Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 726

Chapter 724, Comoros

Vice Admiral Du Shiliang of the Comoros Union Navy paced anxiously on the bridge.

He was waiting for news from Martini.

After learning that a member of Wang Jiarong’s caravan had disappeared and was suspected of being robbed, he rushed over in a hurry.

After Ye Lixia left, he became the temporary supreme commander of the entire Union Navy. He was responsible for the safety of the entire Union, including the safety of the Union ships sailing on the Star Sea within the Spider Web Universe. If anything

happened to the Star Sea merchant ship, he would definitely be held responsible.

Moreover, it was probably not just a leadership responsibility. When Ye Lixia left with Gu Hang, she specifically explained the work of the Navy. The focus was on establishing Star Sea defense measures for the entire Star Region within the Spider Web Universe.

At the same time, the Union government had also notified him that the Wang’s Merchant Ship Fleet was coming and asked him to be prepared.

In the end, something happened.

He felt that he was also wronged.

No matter how much defense he took, he could not defend against the black skin.

The Alliance had never before dealt with the Dark Eldar. For Du Shiliang, this was a blind spot. Not only was he inexperienced, he hadn’t even considered it.

Furthermore, the Dark Eldar’s inherent elusiveness made them even more difficult to guard against.

But he also understood that these excuses were all afterthoughts.

Within the Alliance Navy, aside from Admiral Ye Lishia, who was the most established figure, the others didn’t differ significantly in terms of experience or ability.

Du Shiliang was indeed a veteran. During the Battle of Koroja, when Governor Gu was beginning his rise to prominence, as a Commodore of the Imperial Navy and a captain of the Pegasus Fleet, he had provided assistance to Gu Hang. Furthermore, he had made the right decisions in the subsequent campaign, ultimately rising to his current position.

However, there were others like him within the Navy; some rising stars who had performed exceptionally well in battle.

He didn’t have the undeniable feats to guarantee his continued command of the Navy.

Now that Ye Lixia had left, his position had opened up. He had been entrusted with a mission, a truly independent opportunity. If he messed up, his future would be difficult.

He might even be seen as incompetent.

The incident had already occurred, and Du Shiliang had no other options. All he could do now was to clean up the mess as quickly as possible.

First, he had to recover the lost caravan. It was undoubtedly dangerous, but he had to find the bodies of the victims alive and dead. The perpetrators of their misfortune had to be brought to justice, or else he would be unable to explain himself.

Second, he had to plug this hole.

The Alliance was developing the Spider Web Universe on a large scale, and vast quantities of materials were being exchanged across the interstellar seas. These merchant ships and transport vessels had to operate efficiently to meet the Alliance’s needs.

But efficiency, and everything else, was empty talk. Safety was paramount!

Without safety guarantees, commercial transport would incur enormous time and costs in escort, detours, and exploration.

That was simply unacceptable.

If the endless stream of Dark Eldar pirates continued to destroy the Alliance’s merchant ships, his tenure as Acting Commander-in-Chief would be over.

Forget about advancing further, he’d be lucky to avoid being sent back to captaining a mere cruiser.

The Navy’s astropaths, navigators… in short, any psychic powers available, led by warships, were frantically roaming the void of the Sunyu System, searching for clues.

But their efficiency was inefficient, and so far, they had yielded no results.

Secondly, he had called in personnel. If the Dark Skins had men lurking in Sunyu, perhaps there were more? Perhaps some corrupted or bribed by the Eldar? Might they have information?

So, he approached his superiors, the Ministry of Military Affairs, and requested Marshal Thaddeus to dispatch experts from the Military Intelligence Bureau to try to uncover more clues. Of course

, what he looked forward to most was the interrogation of the Dark Skin prisoners by the Inquisitors.

Upon hearing of the Exorcist Inquisitors’ grand plan, he ordered his fleet to stand ready and informed the two companies of the Fury of Flame, accompanying the ship, to prepare for battle.

Then, Inquisitor Martini, accompanied by the Exorcist Inquisitors, boarded his ship and shared the good news.

They had located the enemy.

The Dark Eldar pirates had established a temporary base on an inconspicuous asteroid in the Yangyu System. There was even a spirit portal.

Du Shiliang anxiously ordered his entire force to move out, and along the way, he received some information about the Dark Eldar.

Afterward, his expression shifted.

…

From his perch, Xernos Bloodcurse watched as tens, perhaps even hundreds, of thousands of captives were being whipped by blood slaves as they carried supplies across their asteroid.

Of course, a normal mortal wouldn’t be able to navigate freely on an asteroid without protection. To allow these humans to move, a passageway was constructed from the temporary anchorage to a supposed spiritual gate, approximately sixty meters in diameter, on the asteroid. Several massive life-support systems were placed along the route, a thin layer of energy shielding the passageway, blocking out deadly cosmic radiation and maintaining oxygen and temperature within, allowing for human movement.

Originally, there were more human captives than these. Their bountiful harvest, looting over a dozen ships, brought them all back to this temporary base. Across these dozen ships, there were numerous crew members, not to mention the vast number of immigrants aboard.

However, within ten days of their arrival, the vast majority were killed.

There was no resistance.

The unarmed human captives had no means of resistance. Several armed merchant ships that resisted fiercely were destroyed, reduced to space junk. The captured were also Dark Eldar with blood slaves. After invading the ships and slaughtering the armed guards, they injected a specially formulated drug into the ship’s internal air circulation systems, knocking the crew members unconscious. The capture was a piece of cake.

This was a common practice for Dark Eldar pirates; they were well versed in it.

Even after the looting, they had a sophisticated plan for dealing with the captives.

Human plunder was always the primary target of the Dark Eldar’s raids. Humans, whether human or any other species, were all sentient, intelligent, and soulful beings.

Comoros’s development required a large population.

The Eldar were a sparsely populated race. With insufficient numbers of their own, they could only rely on outsiders.

Supplementing the labor force was only the smallest of the many reasons the Black Bean Sprouts captured captives and slaves.

The biggest goal was to kill, torture, and amuse themselves.

It might sound outrageous, but it was true.

Xernos once went a long time without killing or torturing people properly. He felt as if his soul was dissolving.

No, it wasn’t just a feeling; it was reality.

Countless millennia ago, the Eldar were the undisputed overlords of the universe. They possessed a highly developed civilization, boundless territories, and a brilliant culture…

But all of this was utterly destroyed by the Eldar’s endless indulgence in pleasure, debauchery, revelry, and decadence.

With the entire Eldar as sacrifice, the youngest of the Four Gods of the Warp was born.

Its birth was fueled by the destruction of a dominant race.

The Eldar’s glorious civilization and glorious nation were utterly annihilated, and along with them, their “gods” either perished or were corrupted by Slaanesh, becoming her toys and lackeys.

The remaining Eldar were divided into two factions.

Both considered themselves the true heirs of the Eldar.

One, the white-skinned Eldar, was known as the Ark Eldar. They built sanctuaries—often a space-faring Ark. Within these Arks were Soulstones, virtual realms. The Eldar’s souls were placed within these Soulstones, isolating them from the Warp.

They practiced abstinence, asceticism, and spiritual discipline to avoid detection by Slaanesh during life. After death, their souls returned to the Sanctuary to fuel the Ark.

The other, the dark-skinned Eldar, lived in the wondrous city of Commorra.

Commorra lies within the veil between the Warp and the real universe.

The veil of reality supposedly has no thickness, but the Eldar at their peak achieved incredible technological sophistication, carving out a space within the veil and building cities.

This “city” differs from the conventional sense. Because it resides within the Veil, not in the real universe, it can, through the Warp, open a portal within the city at any time, like an astral tunnel, leading to any location in the real universe.

However, they are also not in the Warp, so they were fortunate to escape the storm that ravaged the entire Warp and the physical universe at the birth of Slaanesh.

However, escaping this calamity does not guarantee their safety. All surviving Eldar are bound to Slaanesh’s control, and this is no mere rhetoric. Unlike the Ark Eldar, who established sanctuaries and practiced abstinence, the Dark Eldar took a different path.

Their souls are bound to Commorra, ensuring they will not be immediately absorbed by Slaanesh. If this connection is severed, their souls will be directly drawn away and transported to Slaanesh’s realm, becoming her eternal toy.

This is the most painful experience.

If they die, their souls will return to Commorra, preserved in the Soul Repository they leave behind. Among the Dark Eldar, the skilled flesh engineers known as the Haemonchi can manipulate a body to reanimate their souls.

Of course, this involves a long period of weakness. Therefore, the best outcome is to retrieve the deceased Dark Eldar’s body and perform the surgery, which is much more effective.

If surgery is not performed for too long, or if the death has occurred for too long, the Dark Eldar will truly die—and upon death, their soul will become the property of Slaanesh.

This is every Eldar’s greatest fear.

They fear true death more than any other race.

For other races, death is death, and everything returns to nothingness; but for them, death means eternal torment and imprisonment, with no release until the destruction of the universe.

Even without a complete death, the Dark Eldar are more vulnerable to Slaanesh’s attention than their brethren on the Ark.

In other words, Slaanesh is constantly watching them, constantly absorbing their souls. However, with Commorra’s protection, the process will be slower.

If they do nothing, perhaps ten? Twenty? Fifty? …In short, their souls will be slowly drained away.

The way to prevent this is to find a replacement.

Through torture, v*olence, and murder, they inflict endless suffering, allowing such souls to be absorbed as replacements, thus preserving their own souls. They can even compensate for their own soul loss, extending their lifespan and increasing their power. The most powerful family archons can even achieve true immortality.

This is the real reason the Dark Eldar constantly raid outsiders.

Xernos Bloodcurse leads such a raiding team.

He is a mid-level member of the Bloodcurse family, one of the most powerful families in Commorra. His role within the family is to lead a raiding team, frequently striking out and reaping rewards.

By leveraging Commorra’s ability to open a portal to the real universe at any time, they can truly come and go without a trace.

However, the Veil Spirit Portal is not without limitations.

The location where a Veil Gate could be opened must be one where the Dark Eldar had established a physical “Veil Gate” in the real universe, using it as a coordinate.

Xernos’s long-term operations weren’t in the Spider Web Realm, but in the Devouring Star Realm to the north.

The brutal wars in the Spider Web Realm had left even the Eldar of Commorra horrified. There were plenty of places to plunder; there was no need to harass themselves while humans and Void Zerg were engaged in bloody battles.

Unsurprisingly, they wouldn’t have set their sights on the Spider Web Realm for a long time.

However, a transfer order from the upper echelons of their clan forced him here.

He was forced to return to Commorra with his raiding fleet, then enter the nearest Veil Gate coordinates in the Spider Web Realm—the Sword Gate star region in the northern Spider Web Realm. Then, after a lengthy voyage through the real universe, he arrived in the Fox Moon star region, established another Veil Gate, and commenced his raiding operations.

His target of plunder was the Alliance.

In other words, it was another force that was trading with the Infinite Star Region.

(End of this chapter)