A fist slammed against a tabletop.

"These obstinate Lifers! Why are they so stubborn?!"

Professor Benedict Cortez had lost his temper yet again! A dark rage swept over him as his thoughts turned into a more bloody direction.

Yet soon, his rationality reasserted itself. When he thought about how many military biomechs and bioships were blocking any vessels from entering the inner half of the Prosperous Hill System, he felt helpless.

Patriarch Reginald Cross looked upset as well, but he was very clear that he didn' have the power to change the situation.

"The local military garrison already made their stance clear. As much as we want to rescue our stranded people, we cannot overcome over a hundred-thousand spaceborn biomechs."

The Life Research Association may have become engulfed in a civil war, but the professional military had remained steadfastly neutral.

It was one thing for the military to decide that they didn't want anything to do with the power struggle taking place in the upper echelons. It was another thing for them to actively block the advance of civilian ships that attempted to get close to Prosperous Hill VI to evacuate those who were trapped on the wartorn planet!

Over the span of an entire week, Professor Cortez managed to persuade the rest of the Golden Skull Alliance to adopt his plan on uniting every foreign and visiting fleet.

There were at least tens of thousands of formidable starships lingering in the outer system. If all of them ignored the instructions of the Lifers and advanced forward, there was no way that the military patrols would shoot them all down! The diplomatic outrage that would ensue should have been enough to turn the LRA into a regional pariah!

Yet just as the Golden Skull Alliance had just convinced a tenth of the visiting fleets to form a united front against the Lifers, a substantial collection of trading fleets had already made the first move!

Eight different trading convoys that encompassed hundreds of ships of different classes boldly crossed the border and ignored every warning from the nearby military biomachines to stop and turn around.

Not even warning shots deterred the traders from going forward in order to rescue their people and more importantly trade goods!

The Larkinsons, Glory Seekers and Crossers were just about to follow suit, but they quickly changed their minds when they saw what happened next!

The projection in front of Professor Cortez displayed the aftermath of a slaughter. An innumerable amount of chunks of debris drifted in space served as the only physical proof that a large collection of ships had attempted to test the patience of the local armed forces!

Everyone on a ship that was orbiting the border between the inner and outer system had become absolutely terrified at what had happened!

The strong military patrols hadn't ignored the grave intrusion. Instead, they called in reinforcement and immediately opened fire when they had gathered enough mechs!

The tragedy that unfolded did not need to be described. Although trading fleets customarily traveled with strong escorts in order to deter pirates from raiding their valuable goods, how could these forces withstand the might of a large, organized military force?

Not every private fleet was as formidable as that of the Golden Skull Alliance!

In fact, even if the convoy guard mechs were on par with that of the Cross Clan, they still would have lost!

The Prosperous Hill System was a major commercial port system! The enormous concentration of trade, industry and other activities turned it into a vital strategic location.

It was easy for the military garrison to gather thrice as many mechs as the opposition!

Though the amount of mechs escorting the various visiting fleets were not trivial, their strength was mixed. Not only that, but every foreign force possessed their own thoughts. They weren't united at all and would never be able to match the cohesion of soldiers in the service of an entire state!

Ever since the Lifer military had ruthlessly slaughtered the offending trade fleets, the tentative allies that Professor Cortez secured had all backed off the plan.

No one wanted to test the resolve of the military!

"Are we supposed to sit around and do nothing out here?" Professor Cortez growled.

"It seems so. We are not in our home territory here. The most we can do is stay prepared and be ready to move out if anything changes."

While Patriarch Reginald was not the most conservative clan leader in existence, there were many instances where even a high-tier expert pilot like him was rendered helpless!

This was no fault of his own. He was not a god. In fact, even an ace pilot wouldn't be able to single-handedly bull through so many enemies!

Still, it felt very bad for Reginald Cross to surrender to the current reality.

"Why do you think these soldiers wiped out the intruding trade fleets without remorse?" He asked the guest designer of the Cross Clan. "If the Lifers merely wanted to halt an intrusion, then they could have made an example of just a couple of the offending ships. There was no need to go all the way and wipe the trespassers out to the last man! They were already turning back and fleeing from the military biomechs before the first ship succumbed!"

This was indeed an uncharacteristically forceful response. The military garrison was so powerful that it could have made its point without inflicting heavy losses to the powerful trade companies that operated the fleets.

The news of this massacre had already spread throughout the galactic net! Many people in the star sector gained a very bad impression of the Life Research Association. A lot of established business partners were also considering if they needed to pare down their trading activities with the state!

Professor Cortez hummed as he considered the current situation. "If the officers in charge haven't gone mad, then the military must be following a specific purpose. There has to be a logical reason why the brass would rather offend numerous trading partners and depress foreign trade for years to come."

"The leaders in charge of the military garrison aren't fools." Patriarch Benedict noted. "You can see that from their crisp maneuvers, smooth logistics and excellent discipline. Not a single military unit in space has gone rogue as far as I can tell. There is no way that the massacre that took place earlier is spontaneous."

If this was the case, then there must be an incredibly strong incentive to keep foreigners away from the heart of the Prosperous Hill System!

Professor Cortez glowered. "There has to be an enormous secret in the inner system. Among the settled planets, Prosperous Hill VI is the most dangerous one. Perhaps they are competing for something extremely vital to them and don't want any foreigners spoiling their party."

"What could be so valuable that the factions are going all-out to conquer the planet?"

"I have no clue."

The Crossers weren't the only ones to come to this conclusion. Calabast and Gloriana were also wondering what the local factions were truly fighting for. The collateral damage was already considerable, but the militant Lifers showed no signs of easing their conflict!

"Miaow?" Clixie jumped down from Gloriana's lap and approached the odd eight-legged mammal.

Arnold stopped sniffing and rubbing his side against Calabast's long and tight boots.

"Squeak?"

"Miaow miaow!"

"Squeak…"

"Miaow!" Clixie hissed and darted forward in order to press her paw on top of Arnold's head! 

"Squeak!"

As Clixie showed the mutated arganid clisenta who were in charge aboard the Spirit of Bentheim, the two Hexers both looked troubled as they regarded their chances of rescuing Ves.

Though neither of them were particularly close despite their common origins, this time they were on the same side.

"Have you managed to communicate with Ves and the other stranded Larkinsons?" Gloriana asked.

Calabast shook her head. "There has been no change in the situation. While we know that some sporadic quantum communication nodes are still in working condition, their owners have already cut external access to them. The public is completely cut off from outside contact. We can't even broadcast long-ranged signals to the planet the old-fashioned way. The military garrison has put up a wall of interference over the entire planet. This is a very serious act."

This was yet another sign that something fishy was going on. Prosperous Hill VI was not only the starting location of the Supreme Revolution, but remained hotly contested despite the large number of biomechs that had already perished from the seemingly-pointless fighting!

"Ves.." Gloriana squirmed in her seat and rubbed the wedding band on her ring finger. "I can sense he's alive, but I don't know how he's doing. He could be stuck in a cell and getting tortured right now! We have to get him out of this rotten planet!"

"I want the same thing, Gloriana, but we truly don't have any options."

"Don't you have a stealth shuttle or something?!"

Calabast shook her head. "The chance of getting caught and subsequently losing this valuable asset is too large. I won't mention the difficulty of circumventing all of the mech patrols and security platforms in orbit. Reentry from orbit to surface always generates a lot of heat. If a shuttle dives down quickly, then it will light up like a meteoroid regardless of its active stealth systems. If it dives down slowly, then it has to expend a lot of energy to control its descent, which means that the shuttle's engines and other systems will be outputting too much heat."

"You don't need to tell me that. I'm a mech designer. I know my science." Gloriana grumbled.

"Then you shouldn't have asked this question in the first place."

"I just want you to do something!"

It didn't matter how many times Gloriana yelled at Calabast or other Larkinsons. The clan wasn't strong enough to challenge the might of an entire state!

Complaining was all the Journeyman could do. Without Ves, she felt as if she was missing an entire half of her life. She had entangled herself way too much to her current husband to be able to go without him! She loved him so much that she was even willing to smuggle herself onto the surface if it was possible!

As Gloriana imagined all kinds of suffering that Ves must be going through, the man in question was currently having the time of his life!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

"Hahaha!" Ves laughed as he observed the outcome of his latest test. "I'm making progress! Only three out of twelve test subjects failed to endure the pressure. This is better than yesterday!"

Over the past couple of days, he continued to experiment with the Aspect of Transcendence. The exploded heads and bodies of hundreds of captive and sentenced criminals already confirmed its potency. What Ves sought to do was to retain its useful effect but mitigate the lethal side effects as much as possible!

He constantly tweaked the spiritual foundations of the Aspect of Transcendence and the Aspect of Tranquility. Though he was far from eliminating the risk of death at the moment, he believed the chances of survival were much greater if he subjected this experimental procedure to a strong-willed Larkinson!

"Scum ultimately aren't representative of proper clansmen." Ves muttered.

He continued to perform some follow-up experiments on the surviving test subjects and only stopped when they all expired.

As soon as Ves emerged from his secret lab, someone was already waiting for him in his office.

"Patriarch Ves!" Commander Rivington saluted. "We have just come across a highly controversial piece of intelligence. It's mostly a rumor, I think, but there are enough signs for us to think it is plausible."

Ves raised his eyebrow. "What is it, commander?"

"If you remember, you ordered us to look into whether there is a pinnacle lab nearby. We did so and began to question a lot of locals for unusual signs. We not only succeeded in gathering some clues on the possible location of the Supreme Sage's lab, but also got word that it contains something explosive."

"What is it you're talking about?"

The Lifer-turned-Larkinson took a deep breath before spitting out the answer.

"There is a possibility that the pinnacle lab contains a dose of high-grade life-prolonging treatment, sir. In fact, there is a possibility that it may hold multiple doses!"

Ves completely froze.