Not long after,
the fleet that had set out from the Northern Continent landed on the Eastern Continent.
During the landing, though they were attacked by the Doyle Empire's local garrison,
the attack was far too weak.
Under cover of the carrier battle group's fighters, bombers and naval guns, the amphibious landing ships soon put the combat units ashore.
In under half a day, they had taken complete control of the coastal cities.
"Everyone, hands on your heads and squat down; surrender and you won't be killed!"
The broadcasts rang through the streets.
Doyle Empire soldiers chose to surrender in droves.
They looked somewhat bedraggled; it could be seen that things here had been far from rosy even before they came.
Looking farther into the city, many people who looked like refugees could be seen.
"Reporting: our vanguard has completed its landing," a subordinate reported to Xue Xiaoxiao, who was in charge of this landing operation.
Xue Xiaoxiao nodded and looked at the map before her.
She pointed at several circled areas: "These areas are the nearest to us of those hit by our nukes. Judging by what we've seen, the local people probably fled these areas after the attack and gathered here as refugees. As the vanguard, we don't only have to build a beachhead position here. We also have to steady the local situation. First, clear out every enemy armed force within this range. And announce our policy: we're targeting only the Doyle Empire's royal leadership. The soldiers and ordinary officials below, so long as they surrender, we won't harm their lives. After that, set up refugee camps locally, mainly to take in the refugees who've fled the fallout zones. Check their physical condition. If there are patients exposed to nuclear radiation, use the medicines we've brought to treat them free of charge. After that, assign dedicated units to move into the nearest nuke-strike areas. Monitor the fallout around the clock. Update the areas that can be entered every twenty-four hours. If there are still ordinary people in the fallout zones, arrange convoys to bring them out," Xue Xiaoxiao said gravely.
Though these nuclear strikes were their own doing,
that had been a countermeasure used to paralyze the Doyle Empire as a civilization.
And now, as far as they were able, saving the civilians in the fallout zones was also something they had to do.
It looked contradictory.
But this was Zhao Chen's policy.
The cities taken under Fierce Dragon military control were somewhat tense at first.
But when they found that the troops who had taken their cities did them no harm at all, did not break into their homes, rob them of their property, or violate their wives and daughters,
their hearts were set at ease.
As for the Doyle Empire's overthrow, in truth they did not feel it very deeply.
For the Doyle Empire had only been founded these two years; apart from letting them feel technology being renewed faster,
nothing much in their lives had changed.
So they had no great sense of belonging to or loyalty toward the Doyle Empire.
And now the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's arrival, this calm kind of handover, made them feel as if their lives had not changed at all.
"You're the mayor here?" Xue Xiaoxiao looked at a middle-aged man brought before her.
The middle-aged man's forehead was covered in beads of sweat; he nodded somewhat nervously and said, "Yes, I'm the mayor of Petersburg. What… what are your orders?"
"We are the Fierce Dragon Kingdom. We have now taken over the city of Petersburg. But we bear you no ill will. All your nobles and officials can go back to their former lives and work. We'll only station a working group in your Petersburg city government to supervise your work. If there are no problems, they won't interfere with your work. Of course, because there are many refugees outside now, we may need your help in settling these refugees as well."
Having heard this, the mayor of Petersburg nodded again and again: "All of that's no problem. No problem at all."
"If you perform satisfactorily in the meantime, you'll still be mayor of Petersburg in the future." Xue Xiaoxiao looked at the man before her.
The middle-aged man's eyes lit up.
What these local power holders feared most was that once a new regime appeared, their power would be stripped away.
But now that the other side had given such a promise, they naturally had no reason to refuse.
Very soon,
in the three days after this,
the five coastal cities controlled by the Fierce Dragon Kingdom had resumed eighty percent of their life and production.
Apart from the garrisons outside the cities, the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's flags hanging in the cities,
and the added refugee camps, life was not much changed from before.
At first, there had been worry about whether daily necessities would go up in price at this critical moment.
But they rose only 30% over the original prices.
Ask why they did not go up further?
Because someone had tried, but very soon the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's working group had come knocking, and after that nothing more was heard of him.
From that time on, no one dared cross this red line the Fierce Dragon Kingdom had drawn.
Of course, it was not only a policy of pressure; there were also the merchant ships sailing in one after another from the Northern Continent,
bringing not only batch after batch of soldiers but every kind of daily goods too,
ensuring that the cities under the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's control could keep their former stability.
And word of this gradually spread within the Doyle Empire.
After order was steadied in the first few cities, the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's army, with the Northern Continent's army, began to push outward.
In the first week, they extended the cities they controlled to ten.
Among them was the Doyle Empire's fifth-largest port city.
This had also been one of the targets of the nuclear strikes.
Here an inland river ran to the sea, and the channel here was very deep, a natural inland port.
So three-tenths of the Doyle Empire's shipbuilding was here.
Before the nuclear strike, over a hundred warships had still been berthed here, along with dozens of factories connected with the arms industry.
But now,
this city had been reduced to ruins.
And in an area beyond these ruins, a great expanse of refugee camps had been built.
Compared with the refugee camps of other cities,
the atmosphere in the camps here was plainly heavier; the joint Fierce Dragon and Northern Continent soldiers patrolling here went fully armed, and were required not to act on their own.
Anyone leaving barracks went in groups of at least three.
After all, many people here had lost their homes and families to this nuclear strike.
So they harbored a degree of hatred for the Fierce Dragon Kingdom.
When the Fierce Dragon troops first entered here, they had come under many attacks.
Even while taking in refugees, they had met some suicide attacks by refugees.
For these attacks,
Xue Xiaoxiao's orders were very simple:
any attacker found could be shot dead on the spot.
They were merciful, but that did not mean they would accept anyone threatening their lives.
The military vehicle carrying Xue Xiaoxiao stopped on a highway; ahead stood a yellow sign.
Farther on, the Doyle Empire's fifth-largest city could be seen.
"Ahead is the yellow nuclear-radiation warning zone. Compared with the start, the radiation has already dropped a good deal. At the very start, our people couldn't enter here at all." The adjutant beside her held a radiation detector.
The needle could be seen pointing at the yellow zone.
That meant there was radiation here beyond the normal range.
But so long as one did not live here long, there was no danger.
"According to our technical department, the radiation in the blast core, without cleanup equipment, will last at least five years. In three more months, the urban area can be entered without protective suits. But no outdoor work can be done, and no long stays," the adjutant said beside her.
"Mm. Assign a dedicated observation team here. Keep observing. Survey and mark the cordon, and make sure no one wanders into this area by mistake." Xue Xiaoxiao looked at the distant city, still as death.
No one knew just how many people in the Doyle Empire had died under the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's thirty-six nuclear strikes this time.
The Fierce Dragon Kingdom published no figures on it; not, of course, that it had never investigated.
But everyone knew perfectly well it would be a truly terrible number,
perhaps even greater than a full-scale war on a whole continent.
But Zhao Chen had no regrets at all about it.
Only this way could the Doyle civilization be destroyed in the shortest time with the fewest casualties.
Still, for the next several decades,
the Fierce Dragon Kingdom issued a policy that every patient with radiation sickness on the Eastern Continent could receive free treatment and a basic living allowance.
Such measures of appeasement also greatly lessened the hostility of the people of this land toward the Fierce Dragon Kingdom.
Xue Xiaoxiao's army, in the attacks that followed,
met several waves of offensives the Doyle Empire organized one after another, but the gap in strength between the two was simply too great.
And with the Doyle Empire's logistics and supply paralyzed besides, if a fight dragged on even a little, many of their weapons could not be used.
They could only let themselves be slaughtered by the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's weapons.
As for the sea battle in the Middle-Sea Archipelago,
eight Fierce Dragon carrier battle groups surrounded the other side of the Middle-Sea Archipelago, reversing the roles of before,
and the story went entirely differently too.
The enemy, after the earlier round of grinding standoff, had over a thousand warships left.
In a mere span of under a month,
they were either destroyed or had surrendered.
The Middle-Sea Archipelago came wholly under the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's control.
The Southern Continent.
With the Doyle Empire's situation fully exposed,
problems broke out inside the Southern Alliance too.
And with the Nancy Empire counterattacking all the way with the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's support,
the bugle of counteroffensive, headed by the Nancy Empire, sounded across the Southern Continent.
And the final chapter of the Doyle Empire
came one afternoon.
The Doyle Empire's royal capital.
Xue Xiaoxiao saw the Doyle before her; to be precise, he was the highest in rank of the Doyle Empire's Three Kings.
He stood over three meters tall.
But his condition just now was not very good.
His skin showed the symptoms of radiation sickness.
He had been found by Fierce Dragon troops in an underground shelter of the Doyle Empire.
This Doyle, even at this point, still held his proud head high,
like a warrior who would not admit defeat.
"Your Doyle civilization has lost," Xue Xiaoxiao said, looking at the Doyle before her.
This Doyle said nothing.
"By the rules of the Trial, you can surrender and pledge allegiance to our Fierce Dragon civilization. That way, you and your people still have a chance to live," Xue Xiaoxiao said.
The rules of the Trial of the Gods
did not require only killing the other side; they also included making the other side surrender, and so absorbing its technology and people.
"People of the Doyle civilization will never surrender," the Doyle said, and red patterns appeared on the surface of his body.
At once squads of soldiers with riot shields stepped in front of Xue Xiaoxiao.
But the threat they imagined did not come.
This Doyle stood there bolt upright.
Someone stepped up to check.
"He's dead."
Dead?
None of them had expected it.
And almost at the same moment, all the several thousand Doyles on this planet died.
This was the rule of the Trial: if a civilization's leader died, all those he had brought would be judged dead too.
Only afterward did Xue Xiaoxiao learn
that this Doyle had a racial gift, which was suicide:
he could kill himself without relying on anything outside himself.
This was also why, from the start of this war to its end, the Fierce Dragon Kingdom had never taken a single Doyle prisoner.
But none of this mattered anymore.
With the exit of the Doyle race, this planet was formally declared to have entered the age of the Fierce Dragon civilization.
——————
Half a year after the Doyle Empire vanished,
the wars on this planet stopped entirely.
The Doyle Empire on the Eastern Continent was gone, but with the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's backing several countries emerged and set up stable systems.
Behind all of this, of course, was the Fierce Dragon Kingdom.
As for the Southern Continent,
the Nancy Empire still existed; most of the Southern Alliance's powers were cleared away, but some kingdoms in the end chose to come over to the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's side.
Because they still had their uses, the Fierce Dragon Kingdom did not overthrow them entirely either.
After this,
this planet entered an age of great unity.
The Fierce Dragon Kingdom announced the founding of the Dragon Star Alliance, and formally named this planet Dragon Star.
Every country on this planet joined this alliance; all were in the Dragon Star Alliance.
And ten countries, headed by the Fierce Dragon Kingdom, set up an Upper House.
In this Upper House, though the Fierce Dragon Kingdom had only one seat, it held a permanent veto.
Today
was the Dragon Star Alliance's first joint congress,
held on the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's continent.
The leaders of every continent had arrived in the Fierce Dragon Kingdom one after another over the past week.
The Nancy Empress's private plane appeared in the sky over the Fierce Dragon Kingdom.
The Nancy Empress looked down at this country of legend below, and in her heart there was even a trace of nervousness.
Though she had already seen a great deal of material about this country,
she still harbored the fullest expectation of setting foot in this country for the first time.