Abyss Solo

In another corner of the conference room, a dozen people were resting, ready at any moment to receive battle orders. They could just find a random spot to lean on and recharge their energy.

"We're about to go fight with those bugs, any last words from you guys? Your account passwords, stock securities, precious metals, you can all entrust them to me for safekeeping. I have a long life!"

"Get lost! I've already made arrangements for my wife and kids!"

"Hahaha!"

Griss sighed, "We've done well enough to place our families within the Emperor Star Circle. At least half of the Empire's Administrative Stars are already exposed to the threat of the Insect Race, and their people can only hide in underground shelters."

"There's no way around it; if we extend the defense line, it's just giving the Insect Race a chance to hit us one by one."

"We've come this far; let's not worry about that anymore."

"I'm just expressing a little emotion," Griss took a sip of his drink, "Just the interference technology that White Ghost came up with—imagine how many humans it will save this time."

"Haven't you heard? The Insect Race can evolve, too. If they can't find humans this time, next time they'll evolve an ability to do so."

"Then can't our technology also update and iterate?"

"I'm just saying," a middle-aged man muttered softly, "we're an Empire, not an elected government. Otherwise, White Ghost would surely be the next president."

"Hey!"

Griss glared at the guy, "Watch what you say! Seriously!"

He glanced at a corner surveillance camera.

"Hey, I'm just saying—everyone, pretend you didn't hear that, didn't hear anything... hahaha."

"Why do you think the Insect Race is determined to fight us?"

"It's the continuation of high-dimensional warfare; that's what the textbooks say."

"And there's also competition for living space," Griss laughed, "The human birth rate in the Milky Way has always been below one percent. It's a current issue in our society, but with the approval of external embryonic cultivation technology, the population can explode quickly, and we could fill the Milky Way exponentially."

"Then why don't we do that?"

"High-dimensional civilizations don't allow it, that's what the college textbooks say," someone laughed, "High-dimensional civilizations want our primitive human civilization to develop sustainably in small scale, continuously evolving within the Milky Way to explore different possibilities. A population explosion leading to a new large star system civilization would greatly consume the Galaxy's heavy elements... damn it, basically, high-dimensional civilizations won't let us increase our population limitlessly."

"Ah, see," someone pointed out a blind spot, "High-dimensional civilizations won't let us have a massive population explosion but still want us to fight the Space Worm Clan. Isn't that making a fool of us?"

"Right," Griss laughed, "Let's just blame the high-dimensional civilizations; they won't argue with us, so let's not talk about anything else!"

Several people chuckled softly.

"Griss, you're familiar with Ghost, aren't you? Got any insider information?"

Griss sighed, "What insider information could I have? That busy person is now a formal committee member, chief expert in response to the insect swarm, while I'm just an ordinary elite squad leader, nothing in comparison."

Just then, a majestic ringtone erupted from Griss's pocket.

He glanced at it, immediately sobered up, gestured for silence to those around him, and chose to answer.

Yang Ming's half-body image appeared before Griss.

The others instinctively sat up straight, quickly hiding their drinks behind them.

Yang Ming's eyes were exceptionally bright, exuding a strong self-confidence that seemed as if he already had the Great Queen under his knife.

"Griss, busy?"

"Ah, waiting for battle orders, we're already on standby!"

Griss smiled, "I thought you had orders to give, seems like you just wanted to chat and catch up with me."

"Orders shouldn't be personally passed by me to you," Yang Ming chuckled, "just worried about you, checking in – is the stress big?" ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ɴovelfire.net

Griss chuckled, glancing at his buddies with a side-eye and raising his eyebrows.

The others immediately looked discontent.

Griss laughed, "What stress? If the insect swarm comes, we fight them. Do our jobs and use all our strength. Worst case, we go down fighting the bugs."

"Don't have the sacrifice mentality; you have to stay alive to keep fighting."

Yang Ming advised, then turned to, "Do you have enough mechas over there?"

"Enough, plenty. They're all new models developed based on your Fierce Ghost Mecha, reducing pilot load, enhancing firepower, and adding squad coordination systems."

Griss quickly responded:

"Heavenly Fury Fortress has 1.2 million units of such mechas, with 920,000 new Transformed added in the past year.

"Soon, we will act as a sharp knife, executing the order to assault the Great Queen.

"Once the Empire's war machine starts moving, it's truly terrifying."

"The Empire is facing a hundred billion insects," Yang Ming shook his head, "your numbers won't be enough."

"Ah this!"

Yang Ming said, "In the battle meeting just now, I already rejected the plan to use you for a war of attrition. Soon you'll receive orders for redeployment to supplement the major fleets and execute the protection of flagship commands."

Griss gave an awkward laugh, "Alright, listening to you, you're the bug-killing expert."

Yang Ming chuckled and continued, "Griss, I hope you can lead fifty thousand Transformed Soldiers over to me, under my direct command."