Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 602

Chapter 600, Conjecture

Gu Hang was puzzled by the speculation that Humphrey Paul was leading his troops not toward Holy Terra but instead expanding into the Magre Realm.

It didn’t make sense.

Humphrey Paul might have considered that his forces had suffered significant damage after their victory over Phoenix. Not only would they have needed to replenish their troops, but even the ammunition and supplies consumed after a major battle would have required shiploads of replenishment, requiring time to recuperate and recover.

Attacking the more heavily defended Central Territory with a spent force would have been difficult.

From this perspective, Gu Hang could understand Paul’s decision to pause and recuperate, or to shift his focus to addressing threats from the north and south.

However, attacking the entire Magre Realm was somewhat unthinkable.

What was there to attack in the Magre Realm?

It posed almost no threat, its primary military strength having been nearly decimated in the previous battle.

While it might be easy to attack, it certainly wouldn’t leave it defenseless. After all, each planet’s homeland defense forces still existed. Armed merchant ships, requisitioned from the Imperial Chamber of Commerce, while not on the same level as a regular navy, could still offer some resistance.

Paul could certainly defeat them if he wanted to, but as the masters on Holy Terra suspected, that would only slow down the Iron Armor Legion’s progress. With thousands of worlds in the galaxy, even if they could capture ten a day, it would still take a year or more, and the forces would be extremely dispersed, perfectly suiting Holy Terra’s desire to trade space for time.

A larger, wider, and deeper front would drag the Iron Armor Legion into a quagmire.

And what were the benefits? Consuming an entire galaxy, transforming its resources into war potential and even actual combat power, would take more than a day or two.

Thousands of worlds would need to be pacified, rebuilt, and administrative systems established to harness resources and restart industry… It would be a massive undertaking, a testament to administrative prowess.

Humphrey Paul certainly did a good job in this regard, but by comparison, the Alliance’s current governance and policies in the newly conquered Proud Claw star system are only modest in terms of recovery in production capacity and resource allocation.

The Alliance’s progress in digesting newly conquered territories has been limited to this level, and Gu Hang doesn’t believe Iron Armor is any better than he is.

Even if he were to assume Iron Armor’s level matches the Alliance’s, it would still take them a very long time to digest the Magre space system, and they wouldn’t be able to transform it into their own power in a short period of time.

On the contrary, these areas would become a constant source of loss. The recurring rebellions on the planets, the entanglement of various political and interest groups, would severely slow their efficiency. Not only would they not be able to profit quickly, but suppressing them would even incur a higher cost.

Humphrey Paul must have understood this.

From what Gu Hang knew of the Iron Armor leader, he was no fool and wouldn’t make such a decision.

Was there something he had overlooked? Gu Hang couldn’t help but ask himself.

He began to think.

The sudden appearance of the Zerg horde on the northern front offered no evidence of being controlled by the Iron Armor, and they had even been observed attacking Iron Armor’s occupied territories and troops. However, their timing was too coincidental to have helped the Iron Armor fend off the northern forces.

The greatest obstacle facing the Alfonzo fleet on the southern front stemmed from the Zerg tyrants they controlled.

News from the western front claimed that the final straw that broke the Phoenix Legion’s back came from a seemingly mortal, yet inhuman force…

Putting all this information together, and considering the Iron Armor’s full-scale invasion of the Magre domain, if it was intended to increase their war potential, then perhaps their methods of increasing that potential weren’t what Gu Hang had originally envisioned.

However, this speculation filled Gu Hang with trepidation!

Had the Iron Armor surrendered to the Zerg?

If this hypothesis were true, it would be a major event.

Their raging invasion of Magre was ultimately not about exploiting Magre’s manpower and resources? Was it simply a desire to transform the thousands of planets in the entire domain into massive Zerg incubators? Thousands of worlds, potentially trillions of people, and the ecosystems native to those planets…if all of them became nutrients for the Zerg, what a massive Zerg army could be nurtured?

The thought was chilling.

Even Gu Hang instinctively refused to believe his own guess.

Although there were various clues, none of them were definitive, and none of them could definitively explain the matter.

Many mysteries remained unsolved.

How did the Space Marines become corrupted? There was no previous record of such a thing within the Imperium.

If the Ironclad were corrupted, then why did the Fury, so closely related to them, show no signs of corruption?

Corruption doesn’t happen overnight, but if even the Ironclad were corrupted, how could the Zerg, whose instincts to devour and reproduce were usually stronger than anything else, have forbeared from continuing to play tricks with the Ironclad in the Princess Star Domain? Shouldn’t they have devoured the entire Princess Star Domain long ago? How could they have forbeared?

Gu Hang was caught in a rare moment of hesitation.

After pondering for a long time, he decided to let the matter go.

The current information was still too confusing and unclear. In this situation, making an accurate judgment or even a firm guess was difficult.

However, it’s always better to be lenient with the enemy. It’s always a good idea to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

He quickly issued several directives:

1. Instruct the Alliance’s intelligence services to intensify their gathering of intelligence on the current situation on the Western Front, and to analyze and verify the hypothesis that the Iron Armor may have been corrupted by the xenomorphs.

2. Invite the Shining Inquisition to work with the Alliance’s intelligence services to conduct a thorough investigation throughout the Pride Claw Sector to determine if there is xenomorph corruption.

3. Send a warning to the Imperial Center regarding this possibility.

4. Communicate with Gallardo and urge the combined fleet the Imperial Center is currently building to break away from its lurch in the Tianwang Sector and quickly establish communication with the Magre Sector to gain control of the situation there.

5. The Alliance must fully prepare for war. However, this wasn’t particularly significant; the Alliance had never relaxed its stance; he was merely demonstrating his resolve within the Alliance once again.

Even after all this, Gu Hang still felt uneasy.

However, he truly felt powerless to control the Western Front and the current situation in the Magre Sector.

Gallardo replied to his message.

He attached great importance to what Gu Hang said, and the Empire also had some speculations in this regard. He said that he would urge the Imperial Legion to take action.

However, he also said tactfully that the speed of forming a coalition was still slow, and the star tunnels on the Magre-Tianwang line were controlled by the Iron Armor, so it would not be easy to bite the bullet.

Gu Hang was helpless. Now, the only one he could count on was the Imperial Coalition.

Unless, he was willing to send troops to the Jingjie Star Field now, then whether to attack the Iron Armor’s lair in the Princess Star Field or to open up a road to the Magre Star Field to the west, both were options.

But that would put himself in great danger.

Just for an unconfirmed guess, should we do this?

It’s difficult to make a decision.

However, on the Wenqi-Wuqi line, a new thing happened that pushed Gu Hang to make a decision.

There, the Alliance rescued a Mechanicus ship from the Alfonzo Star Field.

(End of this chapter)