"Hahaha...hahahaha!"
Lin Feng could no longer contain his excitement and burst into hearty laughter.
Qin Lan knelt on one knee, head bowed, but a smile couldn't help but appear on her lips.
She knew that her emperor had found a new "toy" to please him. And the empire's war machine would once again roar into action.
“My General Lan.” Lin Feng’s laughter subsided. He stepped down from the throne, came to Qin Lan, and gently lifted her chin.
"Your Majesty." Qin Lan's eyes were filled with undisguised admiration and love.
"Do you think it's necessary for my 'Heavenly Grace Election' to continue?" Lin Feng's eyes were full of mockery.
Qin Lan's heart skipped a beat. She instantly understood His Majesty's meaning.
"Your Majesty...you mean..."
"Homegrown flowers never smell as sweet as wildflowers," Lin Feng's smile became extremely aggressive. "No matter how carefully you select your own sheep, they're still sheep. But hunting is about hunting those untamed prey that retain a touch of wildness. That kind of conquest is much more fun, isn't it?"
"Moreover..." Lin Feng's voice lowered, filled with a seductive charm: "It's time to change the flavors of my harem. The women of Kanto are docile enough, but lack resilience. I'd like to see what the legendary, more feisty and passionate women of Kansai, as well as the simple and honest girls of Kyushu and Shikoku, are like, how different their flavors would be."
Qin Lan's breathing quickened slightly. A blush rose on her cheeks.
Her Majesty was always like that—direct, domineering, and never concealing his most primal desires. And that was precisely what made him so alluring.
"Your Majesty... I understand." Qin Lan's voice trembled slightly with excitement.
"Then, what is the reason for the war?" Lin Feng asked with great interest.
“Your Majesty,” Qin Lan’s eyes gleamed with a mixture of wisdom and ruthlessness; she had fully grasped Lin Feng’s “art of the emperor”:
"The people of 'Dongjin' were once compatriots of the old Yingzhou. Now, they have been blessed by His Majesty's grace and have become a glorious part of the kingdom."
"In those newly emerged lands, their 'compatriots' are living in a barbaric and primitive suffering without the light of a monarch. We, as the 'civilized' pioneers, have the responsibility and the obligation to 'liberate' them, so that they too may soon bask in His Majesty's grace."
"Therefore, this operation should not be called a war. It should be called—'Heavenly Grace Western Expedition'!"
"Hahahaha! Good! What a wonderful 'Heavenly Grace Western Expedition'!" Lin Feng laughed loudly again, pinching Qin Lan's cheek. "My General Lan, you really are understanding my heart more and more."
"Go." Lin Feng released his hand, turned around and walked back to the throne, a terrifying aura suddenly erupting.
"Convey my decree!"
"Immediately suspend the 'Heavenly Grace Election'! Register all women who have already registered as 'reserve forces'. Tell them that true glory requires waiting."
"In the name of 'liberating our compatriots and spreading divine grace,' we issue the highest-level war mobilization order! We will form two expeditionary fleets: the 'Western Expedition' and the 'Southern Expedition'!"
"I want to witness with my own eyes the 'Heavenly Punishment' class battleships resounding the Empire's most magnificent symphony in Osaka Bay!"
"I want to transform those newly emerged lands into the empire's most fertile pastures in the shortest possible time!"
"Yes, sir!" Qin Lan kowtowed heavily, her eyes blazing with battle intent. "I guarantee the mission will be completed!"
=
The empire's war machine, once again, began to operate at full speed with an efficiency unimaginable to people of the old era.
The slogan "Heavenly Grace's Western Expedition" spread to every corner of the empire through the propaganda network.
Unlike the previous "Thunder Search and Rescue" campaign, which was fueled by anger and hatred, this propaganda campaign is filled with a sense of superiority regarding "sacredness" and "civilization."
On the giant light screen, contrasting images were played in a loop.
On one side are the women of Dongjin who have already "integrated" into the empire. Dressed in magnificent clothes, holding healthy and adorable babies of their "new bloodline," their faces beaming with happiness, they speak to the camera in fluent Mandarin, recounting their blissful lives under the emperor's glory.
On the other side, there are blurry but chaotic street scenes of Osaka, captured by a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. People are dressed in rags and look terrified; small-scale fires and riots have even broken out in the city.
The commentator delivered the explanation in a tone that was both compassionate and full of pride.
"Look! We are all people of Yingzhou, yet our fates are so different! Under His Majesty's grace, the sisters of Dongjin have been reborn and have become glorious mothers of the empire! But their compatriots in Kansai and Kyushu are still struggling in the mire of ignorance and chaos! They are waiting for us to liberate them! They are hoping that His Majesty's glory will shine upon them!"
"Our army is not there to invade! It is there to spread civilization! Our warships are not there to destroy! They are there to sow the seeds of hope!"
"Soldiers! Take up your weapons! For the liberation of our suffering compatriots! For the spreading of His Majesty's grace to every newly emerged land!"
"For His Majesty! For the Empire! For Glory!"
This condescending, "liberator" posture greatly satisfied the vanity of the imperial citizens, especially the "new citizens."
They genuinely believed that they were waging a just and sacred war.
The recruitment office was packed with people again.
This time, many of those who signed up for military service were even young people from Yingzhou.
They longed to prove their loyalty to the empire through a war to "liberate their compatriots".
In just seventy-two hours.
Centered around the three newly built "Heavenly Punishment" class interstellar battleships—"Divine Might," "Dreadnought," and "Conqueror"—and supplemented by twenty-four "Overlord" class battlecruisers, seventy-two "Sea-Suppressing" class heavy cruisers, and hundreds of various auxiliary ships, the unprecedentedly large "Heavenly Grace Western Expedition Joint Fleet" assembled at Chengtian New Port.
Qin Lan, as the supreme military commander, is stationed at the flagship "Shenwei".
Lin Feng, through the throne in the "Nine Heavens Moon-Embracing Palace," reigned supreme over the entire fleet in a holographic projection. His will was the sole creed of this invincible fleet.
Black dragon banners blotted out the sky. The massive fleet did not sail on the sea, but slowly ascended into the air, directly entering suborbital space. Propelled by the "Dragon Flame" engines, they transformed into hundreds of meteors, hurtling towards Osaka at speeds exceeding ten times the speed of sound.
The stars and the sea are the true path for the empire. A war on a mere planet is nothing more than an armed parade for the empire today.
at the same time.
Osaka, a city that has just awakened from a dramatic shift in time and space, is now plunged into a deeper chaos and panic than Higashizu had been.
Unlike the orderly bureaucratic system of Higashitsu, Osaka has been imbued with an atmosphere of freedom, commerce, and even violence since ancient times. This is what happens when one finds themselves disconnected from the rest of the world.
Various criminal organizations, right-wing groups, and emerging doomsday cults sprang up like mushrooms after rain, vying for control of the city. Robberies, gunfights, and arson occurred almost daily.
Osaka Prefectural Government, Temporary Emergency Response Headquarters.
The head of the countermeasures headquarters, who was temporarily elected, was a man named "Ryuji Sakamoto".
He was not a politician, but the former chairman of the Omi Union, the largest yakuza organization in the Kansai region. In this chaotic time, only he could barely maintain order in the city's core area through his iron fist and prestige.
Ryuji Sakamoto, a man nearing fifty with a buzz cut and sharp, piercing eyes, was irritably smoking a cigar.
"How is the situation?" he asked in a deep voice.
“It’s very bad, Chief of Staff.” A bespectacled man who looked like a former university professor said worriedly, “Our reconnaissance planes have reached their maximum range, and apart from the endless primitive continent to the west and a few islands that also appeared out of nowhere to the south, we can’t find any signs of human civilization. We have truly become an isolated island.”
"In terms of resources," another official in charge of logistics said, wiping his sweat, "it's more severe than expected. Osaka is a purely consumer city, and its own energy and food reserves can only support a maximum of five million people for a month. There are at least twelve million people in the city now, and in two weeks, a large-scale famine and energy shortage will break out."
"What about the army's report?" Ryuji Sakamoto's brows furrowed into a deep frown.
A general in military uniform stood up, his face grave: "We tried to send ships to explore the surrounding waters, but suffered heavy losses. There are monsters in the ocean that are incomprehensibly large. One of our 'Soryu'-class submarines, while diving, was directly...bitten in two by a shadow that was more than 500 meters long, as indicated by radar signals."
The conference room was deathly silent, save for the whooshing sound of Ryuji Sakamoto smoking his cigar.
Despair, like a thick fog, enveloped everyone's heart.
They were like a group of modern-day Robinson Crusoe stranded on a deserted island. And this island was teeming with prehistoric behemoths.
Just then, without warning, the piercing air raid siren blared throughout the entire city of Osaka!
"Emergency alert! Emergency alert! Extremely high altitude, extremely high speed target detected! Number... unknown! Approaching over our city!"
A communications soldier stumbled and crawled into the conference room, his face filled with utter horror.
"What?" Ryuji Sakamoto suddenly stood up.
The large screen in the conference room instantly switched to the monitoring footage from the air defense radar.
On the screen, hundreds of huge, hostile red dots, like celestial maidens scattering flowers, plummeted straight down from outside the atmosphere toward Osaka!
"Is...is it a missile?"
"No! It's too big and too much! This...this is...a fleet! A...fleet that fell from the sky!" the radar analyst screamed in despair.
The next second, all the citizens of Osaka witnessed a scene they would never forget.
The sky was torn apart.
Hundreds of massive, jet-black interstellar warships, exuding a grotesque and violent aesthetic, broke through the clouds and hovered above Osaka like messengers of divine punishment.
The three largest ships were even longer than the tallest building in Osaka. Their enormous shadows cast an apocalyptic gloom over the entire city.
The black flag, embroidered with a black dragon, sends a chill down the spine of everyone who sees it.
"God..." Ryuji Sakamoto muttered to himself, the cigar in his hand falling to the ground.
He believed that they were facing a survival crisis.
He never imagined that they would be facing... a god. Or perhaps, something even more terrifying than a god.
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