Chapter 187 Not Going to Look Petty

Han Xiao sighed helplessly, put away the communicator, and pondered.

What was Ames doing in the War Realm? Was she going to cause trouble?

Mazarks had said that Ames and the War Realm had a falling out in the past. He Bo, the Overlord, had poached one of her former capable subordinates, and the two had fought a battle, earth-shattering and astonishing, which ended with Ames suffering a loss and fleeing. Han Xiao felt that Ames’ intentions this time were mostly malicious.

"She had to drag me along, could it be that she wants me to help her block the Overlord’s subordinates?"

Han Xiao's mouth twitched. He had become the strongest subordinate of Longtan. In the past, Ames had no one available under her command. Now that she finally had someone capable, was she going to seize the opportunity to order him around?

The Overlord had countless experts under his command, and the eight Grade A vanguard officers were just the tip of the iceberg. High-level cadres were not limited to vanguard officers. If Ames only took him alone to the War Realm, she would naturally be fine, but he might be in trouble…

"I hope it's not to fight…"

Han Xiao had a headache.

Hela watched the entire conversation between the two and asked in confusion, "What is the War Realm?"

"It's a gathering place for a bunch of musclemen, anyway, it's very dangerous," Han Xiao said unhappily.

Since Ames asked him to set off quickly, Han Xiao didn't delay.

He found Reynold and instructed him to stay behind and guard Base Number One. Then, he found Sylvia, gave her some instructions, and asked her to be responsible for managing trivial matters. This was mainly just a formality. The real administrator of Base Number One was Phillip. Han Xiao could remotely control the situation of the base, so there wasn't much to explain. Even if he wasn't at the base, the Black Star Army's business could still operate normally.

It only took half an hour to deal with the trivial matters. Han Xiao called Hela and Aurora, who had changed into dry clothes, and the three of them boarded the Blacklight Stealther parked in the hangar.

Rumble—

The ceiling hatch of the hangar opened, and the anti-gravity stabilizers at the bottom of the Blacklight Stealther activated, emitting a faint blue light.

The spaceship rose vertically, and then the thrusters ejected purple tail flames.

In the blink of an eye, the spaceship turned into a stream of light and disappeared into the sky.

…

Longtan Floating Island.

The Blacklight Stealther disengaged from its warp and slowly caught up with the floating Longtan, landing at the pier.

"Is this Longtan?"

Stepping off the spaceship, Aurora curiously looked around. She immediately saw the thugs gathered at the pier, each one looking fierce and evil, clearly not good people.

The thugs turned their heads to look over.

Seeing this, Hela quickly followed, standing beside Aurora, vigilantly scanning the surrounding thugs, like a protective mother leopard.

"Don't be so nervous. Although Longtan allows pirates, scavengers, and wanted criminals to dock, it doesn't allow fighting here… well, I mean under normal circumstances, cough, in short, they are all very docile and won't bite."

As Han Xiao spoke, he walked to the two of them, casually put his arm around Hela's shoulder, glanced around, and shouted loudly at the surrounding thugs: "Hey, are you still looking?"

Hearing this, the surrounding thugs turned their gazes away and continued to do their own things. Han Xiao's vehicle was too famous, and no one wanted to provoke Black Star in Longtan.

Hela glanced at Han Xiao, then looked at the hand on her shoulder, and shifted uncomfortably.

"My friend, you're back again."

At this moment, Visandi's voice sounded not far away. He had received the news early and was waiting here to welcome Han Xiao.

What Han Xiao didn't expect was that Jenny had also come and was standing behind Visandi.

He greeted Visandi, then looked at Jenny and smiled, "You're here too, huh? You must have been busy with work recently. You seem to have lost a lot of weight."

Jenny was expressionless. She snatched a weapon from a guard and started firing madly at Han Xiao without saying a word.

Bang bang bang—

Han Xiao allowed the small-caliber lasers to hit his body, causing bursts of light debris, but they couldn't hurt him at all.

Beside him, Aurora looked stunned, Hela clenched her fists slightly, seemingly hesitating whether to stop her, while Visandi shook his head helplessly.

Click, click, click…

Until the barrel overheated and could no longer fire, Jenny threw away the gun and said indifferently, "Ames is waiting for you in the palace."

With that, she turned and left.

She knew she couldn't hurt Han Xiao and just wanted to vent her frustration.

As a senior executive, Jenny must have been extremely busy during this period. Han Xiao was understanding and didn't mind letting Jenny have her moment.

Anyway, this wouldn't affect his future actions. He would continue to expand as he pleased. Jenny's leisurely days, like youth, would never return.

Han Xiao patted his clothes, unconcerned, and turned to look at Hela. "Let's go. I'll take you to see Ames and show you around."

The two looked at each other, speechless, and nodded.

After saying goodbye to Visandi, they arrived at the palace in the center of the floating island. Han Xiao led the three into the palace.

A dragon bone throne floated in mid-air in the main hall. Ames sat on it, propped her chin up, looked at the three people entering the hall, and sighed, "Black Star, you're so slow. You took several months to send them over."

Han Xiao remained noncommittal, while Hela and Aurora nodded in greeting.

Ames manipulated the force field to lower the height of the throne and landed in front of the three, revealing a smile. "Alright, from now on, you are my students. You can call me teacher."

"Teacher," the two replied.

Ames was very pleased with this title, and her smile became gentler. She used to call Iso like that too. Now she had her own students, and it felt very special.

"Although our abilities are different, I can teach you how to develop your abilities, use my experience to help you unlock your potential," Ames said softly.

Hela nodded solemnly. "Okay, when do we start?"

She was a cultivation fanatic. With such a powerful teacher, she couldn't wait to start training immediately.

Unexpectedly, Ames shook her head. "Not now. I want you to accompany me to a place."

Han Xiao raised his eyebrows and interrupted, "The War Realm?"

"Yes, all three of you have to accompany me."

She was even bringing Hela and Aurora? It didn't seem like she was going to fight…

Han Xiao's mind flickered, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

This was good news. He didn't want to provoke the forces of another Super Grade A expert for no reason.

However, in order to confirm Ames' intentions, Han Xiao asked, "That's the territory of He Bo, the Overlord. I heard you had a falling out with him. What are we going to do there?"

Ames' smile faded slightly, and she slowly said, "The Overlord is an ambitious guy, and I'm not on the same path as him. He even poached a talent I relied on in the past, but this time we're not going to cause trouble."

"Every once in a while, the Overlord will hold a grand gathering, sending out invitations to the big shots in the Shattered Star Ring. Basically everyone will grace him with their presence. The people attending the gathering include high-ranking officials from Star Cluster level civilizations, representatives from some major forces, and sometimes even envoys from the three Universal Civilizations. The Super Grade A in the Shattered Star Ring are naturally also among his invitees. I also received his invitation… Hmph, although this guy is annoying, he is indeed an unfathomable person. Back then, I attacked their headquarters, but the Overlord still invited me to the next gathering."

"In short, the Overlord's gathering has been going on for many years and has formed a tacitly understood traditional event among major forces. This is an opportunity for many big shots to expand their network. The Overlord can hold the stage and has the qualifications to act as the host. At the gathering, many big shots will communicate with each other and discuss different topics. Each gathering will reveal a lot of intelligence. The topics discussed by these big shots at the gathering will largely be the future development of the Shattered Star Ring…"

So that's how it is… Han Xiao understood.

In simple terms, the Overlord was holding a Shattered Star Ring social event, where everyone would go to make friends, chat, and fool around. The difference was that most of the participants were of high status, and all of them together could even influence the development of the Shattered Star Ring region.

Holding such a gathering and turning it into a traditional activity for the upper-level forces… Sure enough, the Overlord was an ambitious person with great plans.

"So, you're going to attend the Overlord's gathering too?"

Han Xiao was a little surprised. Longtan had always maintained neutrality, and with Ames' personality, it didn't seem like she would pay attention to such things.

"Of course I'm going!" Ames said in a slightly deep voice. "I don't want to seem too petty!"

What the heck? What does this have to do with being petty?

Han Xiao had a question mark on his face.

He sorted out Ames' logic and finally understood what Ames meant:

—I have a feud with him, but he actually dares to invite me to the gathering, using this method to show his magnanimity? Damn it, he dares to invite me, does he think I wouldn't dare to go? If I don't go, wouldn't I seem petty? Go! I have to go! I am gorgeous and awesome, I'm not afraid of him!

He felt that his guess was close to the truth. This was the right way to understand Ames…

Then why bring me along… Damn it, because there are countless experts under the Overlord’s command, so Ames didn’t want to be outdone and specially pulled him over to support her!

At least she wasn't going to cause trouble… Han Xiao felt a mess in his heart and had to comfort himself like this. He asked helplessly, "When does the gathering start?"

"There's still some time. We'll set off tomorrow to the War Realm headquarters."

The War Realm was located in the Saul Star Cluster. If the Shattered Star Ring was turned into a flat map, the most central part was the dangerous unstable wormhole cluster, where space was extremely unstable, and wormholes disappeared and reappeared, randomly connecting to various corners of the universe.

On both sides of the flat map, one side was the edge of the explored universe, and beyond that was the unexplored unknown universe.

The other side was the passage to other star regions, which required passing through a long stretch of desolate universe with no inhabitants. Rista had warped across star regions for a long time before arriving in the Shattered Star Ring from other star regions.

Surrounding the wormhole cluster were the ten or so star clusters of the Shattered Star Ring, all divided up by the seven Star Cluster level civilizations of the Shattered Star Ring.

The closest to the wormhole cluster was the Terarium Star Cluster, where scavenger forces were rampant. Han Xiao had set foot there once when he was doing a Morning Star mission.

The Colton Star Cluster and the Saul Star Cluster were separated by a desolate universe belt and could barely be considered adjacent.

On the other side of the Saul Star Cluster was the largest Serdin Star Cluster. Saul was a sandwich between Serdin and Colton. The flat map of Saul was a narrow long oval, and its area was the second smallest in the Shattered Star Ring.

In terms of politics, the Star Cluster level civilization that controlled Saul was called the Klent Empire, while the Star Cluster level civilization that ruled Colton was the Purple Crystal Civilization. These two civilizations were friendly neighbors and had built many large Star Gates in each other's territories. The Godoran teleportation Star Gate was built by the Purple Crystal Civilization.

The Overlord’s War Realm was a guest of honor of the Klent Empire. With a Star Cluster level civilization backing him, the Overlord's gathering had both the influence of a Super Grade A and the status of a Star Cluster level civilization, so many people gave him face.

"So, we're going to the Saul Star Cluster, right?" Han Xiao sighed. "Let's take my spaceship."

Ames smiled. "That's what I meant."