The Almighty Ring

There was nothing to worry about. Isabella and the others had accepted the two catgirls with open arms. With that, Jiang Fei could finally remove one burden from his shoulders.

“Bison, contact the Trade Federation military force and tell them that I request a meeting with General Lockseed,” ordered Jiang Fei.

Communication requests were usually handled by Kaa’Ina, but she was busy with the other girls. They were all having a great time getting to know each other and in this situation, it was best to strike while the iron is hot.

Nodding, Bison said, “Aye, I got it.”

He left immediately upon receiving the order. He had many things to do, one of which being to dock Meteor at Jiang Fei’s specific hangar bay. After that, he needed to reorganize the army, and finally he had to contact the Trade Federation military force.

Jiang Fei returned to the dock and waited until all the girls were done chatting with each other. He then gathered all of them and arranged for them to follow 0541’s instructions regarding the consumption of the Ultralisk meat.

All three thousand girls were as loyal to Jiang Fei as can be, and he loved them all like they were his family. That being said, they were just too weak. So weak even, that none of them could really throw a punch, except perhaps Isabella. For now, Jiang Fei really needed them to grow stronger, and that would take time.

Even though Jiang Fei had a large supply of Ultralisk meat to facilitate their growth rate, time was of the essence. He now had two reasons to talk to Lockseed. The first one was to find out more about the situation in the Alpha Sector and the other was to request for a training room for the girls to use.

A day after arriving in Hyur, Bison returned to Braveheart to deliver news about his contact with the Trade Federation.

“Sir, the military has replied. General Lockseed is currently stationed at the Ognev Starbase. He is available for you there, anytime.”

“Ognev what now?” asked Jiang Fei, unsure about what and where that was.

“It’s a military colony-sized base located at the edge of this galaxy. I will now send you its location. Please input the data into your ship’s navigation system,” said Bison as he transmitted something into the ship’s database.

Jiang Fei turned to the bridge console and examined the data. Seeing just how far away the starbase was located, he commented, “That’s far.”

It was, as Bison said, located at the far edge of the Domini System, the edge of this galaxy. If Lockseed was hiding out there, it meant that he was trying to get as far away from the Alpha Sector as possible.

Jiang Fei thought to himself, “Looks like Bison’s report is true. It seems that the Trade Federation is going to give up the entire galaxy.”

From the perspective of a gamer, the invaders from the Gamma Dimension would treat the entire Domini System as a starter village. There were multiple parties gathered in this galaxy, but they were only here to fight each other, and were not united against a common enemy.

Hence, it was only logical for the ‘players’ to start in Domini and expand further out.

The creators of the game may have taken their players into consideration, but they probably never expected that an NPC would discover their identity. They had no idea that Jiang Fei had kidnapped their players and tortured them for information.

There was a good reason why this news had not spread or been relayed to the proper authorities. Who would dare share the fact that they were ‘defeated’ by an NPC as soon as they started the game?

A gamer would never want to expose their own weakness at the start of a game, lest others dub them as a complete noob. That is why the two ‘players’ who were tortured by Jiang Fei never reported their kidnapping to the ‘game masters’.

And since as far as they knew, nothing had gone wrong during the start-up, the game would progress as intended.

Like any other sandbox-based game, players could either go against the whole universe, or ally themselves with a faction and attack opposing factions. Just like how Jiang Fei had allied himself with the Royal Nephilims to go against the Holy Church.

In the meantime, Jiang Fei planned to restrict information about the invader’s true identities. There were two ways this could play out. Either no one would believe him, or everyone would. If they did, the entire universe would come together to fight against the players.

This would only accelerate the destruction of this universe. If the entire universe united as a whole to fight all the players, new players would never enjoy any basic mechanics of the game.

Imagine if one could never repair equipment, rest in an inn, buy potions, accept quests, and basically any other function that involved interaction with an NPC. Imagine logging into the game and being attacked by NPCs with god-tier weapons.

The ‘life span’ of the game would be greatly reduced, and it would shut down in no time. In other words, the destruction of the universe would commence. That was not the outcome Jiang Fei had in mind.

“Thank you. I’ll be going there now. I’ll leave matters here in your charge,” said Jiang Fei, leaving the bridge.

Before he left, he informed the girls where he was going and reminded them to stay on Braveheart and follow 0541’s instructions. Once he was out of the ship, he materialized his personal shuttlecraft and zoomed off into space.

“You’ve got the data?” asked Jiang Fei.

“Yes, indeed I do. Course set, Captain. We are ready for warp jump at your command,” said 0541.

“Punch it.”

Jumping from one end of the galaxy to another took only a few seconds, since Jiang Fei was moving at FTL speeds. However, a few seconds after traveling in hyperspace, Jiang Fei exited somewhere that was 500 light-seconds away from the Ognev Starbase.

There were more than enough jamming devices situated within proximity of the starbase, reaching out as far as 500 light-seconds to prevent any incoming enemy attacks. As a result, Jiang Fei was unable to directly reach the base.

“Diverting power to the impulse engine,” said 0541.

Jiang Fei took the helm and flew towards his target location. Even though he was traveling at sublight speeds, the ship’s impulse engine was strong and powerful enough for him to get close to the base in just a few minutes.

The entire structure of the starbase was separated into two parts. The top was a large torus while the bottom was the placeholder. The torus itself had outer and inner rings.

The outer ring had many tube-like orifices which housed unmanned drones. In the case of an attack, these drones would instantly be deployed to fight off any enemies.

The lower half of the starbase, the placeholder, was conical in shape. Besides the rigid support structures, the entire lower half of the base was equipped with an uncountable number of cannons.

Even if an enemy attacked with a large fleet consisting of tens of thousands of ships, they would still be sunk easily with just a few rounds of barrages. It was safe to say that this starbase was an impregnable fortress that could withstand any kind of attack.

As if the starbase itself wasn’t enough, there were also countless Hypercruisers orbiting it!

“That looks amazing. I wonder when I can own such a thing to play with,” said Jiang Fei, half-joking-half-envious.

“Captain, if you want, I will download the starbase’s schematics later. We can build one on our own in the future!” said 0541.

Jiang Fei gasped happily. “I didn’t– Go for it!”

A public broadcast was heard when Jiang Fei was about 300 light seconds away from the station, “Attention incoming unknown vessel. This is the Ognev Starbase Control Center. State your affiliation and objective.”

Jiang Fei’s vessel was a one-man shuttlecraft with almost zero combat ability. That was why he was able to get through countless undetected Hypercruisers without being stopped.

They had nothing to worry about even if Jiang Fei was an enemy. His ship may be fast but it was only akin to a racecar. The ships around the proximity of the starbase could easily shoot him down if he were to do anything suspicious.