For Duanmu Huai, casually wiping out a Yautja civilization was nothing worth mentioning. In fact, even after destroying the Yautja homeworld, his God of Destruction experience bar had only increased by 0.01. After that, Duanmu Huai sent the news to Dardanier and left the remaining matters for him to handle on his own.
But to Duanmu Huai, this was merely an accident.
With the complete overhaul of the mothership finished, he was about to lead the Inquisition into an entirely new stage.
A true cosmic war!
At this moment, he stood in the command room, admiring the rows upon rows of warships before him.
Duanmu Huai's flagship was positioned at the center. To its left and right were six Apocalypse-class battleships equipped with Nova Cannons, twelve Mars-class battlecruisers, twelve Lunar-class and Gothic-class cruisers, and sixteen light cruisers and destroyers responsible for forward fire penetration.
"Although it's a bit small, this is as far as we can go for now."
Staring at the fleet before him, Duanmu Huai frowned slightly. Large player fleets usually had over a hundred warships, but even at maximum, Duanmu Huai only had about two-thirds of that. Moreover, many components were still incomplete. For example, the Imperial Navy didn't have aircraft carriers, but it did have fighter wings. However, while puppets were fine for weapon maintenance and logistical operations, actually piloting fighter craft exceeded their performance limits.
Games are great—just requisition NPCs and you don't have to worry about anything.
Reality doesn't give you that luxury.
Duanmu Huai waved his hand and opened the star map. With a solemn expression, he stared at it and fell into deep thought.
The reason Duanmu Huai had rushed to assemble such a fleet in such a short time was actually because he had his own goal—
He wanted to join a war.
It was a war that had once swept across nearly half the galaxy. Although it ultimately ended in the players' victory, for every player who participated, it was an infuriating experience.
Because their enemies were not only alien xenos—but also humans.
The origin of that war was actually quite simple. A human civilization left its own star system, successfully achieved interstellar travel, and began intergalactic colonization. Then they encountered an alliance of alien races. Conflict naturally erupted, and war broke out.
Incidentally, this was a genuine alliance spanning multiple star systems, containing more than a dozen alien xenos races—not some small, local gang like the Covenant.
Once both sides engaged, it inevitably drew the attention of most Inquisitors who had already entered space at the time. Players joined in one after another, and what began as a small-scale conflict eventually escalated into a massive war that swept across nearly half the galaxy.
However, during the course of this war, a conflict emerged between the players and that human civilization.
That human civilization did not want to escalate the war into a full-scale war against alien races. They feared that doing so would ultimately push humanity toward extinction. Therefore, they believed they should sit down and negotiate with the alien races, striving to join them instead.
But for players who were Inquisitors, this was absolutely unacceptable. The Inquisition never surrendered, nor would it ever bow and scrape before xenos.
At the time, this war also sparked considerable debate among players. The opposing side was a massive alien alliance spanning dozens of star systems, possessing tens of thousands of powerful warships and fleets. For that human civilization to confront them alone was indeed insufficient. Even with the Inquisition's power added in, the best they could do was barely fight the enemy to a stalemate. Under such circumstances, in order to preserve itself, that human civilization had no choice but to sign a treaty and join the alien alliance.
Of course, humans held no real status within it.
It was like the United Nations—on the surface everyone had a voice, but when Honduras spoke, nobody listened.
What infuriated the players most was that, in order to curry favor with the alien alliance, that human civilization even turned around and stabbed the Inquisition in the back, listing the Inquisition as a terrorist organization and expelling them from its star systems!
How the fuck was that acceptable?!
In the end, contradictions exploded. A group of Purist Inquisitors gathered together, and after discussion, reached a conclusion:
A human civilization that bowed to alien xenos had already been polluted and corrupted, with no value left to be saved. Only the flames of the Inquisition could purify everything!
That is—
To completely destroy those xenos, along with the human civilization that worshiped them.
Thus, a true war between player forces and NPC forces erupted.
Before this, it wasn't that players had never fought wars. But back then, they mostly stood on the side of human civilizations, fighting another side. This time, however, it was an entirely player-composed force launching an attack against that human civilization together with the alien alliance.
The final result was that all colonial planets of that human civilization were completely purified by the Inquisition, and the alien alliance was utterly annihilated.
What people talked about most afterward was that, following this, the game update launched a brand-new expansion, "The Abominable Intelligence Crisis." Players regarded this as a landmark event—proof that their actions had changed the course of in-game history.
Mm...…of course, results aside.
This campaign had been repeatedly dissected and reviewed on the forums. As someone who had personally experienced it, Duanmu Huai naturally knew many of the hidden details.
In the eyes of many players, that human civilization had simply been too weak. To be honest, at the time, its technological level was actually comparable to that of its opponents—the alien alliance.
In other words, this wasn't some Hollywood-style "World War II tanks versus UFOs" situation of backward versus advanced technology. On the contrary, both sides were at roughly the same technological level, and that human civilization's tech was first-rate even across the entire galaxy.
The problem was—
It was too cowardly.
Simply put: fear before battle.
Some Inquisitor players revealed that before the war even started, that human civilization was already worrying whether the enemy might be stronger, more powerful, whether they might exterminate humanity...
When you're already thinking like that before the fighting even begins, once the war actually starts, you're bound hand and foot. In the end, when the enemy suggested negotiations, this side eagerly rushed to sign an agreement.
When many domestic players heard this, they furiously cursed that this human civilization was just like the idiotic Southern Song Dynasty—on the surface wealthy and strong, but the moment barbarians attacked, it immediately ceded territory, paid tribute, married off princesses, and begged for mercy!
You fought for so long, so many people died, and this is the fucking treaty you signed? And you still have to be under their jurisdiction?
Is this civilization's ruler the reincarnation of Emperor Gaozong of Song?!
And that was exactly how it turned out. After the human civilization joined the alien alliance, it was nothing more than an ordinary alien power's representative.
Amazing.
You fought for so long, so many people died, and you didn't even get a permanent seat?!
And you're proud of it?
You think you joined the cosmic family? Think you became an equal member of the galaxy?
Utter trash!
In Duanmu Huai's view, the civilization itself wasn't the problem—it was a bunch of idiotic rulers who ruined everything.
You think joining them guarantees safety? In reality, even after humans signed the treaty and joined the alien alliance, their border colonies were still attacked by alien races every few days. And all the human ambassador could do was issue a "serious protest" at the assembly—completely fucking useless.
So what exactly did you protect?
The fact is, you protected nothing at all!
Humans were being attacked by xenos, and you bowed your head and kept silent?
It was a disgrace! A colossal disgrace!
Of course, you could argue that war brings suffering to the people, that countless families were destroyed, wives and children lost in the flames of war, making continued fighting unbearable.
But dignity is fought for! It is not knelt for!
Loving peace does not mean abandoning war! Abandoning war isn't loving peace—it's being a fucking idiot!
However, this outcome was not unavoidable.
Duanmu Huai knew very clearly that when that human civilization first encountered the alien race and exchanged fire, it split internally into a pro-war faction and a pro-peace faction. The pro-war faction argued that since the aliens had attacked human fleets first, humanity had to show its strength—at the very least, gain the upper hand before negotiating.
The pro-peace faction, on the other hand, was just as described above—teary-eyed the moment they spoke, lamenting the civilians drawn into war, believing that fighting an alien civilization of unknown strength was a mistake that could push humanity to the brink of extinction.
At the time, each side had a representative figure, and initially, the pro-war faction held the upper hand.
So why did the pro-peace faction ultimately win?
The reason was simple.
The pro-war representative—a man rumored to be the next president of the human civilization—was attacked by alien xenos during a visit to a border colony and ultimately killed.
With that, the pro-war faction lost its pillar. The pro-peace faction seized the opportunity to launch a full offensive and finally took control.
But in fact, according to post-event investigations by Inquisitor players, that had been a deal between the pro-peace faction and the alien alliance. They leaked the pro-war representative's location to the aliens and deliberately created the opportunity for his assassination...in this way, they crushed the pro-war faction, smoothly pushed their own representative into the presidency, and signed a peace treaty with the alien alliance.
Mm, it really had that Qin Hui murdering Yue Fei to beg peace from the Jin vibe.
And now, what Duanmu Huai intended to do—
Was to stop this history from happening.
And then...change the entire situation.
This would be the Inquisition's first true, high-profile debut on the stage of galaxy-level warfare.
(End of chapter)