Chapter 724, Comoros
Vice Admiral Du Shiliang of the Allied Navy paced anxiously back and forth on the bridge.
He was waiting for Martini's message.
Upon learning that a portion of Wang Jiarong's caravan had gone missing, suspected of being robbed, he rushed over in a great hurry.
After Yelisia left, he became the acting supreme commander of the entire Alliance Navy. He was responsible for the safety of all Alliance ships sailing on the star seas, including within the Spiderweb Space Region.
He will definitely be held responsible for the accident involving the Xinghai merchant ship.
Moreover, it's probably not a matter of leadership responsibility. When Ye Lixia left with Gu Hang, she specifically instructed the navy on their work, emphasizing the need to establish effective interstellar defense measures for the entire star system within the Spiderweb Space Region.
Meanwhile, the Alliance government had also informed him that the Wang family's merchant fleet was coming and that he should be prepared.
As it turned out, something still went wrong.
He felt he was also wronged.
You can guard against anything, but you can't guard against a dark-skinned person.
Previously, the Alliance had never dealt with the Dark Eldar. For Du Shiliang, this was a complete blind spot. He not only lacked experience, but he had never even considered it.
Furthermore, the Dark Eldar are known for their elusive and unpredictable nature, making them even more difficult to defend against.
But he also understood that saying all of this was just an excuse after the fact.
Among the Alliance Navy, apart from Admiral Yelisia, who is the most stable member, there is no significant difference in seniority and ability among the others.
Du Shiliang is indeed a veteran. Back in the Battle of Koroga, when Governor Gu began his rise to prominence on the international stage, Du Shiliang, then a commodore in the Imperial Navy and captain of the Pegasus Fleet, provided assistance to Gu Hang. Furthermore, in a series of subsequent decisions, he consistently chose the right side, ultimately leading him to his current position.
However, there are others like myself in the navy; and some rising stars have also performed quite well in battle.
He did not have any absolute merits that would guarantee him a permanent position as Commander of the Navy.
Now that Ye Lixia has left and a new position has been created, he has been given a critical mission and a real opportunity to take charge. If he messes it up, the road ahead will be very difficult.
It's possible that it might give people the impression that it's 'unfit for important tasks'.
The deed is done, and there's nothing Du Shiliang can do about it. All he can do now is try to salvage the situation as quickly as possible.
First, we must find the lost caravan. They're probably dead, but we need to find them alive or dead. Those swindlers who harmed them must be punished; otherwise, we can't explain ourselves.
Secondly, he needs to plug this hole.
Seeing the Alliance's large-scale development of the Spiderweb Space, with massive amounts of resources being exchanged within its starry expanse, these merchant ships and transport vessels must operate efficiently to meet the Alliance's needs.
As for this so-called efficiency, everything else is meaningless; safety is the most important thing!
If commercial transport lacks security, then a huge amount of time and cost will be spent on escorting, taking detours, and reconnaissance.
That's definitely unacceptable.
If there are endless waves of Dark Eldar pirates causing Alliance merchant ships to be lost one after another, then his time as acting commander-in-chief will be over.
Forget about advancing any further; it would be good enough if they weren't reassigned to be the captain of an ordinary cruiser.
The naval-affiliated Star Speakers, Navigators... in short, any useful psionic energy they could muster was frantically running around the void of the Yangyu star system, led by warships, trying to find any clues.
But this is inefficient, and so far there has been no progress.
Secondly, he mobilized his men. Since the Black-skinned ones could infiltrate Yang Yu, perhaps there were even more spies? Perhaps some had been corrupted or bribed by the Spirit Clan? Could they know something?
So he appealed to his superiors, the Ministry of Military Affairs, and requested Marshal Tardius to dispatch experts from the Military Intelligence Bureau to try and find some more clues.
Of course, what he was most looking forward to was the interrogation of the black-skinned prisoner by the judges.
Upon hearing that the Inquisitors of the Exile Order had a powerful weapon, he ordered the fleet to be on standby at any time and also informed the two companies of the Ragefire Legion that were traveling with the fleet to prepare for battle.
Then Martini, along with the members of the Revolt Order, boarded his ship and told him the good news.
They pinpointed the enemy's location.
The Dark Eldar pirates have a makeshift base on an inconspicuous asteroid in the Yangyu star system. There, they even have a spirit portal open.
Du Shiliang was in a hurry and ordered the entire army to move out. On the way, he listened to some popular science about the Dark Elf race.
After listening, his expression was quite uncertain.
...
Zernos Blood Curse, from his high platform, watched tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of prisoners carrying supplies on this asteroid under the whips of blood slaves.
Of course, ordinary mortals cannot move freely on an asteroid without protection. To enable these humans to move, a passage was constructed between the temporary anchorage and the hypothetical spiritual portal, about sixty meters in diameter, located on the asteroid. Several enormous life support devices were placed along the way, and a thin layer of energy protected the passage area, blocking deadly cosmic radiation and maintaining the internal oxygen and temperature, allowing people to move around.
The number of human prisoners was originally much larger than this. They had a huge haul this time, hijacking over a dozen ships and sailing them all back to this temporary base. Those ships carried a large number of crew members, not to mention the vast number of immigrants who had traveled on board.
However, within ten days of their arrival at the location, most of their ships were killed.
There was no resistance.
Unarmed human prisoners had virtually no way to resist. Several fiercely resisting armed merchant ships were destroyed, reduced to space debris; the prisoners were captured by the Dark Eldar, who, accompanied by their blood slaves, stormed the ships, slaughtered the armed guards, and then injected specially made sleeping potions into several of the ship's internal air circulation systems, rendering everyone incapacitated, thus easily completing the capture operation.
This is a common practice among the Dark Eldar pirates; they are already very familiar with it.
They even had a fairly sophisticated plan for dealing with these prisoners after the looting was completed.
Raiding people is the primary target of the Dark Eldar's raids. Humans, whether human or any other race, are all advanced beings with emotions, intelligence, and souls, and are therefore their targets.
Comoros needs a large population to develop.
The Eldar are a sparsely populated race. Since their own population is insufficient, they have no choice but to rely on other races.
Replenishing the labor force was only the smallest of the many reasons why the Black Sprouts captured prisoners and slaves.
The biggest goal is to use it for killing, torture, and amusement.
It may sound a bit far-fetched, but it's true.
Zernos had gone a long time without properly killing or torturing anyone. He felt as if his soul was about to dissipate.
No, it wasn't just a 'feeling,' it was reality.
The Elven race was, countless millennia ago, the true rulers of this universe. They possessed a highly advanced civilization, boundless territories, and a brilliant and splendid culture…
But all of this was utterly destroyed by the Eldar in their boundless indulgence, debauchery, revelry, and depravity.
With the entire Eldar race as a sacrifice, the youngest of the four Warp Gods was born.
Its birth was fueled by the destruction of a dominant cosmic race.
The Eldar's glorious civilization and magnificent kingdom were thus completely annihilated, along with their 'gods,' who either perished or were corrupted by Slaanesh, degenerating into her toys and lackeys.
The remaining Spirit Clan split into two factions.
They all considered themselves to be the true successors of the Eldar.
One race, the white-skinned Eldar, is known as the Ark Eldar. They have built shelters—often arks that travel through space. Inside the arks are Soulstones, virtual spaces. The Eldar's souls are placed within these Soulstones, severing their connection to the warp.
They practiced asceticism, penance, and strict spiritual discipline, thus preventing themselves from being discovered by Sinister karmic forces in life, and ensuring that their souls would return to the sanctuary after death to become fuel for the ark.
The other group, the dark-skinned ones, live in the magical city of 'Comoros'.
Comoros lies within the veil between the subspace and the real universe.
The real-world veil shouldn't have a concept of thickness, but the Eldar at their peak possessed an astonishing level of technology. They were able to carve out a space within the veil and build a city.
This 'city' is different from the conventional one because it is not in the real universe but within a veil. Therefore, it can use the subspace to open a door in the city at any time, like an astral tunnel, leading to any location in this real universe.
However, they were not in the warp, so they were fortunate enough to escape the storm that raged throughout the warp and the manifest universe when the Slaanesh were born.
However, escaping one calamity doesn't mean everything is safe. All the surviving Eldar are still under the control of Slaanesh—this is no exaggeration. Unlike the Eldar of the Ark, who established sanctuaries and practiced asceticism, the Dark Eldar took a different path.
Their souls are linked to the Comoros, ensuring that their souls won't be immediately sucked away by Slaanesh—if this connection is severed, it's all over; their souls will be directly extracted and enter Slaanesh's realm, becoming her eternal toys.
That was the most painful thing.
If they die, their souls return to the Comoros and are preserved in the Soul Boxes they leave behind. Among the Dark Eldar, highly skilled flesh engineers known as Bloodcrafters can craft a body and resurrect their souls.
Of course, this would result in a very long period of weakness. Therefore, the best outcome would be to bring the deceased Dark Eldar's body back and perform surgery, which would yield much better results.
If surgery is not performed for too long, or if death occurs too long ago, then the Dark Eldar will truly die—and their souls will belong to the Slaanesh after death.
This is the thing that every Eldar fears most.
They feared real death more than any other race.
For other races, death is simply death, and everything returns to nothingness; but for them, death means eternal torment and imprisonment, and they will not be freed until the universe is destroyed.
Even if they weren't completely wiped out, the Dark Eldar were more likely to be targeted by the Slaanesh than their counterparts on the Ark.
Or rather, Slaanesh is constantly watching them, constantly draining their souls. However, with the Comoros' protection, this process is slower.
If they do nothing, perhaps in ten years? Twenty years? Fifty years? ... In short, their souls will be slowly drained away.
The way to prevent one's soul from being taken away is to find a substitute.
By inflicting boundless suffering through torture, violence, and slaughter, and then draining the souls of those souls as substitutes, one can preserve their own soul. This can even compensate for the deficiencies in one's own soul, thereby extending lifespan and enhancing strength. The most powerful clan rulers can even achieve true immortality.
This is the real reason why the Dark Eldar constantly plunder people from other races.
Zernos Blood Curse led just such a raiding party.
He was a mid-level officer in the Blood Curse Clan, one of the top families in the Comoros. His role in the family was to lead a raiding party, frequently launching raids to reap profits.
By leveraging Comoros' ability to open a door anytime, anywhere, into the real universe, they can truly come and go without a trace.
However, the Veiled Spirit Gate is not entirely without limitations.
The only place that can open the Veil Spirit Gate is where the Dark Eldar have constructed a physical 'Veil Spirit Gate' in the real universe, serving as a coordinate.
Zernos's main activity area is not in the Spiderweb region, but in the Galactus region to the north.
The previous brutal war in the Spiderweb Sector was astonishing even to the Eldar of the Comoros. There were plenty of places to plunder; there was no need to come here and cause trouble when humans were already fighting each other and the Voidlings to the point of bloodshed.
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, they will not be focusing their attention on the Spiderweb Universe for a long time.
However, a transfer order from the upper echelons of the family forced him to come here.
He had to take his raiding fleet back to Comoros, then enter the coordinates of the nearest Veil Spirit Gate in the Spiderweb Universe—the Sword Gate Starfield in the northern part of the Spiderweb Universe—and then travel for a long time in the real universe to the Fox Moon Starfield, where he would establish another Veil Spirit Gate before launching his raiding operation.
His target for raiding was the Alliance.
Or rather, it is yet another force that trades with the Infinite Starfield.