Liu Diqiu deftly manipulated the projection screen. A formation of five hundred Governors stood in silent rows within the F18 safe zone like lifeless statues.
"This is an elite task force I carefully selected from all the active Governors on Earth. Every single one is a mid-tier Governor, with each possessing combat power equivalent to 0.5 Explorers. They are absolutely loyal, unafraid of death, and can execute any command given by their master.
"More importantly, they have undergone special modifications. Their control cores have been replaced. There are no more Extraordinary One brains; they now operate on light core intelligence. While they no longer possess even a hint of self-awareness, you also don’t have to worry about the time difference affecting them during teleportation."
Liu Diqiu spoke with a sense of pride, then dramatically held up a control key, grinning exaggeratedly. "Ta-da! Here you go!"
Li Xiaofei took the key. The combat strength of a mid-tier Governor surpassed that of a Great Saint, and was far superior to the low-tier Governors that had once patrolled Earth. This kind of force would be an overwhelming trump card on his Earth. Even if it couldn't completely counter the looming threat of Eden, it could easily suppress factions like the Yiggs, Europe, and the Indi Empire.
It could also eradicate the star beasts surrounding Xiajing City and Haijing City and resolve the siege instantly.
"So? What do you think?" Liu Diqiu smirked smugly. "Isn't this gift exactly what you wanted?"
Li Xiaofei flicked her forehead.
"You little brat, your personality has completely collapsed," he said.
This girl in a baseball cap had been so very aloof and wary of everything around her. But now?
Li Xiaofei chuckled as Liu Diqiu clutched her forehead and wailed in protest, "Alright, I’ll give you credit for the thought this time."
However, there was still a major issue of whether the teleportation formation could transfer five hundred Governors back to his Earth in one go. After all, moving fifteen people and five hundred Governors were two entirely different matters.
Li Xiaofei pondered for a moment and came up with a plan. In the end, he agreed to Liu Diqiu’s request of taking Liu Xisheng back with them. There were only a few days left until the teleportation formation activated.
Li Xiaofei and his team spent the time gathering geographical data, historical records, and any other useful information about this Earth. Every Earth was the same. And yet, each one had followed a different historical trajectory. Li Xiaofei hoped to uncover some hidden truths from the evolution of this world that could serve as a reference for the fate of his own Earth.
Liu Diqiu was especially dedicated to this task.
"My Earth is already destroyed," she said. "But a lesson from the past can guide the future. This world’s timeline has advanced more than two hundred years beyond yours. Maybe, by studying its history, you’ll find a better solution that prevents your Earth from heading toward the same doom."
Li Xiaofei nodded and flicked her forehead again.
Before long, everything was ready. Li Xiaofei and his team left the starship and returned to the shattered Earth. From there, they boarded a patrol mothership and headed to the location where they had first arrived in this world.
As agreed, after one full year, the teleportation formation would reappear. It was time to go home.
Earth No. 89876. Haijing City.
The sounds of battle outside the city walls shook the heavens as the star beasts' assault grew increasingly fierce. Corpses piled up beneath the city walls like small mountains until they nearly reached the top of the walls.
Eden had not honored the ceasefire agreement and shamelessly launched a sudden attack. Fortunately, the garrison forces had never truly let down their guard. They immediately engaged in battle, but they were forced to pay a heavy price to hold the walls. But it didn’t take long for the war machine that was Xiajing City to mobilize its entire population and roar back to life.
Whether it was students, workers, martial artists, or civilians, everyone was thrown into the city's defense. The Grand Commander’s Office issued the highest-level wartime mobilization since the outbreak of the war, calling for all human and material resources to be devoted to the defense.
Old General Hua Zhongyue's bloodshot eyes were filled with rage.
"These dishonorable bastards!" He cursed aloud.
Something was off. He could see the entire battlefield through the specialized observation window of the command post. The brutal stage extended dozens of kilometers to the southeast.
Lives were being lost with every second. Star beasts howled as they fell. Yiggs warriors collapsed in pools of blood. Great Xia soldiers detonated themselves in explosions.
Energy shells rained down like a storm outside the city, creating massive craters among the heaps of corpses. Yiggs, Europeans, Indi soldiers, Africans... Even the Bayerians, who had once formed a strategic alliance with Great Xia, were present!
They all seemed to have gone mad as they threw themselves into battle with no regard for life or death. The foreign forces and star beasts fell on Xiajing City like a monstrous tide.
Hua Zhongyue was acutely aware that the war had changed. Though he had long suspected that the Yiggs Union had become nothing more than a tool for extraterrestrial forces, the stark reality of it still arrived too suddenly. The final veil of pretense had been torn away.
At the center of the battlefield, Hua Qinglian, Chu Yuncheng, and Li Donglou, the three Grand Commanders, had already taken action. They dashed from one section of the city walls to another like a team of firefighters, slaying the invading star beasts and Yiggs coalition elites.
But even with their Great Saint-level strength, all they could do was delay the inevitable. They could not change the outcome of the war.
"General, look!" A young staff officer suddenly pointed towards the inner city, his voice trembling.
Dozens of white pillars of light had appeared without warning inside Xiajing City, connecting heaven and earth.
A Fifth Grade Beast King emerged from a pillar of light. It was a monstrous creature with a scythe-shaped head. It stood upright like a humanoid as its long, whip-like tail swayed behind it, and its dark brown scales gleamed with a metallic sheen. Its eerie green eyes flickered with an unnatural glow.
The beast surveyed its surroundings before throwing its head back to unleash a deafening roar. The visible shockwaves from its voice destroyed the nearby buildings in an instant. Then, the second beast appeared. Then the third. The fourth.
More and more star beasts poured out from those white pillars of light in an unending stream.
Hua Zhongyue’s eyes widened in shock and despair.
It’s over. Xiajing City is doomed.
How did the enemy suddenly bypass the city walls’ defenses and teleport star beasts into the city?
Those white pillars of light were definitely not the spatial passages that Cave Beasts could dig. Yet the star beasts pouring out of them were wreaking havoc on Xiajing City’s civilians and military logistics. They were like a searing hot blade stabbing into the city's most vulnerable point.
This meant that the city walls, the most effective defense measure that had protected global base cities for centuries, had now become obsolete. The darkest hour had finally arrived.