Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Then, isn’t he ‘the bane of space pirates’?”

Li Yao was greatly interested in the unconventional General Lei Chenghu. He couldn’t help but wonder what kind of intriguing sparks would be raised if Lei Chenghu’s fleet ran into Bai Xinghe’s.

Li Linghai continued, “Under the dominating suppression of General Lei Chenghu, the space pirates in the dozens of Sectors in the fourth quadrant of the Imperium almost went extinct. Even the Sector Masters and the warlords of those worlds were shuddering in fear under his iron fists, not having the courage to do anything recklessly.”

“Wait.”

Li Yao frowned and said, “Wasn’t General Lei’s target the space pirates? Did it have anything to do with the Sector Masters and the warlords of those Sectors?”

“You are still new to the place, and you do not know what the space pirates wandering in the infinite sea of stars in the Imperium really are.”

Li Linghai explained, “Think about it. The Imperium has united the center of the cosmos since a thousand years ago. It also has powerful troops. Is there any room of activity for the space pirates and the wandering bandits?”

Li Yao thought for a moment and realized that it did make sense. The last Sector with particularly rampant space pirates that he met was the Flying Star Sector, which did not have a central government but only had a loose coalition of major sects.

Later, the space pirates of the Flying Star Sector were throttled by the “Grand Illusionary Soldier Project” proposed by the six major sects. Their room of activity was smaller and smaller, and they were about to die in the end.

If the Grand Illusionary Soldier Project had not been a scheme with ill intentions since the very beginning, the space pirates of the Flying Star Sector definitely would’ve been annihilated by them.

Then, here came the question. The so-called “Grand Illusionary Soldiers” adopted the technologies of remote control on battle puppets from the Imperium of True Human Beings. If the Flying Star Sector was already capable of eliminating space pirates with such a technology, it should be more than easy for the Imperium of True Human Beings, which should’ve had more advanced Grand Illusionary Soldiers, to deal with the insignificant space pirates, right?

“In the Imperium, those guys who are called ‘space pirates’ on the surface can be more precisely addressed as ‘privateers’.”

Li Linghai sniffed and said, “The Imperium is simply too vast and boundless. There are all kinds of conflicts between the nobles and the emperor, the nobles and the magnates, and the magnates and the sects. It is impossible to establish a powerful central government to manage the local areas directly, and autonomy has been forced to be granted to them exactly like feudalism in the past.

“There is no need to mention the direct fiefs of the four Kurfürst families, which are essentially independent kingdoms with the power of levying taxes, forging coins, enlisting soldiers, and nominating officials. They are even threatening the capital.

“Even the Sector Masters and the warlords at the peripheral worlds are also lawless dominators who can only see their own territories. For the interests in trade routes, resource planets, or world fragments, they often had frictions with their neighbors.

“In order to check the smaller nobles and the warlords at the peripheral worlds, the four Kurfürst families intentionally allow them to attack each other and encourage them to escalate their frictions.

“Of course, on the surface, everybody is a citizen of the Imperium and an Immortal Cultivator, with the lightning trident emblem painted on the starships and the crystal suits. It is impossible for them to wage a war on each other with their fleets. So, two ways are often adopted to settle their conflicts.

“The way that is open and protected by the law of the Imperium is ‘arena games’.

“When there are trade conflicts or competitions in resources, each party will send a certain number of champions to have a fair match in the arena to decide the conflicts.

“Strength is highly worshipped in the Imperium. Such a way to resolve conflicts wins the support of most people. It has even evolved into an extremely popular way of entertainment. When two fairly large worlds send their famous experts to ‘settle the conflicts’, it is not unusual that they can catch billions of eyes. They are certainly much more attractive than the slaughter stream platforms.

“In the early years, when the order and ethos of the Imperium were not corrupted yet, most of the Immortal Cultivators still remembered the glory in the past and quite respected the system of the arena games. If they were defeated in the arena, they would carry out the ruling dutifully and give away part of their interests.

“However, the Imperium has been gradually decaying in the past ten thousand years, to the point that honor and law mean nothing today. More and more people show no respect for the arena games now.

“Now that they cannot seize the clandestine interests with the army under their command openly, ‘privateers’ inevitably come into being.

“They are space pirates in name but are in fact supported by the warlords and the nobles, and even the four Kurfürst families. Many of the ‘space pirates’ are actually the regular army in disguise.

“Many Immortal Cultivators are the prominent, upper-class men in their own world, and some might even have titles when they are in the Imperium. But when they sneak into other worlds, they will immediately change into ruthless and bloodthirsty bandits!”

“Hiss…”

Li Yao took a deep breath. He was certainly no stranger to “privateers”. As space pirates with official licenses, they were ten times more difficult to deal with than the common space pirates, because they were supported by the authorities in terms of delivery of supplies and trophies!

Li Linghai went on, “The dozens of Sectors in the fourth quadrant of the Imperium are almost all the territories of the small nobles and the warlords. Their territories are deeply entangled with each other, and the friction among them can be very frequent.

“When there are a lot of frictions, there are bound to be a lot of space pirates. You rob me today, and I’ll kill you tomorrow. Although the intensity of the battles is not very high, there has never been a ceasefire for a hundred years. Not only have the people been suffering, the local warlords and Sector Masters are also mired in the meaningless war of attrition, with no hope of complete peace.

“On the surface, General Lei Chenghu was trying to eliminate the space pirates, but in fact, he intended to completely settle the chaos in the fourth quadrant and establish a stable order.”

Li Yao exclaimed and began to feel that “Lei Chenghu” was truly not a common Immortal Cultivator.

“At first, nobody believed that Lei Chenghu was capable of resolving the chaotic situation in the fourth quadrant where everybody hated each other. In fact, barely anyone knew his ambitions—General Lei has always been more of a doer than a talker.”

Li Linghai said in admiration, “At first, General Lei visited one world after another, met the local governors, and proposed for everyone to establish a little organization to strike the space pirates that were getting more and more untamable. In order not to stimulate the capital, the organization could be given a low-key name such as ‘Sailing Route Guards’.

“At that time, nobody knew how terrifying Lei Chenghu was yet. They all considered him a fool. Even though they were patient enough to let him finish his proposal, for the sake that he was from ‘the Lei family of Guangyuan’, they would often burst into laughter after they saw him off politely.

“The so-called space pirates were all in fact privateers that were disguised by the regular armies, but even if they were not, how could the ‘Sailing Route Guards’ really work when the dozens of worlds were not united but each had their own plans?

“Nobody paid any attention to General Lei or took the young family leader’s words seriously. Many of them sighed that the Lei family of Guangyuan had chosen an idiotic leader when it had been passed on for almost a thousand years. They believed that the Lei family would soon decline.

“However, after General Lei annihilated three privateers in thunderous strikes in only half a year, those Sector Masters and warlords discovered that they were wrong. Greatly wrong.

“General Lei was serious. He was truly determined to end the mayhem in the fourth quadrant even at the cost of all the resources that the Lei family of Guangyuan had accumulated for a thousand years as well as his own life and soul.

“General Lei Chenghu was not exactly a talented great general or a judicious politician at the beginning. He was only a selfless man who strived with nothing but seriousness.

“All the Sector Masters and warlords had their selfish interests. They all wanted to hide from the attacks and conceal their own strength, not daring to have head-on clashes with General Lei’s fleet. Instead, they tried to attract General Lei’s troops to other people’s territories and even offered a lot of supplies and intelligence to General Lei for that.

“General Lei, however, simply regarded every battle to annihilate the space pirates as his last battle where he would perish with the enemy. He did not consider the interests of his own fleet at all. Naturally, he was invincible.

“His commanding arts that were slightly naïve and immature at the beginning were gradually honed in decades of battles.

“Then, with a true heart of selflessness, he traveled among the local warlords and leaders nonstop for decades, trying his best to eliminate the conflicts among them and show them the benefits of abandoning the frictions and trading with each other. Gradually, the foundation of the privateers was no more.

“Just like that, decades later, the organization named ‘Sailing Route Guards’ was indeed established!

“Although it had a harmless name and sounded like a co-op of the police of different worlds, it was in fact an enormous organization that included a package deal about military, trade, tariff coordination, and even development banks.

“It is even safe to say that it was a half-alliance of the peripheral worlds at the fourth quadrant of the Imperium with a span of military, politics, and economy!

“After completely destroying all the privateers of two Sectors that refused to obey the orders of the ‘Sailing Route Guards’, and when the army of the coalition army marched at their capitals, nobody dared to question General Lei’s authority in the fourth quadrant anymore.”

Hearing that, Li Yao couldn’t help but remark with his eyes glittering, “This General Lei Chenghu must be a deeply-hidden schemer if he is not a model soldier who is really selfless!”

Li Linghai smiled and nodded her head. “Yes. At that time, everybody thought that General Lei Chenghu was a deeply-hidden ambitious schemer, and he had used the disguise of selflessness for decades before he finally became the leader of the many worlds at the periphery of the fourth quadrant.

“Even the four Kurfürst families were shocked by General Lei Chenghu’s performance and considered him a great threat. They came up with many plans to deal with him.

“That was more than a hundred years ago. At that time, the War of Black Wind that shocked the entire Imperium took place. The Imperium suffered an unprecedented brutal failure in the five border worlds including the Black Wind Sector!”