Starting from the Planetary Governor

Chapter 1423: Chapter 808: Dark Side Expedition, Year 27_2

The other task is to establish a wide and strong line of defense outside the Alliance’s northern territory, preventing any potential threats from the Scarlet Scar.

Among these two tasks, the latter holds even greater importance.

So far, after twenty-seven years of expedition, the North Line has captured roughly over four hundred worlds.

Compared to the West Line, this number falls far behind.

The West Line averages almost one world every two days, while the North Line? Averaging, it takes almost a month to capture one.

Far behind indeed.

But it’s not because the North Line is ineffective; the difficulty faced, compared to the West Line, differs greatly.

Many of the worlds encountered by the North Line fall under the safety zone policy in the West Line, requiring the establishment of safety zones. The number of worlds that require the Extinction Order is far greater than in the West Line.

The safety zone policy that Gu Hang admires has long been proposed in the North Line, but it could never become mainstream.

The primary reason lies in the differing environments faced.

If according to West Line standards, most of the worlds in the North Line would be subjected to the safety zone policy, and quite a portion of them, even if safety zones were established, couldn’t hold out on their own.

But in the North Line, because a defense line needs to be established, a considerable portion of worlds cannot be abandoned.

Hence they must be tackled one by one, and efficiency is certainly not expected to be as high as the West Line.

Additionally, there’s a constant need to deal with enemies occasionally emerging from the Scarlet Scar. Not as exaggerated as needing to sacrifice a planet’s troops as bait to tackle a Demon Prince in battles like on Oath Star, but each minor warband and Demon Rift Corps emerging is troublesome.

While their numbers are not large, typically not grand corps, the elite small units are even more challenging. They cause quite a bit of destruction and are extremely difficult to catch. Even if caught, it’s not that easy to eliminate them; any oversight would allow them to break out, making it really troublesome to deal with.

This results not only in slow progress for the North Line but with a considerably higher intensity in combat, with the highest casualty rates among the three lines.

After fighting for roughly seven years, the Alliance feels somewhat overwhelmed. Not that they cannot persevere, but sustaining such substantial support for the North Line while recapture speed remains slow doesn’t bode well for future development even if recaptured…

This led the Alliance central command, after thorough discussion, to decide to adjust the strategy. In the North Line, the strategy shifted from demanding the recapture of more worlds to establishing a defensive line to protect the northern face of the Alliance, forming a buffer zone of roughly three hundred worlds, which should suffice.

Three hundred worlds might not completely cover the entire northern face of the Alliance. Realistically, achieving this goal requires about six hundred or so worlds. But once three hundred are formed, it can manage to provide some coverage. Moreover, crucially, even if a Chaos Great Enemy did come along, insisting on an outflanking move to attack the Alliance’s homeland, it could be cut off and besieged.

Being able to establish a ’Space Great Wall’ formed by these three hundred worlds spanning across four star domains allows the North Line to be generally secure.

Thus, letting the North Line primarily maintain its position, drastically reducing the work of recapturing worlds outward.

While it sounds a bit apologetic towards outer worlds, in reality, there’s no alternative.

After explaining the North Line, next comes the Southern Line.

The situation on the Southern Line is relatively straightforward.

Eleven years ago, with steady progress on the West Line and no significant errors, Gu Hang ordered a part of the fleet to be allocated from the West Line, and then headed south from the Magrey Cosmic Domain; meanwhile, a newly formed wave of Expeditionary Force units set off from the Eastern Cosmos Domain, advancing westward.

The target was the Adan Starfield.

This domain comprises eight star domains and two thousand seven hundred worlds, categorizing it as medium-to-small domain. As of now, 60% has been captured.

There weren’t any noteworthy incidents along the way. Having been through ten years of expedition, the Alliance is well-versed in operations on the Southern Line.

Recently, the Southern Line is even preparing to advance towards the Guangjin Cosmos Domain located south of the Adan Starfield.

Overall, since the start of the Dark Side Expedition till now, it has evolved from the cautious advances of three fleets to deploying three command centers, establishing dozens of battle lines, operating hundreds of sub-fleets, with countless battles occurring daily simultaneously.

In 27 years, the Dark Side Expedition recaptured a total approaching seven thousand worlds, nearly matching the number of worlds in the Alliance’s homeland. Considering the seven star domains in the Eastern Cosmos Domain, the world count controlled by the Imperial Dark Side Control Committee should break through seventeen thousand.

By now, it can be generally declared that the Dark Side Expedition officially transitions from its early stage to its climax stage.

This so-called ’climax stage’ is a term used by the Alliance’s propaganda department to boost morale.

To a certain extent, there’s nothing wrong with that statement. Having reclaimed seven thousand worlds over the past 27 years is a landmark achievement. And going forward, the Alliance plans to increase the expedition’s intensity further, or at the least maintain its current scale without reduction. This indicates that the speed of recapturing worlds in the Dark Side Expedition will exceed what was achieved over the past 27 years.

However, the Alliance’s propaganda department creating hype to inspire people and further promote the Dark Side Expedition doesn’t bother Gu Hang. But he himself won’t be swept away by such hype.

On the contrary, he becomes more cautious and vigilant.

If there is a climax, a trough will naturally follow.

When will the trough arrive?

Unknown.

But Gu Hang hopes it arrives as late as possible.

His goal is to incorporate the entire Dark Side of the Empire into the control of the committee. The entire Dark Side of the Empire essentially accounts for nearly half the Empire’s size, amounting to twenty-five Cosmos Domains. Currently, the Alliance fully controls only three, plus one that can be considered half-controlled. The rest remain as majority targets.

Considering if it’s the climax stage now, how long does the climax last?

Four hundred years? Five hundred years? Or even longer?

This brings up a decisive question: how long can Gu Hang uphold the Dark Side Expedition?

As of now, merely 27 years, actually Gu Hang already sees some concerns.

The pressure on the Alliance’s homeland is quite immense.

Fleet after fleet has been formed, Queen of Glory heads to the front lines, army units are continuously consumed across countless simultaneously warring planets, even elite units like Interstellar Warriors see substantial annual losses.

All this requires supplementation.

Gu Hang earns numerous Gift Points but spends them rapidly.

On military unit replenishment, Interstellar Warrior supplementation, expanding talent teams to support the rapidly expansive ruling scale, factory building exchanges, expanding productivity…

Saving up to draw technology?

Nothing gets saved at all.

Of course, if technology draws are available, it is always the best option. In fact, Gu Hang silently slightly saves each time during massive Gift Point spending, conducting technology draws.

However, not much crucial good has been acquired.

This gradually gives Gu Hang the impression, the system has limits too. Just as with his personal ability, where the system brought him to Level 9, and stopped. That is merely the strength of an S-Class Psychic. He advanced further by consuming the essence of Subspace he gained and constructing passive belief, trust structures formed by countless individuals after expanding the Alliance’s ruling foundation.

The same applies to technology.

In the system’s tech tree, the apocalypse level is the limit. Gu Hang managed to have a few drawn but already unable to induce drastic change.

The Alliance’s most needed things now, neither technology.

More population, more resources, and most crucially, more time.

He doesn’t even know if he can catch up.

He constantly feels a suffocating urgency of time running out.