The Black Wolf commander, Wolf Wind, having digested this matter, stared at Charlotte and Baixue. "And where is your pride as beast-folk? To be, of all things, willing to submit to a human!" In the eyes of the haughty Warhammer beast-folk, any who worked under another race was a kind of shame — the more so for scions of this sort, sprung from the twenty great tribes.
Charlotte said in a cold voice, "Our affairs are no business of yours to worry over; you'd best first worry a little over your own end!"
The Black Wolf commander, Wolf Wind, said, at peace, "What? Could it be you think I'd fear death? I'm a warrior of the Black Wolf Tribe. Since I've been defeated in battle, then I dread not death. Very well; since I've seen the opponent who defeated me, then I can go to my death too. You can kill me now. But mark this well — the Black Wolf Tribe, and the great Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth, will without fail make you pay the price. The 10,000 Warhammer interstellar warships that gave their lives here! In the future, tens of billions of lives in the Reef Star Region will pay the price for it!"
"What a truly funny joke." The wolf-girl Baixue said with scorn. "You lot still don't know just whom it is you've made an enemy of. If Warhammer still dares send interstellar warships here — however many of you come, that's how many we clean up!"
Ever since the wolf-girl Baixue had taken command of the interstellar-missile-ship fleet, the reverence in her heart for the Commander was beyond what words could describe. Now, in the wolf-girl Baixue's heart, Zhao Chen was the son of god, an existence that could not be defeated. That he would grow mighty was but a matter of time.
"A tribe defeated by us Black Wolf, and it dares speak such words — laughable. Pah!" the Black Wolf commander, Wolf Wind, said, not believing it.
"Heh heh heh — and what ability does your Black Wolf Tribe even have? Nothing but that you, back then, took the Black Tiger Tribe for your adoptive daddy. Who knows how many of the wolf-clan's interests you sold out behind everyone's backs! Though your Black Wolf Tribe holds the title of one of the twenty great tribes, who takes you as anything worth mentioning! Come to think of it — this time, what star region and systems did the others go to, and what was arranged for you? The Reef Star Region. A watchdog, and you truly do take yourself for something." The wolf-girl Baixue fired back without the least ceremony.
The two of them had already fallen to spraying insults at each other.
Zhao Chen watched the wolf-girl Baixue and this Black Wolf commander before him. He'd heard tell before of the story of Warhammer's wolf-clan. The wolf-clan was a large tribe, but it had many branch-lines. In earlier times, the White Wolf Tribe had been the strongest; but several hundred years ago, the White Wolf Tribe had lost in a territory war against the Black Wolf Tribe. The Black Wolf Tribe had come by the advanced interstellar-warship support of the then-Black Tiger Tribe, and had, in the end, cemented the Black Wolf Tribe's standing within the wolf-clan. Thereafter the White Wolf Tribe was ceaselessly squeezed and wrung dry, and at last became an exceedingly weak and small tribe; no small number of White Wolf clansfolk, in their fury, ultimately chose to join the rebel army — and Baixue, along with her parents, was among them.
"Ah, right. That elder cousin-sister of yours — is she in good health?" The wolf-girl Baixue suddenly turned the drift of her words, and said with a cold laugh, "I hear she's now called the hope of the Black Wolf Tribe — the 'Black Wolf Princess.' Heh heh heh — as it happens, our Lord Commander is short one bed-warming maid. When the time comes, I'll just seize this 'Black Wolf Princess' of yours and haul her back, to be the most lowly of maids for our Commander!"
Zhao Chen's eyelid gave a twitch; he'd never imagined this wolf-girl Baixue of his had this measure of "filial devotion."
"You dare insult our 'Black Wolf Princess.'" The Black Wolf commander, Wolf Wind, for all the world as though his reverse-scale had been touched, bared his teeth and brandished his claws, making ready to rush at the wolf-girl Baixue. But the very next second, he was pressed to the ground by Zhao Chen. The Black Wolf commander, Wolf Wind, hadn't even made out Zhao Chen's movement clearly before his head was being trodden underfoot by a military boot.
"Since you don't believe what they said — then very well, I want you to go on living, and living well. I want you to watch, with your own eyes, how I prop up the White Wolf Tribe to rise to power, how I make this former general of the white tiger stir up a storm within Warhammer! What they lost, I'll help them take back, every bit of it! Men — take this man and lock him away." Zhao Chen lifted his foot away.
The soldiers led this Black Wolf commander, Wolf Wind, away.
"Lord Commander, you said just now that you'd… you'd prop up the White Wolf Tribe?" The wolf-girl Baixue looked at Zhao Chen in astonishment.
Zhao Chen sat in the chair and said with a faint smile, "What? Not willing?"
The wolf-girl Baixue fell silent all at once; for a moment, she didn't know how to speak.
Zhao Chen looked at the wolf-girl Baixue and Charlotte. "Do you still remember, back when we first met? I said to you then that, if in the future I had ability enough, I would help you take your revenge, and take back all you'd once lost. Though at present we still don't have strength enough — we are, too, no longer that weak and small Owl Dragon Fleet of before. We wholly annihilated three Warhammer interstellar legion fleets! And so, I believe, it will soon be the time for us to bring all of this to pass."
Zhao Chen's gaze was firm.
Charlotte called to mind her own rebel army, called to mind all she'd been through in the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth, thought of those oppressed and bullied bottom-stratum beast-folk tribes — her expression grew distant, as though in a trance. Had Zhao Chen not brought it up, she might well have stayed sunk in the tender, gentle comforts of the Owl Dragon Legion, and forgotten those memories.
The wolf-girl Baixue was all the more dumbstruck and still; those words she'd traded in cursing with the Black Wolf commander, Wolf Wind, just now had, in fact, been merely an off-the-cuff thing she'd said. But now Zhao Chen's words seemed to kindle a certain something that had, all along, existed deep in her heart.
The White Wolf Tribe…
What a distant, long-ago name it was — but her parents had, when Baixue was small, said to her again and again: in the future, without fail, the White Wolf Tribe must be raised up in glory again. No matter how far they walked — that planet possessing six moons was the ancestral homeland of their wolf-clan!
Charlotte knelt on one knee. "Charlotte is willing, with this body, to fight for my lord!"
"If… if the White Wolf Tribe truly can be raised up in glory again… I, Baixue, guarantee that the White Wolf Tribe will become your most loyal of subjects!" The wolf-girl Baixue, casting off her usual devil-may-care manner, knelt half-down and said gravely. This was a kind of highest courtesy belonging to the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth.
"All right; it's a touch early to be speaking of all this now. We need to first get the Reef Star Region matter settled," Zhao Chen said in a gentle voice.
As for the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth, Zhao Chen had, in truth, long since had ideas. The Reef Star Region was merely a springboard. If Zhao Chen wished to possess a strength that could protect himself, then he had to grow stronger. One Owl Dragon System, and the Reef Star Region, could not satisfy Zhao Chen. Because a powerful interstellar legion fleet needed enough resource supply; leaning on the selling of interstellar warships alone could not attain a sustainable development. There was, all the same, the need to have enough resources of one's own. Zhao Chen's relationship with the Starlight Empire was complex, and to act there would inevitably leave him rather bound hand and foot. And the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth was different — its special system led to internal civil war, in truth, always existing within its territory, the various unsubmissive tribes frequently warring with one another. This was, for Zhao Chen, a most fine sort of environment. And, moreover, by leaning on Charlotte and these beast-folk to prop up some forces within the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth, Zhao Chen could come by more resources, and, at the same time, could nibble away at Warhammer. And it could, besides, thereby win over the loyal hearts of Charlotte and the rest.
"Once we've settled the Reef Star Region matter — I'll arrange for you, Charlotte and the others, to find a way to get in contact with your former comrades-in-arms, or your kinsfolk, in Warhammer. So as to make ready for the strategic plan against Warhammer to be unfolded in the future," Zhao Chen pledged.
Charlotte and the wolf-girl Baixue looked at the man before them with adoration. This man had not only brought them a brand-new life and hope; now he was, moreover, to fulfill the very dream they'd thought they could never in this life bring to pass.
To have such a lord — no regret in this whole life!