Until now, I have not met the Melroy leader named Barrian. Apart from the information extracted from Pandora's memory, which showed that he was an old man who looked as hale and hearty as Turazzo, I knew very little about the greatest traitor and bigot in history. No one knew what was going on in his mind, and no one knew how furious this traitor would be when faced with the rebellion. Barrian had completely retreated into seclusion. Intelligence showed that he had not left his palace ever since the appearance of the Imperial Army. He had always been hiding in a secret place, remotely commanding this disastrous war. When the world-wide slave rebellion began to attack the Melroy military base, he only issued three cold and short orders to suppress it. I guess this secretive and secretive way of doing things could be Barrian's way of covering up his panic. He needed to use mysterious whereabouts and short and direct orders from time to time to maintain his calm and inviolable image. But now I am very curious, when the strange plague broke out in the Holy Kingdom, did Barrian still maintain his calm?
This plague was strange, and it broke out without warning. The Melroy people had no way to explain why it appeared and how it spread, let alone the principle of this plague. In the eyes of the more conventional medical experts, the infection that occurred in the Holy Kingdom could not even be called a disease. The symptoms of the plague began to show on the third day of the slave rebellion, and within twenty-four hours, it had spread throughout the entire planet of the Holy Kingdom. The Melroy medical experts speculated that this "disease" might have been lurking on this planet for several days, and it might even have appeared together with the Imperial Army. Otherwise, they could not explain how a disease could appear in every corner of the planet at the same time. They called this "disease" "Panic Syndrome." Those who were infected with the "disease" would not have any symptoms of fever or physical damage. The bodies of the patients did not show any signs of damage, but they became weaker day by day and began to fall into all kinds of extreme emotions. They were haunted by nightmares, visions of being bombarded by the Empire's fleet, and hallucinations of their souls being tortured for eternity after death overwhelmed the bodies and minds of the "patients." The initial symptoms of the infected were panic, easily frightened, and neurotic. Then they began to develop severe paranoia and extreme fear of being alone. This prompted them to do everything possible to communicate with others. Only when they were with their own kind could they feel a little safer. Then the symptoms worsened. They could not rest and began to hallucinate. After forty-eight hours, the patients would not be able to tell the difference between reality and dreams.
At this time, depending on the strength of the infected's willpower, the patients would gradually "recover" or be completely controlled by the hallucinations. The former would fall into a state of uncontrollable depression and grief. They would wander around looking for someone to tell them about the terrible scenes they had encountered in the hallucinations, nagging like an abandoned wife. But in the end, they seemed to have shaken off the hallucinations and gradually "recovered." Meanwhile, the latter would begin to pull out their guns and fire at the enemies in their eyes — if they had guns. The enemies in the hallucinations included ferocious monsters, Empire soldiers pouncing on them, twisted shadows, or their primary school teachers. The people who were subdued would scream the names of these enemies in the hallucinations until they were scared to death.
These were the symptoms of the "plague" that broke out in the Divine Kingdom. It appeared to be an extreme mental illness, but it was contagious. Statistics and growth curves showed that the symptoms were constantly contagious and spread from person to person. But the Melovans' medical and psychiatrists could not find a way to stop the spread no matter how hard they racked their brains. Even most of them began to show symptoms of the infection. They hid under thick protective clothing, behind remote monitoring devices, and even simply read the reports on paper. But they were still infected — it was a nightmare for every Melovan in the Divine Kingdom. And what was even more nightmarish was that while the Divine Kingdom was in chaos, our Imperial Army was openly marching towards all of their major military nodes.
This was a mass collapse point close to the Melovans' capital system. It was originally a large and isolated star system, but the Melovans detonated a large space implosion bomb during the battle, causing the star system to turn into ashes. Now, all the matter here was rapidly being sucked towards the center of the battlefield. It would not be long before a young black hole appeared here. The Imperial Army's ships were damaged by the Melovans' suicidal attack, but overall, it was still a rather good victory. The Empire Admiral and the Royal Fleet quietly hovered at a distance of twenty-six light seconds away from the battlefield, silently watching the wreckage on the battlefield being sucked towards the mass collapse point that could not be seen by the naked eye. The end of this battle meant that ninety percent of the Melovans' regular army had been wiped out, and now this huge Empire had basically come to a standstill.
But Barrian still had a trump card — I was very curious when he was going to make his move.
"Don't tell me they were killed by Sandora's Soul Plague right away?" Shallow Shallow yawned as she lay on the tactical projection device. In the battle just now, she had used her own power to isolate the fleet from the Melovans' self-destruct attack, and now she seemed to be in low spirits. "That thing looks like it's going to defy the heavens …"
"Not really. The Soul Plague is targeted at eighty percent of the ordinary Melovans, and the twenty percent of the elite should be able to resist the infection … But there is one thing I agree with, that thing is really awesome."
I recalled Sandora's introduction of her meticulously crafted Soul Plague, and I felt goosebumps all over my body. The Melovans would never be able to find a way to stop the infection, even if they knew that the initial source of infection was those two 'deserters', even if they knew the general infection route, they would still not be able to stop this thing.
The Soul Plague was spread through all forms of thought activity, and the direct way of infection was through communication.
Any form of thought activity, as long as it met the criteria set by Sandora, would become the seedbed of the Soul Plague. It would cause destruction through your thoughts, and all the negative emotions and hallucinations caused by the Soul Plague came from the infected person's own memories and subconscious, which made it so that there was no widespread and effective treatment for it. And the way it spread covered almost all forms of communication between people: eye contact, conversations, rumors, videos, voice recordings, and even biographies written on paper. Sandora's power in her Glory form could distort the laws of the world, to the point that her Soul Plague could spread through these completely illogical channels. As long as you came into contact with the personal information of the infected person, and through this information, you might be able to understand the mentality and personality of the infected person. Then be careful, the seed of darkness had already taken root in your heart — it was that terrifying.
Of course, the effect of the Soul Plague would be weakened when it was spread through those channels with "weak information connection", such as remote cameras and voice recordings. The more times it was transferred, the more severe the weakening would be. This should be the only weakness of this terrible "disease".
The outbreak of the plague in the Holy Kingdom spread rapidly through these channels. The more developed the technology, the easier it was for people to communicate, not to mention a civilization of Melroy's level. The staff responsible for investigating the condition of the infected person became the first batch of victims after talking directly with the source of the disease, followed by their superiors, colleagues, family, friends, and even any passersby who made eye contact with them or greeted them began to be infected. Then the infection spread to other places through video materials. Reports and video materials about the disease were placed in the Melroy database for public dissemination. Every Melroy medical worker and psychiatrist who read those words spread the infection to a wider range. Until now, the Soul Plague had been strengthened to its design limit: In the Holy Kingdom, where the atmosphere was the densest, if you knew the words "Soul Plague", and you happened to be a Melroy, then congratulations, you won the bid — through words and the ability to think, the primer of madness was placed in the mind of the victim.
However, it should be mentioned that the contamination of the Soul Plague was only limited to the radicals. Sandora had set a "switch" in the Soul Plague, and that was the greatest imaginary enemy of the Empire, and the greatest imaginary enemy of the conservatives had long been Barrian. Therefore, the conservative Melroy were the only survivors of this plague. Of course, they were also very smart. In order to prevent themselves from being exposed, the conservative Melroy in the infected area was now also pretending to be crazy.
However, it was a pity that the Soul Plague might be able to destroy an ordinary race, but it could not fundamentally destroy the Melroy people. Twenty percent of them were completely immune to this degree of infection, and among the remaining people, there were also a considerable number of individuals who could control their own behavior even if they fell into negative emotions. The plague caused them to fall into chaos, but for a race that had been hammered by the old Empire, this kind of chaos was not a disaster.
"Look, there are already slave riots everywhere in the thirteen universes. The regular Melroy army has already been defeated by the Empire, and they are still using the police to harass the slaves." I looked at the report in front of me, it was sent by Turazzo. "And the plague is spreading in the capital world. Barrian is really calm. "
"It's not that he is calm," Missy shrugged. "He is riding a tiger, and it's hard to get off. The slave armed forces are holding up his police force and administrative system. In fact, I can see that Barrian is no longer concerned about the slave rebellion. He is overwhelmed by the infection of his people and the advancement of the Imperial Army. However, his government is trapped in the vast ocean of the people's war — how miserable!"
Barrian was indeed miserable, but he only had himself to blame. No one cared about what this tyrant was thinking. The Imperial Army was still advancing at an alarming rate. Apart from the capital world, the other twelve worlds were now gradually returning to peace. Our army had cleanly destroyed every place where the rebels were stationed, leaving no survivors in any of the battles. Now, all the squadrons were carrying out the finishing touches in the local battlefields. Most of the main forces had returned to this universe and met up with the Royal Fleet and the flagship of the Third Legion. A small portion of the fleet had spread out and sent out small units to assist the slaves in eliminating the remaining local Melroy police. The latter were really miserable now. Although they were already threatened by the Imperial Army when they set off, at least they looked majestic and glorious. Now, the Admonitions were holed up in the small transport ships and outposts, running out of ammunition and energy. Most of them had already given up on asking for help from their superiors, because their superiors were also asking for help from their superiors, or simply did not exist anymore. The enraged slaves used up the ammunition of the Admonitions with human lives and began to harvest these vicious rulers. This situation was actually on the verge of going out of control. The slaves and the slave fleets were full of anger, but they had only a limited number of enemies to vent it on. Before they could find a new goal for their race, they might be destroyed by their own rage. The current slave race was even a little similar to the Melroy people who had just defected. They suddenly lost their shackles and discovered that they could really destroy the homes of their old masters. So, the entire race fell into a grand carnival. So, if we did not guide the slave race, I was very worried that this slave race would become another disaster.
We had no time to attend to other matters, which was why this task was handed over to Turazzo and the organized resistance groups that he was in contact with. The latter were the most suitable for this task since they had unprecedented influence among the people who were on the brink of revelry. In this particular battle, our Imperial warships that had appeared out of nowhere and were unparalleled in power were not as influential as the leaders of the resistance forces who were uncouth in appearance.
As the Imperial Army continued to advance, we also made contact with Turazzo's Conservatives. Most of them were now registered in the Imperial Army's identification system. In fact, we could have helped to bring these Conservatives out, but they took the initiative to stay around the Radicals. This was very dangerous because in this war, the Conservatives had been actively helping the slaves who were staging a riot and obstructing the military operations of the Radicals many times. Once they were exposed, Barrian would definitely eliminate every "traitor" that was found. However, the representatives of the Conservatives and Barrian expressed that they were willing to take this risk. They believed that if they left now, they would not be able to carry out a lot of follow-up work. If they stayed around the Radicals, they could continue to obstruct Barrian.
I think they probably had the mentality of atoning for their crimes. Maybe the Conservatives hoped to get as high a rating as possible before the end of the war, so that they would be able to reduce their punishment after the military trial. I won't comment too much on this thought. After the war, the military trial would definitely take place. As for how they would be sentenced, it would be up to the Supreme Court of the Empire to decide. As far as I was concerned, the actions of the Conservatives were indeed very satisfactory. Under their active efforts, they had already reduced the number of unnecessary casualties among the slave races. Now, every innocent life they saved was a bargaining chip to reduce their punishment in the military court. So, let them continue to work hard.
After a few days, the war was nearing its end.
The "Nation of God" was right in front of us, and it was now only one warp away from our main fleet. Twelve of the thirteen worlds ruled by Barrian had completely fallen. The starships of the Empire, filled with angry warriors, had destroyed all the military nodes of those worlds in the past half a month. Of course, they had also been fiercely resisted and suffered a certain degree of damage in the process. But fortunately, there was the Mass Production Bubble that was half the size of a basketball court, so the damaged units could always be continuously replenished. The Mellowa race was on the verge of collapse under the storm-like offensive of the Empire. EOP-03 and the Galaxy Flash had almost wiped out 90% of their population. Now, the last bit of Barrian's army was entrenched in the sky above the Nation of God.
The final battle broke out at noon in the Empire Standard Time. The Imperial Army first launched a round of hyperspace firepower to destroy the gravitational traps in the star system where the Nation of God was located. After that, the entire army forcibly warped into the star system. Before that, the Special Warfare Echelon of the Third Fleet had already sealed off all material transportation to the outside of the star system to ensure that no fish would slip through the net.
The cold metal planet of the Nation of God was just as bright as the last time we saw it. It was glowing with a golden glow, but it was lifeless. The last time Liliana and I entered this planet alone, we saw the greatest atrocity of Barrian. This time, we came with thousands of men and horses to end the rule of that tyrant.
The Mellowa fleet was already waiting in the high orbit of the planet. It was really hard for them to persevere in such a catastrophic war until the end. They were still able to organize a resistance until now. This was probably the only commendable thing about the chief spawn of the old Empire. But these fleets looked weak. There were only a few Commander-class aircraft carriers, and most of the ships that filled the defense line were auxiliary ships. One-third of them did not even have the markings of a regular army. This was not Barrian's regular army.
His regular army had long been defeated. Now, only the planetary defense fleet and the "police force" were left. Due to the spread of the Soul Plague, even these remaining forces were greatly reduced. Barrian had almost no ordinary soldiers at his disposal now. The only ones who could still maintain themselves under the plague were the high-ranking officers of the former Mellowa. These once high and mighty false gods who were worshipped in the "temple" had no choice but to put down their pride and personally operate the reactors and navigators. They even put on their armor and charged into battle. Sandora's Soul Plague had almost exhausted their last bit of strength. Without a doubt, they were only holding up a defense line made of paper.
"First echelon, fire at will! Second echelon, ignore these things blocking the way. Directly bombard the planet! " Since the conservatives of Turazzo had already moved to a safe place, we could attack without restraint. She pulled out her sword and unleashed her power. "Leave no one alive. Victory belongs to the Emperor!"
But the moment our attack began, a large group of black figures suddenly appeared on the battlefield!
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