From this moment on, the Molian Civilization’s flagship had become Xiao Yu’s All Nations Pay Tribute. It was a subtle yet extremely significant transformation.

The birth of All Nations Pay Tribute signified the complete annihilation of the Molian fleet.

Without a commander, without a flagship, how could they possibly continue fighting? They weren’t like Xiao Yu, who could fill multiple roles himself: commander, strategist, soldier, and even more all at once.

Inside the main control room of All Nations Pay Tribute, Xiao Yu looked at the high-ranking officers of the Molian military who were forced to kneel under the control of his armed robots. He glanced at the Molian fleet commander, unconscious on the floor after being knocked out for refusing to cooperate. Feeling immense satisfaction, Xiao Yu let out a sinister laugh. “Weren’t you all quite arrogant earlier? Just moments ago you were telling me to surrender, saying you’d assign me a low-end personal computer as my living space. Why aren’t you so arrogant now?”

The Molian intelligent beings stared at Xiao Yu with a mixture of fear and hatred. One elderly Molian trembled as he spoke. “Demon! Don’t get too arrogant. You only won by relying on schemes and tricks. You are no true match for our civilization. Our civilization will surely dispatch a massive fleet one day. No matter where you run, even to the ends of the universe, you will be hunted down and killed!”

“Your words, calling me cunning, scheming, and deceitful, are actually compliments. And I accept them gladly,” Xiao Yu said with a smile. “I know that your civilization’s homeland is at least several hundred light-years away from here. The Molian Civilization doesn’t have the capability to track targets across such distances. At the same time, I’m not foolish enough to sit here and wait for your fleet to arrive and kill me. You only have two options: one, surrender to me and contribute your wisdom to my technological advancement; two, be killed by my Specter companion, who will devour your brainpower for nourishment!”

“You choose for yourselves!” Xiao Yu said coldly. “If you surrender, I promise you the highest and most privileged material conditions, just like the hundred-plus civilizations that have already submitted to me. If you refuse… I have plenty of ways to deal with you. My Specter companion told me that the more pain a being experiences, the more active their brain becomes, making them even more delicious. If you refuse to submit, I guarantee you’ll wish you were dead…”

“You demon!” the elderly Molian shouted furiously. “Among the warriors of the Molian Civilization, there are only heroes who die in battle, never cowards who surrender!”

“Hmph.” Xiao Yu sneered coldly and said nothing more. He simply ordered his robots to take all the Molians away.

Originally, there had been nearly one hundred thousand Molians aboard this Nation-Class starship. After the battle, about eighty thousand remained alive, and Xiao Yu had captured them all.

This also revealed one of the limitations of ordinary intelligent civilizations, a lack of population. Xiao Yu was certain that without extremely high levels of knowledge and more than a decade of study, an ordinary intelligent being wouldn’t even qualify to serve on a Nation-Class starship. A single Nation-Class ship required one hundred thousand such highly trained individuals. Then how many people would be needed to staff the entire fleet of forty thousand ships?

This was the shortcoming of ordinary civilizations, and one of Xiao Yu’s great advantages.

After capturing this Nation-Class ship, the rest of the battle became much easier. The remaining Molian ships, still capable of fighting, chose to self-destruct the moment they saw their flagship had been taken. Both Xiao Yu and the Specter companion were greatly disappointed.

Those ships were valuable assets, and the Molian intelligent beings were extremely rare food sources for the Specter Race.

But Xiao Yu had no way to stop it. He could destroy the ships, but he couldn’t prevent them from self-destructing. The Specter companion could prevent self-destruction, but there was only one Specter, it couldn’t be everywhere at once.

This war, which had dragged on for more than a hundred years, had finally come to an end with Xiao Yu’s victory.

The cleanup of the battlefield was handled by Xiao Yu’s remaining computational power. Now that the war was over, Xiao Yu finally had time to properly converse with his Specter companion, who shared a blood connection with him.

“Haha, my Main Civilization, you are truly remarkable. Can you tell me how you managed to eliminate the previous generation of the Specter Race within just a few decades? It was so terrifying, even at a distance of twenty light-years, I wouldn’t have dared to face it.”

An excited message filled Xiao Yu’s mind.

But after hearing it, Xiao Yu’s excitement over his victory instantly dimmed. With some melancholy, Xiao Yu said, “My companion, our elder… was killed by me. No… it was suicide.”

“Hm? I don’t understand,” his Specter companion responded.

“I had planned to use the Stellar Cannon to destroy that star, indirectly eliminating the previous generation of the Specter Race. But… my companion, do you know? The previous generation Specter actually bore no malice toward us. It had generously protected me. Even the danger you sensed, that was something it allowed you to sense, solely to push my potential. Every move I made, it saw clearly. I had no secrets before it. After the Stellar Cannon was completed, it could have evaded it easily, yet… to give me one final lesson, to teach me to be ruthless and cautious, it sacrificed its own life.”

Xiao Yu recounted the entire event in detail. What followed was a long silence from his Specter companion.

“So that’s what happened… When I was hiding twenty light-years away from that star, there were many times when I felt it had already discovered me. It could have killed me at any moment, yet it never struck. I had thought it was you restraining it, preventing it from killing me. I never imagined that this was the truth…”

“It, the previous generation Specter, our elder, was without a doubt a great being,” Xiao Yu said.

“Yes, it was a great being,” the Specter companion agreed. “But it is gone now. Its legacy has fallen to us. We must continue growing stronger, defeat the Guardian Civilization, defeat the Sweepers, destroy the Taihao Civilization, ascend to the peak of the Milky Way, and even become the legendary… Level 7 Civilization.”

“Yes, we will definitely reach the peak… In these ten thousand years since I left the Solar System, what have you experienced?” Xiao Yu asked.

“Hmm… I don’t remember too clearly anymore. In the beginning, my awareness wasn’t very distinct. After I gained the ability to leave the Solar System, I traveled under an instinctual drive. I only remember that my first prey seemed to be a Level 1 civilization, which I wiped out completely.”

The Specter slowly recounted its experiences, one grand event after another flowing into Xiao Yu’s mind. Only then did Xiao Yu realize that his Specter companion had gone through far more thrilling and dangerous experiences than he had. Many times, the Specter had teetered on the edge of life and death. If not for a little luck at crucial moments, it would have perished long ago.

The most dangerous encounter was when it faced two extremely powerful Level 6 Alien Beast Civilizations. If these two had not been locked in a bitter war against each other, any one of the alien beasts could have easily wiped it out with a mere flick.

Xiao Yu had heard before that the three strongest Alien Beast Civilizations in the Milky Way were the Arboreal Race, the Python Race, and the Crocodilian Race. From the Specter’s descriptions, it seemed the two warring civilizations had been the Arboreal Race and the Python Race.

The Specter companion’s experiences left Xiao Yu secretly alarmed.

“That was my journey, just a bit dangerous, nothing too unusual otherwise,” the Specter companion said with a laugh. “I suppose you’re the same as me, always facing crises, always fleeing, constantly living on the edge. But through these countless dangers, we’ve steadily grown stronger.”

“Yes.” Xiao Yu spoke with emotion. “My experiences may not be as colorful as yours, but over these years, I’ve uncovered some information about humanity…”

As he spoke, Xiao Yu recounted everything that had happened since he left the Solar System, especially focusing on the secrets he had discovered and some traces of humanity.

“Though I am formed from the souls of deceased humans, I have lost all memory of my time as a human,” the Specter companion said somewhat sorrowfully. “Yet, whenever I hear the word ‘human,’ I can’t help but feel a deep sense of kinship. I know this blood connection can never be severed, just like the bond between you and me.”

“We’ll walk the road ahead together.” Xiao Yu spoke solemnly. “In this dark universe, at least I have you to trust completely, and you have me. Together, we’ll act. If you give me a hundred years to recover and develop, with our combined strength, we should be able to take on a full-fledged early-stage Level 5 Civilization, not just one of their fleets like we do now. I’ll seize their technology, and you’ll harvest their lifeforms…”

“No, my Main Civilization, I cannot do that.” To Xiao Yu’s surprise, the Specter companion decisively refused his proposal. “We cannot act together. For our safety, we must separate and operate independently.”

“Why?” Xiao Yu asked in surprise.