Chapter 514: Short on Hands? Support the Human Race!

【Facing your overbearing rules, someone raised their arm and shouted, drawing a massive response from the crowd.】

【"We're not leaving! Let's fight him! The Feiyu Sect hasn't fallen yet—if we all defect to them, there's no way we can't take down this tyrannical dictator!"】

【You clapped your hands with glee.】

【"Good, good, good. Plenty of fighting spirit, I like it! Don't say I'm bullying you—I'll give you some time to leave Star Harbor right now, and then we'll have a fair showdown. Alright, get ready..."】

【"You're giving us a few days?!"】

【"Three..."】

【"Three days? Hmph, more than enough!"】

【"Two..."】

【"!!!"】

【Year thirty, age fifty-six.】

【The Tiansha Sect's war of unification was raging on in full swing.】

【On the map of Blazing Star, the banner of the Tiansha Sect was growing larger and larger, while every other force was gasping for their last breath.】

【But as the territory expanded, problems came one after another.】

【The Tiansha Sect, even with the addition of the Tiansha Alliance formed by their direct vassals, was stretched painfully thin on manpower.】

【Territory had been conquered, so at the very least someone had to be left behind to garrison it, and someone had to maintain public order.】

【Yet after all these years of war, the Tiansha Alliance had suffered heavy casualties, and they only kept needing more people.】

【Most Alien Races had pitifully slow reproduction rates—one birth every few centuries—completely unable to keep up with the intensity of the war.】

【They were running out of people. What to do?】

【They had promised to unify the entire planet. Were they supposed to just abandon the cities they'd conquered and leave them to fend for themselves?】

【Of course not.】

【Those uncultured Alien Races thought that once territory was taken, you just loot it and move on—no need to govern.】

【But you, as Sect Master, were farsighted and deemed that unacceptable, so they had no choice but to agree it was unacceptable too.】

【"But Sect Master, we truly can't spare anyone to guard the cities unless we pull troops from the front lines. However, the Feiyu Sect has now formed a 'Resistance Alliance' and is fighting us with everything they've got. Every force on Blazing Star has willingly thrown all their trump cards into the fray. The front lines are stretched thin, and we've been taking more losses lately. This..."】

【In the Tiansha Sect's Sovereign Great Hall, you and the Alliance's top brass were discussing the next phase of strategy.】

【"If we'd known it would come to this, we should have pulled in more allies before starting the war. Even if we burned bridges afterward, it would've been better than pushing them all into the enemy's arms now."】

【"Exactly. Sure, our territory is bigger now, but our front lines have stretched infinitely long. We're basically fighting on every front across the entire planet—the intensity is way too high."】

【"That's not even the worst of it. We have to defend cities and protect populations, but the enemy has thrown all caution to the wind. They just come out, cause some damage, kill a few people, and run. Their cost of war is too low, while ours is way too high."】

【Faced with the manpower shortage, you said calmly.】

【"Who said we're short on hands? Who said we have no allies?"】

【"Sect Master, do you have another brilliant plan?"】

【"The Human Race!"】

【"The Human Race?"】

【"They've got people to spare!"】

【"But the Human Race is too weak! They're not even qualified to be cannon fodder on the front lines!"】

【"They can handle logistics in the rear, maintain public order, and guard the cities, can't they?"】

【"That's... barely doable, I suppose. But they're still too weak. Too many mortals, too few cultivators, and among the cultivators, there are no High-Grade ones."】

【"If there are no cultivators, then train them! Distribute cultivation techniques and resources, and let the humans practice!"】

【The moment everyone in the hall heard this, they went into immediate alarm mode.】

【Ya Dada, the Grand Elder of the Tiansha Sect, was the first to step forward.】

【"Sect Master, I beg you to reconsider! Raising the Human Race is like raising a tiger that will come back to bite us! It was one thing when they were just scraping by on scraps and leftovers—we didn't have the energy to bother with all of them. But if we give them proper, systematic training now, the Human Race will rise far too quickly!"】

【You put on the air of a high-and-mighty Alien Race master looking down on lowly human slaves.】

【"Bullshit! What, are you saying every single human has a First-Rank immortal root?"】

【"Well, no..."】

【"Then what the hell are you so afraid of?!"】

【"It's... the ancestral decree... The Human Race may only be oppressed, never aided!"】

【"To hell with your so-called ancestral decree! We promised to unify the entire planet. Our brothers have fought for so long and died in such numbers—are you telling me you want to leave this unfinished?! Complete the unification first, and then you can talk to me about ancestral decrees!"】

【You picked up on some inner thoughts:】

【'Wow! The Sect Master is so domineering, I love it~'】

【'Exactly, exactly. We're the mighty Dragon-Man tribe, running the Tiansha Sect that controls all the planet's resources. Why should we fear the Human Race?'】

【'We're about to witness history, we're about to witness history. Blazing Star is going to be unified, it's going to be unified...'】

【This showed that while guarding against the Human Race was an ancestral decree for many Alien Races, not everyone treated it as gospel. Some didn't take it seriously at all.】

【It wasn't that they weren't vigilant enough—it was that, on the surface, the Human Race on Blazing Star truly posed no threat whatsoever.】

【Except for the Torch Society.】

【But a force on a Second-tier Star wouldn't consider eradicating the Torch Society its top priority.】

【The Torch Society spanned the entire universe—it wasn't a problem for the Alien Races of just one planet like Blazing Star to solve.】

【So an Alien Race faction on any given planet generally wouldn't treat the Torch Society as its mortal enemy and pour massive time and resources into wiping it out.】

【They would only deal with it when they stumbled across signs of Torch Society activity, and if they couldn't handle it, they'd report it up to a stronger power.】

【The Torch Society tried to keep a low profile as much as possible. The Alien Races on each planet would pretend it didn't exist if they saw nothing, and kill on sight if they did—this had become an unspoken rule.】

【Only top-tier galactic organizations like the Holy Dragon Society would doggedly hunt down the Torch Society.】

【On the question of supporting the Human Race as allies, the Tiansha Alliance split into a conservative faction and a radical faction.】

【The conservatives believed in upholding the ancestral decree and finding other ways to solve the manpower shortage.】

【The radicals believed that the unification campaign took priority over guarding against the Human Race—complete the unification first, then suppress the humans afterward.】

【In the end, the radicals won out over the conservatives.】

【Your policy of supporting Human Race cultivation began to be implemented.】

【Year thirty-one, age fifty-seven.】

【Claiming that your cultivation was on the verge of a breakthrough, you entered seclusion and stopped taking the field.】

【You let the Feiyu Sect and their "Resistance Alliance" put some pressure on the Tiansha Alliance.】

【This made everyone up and down the Tiansha Alliance feel—yes, we need to support the Human Race, or we really won't be able to win!】

【In reality, your cultivation truly was on the verge of a breakthrough.】

【Under the pretext of seclusion, you disappeared from the Tiansha Sect for a period of time.】

【Now, you had transformed back into your original appearance.】

【Maintaining the "Guangzhi, Save Me" transformation state for extended periods consumed double lifespan, so you stayed untransformed whenever possible.】

【You arrived at the rural schoolhouse where Mr. Xun taught.】

【After You Keqing and the others had passed away, Mr. Xun had become the president of the Torch Society on Blazing Star.】

【Shen Yifeng had also been promoted along with him to the position of advisor.】

【This time when he saw you, Mr. Xun went straight to his knees in a full kowtow.】

【"Xun pays his respects to Mr. Chen!"】