like the Core of Life. The body she had was like any other girl—created by the Namekians’ biotechnology and without any special traits. The only reason she could be so strong was simply because of the brutal training, nothing more.

Isabella may be the strongest in terms of raw brute strength, but when it came to practicality, Hua Mulan held the champion’s belt. To put things into perspective, not even Isabella could defeat Hua Mulan in one-on-one combat.

Hua Mulan was well-trained in the art of wielding a spear. Just like Jiang Fei had once trained to master using a sword, Hua Mulan had probably reached the pinnacle of spear-wielding.

As for the girls in the New Saint’s Guard, their average combat level had reached up to 550,000. They may not be the strongest individually but they were certainly the best of all the armies out there.

Still, Jiang Fei was unsatisfied. Not with their growth rate, but with them as an army. In general, soldiers, or to be more specific, the infantry, suffered the highest death rate. Even the strongest army in the universe could never escape death.

No matter from which angle you looked at it, the New Saint’s Guard was undoubtedly an army. Knowing that, Jiang Fei wanted them to be as strong as they could possibly be, so that they would be able to easily overthrow any other army who stood in their way.

Jiang Fei joined the girls for a quick bite and left after he dropped off some provisions for them.

Back at his ship, he found that Theon had already left, perhaps to investigate the incident in the Alpha Sector. It was only logical as he had asked Jiang Fei to consolidate information about the Alpha Sector for him.

“I hope he can gather more information than me…”

Jiang Fei sat on the commander’s chair and started his daily routine of checking reports on observations about the Alpha Sector and updating provisions for the girls.

…

Days passed and the entire universe felt silent. There were no reports about any activities coming from the Alpha Sector. One would think that the ‘players’ had quit the game en masse, leaving the whole Alpha Sector at a complete standstill.

Theon himself had not returned since he left. It had been a long time since his personal Ultralisk was detected.

One fine day, a regular crewman came into the bridge and handed Jiang Fei a report. Unbeknownst to him, this report was the beginning of the end. It would spark a fire that would burn the entire universe down.

“Commander, I have received a transmission from the military base. It seems that Alderaan has publicly declared war against us,” said the crewman.

Jiang Fei crossed his arms. “Alderaan? That’s odd. We have no quarrels with them… why would they want to declare war? And you said with us, as in the entire Trade Federation?”

“It is unclear… the information I received only mentioned us, the Fifth Hybrid Fleet. They are now coming into Domini to start a war.”

“HERE?!” bellowed Jiang Fei as he shot to his feet.

At that moment, he realized the nature of this declaration.

“Aye, Commander.”

Jiang Fei thought to himself, “Those bastards made me think they got bored of the game, but they’ve actually been building a relationship with the Alderaanians!”

It was clear that the people of Alderaan had been successfully persuaded into joining hands with the invaders. They must have been promised some form of benefit!