Chapter 1010: World Server, Revenge Begins (Revised)

Chapter 1010: The World Server, Vengeance Begins (Revised)

The dossier meticulously chronicled the Black Star Army’s monumental deeds from two decades prior to the version update; Mad Blade set his search parameters, filtering the legion’s achievements from Star Calendar Year 709 to 729, arranged in chronological order.

His eyes immediately caught a bolded entry.

—Star Calendar Year 710, Black Star ascends as the Mechanical Deity!

The term struck Mad Blade’s youthful psyche like a thunderclap, leaving his mind utterly consumed by a single, staggering thought: Black Star had become a god!

The title was deliberately awe-inspiring; Mad Blade steadied his nerves, delved into the archives for a moment, and finally grasped that Mechanical Deity did not denote a divine being in the theological sense, but rather an honorific for a Throne Mechanic, signifying that Black Star had breached the pinnacle of the Super A-Class.

“Gave me a fright. I thought Old Black was about to ascend to the heavens.”

Breathing a slight sigh of relief, Mad Blade eagerly scrolled onward, discovering that several momentous events had unfolded that very year.

First, the initial phase of exploration concluded, granting the legion its first seven star systems and catapulting it into the position of the largest armed faction within the Shining World; the Germinal Financial Group was established as the army’s subsidiary economic arm, clashing with the Infinite Consortium across countless commercial fronts; the Esper Academy initiative was launched, and to date, the Black Star Army had founded tens of thousands of such academies across the Shattered Star Ring, cultivating countless espers, a substantial portion of whom pledged their swords to the legion…

During that same era, after claiming the title of Mechanical Deity, Black Star clashed with the Tyrant once more, defeating him with merely a single avatar and cementing his status as the undisputed sovereign of the Shattered Star Ring; shortly thereafter, the Mechanic Nation invaded, sparking a brutal conflict that only concluded when the Empire’s reinforcements arrived to force a retreat.

Merely reading the textual records, Mad Blade could almost feel the tempestuous winds and trembling foundations of that turbulent age.

That juncture seemed to serve as a watershed for the legion’s operations; thereafter, the army entered a period of quiet, stable expansion, with Black Star fading from the headlines to quietly cultivate his domains in the Shining World, until the year 716, when the Kunde War erupted, marking the annihilation of the first quasi-cluster-level indigenous civilization.

Yet records of this history were scarce and deliberately vague, offering only a broad summary with no concrete details available online; the only valuable clue Mad Blade unearthed was that the Black Star Army now oversaw the Kunde rehabilitation project, a mandate that had already persisted for thirteen years.

Following the Kunde War, the legion maintained its dormant, developmental posture through the second and third exploration phases, remaining uneventful until recently, when it finally unsheathed its blades once more, welcoming a second Super A-Class into its ranks—a familiar face, no less.

“Hela reached Super A-Class?!” Mad Blade’s eyes widened at the name, his face etched with sheer astonishment.

Not a single player spawned on Planet Aquamarine was unfamiliar with Hela; whether as the villainous “Crimson Snake” during the 1.0 Germinal era, or as a comrade-in-arms during the 2.0 Mutation Disaster, her visage was indelibly carved into the memories of every veteran from Aquamarine… though, admittedly, it was her breathtaking beauty that left the most enduring impression.

Every veteran knew that the tangled fates of Black Star and Hela had stretched from Aquamarine all the way to the cosmic stage, marking her as an old companion who had appeared since the very beginning.

Mad Blade had poured his efforts into the legion across four versions, and the army had long since become his chosen home in his heart; seeing his faction gain another towering pillar of support filled him with an indescribable thrill.

Suppressing his excitement, Mad Blade flipped to the final entry of the dossier, where the most recent monumental event was detailed: the “Council of Gods” convened by Black Star, summoning seventy or eighty Super A-Classes to gather under one roof.

Witnessing the terrifying, commanding influence that drew a hundred responses to a single call, his heart skipped a beat, shock nearly stealing his breath away—had two decades truly elevated Black Star’s standing in the cosmos to such unimaginable heights?!

“Good heavens…”

Before Mad Blade could recover from his stupor, a sudden, clanging roar of laughter erupted beside him, jolting him violently.

“Wahahaha! Now that hits the spot!”

Meat Bun stood with hands on his hips, laughing skyward, his jaw stretched so wide it seemed ready to split, his grin resembling that of a feral hound.

“What are you cackling about?” Mad Blade plugged his ears, his expression utterly bewildered.

“Look at this! Twenty years of version updates, look how much history Black Star has accumulated—it’s all video material, an absolute treasure trove!”

Meat Bun was vibrating with exhilaration, his face alight with ecstatic joy; with such an abundance of raw footage, he would never want for content again.

He intended to compile every single deed the legion had accomplished during the update, helping legion players understand their own history; just imagining it, he knew it would sell like wildfire, destined to go viral once more!

With that thought, Meat Bun glanced around, noticing countless others clutching their communicators to browse the legion’s archives; unable to resist, he opened the forums, unleashed his talents as the premier gossip hound, and posted a hastily organized summary of the dossier, capping it with a clickbait title—Shock! Two Decades of Legion Turmoil!

As the new version commenced, countless players eagerly exchanged intelligence on the forums; the moment the thread went live, it drew a massive crowd in the Shattered Star Ring section.

[LegionCommandersBigGun: I’m speechless, Old Black is absolutely monstrous!]

[RefiningMaster: Old Black has stood tall from the very first version to now, a true legend built from nothing. Is there anyone in the entire universe more formidable than him?]

[SillyCat: The username upstairs really leaves a lot to the imagination…]

[MagnetLink: Never expected Hela to hit Super A-Class too. Speaking of which, remember Black Star’s origins? He started as a Germinal traitor, and Hela was a Germinal member too… hiss, the more you think about it, the more terrifying it gets!]

[CausewayBaySituHaonan: Two Super A-Classes spawning from a tiny planetary organization, what are the odds?! Black Star really is a cosmic-level protagonist, isn’t he!]

[MysteriousStranger: Germinal never dies, it merely lies dormant!]

Just as Mad Blade was losing himself in the forum’s delightfully absurd netizens, Maple Moon suddenly grabbed him and dragged him toward the docks.

“Stop staring. We need to get to the Shining World, the faster the better.”

With someone taking the lead, players across the Black Star Army headquarters stirred into motion, surging toward the docks like a tidal wave, scrambling over one another in a frantic rush.

……

The long-dormant forums erupted into unprecedented fervor; legion players scattered across the galaxy, having grasped the new version’s landscape, immediately set course for the nearest legion outposts, boarding fleets that streamed toward the Shining World, none willing to miss the world server’s opening.

As members of the Black Star Army, holding such a monumental advantage meant they could not afford to squander it; to strike first was to dictate every step that followed.

In the eyes of professional clubs, the Shattered Star Ring’s Chinese players possessing such an innate factional advantage was nothing short of a death sentence; guilds from every nation hastily convened private emergency meetings.

“The situation is dire. This version’s main storyline heavily favors the Chinese players, and the world server borders the Shattered Star Ring, which they’ve already visited. If our guilds deploy there, competing with top Chinese powerhouses like Dynasty and Long Sky will be nearly impossible. We’ll be at a severe disadvantage in guild wars, which could critically stunt our pros’ development.”

“China claimed three of the top four seats last tournament. We cannot, under any circumstances, let them dominate again this time.”

“It’s a headache. The Black Star Army is the local hegemon in the world server, the Chinese players’ backbone. Are we supposed to swallow our pride and join the Black Star Army instead?”

“Professional players and core guild members are bound to advance to higher-tier factions within their current alignment. Switching to an opposing faction now would render all our efforts from previous versions completely worthless.”

“Exactly. Even if we switched factions, we could never match the accumulation the Chinese players have built within the Black Star Army over multiple versions.”

“Let’s observe the situation first. Watch how those Chinese guilds respond. If things look bleak… we may need to unite clubs from other nations.”

Though it was merely the opening day of the new version, the launch of the world server had already rattled clubs rooted in disparate star sectors, leaving them unable to sit still.

There was no alternative; the Chinese players’ factional advantage was simply too overwhelming. Powerhouses from America, France, Korea, Japan, and beyond, their morale fracturing under the pressure, all began harboring thoughts of forming alliances.

……

“So every player has set out…”

Listening to Phillip’s report, Han Xiao allowed a quiet, knowing smile to touch his lips.

The opening of the Shining World had expanded the known universe’s frontiers; traffic in this star sector was skyrocketing, vacant markets yawned open everywhere, and opportunities lay scattered like gold dust, evoking the frenzy of a grand gold rush. The advantages the Black Star Army had hoarded for so long could finally be unleashed.

For him, this was no longer an era of exploration, but an era of harvest!

Securing territory meant sitting securely upon the fishing platform; outsiders would stream in endlessly, funneling profits directly into his coffers. He had effectively transitioned from a chess piece to the chess master, and the exorbitant profits of the ruling class were unmatched by any.

Countless factions would clash here, granting players an ocean of quest resources, innumerable channels to gain experience, and no shortage of battles to fight.

“But with the new version just opening, harvesting experience won’t be that simple,” Han Xiao mused silently.

The players’ immediate priority was to continue leveling up; the majority of their earned experience would be poured directly into their levels. They were still tender seedlings requiring fertilizer, not yet ready for his large-scale reaping.

To level up at a breakneck pace, he would need to wait for the players to accumulate resources for a while longer.

Yet Han Xiao felt no rush. The legion’s shops had been stocked with plenty of new wares; no matter how frugal the players were, he could coax them into willingly opening their purses, hoarding experience far more efficiently than grinding alone.

—The levels that had stagnated for so long could finally begin their rapid ascent!

The influx of international players into the world server was the perfect moment to expand his leek fields; attracting outsiders to the Black Star Army no longer required heavy manipulation from Han Xiao, as the advantages and reputation forged over several versions served as the core magnet.

The greater the legion players’ advantage in the Shining World, the higher the Black Star Army’s allure; yet precisely because that advantage was so staggering, Han Xiao could easily predict that certain foreign clubs might unite to counter the Chinese players, making it imperative to bolster his own legionnaires.

In the 4.0 version of his past life, international clubs had constantly allied and betrayed one another, employing strategies of distant alliances and close attacks, vertical and horizontal coalitions, besieging Wei to rescue Zhao, and borrowing paths to conquer Guo, effectively recreating the Warring States period in all its gloriously chaotic brilliance.

According to his blueprint for version 4.0, he would use the legion’s territories as a forward base, supplying resources to foster his players’ growth while simultaneously harnessing their strength to stir trouble, crush rivals, protect his own assets, and absorb even more players to satiate his own leveling demands.

“The Modo Civilization, the Chaos Mystic Energy…” Han Xiao’s eyes flickered with a cold light.

The players had just logged on, and it would take some time for contingents from every star sector to fully converge upon the Shining World; beyond the player base, these two matters demanded his immediate attention.

The Kunde mandate demanded he exact vengeance upon the Modo Civilization; the Empire had originally instructed him to wait until the Shining World opened before executing the full plan, and now, with Modo forces also stepping into the Shining World, Han Xiao knew that on his home turf, he possessed a hundred different ways to make sure the Modo Civilization could never gain a foothold.

The quest’s reward was the [Proof of Leadership] specialty, an invaluable asset for a faction lord commanding such vast dominion. Han Xiao had waited more than a decade for this moment, and at last, the time to strike had come.

Moreover, the hour of the Chaotic Mystic Energy’s emergence drew near, and countless factions would surely clash to claim it. Han Xiao had already dispatched his vanguard toward the coordinates marked by the Alien God’s legacy.

Ever the pragmatist, he had woven a second thread into his plans, deliberately tracing the host from his past life. If memory served, it was a commoner named Evans. His whereabouts were now secured—dwelling within the Shining World, resting quietly beneath Han Xiao’s watchful gaze.

Should none among his ranks prove worthy of wielding that chaotic power, he would simply draw forth that former vessel; the compatibility would be absolute.

Lost in these calculations, Han Xiao turned his attention to Philip and asked,

“Track the Mordo fleet’s current coordinates… I intend to deliver a ‘grand gift’ before they arrive.”

——

(A recommendation for a fledgling serial: Decadent Dragon’s The Demon Hunter’s Cookbook. A veteran pen guarantees its craft. Synopsis: As twilight descends and whispers coil through the dark, as the beasts within the shadows stir with restless hunger, Jason’s own empty stomach answers with a feral growl, and he cannot help but swallow hard…)

(Hunger, after all, is the sharpest spur.)