024 Hope or Despair_2

Bai Zhongqi, the master of creation, now faced destruction by his creation, and his helplessness was beyond words. However, Bai Zhongqi hadn't completely given up; he had to do everything possible to prevent this potential war. Calling it a war wasn't even accurate; it was a unilateral massacre and blowout, as Earth stood no chance against the technology of Iridium Star. Bai Zhongqi needed a way to contact the R19 Fleet and also needed to gain the trust of the commander of that fleet. But, there were too many uncertainties. Did real humans exist within the fleet? If there were humans, how would they react upon knowing they existed within a game? Would they acknowledge an unremarkable individual like himself as their leader?

Bai Zhongqi harbored no extravagant hopes of truly possessing the interstellar fleet capable of crushing Earth. All he hoped for was that Earth could avoid destruction and that humans wouldn't become slaves to the people of Iridium Star.

"No matter what, I must survive," Bai Zhongqi affirmed to himself. At least he now had a direction, though he was completely clueless. Still, he believed that every cloud has a silver lining, and he would definitely find a way. At the very least, to save Earth.

Thus, the fate of a planet fell onto the shoulders of a twenty-five-year-old young man.

——Cut Scene——

Bai Zhongqi was unaware that the moment he opened the game, it caused a considerable commotion in the Iridium Star Fleet orbiting Earth!

Everything on the Sacred Falcon suddenly halted, and glowing golden characters displayed on every screen, all reading the same message:

"Supreme Command received, Great Imperial Chancellor, glory and wisdom be with you."

Every warship in the fleet received the same message, and upon seeing it, everyone burst into cheers. In the bridge of the Sacred Falcon, all the officers stood up from their seats, rigid, saluting straight ahead. Each face was filled with disbelief, pride, and excitement being the most prevalent emotions.

Among them, the young yet slightly hesitant Fleet Commander, Xu Lanzhou, who had been raised in a family that revered the Imperial Chancellor and held overwhelming admiration, could no longer contain her pent-up emotions from the past several days, and a clear teardrop fell from her joy-filled eyes.

"I knew it, I knew it! Even if we traveled to another universe, the Chancellor would find us, not abandon us, guiding us!"

The fleet's Staff Chief Xian Rong too was overwhelmed with excitement. At first, everyone in the R19 Fleet was tense, having been separated from their homeland and arriving in a strange place, not knowing what they would face. But when the Supreme Command truly appeared, everyone felt a sense of reliance. The Chancellor was the greatest asset to the people of Iridium Star, his wisdom and intelligence having led Iridium Star for thousands of years, creating a strong and enduring United Empire.

"Commander, this is my first time truly seeing the Supreme Command. I've always heard the legends from my predecessors about receiving the Supreme Command on the battlefield, never thought I'd actually witness it!" Xian Rong remarked excitedly.

Xu Lanzhou nodded, her mood having visibly improved significantly. In fact, this was her first time receiving the Supreme Command, her excitement matched by none.

Xu Lanzhou stepped forward and said to the AI of the Sacred Falcon, "Sacred Falcon, announce the Supreme Command. Every soldier of the Empire will fight to the end for the Supreme Command!"

The warship AI paused for a moment, then a voice with a cold, mechanical timbre sounded, "The signal received by this ship is the start-up signal from the Supreme Command. The Supreme Command has not issued any task to this ship or the other vessels in the R19 Fleet. This ship has determined that the Supreme Command has issued orders to other Universe Army units or to Administrative Star."

Xu Lanzhou was stunned for a moment, "What? The Supreme Command hasn't issued us any orders?"

However, she quickly realized something and exclaimed loudly, "That's impossible. In every past instance when the Supreme Command was issued, there has never been a case where it was communicated to Empire units not involved in the mission. If the Chancellor has not instructed us, why would we receive the signal for the activation of the Supreme Command?"

The voice of the warship AI was still cold, but the reply had a human touch, "Because the Supreme Command was issued too close to this ship, it received the signal when the Supreme Command was issued."

Suddenly, Xu Lanzhou's body began to tremble uncontrollably. She watched the screen in disbelief and instinctively looked toward the blue planet 200,000 kilometers away.

"What does that mean?"

The screen suddenly displayed an electronic map, with a small red dot marked at a location in San Francisco on the West Coast of the United States. The warship AI explained, "The location from which the Supreme Command was transmitted has been ascertained by this ship. Congratulations, Commander, you are the first Imperial General in five thousand years to find the reclusive spot of the Chancellor, bringing back the soul of the Empire to the United Empire."

If receiving the Supreme Command had excited and thrilled the people on the bridge just a moment ago, the words of the Sacred Falcon had now left them dumbfounded. In the United Empire, the Imperial Chancellor was a totemic figure, everyone was well versed in the history he created in founding the Empire with the Twelve Knights of Destiny; everyone knew it was the Imperial Chancellor who brought about the technological leap of the Empire and established a series of effective organizational structures; everyone knew the secretive Supreme Command continuously guided the people of the Empire in their relentless journey and exploration through the cold, harsh universe; and everyone also knew that there were no portraits of the Chancellor, and his statues were faceless, having existed for thousands of years, safeguarding the Empire, yet his true face had not been seen by anyone in those thousands of years.

Legend has it, the only ones who had seen the Imperial Chancellor were his close associates, the Twelve Knights of Destiny. During the early days of the Empire, it was the Imperial Chancellor himself who commanded the twelve knights to lay down the initial territories of the Empire, which included the Empire's home planet, the Iridium Star.

For this reason, many historians of the Empire had doubted the actual existence of such a figure as the Chancellor. Some even thought that the so-called Supreme Command of the Chancellor might just be a piece of advanced artificial intelligence code, existing in every Imperial machine, continuously issuing orders and driving the people of Iridium Star, essentially making them slaves to an AI code.

Clearly, the existence of the Chancellor was of critical importance to the nation, determining the legitimacy of the governmental institutions, defining the status and identity of the nobility such as the Twelve Knights of Destiny, and validating the variety of military actions taken by the forces. Later, to protect these interests, the Imperial Congress enacted laws whereby anyone who doubted the existence of the Chancellor or shook the foundation of the Empire would be executed immediately. This put an end to the rampant conspiracy theories and skepticisms, but even so, people couldn't help but wonder whether an Emperor had ever really existed. If he did exist, could he have really lived five thousand years? And if so, where was he?

These questions remained unanswered. And within the United Empire, the pursuit of the Chancellor had never ceased, with some believing that the Emperor chose not to enjoy the worship and false glory from the people, hence he stayed hidden in a remote corner of the universe, but was always watching over the Empire and guiding it. Even the political elites and power brokers of the Empire hoped to find the Chancellor. On the one hand, his existence could lend legitimacy to their political maneuvers, and on the other hand, people always feared what they could not understand, and something tangible tended to be more reassuring.

Xu Lanzhou was fully aware of all this and had even fantasized that one day she might meet the imperial presence. But she had never imagined that people couldn't find the Chancellor because he was not in the universe of Iridium Star at all but had taken refuge on a much less developed planet in another universe.

Having thought through the causes and effects, Xu Lanzhou's eyes were filled with fervor. In a rare gesture of urgency that was typical of a woman, she ordered, "Prepare the landing craft, instruct the 'Dark Hunter' squadron to escort, I will personally go to Earth to bring back the Chancellor!"