"It's a good thing that everyone is here. Continue the meeting——Xie Yuduo, shut your mouth."

When Old Marshal Chen spoke, he meant to lightly expose Xie Yuduo's gaffe.

However, Major General Xie has always been favored by the commander-in-chief, and the other generals dare not say it no matter how sad they are, they can only take a deep breath and hold back the anger.

Just like that, they sat down resentfully.

Lai An didn't show much on his face, but he pushed Jiang Jianming in vigilantly with his movements.

... deliberately separated the sight of him, Xie Yuduo, and Tang Zhen from seeing each other.

"Go ahead." Old Marshal Chen cast his eyes on a tall female general in her forties or fifty with brown-blond curly hair, "tell your Excellencies what happened to those Crystal Cult rebels."

"yes."

The one who stood up in response was Admiral Celine who had been stationed at the Imperial Space Station all year round and was also the admiral of the Jinrilun starship.

At this moment, her face was gloomy, she stood up without speaking, and took a weak breath.

Tilting his head from the gap between Lai An's shoulders, Jiang Jianming, who was peeping quietly, was keenly aware of one thing: this female general seemed to be in a very bad state of mind from the very beginning, even when Xie Yuduo just started messing around, her expression was not the same.Little waves.

"At that time, the rebel plan of the Crystal Cult failed and was forced to leave the Star City of Aslan... I was ordered by the commander-in-chief to lead a hundred starships and three hundred mechs to intercept the gangsters in the outer space of the empire."

Celine's eyes were red, and she said hoarsely, "But... we failed."

"We encountered...a powerful alien biome with human-level intelligence."

There was an uproar in the audience.

"Impossible!" Someone yelled out.

"Highly intelligent alien creatures? Appeared outside the empire?"

"Isn't that a creature that was discovered in the distant interstellar recently?"

"Will the Yinbeidou Fortress allow alien creatures to invade the border of the empire..."

Xie Yuduo was originally leaning on the chair with one leg over the other, but at this moment a carp sat up straight and murmured: "Okay, Mr. Xie just heard such a big thing when he came here..."

"They appear directly in the Yu Region."

Celine raised her hand stiffly, and shared the video on everyone's screens, "Our army was caught off guard and suffered heavy losses, causing the two masterminds of Crystal Cult to escape."

Jiang Jianming and the crown prince next to him quickly glanced at each other. The former focused on the screen in front of him, and the pop-up window had started to play automatically.

Rustle... The picture quickly became clear, and what came into view was a stable universe, the darkness stretched out, and countless rocks were scattered in it. This is a Yu Region densely packed with asteroids.

Jiang Jianming used to watch battle videos with Lai An every day, and played simulated battles against the 3D star map. He knew it clearly when he saw the picture.

——There is only one such dangerous asteroid belt outside the empire and between the three alien stars with military fortresses in the far interstellar space, which is called "Devil's Tongue".

There were a few murmurs of soldiers talking on the video screen, this is the video of the starship.

Jin Rilun's fleet is cautiously shuttling through the "Devil's Tongue", locking on to the fleeing Crystal Cult mecha.

The fleet opened up, an obvious outflanking tactic.

The noise of the conversation jumped and became a lot clearer. It seemed that the talker had walked near the bridge's bridge, where the recording instruments were stored.

"At 14:10 imperial time on X, X, confirm that the Iron Mantis system is normal."

It was the voice of an ordinary middle-aged man, the technical maintenance officer of the starship.

Jiang Jianming's heart sank heavily. If the fleet encountered alien creatures in such a cosmic environment, it might be...

That man—the maintenance officer finished his regular inspection and report, and walked a little further.

"Hey, it's just for a few broken mechas, so mobilize the army." The man complained in a low voice, "It's Chinese New Year, and the fleet has been mobilized."

"Yo, that's fine, Dongzi, you still know it's New Year's Eve."

The man's partner called him from the side, and smiled: "Your mother is alone at home and is looking forward to your coming home for the New Year's Eve dinner. You haven't been home for a few years, you are a **** and unfilial son."

The harmonious word mechanism in the meeting space worked again, and the swear words of these big old soldiers were swallowed into silence.

However, this time, no one laughed and cursed, and silence spread in the conference hall.

Even though it was a virtual space with constant temperature, everyone present felt a biting cold piercing through their hearts, which was the sadness of a known ending.

The two maintenance officers exchanged a few words, their voices were a bit trivial and inaudible.

After a while, a few pats on the shoulder could be faintly heard, and one of the maintenance officers said in a low voice: "I'm talking about Dongzi, I'm not joking. You are about the same age, after this trip... you can retire."

"Don't blame my brother for meddling in others' business and talking about you. Your father left early. It's not easy for your aunt to drag you up alone. This year, she is basically blind. She sits by the window every day, looking forward to your coming home."

The man said: "Brother like you, ah, you have no worries, you can eat enough for one person and the whole family will not be hungry, and you can work in Jinrilun until you die. But you still have people who are looking forward to going home."

"Auntie is a crystalless person, her body is not good, you...you know what brother means, Dongzi, don't make yourself regret it later."

The other man was silent for a few seconds, mumbled a couple of times, and sighed again.

"I know... well, I know, don't you want to work for two more years to serve the empire..."

He let out a muffled breath through his nose, "Oh, so you should laugh at me so fucking."

The faces of the two men were not reflected on the screen, only the starry sky, the ever-expanding starry sky.

"Dongzi" and his "brother" must never have imagined that the conversation of such an unimportant person as himself would be listened to by countless high-ranking generals, the commander-in-chief of the empire, and the crown prince of the empire in the future.

They are just worrying.When I grow up, I worry about loyalty and filial piety; when I grow up, I worry about the lack of holidays for the imperial army, and I worry about chasing a few rebel mechs and launching starships. Why haven't I caught up with the enemy?Whether I could go home to accompany my old mother before.

Suddenly, at the front right of the starship, behind the shadow of a certain asteroid, a pulsating shiny crystal-like creature protruded strangely.

——It’s really hard to tell what it is. It looks like the tentacles of an octopus, the torso of a snake, the wriggling of a human’s large intestine, or simply a living strip of meat.

If you look closely, you can clearly see things like skin, meat, bones, eyeballs, and mouthparts.This familiar concept of "animal" is now living in symbiosis with the transparent crystal block, wrapped in thick mucus, and pulsating irregularly.

Faced with such an indescribable abnormal existence, the first thing that hits the face is an instinctive physiological nausea, which makes people feel cold behind their backs, and their nerves "chug".

"Woo!"

It seemed that a young man who had been brought in by the general to gain insight couldn't hold back, covered his mouth and retched.The projection flickered, and it went offline hastily.

The general beside him also had an extremely ugly face, and almost everyone had cold sweat on their foreheads.

In the picture, such monsters popped up one after another. In addition to the elongated ones, there were also lumpy, spherical and angular ones.

In this way, they moved alive in the vacuum of the universe, and rushed towards the starship with precision.

"Dongzi! That's...I fuck, what the hell is that fuck!!?"

"The front—the front is abnormal!!"

The maintenance officer roared out mournfully, with a broken tone, "Notify the captain! Notify General Celine!!"

Everything after that seemed to happen peacefully.

"They" have been quietly clinging to the back of the asteroid, and I don't know how long they have been waiting.It was only at this moment that the "head" was quietly poked out, like a group of white gods of death, appearing in front of the starship.

The flames of the explosion began to flash on the screen.

There was the fire of the starship firing, the fire of the starship being shot down, and the fire of the mech soldiers being smashed by the monsters as soon as they rushed out of the ship.

"Ah, ah——Zi...——Zi Zi."

Finally, the picture freezes on a crystal monster that suddenly zooms in, and three eyeballs are emerging from the crystal at this moment; the maintenance officer's wailing sizzles and everything is darkened.

Admiral Celine said in a low voice: "...we were ambushed by these alien creatures, the Iron Mantis starship was shot down, and over a hundred people died on the ship, including these two maintenance officers."

"In addition, six starships were shot down, 22 starships were damaged, and thousands of people were killed or injured."

No one answered her words.

"—Look at the eyes of these things, those are human eyes...!"

Celine's voice trembled, and the female general's pupils dilated, reflected in the blue light of this virtual conference room.

"I can fully believe that this group of alien creatures used some kind of latent strategy all the way here. They avoided the Yin Beidou's suppression and headed towards the empire with a clear goal. It is even... It is even said that they came here on a starship,I can believe it!"

Xie Yuduo almost moved his face to the screen, staring at the scene of the battle, dragging and replaying it again and again.

He was different from the other generals present. The first fortress was the front line of the Silver Beidou, and it was not the first time that the Rear Admiral of the Expeditionary Fleet led him. The strange alien creatures did not frighten him.

Tang Zhen next to him was already pale, and he was biting his fist so as not to let his teeth "clack" sound.

Celine turned her head suddenly: "Major General Xie, you once reported that there were highly intelligent alien creatures in Alien Alpha. Didn't you say that you captured a few of them!?"

"Yeah, they're all dead," Xie Yuduo said with a deep face, "I was going to lock up and study for a few days, if the research fails, I will send it to Omega to make trouble at the base..."

The major general messed up his hair, gritted his teeth and sneered: "But even though we have strictly guarded them, they still died strangely and quickly, and now there are no clues left."

After all, Xie Yuduo took a deep breath, stood up and looked around: "Highly intelligent alien creatures, this is the second topic of this meeting, right——I agree with General Celine, I think, this group ofThe monsters sneaked into the empire from the distant interstellar."

Old Lieutenant General Luther: "From... from the distant interstellar?"

Xie Yuduo: "To be precise, it is the Yu Region near the crystal nest."

"I don't know if all of you here are aware that the closer you get to the crystal nest, the weirder the shape of the alien creature will be. It looks like a fusion of flesh and blood and crystals. The expedition fleet has also confirmed this...Look at the image."

He patted Tang Zhen as he said, "Little Tang, wake up and work."

Tang Zhen regained his senses and quickly uploaded the information again.Soon everyone saw the image of the alien creature, with the date and star map coordinates.

These show that the closer the fleet gets to the crystal nest, the more disordered and chaotic the forms of alien creatures encountered along the way, the more mixed the flesh and crystal particles, just as Xie Yuduo said.

On the upper right, next to Crown Prince Lai An, Jiang Jianming had already pursed his lips in thought for a long time.

His eyes went back and forth between the video of the Jinrilun fleet and the images provided by Xie Yuduo. When staring at these alien creatures, Jiang Jianming always felt a little familiar.

This... hair-raising nausea.

It seems like just saw it not long ago.

correct!The bottom of Jiang Jianming's eyes moved slightly... This state of mixed body and crystal particles is a bit similar to the symptoms of crystal chaos death.

Suddenly, the atmosphere of the meeting froze.

Countless gazes pierced through like arrows.

"……what."

Jiang Jianming regained his senses and looked up, his cheeks became thinner and paler due to the flickering blue screen, and he found that everyone was looking at him in astonishment.

Lai An also turned her face sideways, and held his cool fingertips.

Only then did Jiang Jianming realize belatedly that he had unconsciously spoken out what he was thinking just now.

A few seconds later, Lieutenant General Boris was the first to grin and laughed: "Human beings, of course everything looks like crystal chaos."

The female admiral Celine also cast a cold gaze: "You shouldn't be here, go back to your Highness's bed, little sickly person...that suits you better."