Under the cold, hard order from the Imperial Council that "at least one successful birth must be guaranteed," Exodar, the once holy city, entered an era where the cries of babies echoed everywhere.

Almost all female slaves were forced to bear children for their yellow-skinned masters.

A deformed second generation, filled with hatred, discrimination, and self-denial, is "growing vigorously" like bamboo shoots after a spring rain on this blood-stained fertile land.

A new member has joined Liu San's "home".

Lillian, the fiery red-haired girl who once tried to rebel, gave birth to a boy after countless humiliating nights.

The child had the same yellow skin and black hair as his father, but his eyes were the same sapphire color as his mother's.

According to the Empire's Bloodline Purity Protection Act, this child automatically acquired the status of "First-Class Citizen of the Holy Star Empire" from birth.

However, he did not have core inheritance rights.

Liu San had no feelings for this child.

In his eyes, this was merely a "product" he created to fulfill the "fertility task" assigned by the empire and to receive the "fertility reward" (one hundred imperial dragon coins and ten kilograms of nutritional paste).

After the child was born, Liu San didn't even bother to name him, simply calling him "little bastard".

Lillian, the eighteen-year-old mother, harbored extremely complex feelings towards the child in her arms.

She poured all her love into this child.

In the quiet of the night, she would hold her child and sing him a lullaby in the ancient language of her people.

She hoped that her child wouldn't have to live such a painful life like she did.

However, her love could not change the child's fate.

As the child grew older, he began to live in an extremely distorted environment.

His father, Liu San, never gave him a kind look and would often beat and scold him.

"You little bastard! Just like your slutty mother! You were born with a base bone in your body!"

His grandmother, Countess Elena, and his aunt Camilla, though they loved him, were slaves.

In the child's young mind, he saw his yellow-skinned father as the supreme master, while his mother, grandmother, and aunt, who had blue eyes like his own, were servants who could be beaten and scolded at will.

When other, pure-blooded colonist children came to visit the manor, they would point at him and laugh at him.

"Look! That man has blue eyes! He's a bastard!"

“My father said that bastards are impure and lowly!”

In order to fit into the circle of pure-blooded children and to gain even the slightest bit of his father's approval, this mixed-race child began to use a morbid method to prove his "nobility".

He would follow his father's example and mistreat those slaves who were weaker than him.

He would throw stones at the dwarf slave who was responsible for cleaning the yard.

He would deliberately scatter dirt on the floor his grandmother had just cleaned and then yell at her.

The cruelest thing he did was towards his own mother.

He resented his mother.

He resented his mother for giving him those blue eyes that everyone mocked.

He resented his mother's status as a slave, which prevented him from becoming a true, noble yellow-skinned person.

One day, when Lillian sang a lullaby to him in their native language again, he suddenly pushed her away with all his might.

"You're not allowed to sing! That's the language of slaves!" he roared in his childish voice. "I am a noble citizen of the Empire! I am not one of your slaves!"

Lily looked at her young face, contorted with anger, and her heart broke.

She knew that her child had been completely and irreversibly distorted by this deformed world.

A second generation, filled with self-hatred and a sense of identity crisis, is thriving under the empire's "wise" policies.

They will become the empire's sharpest blades and the wolves most eager for war.

Because only by launching more brutal conquests and enslaving more "foreign races" can they prove to the world and to themselves that half of their blood is "noble".

Not all indigenous peoples became playthings of the lower-class colonists.

The most prized "spoils of war," such as women with royal blood, special talents, or beauty enough to topple kingdoms, were all sent to the imperial capital, Chengtian City.

They will be given as a reward to the true ruling class of the empire—military nobles, scientific research giants, and high-ranking officials of the State Council.

Princess Lila Moonwhisper, the former chief court musician of Arathor and a peerless beauty with the talent of "Spiritual Resonance," was sent directly to the First Demon General, now known as the "Imperial Whip," as the highest-grade A++ trophy.

Lilith's Palace, built in the heart of the magically corrupted zone, is a magnificent building constructed from the skeletons of countless creatures and the wailing souls of others, filled with an aura of darkness and evil.

When Lila was led to the throne made of a giant dragon's skull, she saw the legendary sorceress who had destroyed her entire world.

Lilith leaned back on the throne, her revealing black magic armor outlining her breathtakingly perfect figure. Her scarlet tongue gently licked the tips of her sharp, black-painted fingernails, while her purple vertical pupils scrutinized the new "toy" before her with great interest.

"Oh? An elf... a royal descendant of a moon elf." Lilith's voice was magnetic, yet carried a chill that seemed to penetrate the soul. "You have a very pleasant, clean scent. I hate it."

Lila Moon Whisper forced herself to suppress her fear and hatred, and straightened her back.

"You demon..."

“A demon?” Lilith chuckled, her laughter echoing eerily in the empty hall. “No, no, no. My dear, I am not a demon. I am merely… an extension of His Majesty’s will. The true demon is our great master, who created all this and is now admiring it all.”

Lilith stepped down from the throne, barefoot, onto the soft black carpet paved with countless souls.

She walked up to Lila, reached out, and pinched her chin.

"I've heard that your singing can soothe the soul and even communicate with all things?" A cruel yet curious light gleamed in Lilith's eyes. "Come, sing me a song. If you sing well, perhaps I can let you die a little more easily."

Lila closed her eyes, and a tear slid down her cheek.

She knew she had no room to resist.

However, she did not want to use her singing to please the executioner who destroyed her home.

She chose to remain silent.

"Not going to sing?" Lilith's smile became even sweeter and more dangerous. "That's alright, I have plenty of ways to make you sing."

She snapped her fingers.

The side door of the main hall opened, and two demon guards dragged in a male elf covered in wounds.

Lila's pupils suddenly contracted.

"elder brother!"

That male elf was her biological brother, the last prince of the Moon Elf Kingdom.

"Lila...run..." the prince said in a weak voice.

"Run?" Lilith laughed even harder. "No one can escape here."

She stretched out her finger and tapped it gently.

A thin black thread of magical energy pierced the prince's body.

The prince immediately let out a heart-wrenching scream, and his body began to wither and decay at a visible speed.

"Now, I'll ask you one more time," Lilith said with a smile, looking at the agonizing Lila, "Sing, or not sing?"

Lila's body trembled violently; she was torn between her inner turmoil and her own conscience.

In the end, she compromised so that her brother could suffer less.

She opened her mouth and sang an ancient elven song with her heavenly voice.

The song was filled with sorrow, despair, and endless longing for his hometown.

The song echoed through the hall, and even the cruel demon guards showed a moment of confusion in their eyes.

"Mmm...it sounds so beautiful." Lilith closed her eyes, a look of pure enjoyment on her face. "This voice is so pure. So pure...it makes me want to completely corrupt it, to tear it apart completely."

She opened her eyes, and a mad light flashed in her purple vertical pupils.

“Keep singing, don’t stop,” she commanded. “I want your singing to be the only background music in this dark palace. Until… you sing until your vocal cords tear and you can’t make a sound anymore.”

From that day on, the sorrowful yet beautiful song echoed day and night in Lilith's Bone Palace.

Lila's brother, on the other hand, was hung in the center of the hall.

Whenever Lila's singing trembled even slightly, or paused even a little, the black magical threads would cause the prince to experience pain a thousand times more terrifying than hell.

Lila, the elven princess who once brought beauty to the world with her songs, now finds her voice used as a torture device to torment her loved ones.

This is Lilith's "art".

What she wanted was not simply to kill, but to completely destroy and distort these once noble and pure lives on a spiritual level, turning them into "kindred spirits" like herself, filled with pain and resentment, in endless despair.

In the eighth year of the Great Expedition, the expansionist hooves of the Holy Star Empire set foot for the first time on a completely unknown "new continent" inside a planet.

This continent, separated from the empire's main continent by a vast ocean, is expansive and rich in resources, yet it has never appeared on any ancient map of the Land of Holy Light. The empire's Leviathan-class deep-sea exploration fleet unexpectedly discovered this land while mapping the globe.

When the first Shadow-class reconnaissance ship silently passed through that thin energy field and transmitted images of the New World back to the capital, everyone who saw the report fell into a silence mixed with absurdity and astonishment.

What appeared on the holographic projection was not the primitive tribe as expected, or an alien race never seen before.

It was a land filled with classical Eastern architectural styles. Continuous city walls, palaces with carved beams and painted rafters, and... farmers working on the ridges of the fields, with their hair in spiky tufts and wearing patched jackets.

After a rapid comparison in a fraction of a second, the Empire's historical database came to an unbelievable conclusion: this was a civilization with a 99% similarity to Emperor Lin Feng's homeland, Blue Star China, during a specific historical period.

The Manchu Qing Dynasty.

This discovery was immediately classified as a top secret of the empire and presented directly to Lin Feng at the Wanyan Divine Palace.

Lin Feng was in the "Cloud Top Garden" at the time, where Alicia, the former human saintess, was serving him the morning dew. As he listened to the report from the AI ​​"Pangu," a genuine ripple appeared for the first time in its all-seeing golden eyes.

A time traveler?

And it's a civilization that... has families?

The thought flashed through his mind, and then a cold, amused smile appeared on his lips.

“Interesting…” He waved his hand gently, signaling Alicia to step back. He then walked barefoot to the edge of the garden, looking down at the exquisitely detailed City of Heaven below, which resembled a sand table. His gaze seemed to pierce through endless space, landing on that new continent.

"A dynasty stagnating in the feudal era... would actually appear before me in this way."

His tone contained no trace of the joy of "meeting an old friend in a foreign land," but rather was filled with the contempt and scrutiny of a god looking down on ants.

For him, this discovery was like an ugly and discordant stain suddenly appearing on his already near-perfect and magnificent painting.

“Pangu,” he said calmly, “collect and analyze all the intelligence about this continent. I need to know their military strength, social structure, population size, and… everything about their emperor.”

"Yes, Your Majesty."

An invisible command was instantly transmitted to the Empire's global surveillance network. Tens of thousands of miniature reconnaissance aircraft, like transparent dust, silently drifted into the territory of the "Great Qing" and began to conduct a thorough "physical examination" of this "fellow countryman from another world," leaving no blind spots.

, Qianqing Palace.

"Your Majesty, look! This is the latest gadget from the West, called a 'telescope.' It's said to be able to see things several miles away!"

A eunuch wearing a peacock feather hat and with a fawning smile on his face carefully handed a brass monocular telescope to the man in the dragon robe sitting on the throne.

The man was about forty years old, with a thin face and a sparse beard. His eyes, though not large, gleamed with shrewdness and suspicion. He was the ruler of this vast dynasty, the "Kang Mazi" Emperor.

Kang Mazi took the telescope and played with it with great interest. He stared at the sky outside the palace for a long time, but finally curled his lip in disdain: "Just a bunch of fancy tricks. The Qing Dynasty's rule depends on the Eight Banners' soldiers' skill in archery and horsemanship, and on the teachings of the sages, not on these empty and useless things."

He casually tossed the telescope back to the eunuch, his tone filled with the arrogance of a superior nation.

"Issue my decree to tell those missionaries from the West to behave themselves and stop using these useless things to bewitch people. Instead of wasting their time, they should think of ways to deal with those unruly chieftains in the south."

"Yes, sir!" The eunuch hurriedly nodded and bowed in response.

However, at that moment, hurried footsteps sounded outside the hall. A general in full armor scrambled in, his face covered in fear and sweat.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Something terrible has happened!"

Kang Mazi frowned, his imperial face displeased: "What's all this panic? What kind of behavior is this!"

The general knelt on the ground with a thud, his voice trembling as he said, "Your Majesty! An urgent military report from the eastern... eastern coast, delivered by express mail! It says... it says a colossal steel beast has descended from the sky! It spews flames, burning mountains and boiling seas!"

"What?!" Kang Mazi jumped up from the dragon throne, his face full of disbelief. "A steel behemoth? What nonsense are you spouting!"

The general, terrified, kowtowed repeatedly, holding a report soaked in sweat high above his head: "This servant dares not deceive the Emperor! This was written in General Ninghai's own hand, and it took three gyrfalcons to fly it in turn to get it to the capital in a single day! He said... he said those steel behemoths, as large as mountains, hung high in the sky, neither falling nor plummeting. From their bellies flew countless iron birds, as fast as lightning, impervious to swords and spears. Our Qing navy along the coast didn't even get a chance to engage them before they were... were burned to ashes by the red light emitted by those iron birds!"

"Nonsense!" Kang Mazi snatched the report, glanced at it, and trembled with rage. He then slammed the report to the ground. "What burning of mountains and boiling of seas, what iron bird glowing red! It must be that Ninghai lost the battle and, out of fear of punishment, has made up this nonsense to fool me!"

The eunuch beside him quickly chimed in, "That's right! Your Majesty is wise! Our Great Qing army is invincible. What steel behemoth? It's probably just those barbarians putting up Kongming lanterns to bluff!"

His Highness's civil and military officials whispered among themselves, most expressing disbelief. In their view, apart from the barbarians who had not yet been subjugated by the Qing, no power in the world could possibly rival the might of the Qing Dynasty.

However, what they didn't know was that this was just the beginning.

In the following days, military reports from all directions of the empire poured into the Forbidden City like snowflakes.

"Report! Urgent report from the northern frontier! An unidentified enemy has appeared beyond the Great Wall! Their armored chariots are indestructible, and our Eight Banners cavalry have suffered heavy casualties, with both men and horses shattered!"

"Report! Urgent report from the Western Regions! A celestial demon has descended, ten zhang tall, with a blue face and fangs, and destroyed our army's camp with a single blow! It is beyond human capability to defeat!"

"Report! Urgent report from the Southern Frontier! In the depths of the Ten Thousand Mountains, a colossal beast roars, spewing poisonous mist. Our soldiers who come into contact with it will die instantly!"

These military reports describe the Empire's Tiger main battle tank, low-level inferior demons used as scouts, and "alchemy poison mist lizards" deployed to test the ecology of the new continent.

But in the ears of the Qing emperors and their ministers, this was no longer a war, but a myth, an end of the world.

The entire court was plunged into utter panic. It was as if a wealthy landowner, accustomed to living in a village, had suddenly discovered that what lay beyond was not a neighboring village, but a world comprised of prehistoric behemoths and extraterrestrial demons. Their prized weapons—swords, spears, and clubs—were utterly insignificant compared to these creatures.

"What...what exactly happened?" Kang Mazi slumped on the dragon throne, his face ashen. His proud empire seemed to have turned into a sieve with holes all over the place overnight, and the enemy was someone he could not even imagine.

"Your Majesty!" An elderly minister with white hair walked out shakily and knelt on the ground. "This old minister believes that this is a warning from Heaven, not a fault of war. Since the enemy has such supernatural powers, it is beyond the ability of ordinary people like us to defeat. The only way now is... the only way is to seek peace."

"Seek peace?" A hint of humiliation flashed in Kang Mazi's eyes. "Our Great Qing is a celestial empire, how can we seek peace with a bunch of demons and monsters of unknown origin?"

Another minister immediately retorted, "Your Majesty, this is a misconception! As the sage said, 'If you preserve the people but lose the land, you will preserve both; if you preserve the land but lose the people, you will lose both.' Now the enemy's strength is overwhelming, and our army has no chance of victory. If we can exchange some material possessions for the stability of the country, that would be the best course of action!"

"Yes! Lord Wang is right!"

"Sue for peace, Your Majesty! If the fighting continues, our Great Qing Dynasty will perish!"

Calls for peace quickly filled the court. The princes and ministers who were usually so arrogant and domineering were now like terrified quails, only thinking about how to quell this disaster they could not understand as quickly as possible.

Just then, Minister of War Suo'etu's eyes lit up and he came up with a "brilliant" idea.

"Your Majesty!" he stepped forward and reported, "This servant believes that our Great Qing has a long tradition of 'marriage alliances' with its neighboring countries. Those barbarian states, though savage, are also fond of women. Our Great Qing's treasury is abundant, and beautiful women abound. If we could select a few princesses from the imperial family, prepare generous gifts, and send envoys to them, reasoning with them and offering them benefits, I believe... I believe we could turn hostility into friendship!"

The suggestion was immediately approved by everyone.

"Brilliant! Prime Minister Su's insight is superb!"

"Marriage alliance! Yes! We'll use marriage alliance! Our Qing princesses, of noble birth and golden branches, will surely make those barbarians fall head over heels and submit to us!"

As Kangxi listened to his ministers' discussions, the struggle on his face deepened. He knew, of course, that a marriage alliance was humiliating. But looking at the military reports that seemed capable of piercing the heavens, his pitiful imperial dignity was quickly swallowed up by fear of the unknown.

“Good…” he practically spat out the word through gritted teeth. “As Suo’etu has suggested. Immediately select envoys and prepare generous gifts… Also, select ten of the most beautiful princesses from the Imperial Clan Court to accompany them.”

He paused, a ruthless glint in his eyes: "Tell the envoy to find out exactly what they are up to! What are they, and what do they want? Whatever conditions they propose, as long as they don't want the Qing Dynasty's empire, we can... agree to them for now!"

A humiliating yet desperate decree was thus born in the Qianqing Palace.

Three days later, a large delegation of several hundred people, carrying the fate of the entire Qing Dynasty, set off from the capital to the East China Sea, where the "steel behemoth" was first reported to have appeared, according to military reports.

Unbeknownst to them, high above them, thousands of meters in the sky, an Imperial reconnaissance ship, the "Shadow," was broadcasting their every move, along with the mixture of fear and relief on their faces, directly to Lin Feng.