Volume 4, Chapter 1 – Official Launch, Factional Confrontation

“Give Big Sis the seat of honor!”

The moment Anran walked into the base, Feilian immediately dragged over a stool for her.

“Uh…”

What the hell?

“Serve Big Sis some tea!” Feilian said to Chu Yuan.

Chu Yuan casually picked up a teacup from the table and brought it over.

Tea?

Anran immediately thought of that special extra-strong tea she had on her first day here.

“Wait, let’s skip the tea. I actually prefer carbonated drinks, like cola!” After sitting down, Anran hurriedly waved her hands.

Chu Yuan looked a little regretful. “Huh? This is the improved version of the special extra-strong tea!”

“Why not give it to Daogu? He looks exhausted. Help wake him up a little.” Anran immediately dragged the slumped Daogu into it.

Daogu instantly sat up. “No thanks. If anyone’s drinking that tea, Chu Yuan, it should be you.”

“…” Chu Yuan was deeply hurt. Chu Yuan did not know what to say.

“Ahem. Then serve Big Sis a cola instead, and make sure it’s iced,” Feilian said.

Chu Yuan immediately turned and left.

A chill ran down her spine.

Anran gave a light cough. “Did something major happen again?”

After these last few operations, her strength had completely won over her teammates.

Though the bigger reason was probably that Feilian, as captain, was a pretty playful guy. The team might look loose on the surface, but the atmosphere was actually excellent.

“There are two things.” Feilian’s expression turned serious.

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At that moment, Chu Yuan came back over, and Anran took the ice-cold cola still giving off a frosty chill.

She popped the tab and took a swig. Mm. Nice and cold all the way through.

“First, the operation against Morningstar’s Far East Branch stronghold. According to our intelligence, there aren’t many people left inside that stronghold now. But the Security Department is worried it might be a trap, so our people still need to work with their special forces and scout the place out first.”

“Oh.” Anran nodded.

“This is the start of a whole chain of operations. Once we take that stronghold, the entire focus afterward will shift to Wutong City.” Feilian paused. “If we make big enough contributions in these next two operations, getting back into the top three won’t just be a dream.”

“That sounds fine.”

“Actually, if you weren’t here, then getting back into the top three really would still just be a dream.”

“???”

Feilian explained slowly, “The reason the top three teams have been able to stay in the top three is because all of them have trump cards, and those trump cards are individually a fair bit stronger than Sandi.”

Now that made sense.

Otherwise, for even a single branch, it would have looked far too pathetic.

“The second piece of news is about Sandi,” Feilian continued.

“Hm?”

Anran immediately sat up straight. This definitely interested her.

“The intensity of his cellular activation was completely different from that of a normal esper. It was like it was on the verge of withering.”

That meant…

“That means Sandi wasn’t an esper at all,” Feilian said.

Anran frowned.

A drug-enhanced freak?

Sandi had reached that level by doping himself up?

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Feilian gave the conclusion directly. “His strength was forcibly boosted through drugs.”

“But that creates a problem!” Feilian said, deliberately building suspense.

Anran, however, just gave a dry chuckle and kept drinking her cola.

“…”

Not cooperative at all.

Feilian muttered under his breath, then said, “Morningstar has mastered a drug that can forcibly enhance a person’s strength. That also means they may have more people like Sandi among them, and that means our next operations won’t go that smoothly.”

That was only to be expected.

“But under normal circumstances, Morningstar probably doesn’t have many hidden pieces like that. Otherwise, we would’ve been beaten to pieces long ago.”

“Could Morningstar be hiding a card up its sleeve?” Chu Yuan asked.

Feilian rejected that outright. “My ass they are. If they really had a lot of those ‘super soldiers,’ we would’ve been steamrolled during the Twinmoon City war. Would Morningstar still have needed to use bait to draw away the Security Department’s attention before attacking the signal tower?”

“…”

“This drug still has major limitations for now. But the higher-ups are worried that if those flaws ever get overcome, Morningstar will end up with a batch of real espers capable of growth. Then things will get troublesome.”

“That would be pretty troublesome.”

Anran set the can down on the floor.

If both sides lined up and fought head-on, the government forces would definitely win, since they had more heavy weapons and long-range missiles.

But the problem now was that the government forces couldn’t find Morningstar’s main base, so all they could do was play guerrilla warfare with them.

When the Ninth expeditionary army descended on No. 1886, it took only a few strikes to destroy most of the cities on No. 1886. Even after all these years, No. 1886 still had not recovered.

Order had collapsed, human civilization had broken down, finance had imploded, technology had regressed…

If the Ninth expeditionary army had not reestablished a puppet government through sheer force, No. 1886 probably would already have entered a true “post-apocalyptic” stage.

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Thinking it over, Anran said, “Then why did Morningstar choose this moment to start a war? They couldn’t win before, but now they think they can. Could it be because this drug was developed?”

“Who knows what those lunatics are thinking,” Feilian sighed.

It wasn’t just Anran. Plenty of people couldn’t make sense of that point.

What the hell was this supposed to be?

Why had Morningstar chosen this moment to ignite a war?

“In any case, we have to win. No. 1886 can’t be ravaged again. The great age of the cosmos has already arrived, yet we’re still wasting time on this kind of meaningless thing. That’s being irresponsible to those who come after us.” Feilian clenched his fist.

When he said things like that, he really was pretty stirring.

“Tch…” Anna turned her head aside. “You aren’t even married yet, and you’re already talking about descendants. Maybe you should first think about whether you’ll even live that long.”

“You…” Feilian pointed at Anna. “At a time like this, can you not cut down on the sarcasm for once?”

And then the usual “blah blah blah” and “yak yak yak” routine started up again.

Anran really wanted to tell them, “You two should stop arguing and just get married already. Once you’re married, you can argue as much as you want.”

But at that moment, a brand-new kind of mission she had never encountered before appeared.

[No. 1886 Exclusive Faction Mission] [Imperial Government Forces Side]: Confrontation!

Mission Brief: The confrontation between the Morningstar Resistance and the Imperial Government Forces has progressed from the initial probing stage into the stage of open engagement. Both sides aim to eliminate the other.

Mission Rewards: Rewards will be distributed based on individual contribution. Click for details.

The mission rank and repeatability were greyed out and could not be viewed.

Unlike personal missions and team missions,

faction missions were issued to all players within a faction when multiple factions were in conflict.

They were extremely special.

The rewards included EXP, items, chests, titles, medals, and more.

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It could be said that these were among the types of missions most capable of driving players to stir things up.

Time to farm contribution.

The players weren’t around right now, and she just happened to be heading out on a mission. This was the perfect opportunity.

…

Operation Target: Morningstar Far East Branch stronghold!

Operation Details: As the advance force, infiltrate the stronghold and search as much as possible for information regarding Morningstar’s Canyon Continent Branch. If the situation proves untenable, withdraw immediately. The Security Department will bombard the stronghold with missiles, after which proceed to Wutong City at once.

After getting up, Anran washed up, brushed her teeth, carefully changed her shoes, and packed everything she needed to bring into her new backpack.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Anran stroked Aila’s hair.

Really comfortable.

That was what Anran thought.

“You have to come back, okay?” Aila looked at Anran with wide, pleading eyes.

“Mm.”

Anran walked out of the house.

At that moment, she suddenly felt like obstacles were everywhere around her.

She was increasingly starting to feel that staying in Nine Songs was no longer all that comfortable.

The workshop could no longer be used properly.

And when she went out on missions, she couldn’t even bring Aila. There were too many restrictions. In some ways, it might actually be safer for her to act alone.

Of course, staying in Nine Songs also had its benefits: status, information, and so on.

After this mission was over, she would need to weigh it all seriously.