Each one valuable in its own right!! And they were gone just like that!! If I do not crush you humans to bits, I am no longer a member of the Star Fleet!!" the Emperor swore.

And he wasn’t the only one who felt a sharp sting of pain in his chest! There were the leaders of the Alchemy Association and the other coalition powers whose secret forces had made up the Hegemony fleet.

While the Star Empire and, even more so, the Alchemy Association bore the brunt of the losses, the other newly promoted Tier 1 powers and those with lower accumulation felt an even greater pain!

Anything they lost was like a sting of poison to them! After all, these were shadow forces that they had invested a huge amount of resources into, and they were gone just like that!!

This directly weakened their foundations. For some, it was even worse—like the Sun Republic, the Bright Light Kingdom, and the Snow Fire Empire! These were newly promoted Tier 1—or, in terms of the universal structure, Tier 3—powers...

...........................................................

(Note: The ranking and power structure of the novel has been quite confusing since the start! My fault, yes! I have changed it quite a few times to make it more understandable, but unconsciously, I added a bit more confusion doing that. But now, I have a solution! And I would like to implement it!! This is the last time I’m doing it, I promise! And yes, it will be much simpler to understand and relate to!

What we will follow now, instead of the old tier 0, tier 3, the two tier ones, and Arc tech, is a straightforward progression: Tier 0, Tier 1, and so on forth!!

The existing tiers will be adjusted based on this:

A Tier 4 will now be Tier 0 (the new starting point).

A Tier 3 will now be Tier 1. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

A Tier 2 will remain the same as a Tier 2 classification.

A Tier 1 will now be Tier 3.

As even the Void Fleet’s Generation One tech directly correlates to the peak technology of a Tier 4 civilization!! They are just starting to uncover the Tier 5 technologies of a Tier 5 civilization!!

And as for the "Tier 1 Superpowers" of the Milky Way, they are ultimately a Tier 3 power as well, taking small steps toward Tier 4 technologies.

The "magic tech"—the term introduced in the early Chapters—is the starting point of Tier 4 technology, where a power just starts research on and utilization of dark matter (a form of mana).

By that definition, we could forcefully call them a quasi-Tier 4 power, though they aren’t exactly completely at that level yet.

Anyway, that is it! Going forward, the tech and civilization levels will be classified based on these tiers, from Tier 0 upwards!!)

...........................................................

Quickly, they all reached out to each other. The Prime Minister of the Sun Republic—an old figure in his 60s or 70s—asked with a pale face, "What confidence do you have now, Emperor of the Star Empire and President of the Alchemy Association? One move by the Void humans was more than enough to take care of an enormous fleet sixty thousand strong, not even counting the pirates and merchants in the mix!!"

The King of the Bright Light Kingdom also spoke up, frustration laid clear on his face. "And they escaped without suffering major losses! Even the planted bombs came back to bite the reinforcement fleets that went back to help!! If it’s like this now, what confidence do we have that we can actually defeat the Void Fleet?!"

The Empress of the Snow Fire Empire—a cold and simultaneously fiery beauty—also retorted, "And that is when we are planning to attack their home turf! Seeing the buildup they have done around the outer region of the Minotaur clan’s territory, even I have low confidence in taking those places over with my empire’s elite legion.

What makes you think their holy region won’t have even greater levels of defense systems in place? If that is the case, could we even break through, much less survive when they have 140,000 ships along with other defense structures in the mix? Could our coalition fleet of 220,000 ships straight up take them down?

The Emperor of the Star Empire and the President of the Alchemy Association branch looked at each other with dark expressions. For what the three had spoken was completely right; there was nothing wrong with their observations and speculations!

But at this point, they were all too deep into it, and taking a step back would do more harm than not going in.

The Star Emperor was under immense pressure because, silently but surely, the noble factions were revolting against him! And while no such rebellion was happening to the Alchemy Association President, the Association was still suffering one setback after another.

Their supply routes were now under constant attack by an unknown force, which had already harmed about twenty to thirty percent of the association branch’s trade.

Even the main branch had suffered setbacks because of the disruption to their supply chains!

He had even heard that many people within the Association were shouting that it was the President’s fault for his lack of ability to resolve this problem, which had already been going on for a month with no signs of stopping!! Above all, two of the main fleets of the Association had also been sunk by this same enemy.

So, he was also in an immediate predicament that had only two solutions: either he took down the hidden forces—which he still wasn’t able to locate, and even when he did, he was unable to defeat them—or, the second option, which was to create a massive merit in his name to silence the opposing voices.

And that could only be done by taking over the Holy Region in a short frame of time!!

Both of them knew of each other’s situations, as they had already talked about it, forming a true partnership together this time!

On one side, the Star Emperor knew that to maintain an iron grip on his throne, he needed to show massive benefits to the public and the old traditionalists so that they wouldn’t be appeased by the rebel noble factions and start a movement. By showing them upward growth and prospects, he knew he could stabilize the situation—and to do that, he was already prepared to go all out.

The Alchemy Association President was no different; he was very much prepared to go all out as well, ready to mobilize every single force that he could!

Thinking about their agreement, both of their faces immediately regained their color. Nodding at each other, the Association President spoke first. "If you can guess it, so can we! Indeed, it is just as you all say: how can we take down these Void humans when they can achieve something like this while suffering almost no losses?

We have no idea about their defenses—they could be super strong. Can we even bypass that? Can we really take them down with our current numbers and strength? I have my doubts as well!"

Hearing him agree, the three main speakers and the seven other leaders sucked in a cold breath. Some of their faces turned cold, while others grew red with anger, and they were about to shout! They had already invested so much, and now the person responsible for the plan was claiming he had no confidence, which made them furious!

But before they could say anything, the President of the Association countered, "But that is only if things remain as they are right now!

"Let me tell you all: the Star Emperor and I have formally chosen to move our maximum strength. Mobilizing whatever we can without leaving our own empires and association defenseless, we will join this mission personally! Quickly doubling, and even tripling, our strength!!"

He looked at all ten of them and asked, "Tell me now... do you think that with this much strength, both in numbers and might, we can finally bring the Void humans under our shoes?"

"And not only that!! Using our immense financial strength, we will invite many big mercenary forces and guilds into the mix!! We will also mobilize the entire Orc clan and equip them with at least a Tier 3 ship ourselves!! Tell me now... is this not enough?!" He slammed the table, sending shivers down the spines of the others!!

Those shivers quickly turned into pure excitement. They praised the plan, shouting, "What strength! This is true strength!!"

"We don’t doubt you, President, nor you, Emperor! We really don’t!! With these kinds of numbers on our side, what is the Void Fleet? What are the Void humans? I dare say no Tier 3 power—and even their superpowers—would dare to take us head-on without thinking twice!!"

"Good," the Star Emperor said this time with a cold face. "Then go prepare your fleets and your people. We don’t have much time left!!"