Star Gate

Chapter 731: Return to Skystar (II)

Chapter 731: Return to Skystar (II)

Moments later, Li Hao laughed at himself. So he was starting to care about how people rose to their posts, huh? He was probably being affected by Zhang Liang—the deputy commissioner constantly looked down his nose at Li Hao now and scoffed at him for getting in through connections.

“Very good!” Li Hao nodded. “Then you should know that starting from today, you are no longer of the Silver Moon provincial army. You are part of the Demon Hunters! Are you ready for this?”

“We are!” Huang Taiming shouted loudly.

“Do you feel any resentment in leaving your homes?”

“No, this is a soldier’s lot in life. But... as a soldier, we hope to set foot on the battlefield and not...” Huang Taiming hesitated before yelling, “And not become decoration! Although we are weak, although we cannot stand up to a single hit, we still do not wish to become Skystar City embellishment that carries around heavy loads. We’ve been in the army for many years to kill enemies!”

His words were filled with reluctance. He didn’t want to stand around like trophies after arriving in Skystar City.

“Isn’t that nonsense?” Li Hao smiled. “Am I bringing you along for fun? Do I look like I have that much time on my hands, or that much money to feed one thousand of you for free? I can barely feed myself! Your Commander Yu might not pay your salaries anymore, so I’ll have to pay them!

“Therefore, he might’ve said before you guys departed that joining up with me means dying nine times out of ten. Such are your odds of survival. You aren’t qualified enough to be decoration!”

Huang Taiming was rather surprised. Is he really letting us kill the enemy? But... who... can we kill?

That was a big question and a sad question. They would either kill enemies or become decoration. The key thing was, any enemy that Li Hao provoked would be invincible to the soldiers. They’d be going to their deaths all the same on the battlefield.

“That’s enough, cut the blather and change into your uniforms!”

“What?”

“Change!” Li Hao barked. “Don’t make me repeat myself twice!” Set upon set of armor materialized. “Leader Liu, help them into their new equipment. This is standard issue and you will keep it on at all times. The age of hot weapons is about to be over and the era of supernaturals and superhumans is about to fully descend! Even a city annihilation missile will find it difficult to inflict damage on a powerhouse. Novas will be able to avoid the missiles entirely...”

Huang Tailing’s expression shifted when he looked at the rows of armor. “Leader, this is...”

“Call me general or sir!” Li Hao responded faintly. “You guys should know a bit about this as well. This is armor from the ancient civilization with exceedingly strong defenses...”

Huang Taiming had indeed seen it before and even knew that this was from Battle Heaven. All the same, he was hard pressed to conceal his shock.

“This is too wasteful, general!” he couldn’t help but say. “According to what I know, this armor is utilized to the best effect when equipped by a Sunderer or even Dominator. We, we are too weak for all this armor!”

He felt too inferior!

“You’ll grow stronger sooner or later. Do you think you’ll continue to be this weak when you follow me?” Li Hao said quietly. “Enough, change into your new equipment. You guys don’t match when you’re wearing different clothing. Step out of the cars and into the armor!”

He waved the Vast Kun Ship from the Demon Hunters into existence and rapidly expanded it. He planned on flying the ship instead of taking the cars back. When magnified, the ship could fit five thousand, much less one thousand. It just required some mysterious power stones.

“I have extended an invitation to Deputy Zhou to join the Demon Hunters,” Li Hao announced. “Starting from today, he will be our strategist!”

The declaration surprised the crowd! Changing positions from the deputy director general of a province to the strategist of a thousand people strong troop... Even if the troop was the Demon Hunters led by Demon Sword, wasn’t this difference too great?

Hao Lianchuan stuck out his chest, wanting to tell Li Hao that I’m still the acting director of the Night Watchers! If old fart Zhou is a strategist, then what about me?

“I am grateful for the commander’s favor,” chuckled the deputy. “We will be colleagues from now on, please look after me well.”

“We wouldn’t dare!” several powerhouses chorused. This was a major official standing in front of them, after all! How had Li Hao managed to steal even him? Wasn’t Director General Zhao on the verge of tears then?

No one had much of an opinion when it came to their strategist. He’d once overseen one hundred million people, to say nothing of anything else. He was quite adept at support and finance; the troop also needed someone like that.

As for his actual strategizing abilities, no one knew much about them.

“Please choose your cabins according to your designated numbers,” said Li Hao. “There’s no need to stay here. There’s places to rest on the ship. Huang Taiming, you and a few others can stay!”

“Understood!”

“Don’t just say understood, remember to add sir to the end!”

“Understood, sir!” the group immediately amended. This was what was the benefit of soldiers, they obeyed whatever their superior officer said.

Off to the side, Deputy Zhou stroked his mustache and smiled at Li Hao. Did the lad want to revitalize the traditions of the Battle Heaven Army? That would be quite the ambition. That army had been among the elites in the ancient civilization.

......

There weren’t many left in the hold after most left to choose their cabins. Li Hao didn’t say much; he walked up to the ship’s bow and commanded the vessel to rise. The massive ship took the air and flew into the distance.

“The newly joined White Moon Guards are too weak, they need to be strengthened! All of them need to become Slayers first. They won’t have much of an issue to keep breaking through to late Sunderer,” the young man began. “Half step Dominator is a threshold, so if they cannot break through, I recommend breaking their supernatural locks and becoming supernatural!

“Supernaturals don’t have a high requirement of dao comprehension, all they need to do is to break their supernatural locks. Ascending as a Sunderer will bring them to Sunflare. This course of action will ensure swift improvement. It’s true that the aura of a martial master isn’t easy to grasp.”

Wang Taiming simply nodded. Whether it was supernatural or martial master, just growing stronger was enough for them. The details didn’t matter. They were different from Hong Qing in that Hong Qing had been a martial master since young. She’d always been a martial master and knew a great deal of the path. She’d had a chance to comprehend the aura.

These soldiers knew very little of what it meant to be a martial master. It was too hard for them to aspire to sensing the aura! Therefore, it was much easier to ascend as a supernatural.

Deputy Zhou wanted to give a good showing of himself and beamed, “Leave these small matters to me! I can oversee everything from compensation, benefits, and calculation of military merits.” His smile widened when Li Hao looked at him. “It’s just one thousand people, I won’t have much of a problem with that. But I might need some helpers once the number of people grows later on.”

Just one person alone for all that! Li Hao nodded, the old man sure didn’t just sit around. Of course, he’d spent two hundred drops of Water of Life to recruit the deputy. The central region would pay twenty million mysterious power stones for that amount. That could buy Li Hao a large army! Here, it only brought him one old man. Hence, these trifling matters really didn’t matter much.