Chapter 176

: Back to the Alliance (Part One)
Although Fran strongly preferred Han to stay, Han said goodbye to everyone within an hour, took the Ye Family’s warship and left the Headhunter Star System.
Fran shouted,
What’s so good about the Alliance? Politicians everywhere, deceiving every day. If you ever get tired of the Alliance, come to my place! The Headhunter Star System will always open its doors to you and welcome you anytime, my brother!

Han was also quite touched by this. These aliens were all very straight forward, hanging out with them was indeed quite easy. Sing and drink when you’re happy, and just fight when you aren’t happy, and after the fight everything will be forgotten.

Alright, if someday I can’t dwell in the Milky Way anymore, I will come seek refuge with you!
Han teased back.
Ye Guhong handed a data dish to Han and whispered,
Jincheng already told me why you must see me. Inside the drive is everything I know, originally I wanted to tell you myself and also invite you to come live with us for a while at our base.


But since you have to leave and still have important things to take care of, I won’t keep you. You can see the information yourself.

Han nodded, solemnly took over the disk and asked,
Will the Ye Family continue to move forward?


Yes.
Ye Guhong deepened his voice and said,
Our vanguard fleet already entered the Gulf Stream Star Field (TL: an area even further than Turbid Star Field) and it will soon enter the even further Silent Star Field. Next time if you want to see Weiwei, I’m afraid that you will have to at least chase us into the Gulf Stream Star Field.


But although our main fleet will keep on moving forward, we will still leave behind trade fleets wherever we travel. As long as you want to find us, you will always be able to find Weiwei and I.

These words obviously had another layer of meaning and Han picked it up, but he was more concerned about the ideas in Ye Guhong’s mind.
Smiling, Han said,
Can you give me a rough idea, just how far will you go before you stop?


Stop?
Ye Guhong shook his head and said,
We, the Ye Family, are the oldest expedition family in the Milky Way, we will never stop travelling forward, my grandfather’s grandfather even launched a century-long super expedition and travelled to those places no one in the Milky Way had ever heard of, and we aren’t nowhere close to that far yet.

With a sudden change in tone, Ye Guhong said seriously,
But all the past expeditions we had, no matter how far we go, we would always return back to the Milky Way. But this time, we are not planning to come back anymore.


Why?


The reason is in the disc I gave you. To be honest, I personally don’t like the Alliance. It has been too corrupted, like an old machine. Although it can still barely maintain normal operations, but once the Alliance encounters powerful enemies and needs to fight back, this old machine will collapse.
Ye Guhong did not hide his pessimistic view of the future and said with a worried look.
Shua~
Under Ye Jincheng’s escort, Han left the Headhunter galaxy and started heading back at the fastest speed. It was very urgent, Han must travel non-stop back in order to be on time for the next regular meeting.
Locking himself inside a room, Han and Yuan Yuan started watching the data disc Ye Guhong gave him together.
Yuan Yuan had a holographic projections device installed on him so he projected the contents inside the data disc onto the wall so Han could watch easily.
The data was a record of Ye Guhong’s 8 years long expedition not long ago, and it also included the events after he got back from that voyage when he made the important decision to have the whole family move out of the Milky Way galaxy.
The screen started off with the fleet setting sail from the Milky Way, and since it was an ultra-long distance expedition, Ye Guhong and his men were riding on a specially modified expeditionary cruiser, the Assassin Class.
The Assassin-class expeditionary cruisers emphasized mobility, assuming there were no unexpected risks, it could move at high speeds. At the same time, it was equipped with high-power radar arrays, ultra-long-distance communication relay, and more efficient and more powerful fusion reactors and so on.
This fleet consisted of 7 Assassin-class cruisers, with Ye Guhong on one himself and his men divided onto the remaining 6.
Han surprisingly found out that Ye Guhong went even further than he imagined, and from time to time, his fleet will go through a natural wormhole.
Natural wormholes were a super-space channel between two points, and as the oldest and most powerful explorers, the Ye Family possessed a lot of secret information about wormholes.
The present transition engines, depending on the model, could artificially create wormholes of 10-30 light years in distance, but the diameter of the Milky Way was up to 120,000 light years.
Even the fastest spaceship right now, if it wanted to complete a trip across the Milky Way, still needed 166 days which was more than 5 months.
But with the natural wormholes, there was no distance limit. It might take you and cross only a few light years of distance, but it might also help you directly cross the huge galaxy.
So it is very important to understand the coordinates of these natural wormholes in the universe, and normally if a family learned about the location, they certainly wouldn’t share it with the others.
Ye Guhong and that fleet of his also relied on those natural wormholes to reach a distance that was far beyond Han’s imagination. That journey that took 8 years, if someone else did it, it might take even more than 30 years.
Suddenly, the screen flashed, and a war-ravaged sky appeared.
In space, numerous warship wreckages were floating around, and all the habitable planets had been turned into ruins. Even the star system that the Ye Family’s ancestors once visited had now been completely erased from the universe!
: Back to the Alliance (Part Two)
After Ye Guhong and his expeditionary fleet noticed this, they slowed down and searched around the sky looking for survivors.
They finally arrived at a planet that was covered in radiation and found a group of surviving Kui clan aliens. Because their bodies were radiation-resistant, they lived on a planet where other lifeforms could not live on and fortunately avoided the war.
According to them, the reason this sky became a barren wasteland was because a few years ago, a powerful fleet passed by. That fleet appeared like a swarm of countless locusts, and they killed all the intelligent lifeforms here and took countless resources.
Now, that fleet already left, and the direction they were heading towards the Milky Way.
Ye Guhong was not reconciled and continued to explore further, but the result was finding out that, along that general direction of the universe, almost everything was destroyed, and those civilizations that the Ye Family’s ancestors previously visited all no longer exist.
On the way back, Ye Guhong’s fleet suffered a sudden electromagnetic storm and was annihilated, and only Ye Guhong was able to escape with his excellent senses and return back to the Milky Way alone.
Han let out a long breath and was surprised,
So Ye Guhong decided to move the whole family out of the Milky Way because of this. He felt that this fleet that was capable of destroying star systems was the prehistoric civilization mentioned by the Protector and they are now coming back to the Milky Way.


And Ye Guhong didn’t believe in the Alliance at all, and he didn’t trust that the Alliance will be a match for the prehistoric civilization, so he decided to leave. Sigh, he actually should’ve submitted this information to the Alliance earlier.

Yuan Yuan whispered,
Master, to be honest, the Ye Family didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve done some research, because the Ye Family is an explorer family, this family was always working with star fields outside of the Alliance, and it’s natural that they don’t have any emotions towards the Alliance.


And the Alliance also has very strict laws. The use of robots will get a whole family killed, the manufacturing of dark beasts will get a whole family killed, and spreading rumors and causing panic will also get a whole family killed.


If the Ye Family goes to the Alliance and tells them that the enemies were on their way, they will most likely be captured as terrorists spreading rumors, or maybe even be executed. The Alliance has done this kind of stuff before.

Han nodded and was very impressed with Yuan Yuan’s ability to analysis sensible aspects of the information just like a human being.

Yep, the Ye Family has never been close with the Alliance, but now that he handed me the information, I can’t just sit back and watch. I must let the Alliance know what kind of situation we are facing right now.
Han muttered.

But the law.
Yuan Yuan was a little worried and was about to say something.

No buts.
Han earnestly said,
Ma Jingkong, Ms. White, the Lesa and Riley brothers, they all sacrificed their lives for the Alliance, and I don’t want to see them dying in vain. As the only survivor, I must shoulder the responsibilities. Also, Earth is also in the Milky Way. If the Milky Way was really defeated and goes extinct, that’s also not something I want to see.


Okay.
Yuan Yuan helplessly spread his two little arms and said,
I just think that the politicians in the Alliance wouldn’t necessarily listen. After all, Master you are a soldier, but they are politicians.

Under the Ye Family’s full support, Han soon entered the galactic wilderness. During the trip they also went through some natural wormholes. On the precious data side, Ye Guhong didn’t have any reservations towards Han and even gave him a star map with the natural wormholes marked.
After entering the galactic wilderness, Han met up with the robotic fleet led by Raksha, No. Demon Claw was still docked at Qinshang Empire so Han needed a new ship. The research robot Source already manufactured one for Han, and after Han picked it up, he would be able to continue the trip.
Han boarded ship factory #1, and saw the heavy-assault spaceship, Moon-Goddess Class.
It originally had a streamlined appearance and beautiful silver hull, anyone familiar with the starship industry in the Milky Way could see how extraordinary and special it was from their first glance.
But under Han’s request, Source not only modified the inside of this ship, but also made a camouflage for its appearance. Just from outside, now it doesn’t look like a unique second-generation starship at all, but more like a privately manufactured ship.
Starships needed blueprints to be created, and many small shipyards that couldn’t afford to buy blueprints would design some weird-looking starships themselves, and those were called privately manufactured ships.
Those ships usually had very low strength and poor performance, but they still had the competitive advantage of being cheap so it still had some market share.
Source looked at this Moon Goddess Class 2nd generation starship and said,
Master, this ship has been significantly modified in accordance with your request, equipped with 4 sets of 10 mn transition engine thrusters. The weapon systems, energy systems, and radar systems have all been redesigned as well.


Coupled with how the Moon Goddess Class was originally already a second generation starship with superior performance, if it’s 1 on 1, unless the enemy dispatches flagships, it is very difficult for any ship in the Milky Way to be our match.


That strong?
Han asked in surprise.

This you will know once you personally try it, the overall performance of second generation starships are still 15% higher than our previous No. Demon Claw model’s data. Unless someone would also modify their ship to the extreme like you did. Of course, that’s impossible, you took everything apart, and the whole ship is just performance-enhancing equipment after performance-enhancing equipment.
Source said.
Han nodded,
Very good, I don’t have time to stay here anymore and must leave now. Your most important job right now is to expand the size of the fleet and raise the production speed to its limit!

Source said,
Now it’s already operating at full load. If we want to further increase production capacity, then we will need to increase the working robots and also the combat robots.


That won’t be easy, the Alliance prohibited all robot-trading, but I will try to find a solution.
Han said with some frustration, perhaps it’s just like Ye Guhong said, the Alliance was too decadent, putting a ban on everything and placing everyone under strict management.
Shua~
Han hit the road once again. Destination, return to the Milky Way.
Only this time, Han has changed a lot since the past, piloting the second generation starship, with an Ares-class Star-Strangling Boa in his hand, fully confident.