EOL Chapter 44

As Alfred prepared to board the warship, the Emperor was delivering an urgent address to the entire nation from the main planet.

He deliberately announced the change in the crown prince’s position first, then confirmed the existence of the same-origin civilization and that it had already made contact with the empire. In this way, everyone’s attention was drawn to the latter, while the first piece of news received little attention.

The emperor meticulously planned this, fearing it might increase Alfred’s prestige among the people, but Alfred didn’t care at all.

He never cared about power, yet his entire life was forced to be tied to it. He clearly didn’t want to fight, but the former Crown Prince, the Emperor, the deceased Second Prince… none of these people allowed him not to. He was swept up in an irresistible vortex, engaging in deceitful battles and vying for glory with these people, ultimately leading to a life-or-death struggle.

Today, he has taken over the power of the crown prince and is finally only one step away from the throne. But he knew very well that what seemed like only a step away was actually a bottomless abyss. If he’s not careful, he’ll fall in and be smashed to pieces.

“Amber… Xiaomei. Is he ready to join the crew?”

Before boarding the ship, Alfred asked Austin, who had come to see him off.

He was about to intercept an unknown spacecraft from another civilization, and on the eve of his departure, this was the question he was concerned about.

Austin couldn’t understand it at all, but he didn’t dare ask anything at such a crucial moment, not to mention that Alfred’s mood was visibly bad.

“Yes,” he said truthfully, “he is coming by tomorrow’s spaceship.”

Alfred nodded, said, “Understood,” and then turned and boarded the warship without saying anything else.

“They’ve passed five military bases at close range,” the communications officer said. “As per His Majesty’s and your orders, we’ve attempted to attack and intercept them each time they approached, but…”

“None of these are working?”

“Send me the postwar reports,” Alfred said, not disappointed. “I never had any expectations to begin with; what’s truly valuable are these data reports.”

The communications officer nodded.

Because their commander remained calm, their morale was not affected. On the contrary, an officer actively suggested, “Your Highness… Your Highness the Crown Prince, now that we have collected some data, should we change our course and deliberately encounter them ahead of time? What if they don’t follow our predicted route? What about our current course…”

“Only this course allows for skirmishes¹fight within small groups. They will definitely follow my predicted route,” Alfred said with absolute certainty.

If the opponent is fast and we are slow, predicting the route is extremely important if we want to meet them.

It wasn’t so much that Alfred was betting on where the federation’s spacecraft would go, but rather that he was betting on where Xiu would go. He didn’t understand advanced civilizations, but if it was Xiu, things would be much easier.

His most familiar opponent, the one he had spent the most time studying.

“If it really is the Crown Prince… the former Crown Prince, and he’s giving them directions, they’ll definitely detour here and stop briefly above our largest military base.” Alfred pointed to a spot on the Imperial map. “Then they’ll return to the Third Arm, check out this base, and then turn back to cross the border. This route seems the safest overall; it doesn’t require too much of a detour and still passes by several major bases.”

For this reason, this route was also a common military travel route used by the emperor and the crown prince.

Alfred frowned as he stared at the 3D map, feeling that it was somewhat contrived.

While this approach is indeed safe, the previous bases were visited in the same order and path, making the subsequent routes too easy to predict.

Several senior officers nodded. Alfred was the youngest there, but no one questioned his statement.

“The former crown prince has gone too far,” an officer said, frowning. “In this way, our military strength is practically transparent to the enemy.”

“It’s too early to say that,” Alfred said. “You can say that after our mission fails.”

Indeed, although the exact distance is unknown, the two civilizations must be extremely far apart to have gone undetected for several eras. In any case, communication is impossible over such a distance; for the other side to send a message back, they would have to cross the imperial borders and fly a considerable distance back.

As long as we can stop this aircraft, the intelligence won’t leak to the other side.

Another officer solemnly declared, “We must stop them at all costs.”

Alfred held out his hand, palm facing outward, to signal ‘stop.’ He said, “It’s not that bad. What do you mean ‘at all costs’? Based on the intelligence we’ve gathered from the few engagements so far, it’s not a military aircraft at all. According to what I’ve heard before, it’s a group of space pirates who have been stranded overseas… Are you going to go to all costs for this? What if you run into their regular army later?”

The officers nodded awkwardly, while Alfred glanced through the previous battle reports for a while, seemingly muttering to himself, “At this level… we can stop them, and we must stop them.”

“Your Highness, forgive my bluntness,” an officer couldn’t help but say, “we can’t stop them at this level!”

Alfred wasn’t angry; on the contrary, he suddenly felt that it had been a long time since anyone had truly spoken frankly to him.

Originally, according to his plan for the first twenty years of his life, he was supposed to graduate from the Royal Military Academy and join the army in order to secure his throne in the future.

Despite changing the course of his life, he was also quite good at political struggles, but doing well doesn’t mean he liked it. What he truly liked seemed to be his military life.

He didn’t get angry at the officer who had directly contradicted him. Instead, he calmly asked, “Gentlemen, there’s a large cabinet in the storage room next door. Right now, standing in this room, who can make that cabinet fall over?”

The officers exchanged bewildered glances, and one of them chuckled, “Your Highness, how is that possible? That storage cabinet next door is embedded in the wall. No one can make it fall, let alone stand in this room or even go next door.”

“So you can’t do it,” Alfred said.

No sooner had he finished speaking than a loud crash came from next door. Even on this well-insulated warship, the sound of heavy objects breaking and falling to the ground could still be clearly heard.

The officers were stunned, speechless as they stared at the young, newly appointed crown prince, whose golden eyes were burning with passion.

“I can,” Alfred continued casually, “and it’s easy. It would be much more difficult if it were separated by a warship, but it’s not impossible.”

The majority of the legion members are genetically enhanced individuals focused on physical constitution. The other genetic modification category was already rare, and their presence became even less noticeable after the survival crisis ended. Their presence within the legion was even less noticeable. Even if some people still remember them, it’s mostly those who are sensory-based, and few who are control-based.

Even if someone is very knowledgeable about genetic modification and knows about the existence of manipulation abilities, they should know that those abilities were initially classified as “weak sensing” or “weak manipulation” of natural elements, meaning they could only control them slightly and were auxiliary abilities, not having such a powerful effect.

But they forgot about the existence of the strongest gene-altering ability user, Golden Eye.

Apart from the founding emperor who personally led the expedition to unify the human world in the early days, after the empire was unified, the Golden Eye never appeared on the battlefield again. In modern times, the royal family has become increasingly low-key about genetic abilities, leading more and more people to believe that the several battlefield miracles created by the founding emperor that were almost like gods descending to earth were exaggerated by later generations.

The officers suddenly remembered the widely circulated but unverified video. Alfred had once replicated the image of the Emperor drawing his bow. In that blurry and turbulent video, he manipulated a miraculous arrow of light, like a god of war descending to earth.

“Therefore, there is no need for concern. Obey my orders and pledge your allegiance to me.” Alfred nodded. “I will lead you to victory.”

Several officers were intimidated by him and bowed their heads in agreement, patting their chests to show their loyalty.

“Alright, meeting adjourned,” Alfred said. “Don’t go into a deep sleep. Go back and get a nap. Be on call around the clock for the next few days.”

The officers had all accepted the order and were about to disperse when the communications officer suddenly called out, “Your Highness!”

“What’s wrong?”

“The other side passed the sixth base, and after they descended into the atmosphere… the internal network of that military base received some information from the other side.”

Before the officers had even left, one of them instinctively said, “What, a provocative message?”

“No…it seems to be intelligence about a few people,” the communications officer said with a strange expression. “It’s already been sent to us.”

The machine beside him was whirring and spitting out papers at an extremely fast speed, soon producing a thick stack of paper.

Alfred looked down and saw that the topmost piece of paper was a photograph. It seemed to be a full-body official photo of a young, handsome, tall man wearing a black military uniform with gold trim.

In contrast to his burning golden eyes, this man had a pair of silver eyes that gleamed with a cold, inorganic metallic light.

Alfred’s golden eyes had not yet dimmed, and they met those silver eyes directly.

He reached out and peeled off the photo, turning to the next page.

‘Commander-in-Chief of the 53rd Federal Military District’.

The next page begins with a title that is quite puzzling, and someone has made a note next to it.

‘Extremely dangerous, one of the greatest threats.’ 

Alfred stared intently at the handwritten note… the words looked somewhat distorted, as if… the writer didn’t want others to discover who he was through his handwriting.

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  fight within small groups