Chapter 519 - 505: Unpaid Mission

Chapter 519: Chapter 505: Unpaid Mission

The *Ten Thousand Miles of Sunshine* sailed into the Seventh Cross-Realm Transfer Port.

The twelve sets of Super AT Force Fields powered down in sequence, allowing the massive black hull to come to a rest above its berth. After a brief return to his quarters, Allen headed straight to the Association’s administrative building.

The corridor on the seventeenth floor was as quiet as ever. Only this time, whenever he walked past, the Association’s investigators would proactively stop in their tracks, step aside, and bow respectfully.

"Lord Wesren."

Allen nodded in response and stepped into Office 1701.

Eleanor sat behind her desk. Three layers of light screens hovered in front of her, and the tea by her hand was still steaming.

"I heard your ship is quite conspicuous." She closed two of the light screens. "Are you making preparations for your mission? I must say, you’ll definitely need it this time."

Without waiting for him to finish examining them, Eleanor pushed the final light screen toward him. "Your application for Deputy Minister has passed the preliminary review. Neither the Minister of the Anomaly Threat Response Department nor the Supreme Council has raised any objections."

"But?"

"You should know that according to the Association’s bylaws, any Morning Star Wizard entering the leadership ranks of a core department for the first time must independently complete a mission of the same tier."

Eleanor tapped her finger lightly, unfurling a crimson file.

[Rank-A Mission: Emergency Support for Fringe Plane Y-417]

[Mission Type: Plane War]

Allen continued reading down the document.

Y-417 was a medium-sized Material Plane with a landmass of approximately 470 million square kilometers. The Plane boasted numerous large-scale Magic Ore Veins, over twenty thousand harvestable Extraordinary Plants, and a mature breeding system for Low-Tier Magical Beasts. For the past 130 years, it had traded with the Association annually, bringing in a stable revenue of over one billion Low-Level Magic Stones.

That was until three months ago, when all contact with the Plane was lost.

"A Plane belonging to the Association?" Allen asked.

"It is now." Eleanor pulled up a subsidiary agreement. "Y-417 was originally under the joint control of local Wizard Organizations. In the second month after the invasion broke out, they applied to be fully integrated into the Association’s system."

"Trading their output for reinforcements? A very reasonable choice."

In the face of a civilization’s survival, assets were nothing more than numbers on a piece of paper. Only those who survived had the right to argue over who got the short end of the stick.

As the file continued to unfold, despair permeated every line of text. The invaders were not natives of that realm, but terrifying entities from beyond the Plane. Initially, the local inhabitants mistook it for an ordinary spatial rift accident. That was until the first city was breached, three hundred thousand lives were mass-sacrificed, and a stable cross-realm passage was formed atop the mountain of corpses.

Thus, the Demon Legion descended.

They were tightly organized with distinct troop types: Winged Demons responsible for reconnaissance, Horned Demons tasked with frontal assaults, Purgatory Mages who drove the Magical Beasts, and engineering units specifically assigned to build altars and corrupt the land. This was a highly trained, strictly disciplined war machine.

Y-417’s strongest defensive force consisted of six Second-level Wizards, thirty-two First-level Wizards, and local armed forces hastily cobbled together by various organizations. They held the line for two months. The final battle report indicated that one of the six Second-level Wizards had already been killed in action, large swathes of the northern territories had completely fallen, and the Plane had lost over a tenth of its population.

Even more despairing was the fact that the demons had launched a surprise attack on the Star Gate on the seventh day of the war. That Star Gate was Y-417’s only stable cross-realm facility, and its core base had been completely destroyed. Conventional reinforcements couldn’t enter, and the people trapped inside the Plane couldn’t leave.

Allen flipped to the final testimony. It was the interrogation record of a captured Purgatory Mage. Most of the contents were sheer cursing, but one name appeared repeatedly: Sargeras.

[Estimated Identity: Lord of Purgatory]

[Strength Evaluation: Mid-tier Dawn Star Level]

[Law Tendency: Fire, Decay, Evil Energy; exact level of mastery unknown]

[Warning: The forces currently descending upon Y-417 may only be a Vanguard Legion.]

After finishing the file, Allen’s gaze paused on the mission’s terms. There was only a single line:

[Prevent the complete fall of Y-417.]

It didn’t specify a required number of enemies to annihilate, didn’t demand the assassination of Sargeras, nor did it establish a clear mission deadline. This meant the executor had to use his own judgment to define what constituted a "complete fall" and what counted as "preventing" it.

It was highly flexible.

Allen scrolled down a page. The remuneration section was blank, and the loss compensation section was equally empty.

The office fell silent for several seconds.

Allen raised his eyes. "You want me to save an asset the Association just acquired. Can I at least get reimbursed for my main cannon’s energy consumption? Just once?"

Eleanor picked up her teacup, avoiding his gaze. "Although I don’t know how much your main cannon costs to fire, I’m sorry, but no."

"Why? The Association wants me to fight a Dawn Star Level Plane War, yet they won’t even spare a single Credit Point for me."

"This is a promotion assessment, not a routine mission," Eleanor said, setting down her teacup. "You can refuse. It’s not a mandatory mission, and it won’t trigger any arbitration procedures. The only price is that your Deputy Minister application will be indefinitely shelved until the next suitable Dawn Star Level mission comes along."

"And when will that be?"

"Uncertain. It could be tomorrow, or it could be fifty years from now."

Allen let out a sigh, leaning back in his chair as he stared at the mission file. The Association wasn’t forcing his hand; the rules had always been like this. If he wanted to become a superior and enjoy the organization’s benefits, if he wanted to uncover the issuer behind the BR-0931 mission, and if he wanted to participate in the Association’s decision-making regarding anomalous planes, he had to earn a seat at that table.

As for the losses incurred during this mission...

Allen reached out and branded his mental imprint at the end of the Scroll.

Eleanor’s brow twitched. "You were much more decisive than I expected."

"Good." Allen withdrew his hand. "These expenses will be reflected in my departmental budget after I take office... assuming I have the authority to do so."

Eleanor looked at him, eventually raising a hand to rub her temples. She suddenly felt a wave of preemptive exhaustion on behalf of the future Financial Audit Committee.

***

Half an hour later, having arranged the affairs at Wesren Heavy Industry, Allen returned to the *Ten Thousand Miles of Sunshine*.

In the center of the bridge, the navigational course to Y-417 had already been plotted. Due to the Star Gate’s destruction, all ordinary cross-realm passages were rendered invalid. The *Ten Thousand Miles of Sunshine* could only rely on coordinates left behind three months ago to forcibly traverse the Magic Sea.

[Coordinate calculation complete. Material reserves complete. Energy reserves sufficient. Ready for departure at any time.]

[Estimated voyage duration: 41 hours.]

"Connect to Cybertron."

The Space Gate in the ship’s underbelly opened. Deep within the city of steel, rows of sealed hangars lit up one by one.

Thirty standard Golem Legions entered a state of combat readiness. Thirty thousand Spider-Killer Type II units completed their self-diagnostics. Nine thousand Peacekeeper PX-3 units assembled into rigid phalanxes, while one thousand five hundred Demon Eye Type II Air Fortresses began charging. The newly replenished Gabriel and Cyclops units stood silently in their hangars—there were now five of each. Wails echoed from Thanatos’s Soul-Trapping Lantern, and the PX-4 Xiong Da engaged its three Dawn Star Level engines.

The ten legions lost in the past had long since been replenished. The most terrifying aspect of an industrial system was never its ability to manufacture a single powerful weapon. It was the fact that once lost, a second and third could be produced in the blink of an eye.

[Dimension Engine preheating complete.]

Allen took his seat in the captain’s chair. Thirty Golem Legions meant nine hundred PX-3 units—each boasting the combat prowess of a veteran First-level Wizard—along with tens of thousands of auxiliary combat units. In a head-on war, he feared no one.

To him, this wasn’t a rescue mission. It was a dress rehearsal for his first true cross-realm expedition.

"Disengage from the port."

The *Ten Thousand Miles of Sunshine* released its securing light anchors, and the massive black hull slowly ascended. The warning light bands of the transfer port streaked past both sides of the ship. Moments later, the Dimension Engine tore through the Plane Crystal Wall, and the warship surged into the Sea of Magical Power.