Chapter 443: Ch
While certain rules and regulations would still need to be discussed and finalized, the member states would retain their autonomy.
They would still be free to expand their territories and influence.
The only restriction was that such expansion could not come at the expense of fellow federation members.
Any internal conflict or territorial aggression between member states would be heavily frowned upon, and both participants would face consequences.
Yet even that condition was considered reasonable by most.
Even if they desired greater influence and larger territories, there was still an endless galaxy beyond Federation space waiting to be explored, conquered, developed, and claimed. And not only that, if this alliance and the Federation were truly formed, they would definitely need to raise their arms and deal with the powers that lay within, or rather, bordered the Federation’s boundaries.
After all, it wasnt as if each of them were nations just around the corner, while in reality they belonged to different parts of the galaxy. They were all from the Northern Sea, one of the four major regions into which the galaxy was divided: the Western Sea, Northern Sea, Southern Sea, and Eastern Sea. Each of these was further divided into the Core Regions, Inner Regions, and Outer Regions.
The parties present all belonged to the Northern Sea’s Outer and Inner Regions, yet they still had quite a distance separating them.
For example, the Valoria Elfheim Empire and Sovereign Tharx’s own empire both belonged to the Inner Northern Sea Region, but between them stood quite a few Tier 2 powers—the strongest among their rank, with the potential to advance to Tier 3 states—along with three Tier 3 states. Likewise, many others were in the same situation.
Only a handful of Tier 1 and Tier 2 states were actually neighbors of one another, but they were few and far between.
So they all understood that, for a Federation to truly exist, it would definitely require one collective territory within which all member states’ territories were connected. Not like the current situation, where everyone was hundreds, or even thousands, of light-years away from one another.
Kallus had already briefed them about this and explained his plans to counter exactly this problem, which excited many of them. After a brief discussion, someone finally asked what they would do with the newly gained territories. Into whose hands would they fall?
Kallus generously explained that the territories would belong to whoever gained control of them. However, there would be certain restrictions, he added.
"What would those conditions be, Imperial Emperor Kallus?" someone quickly asked.
The person who asked the question belonged to a Tier 1 human race state, albeit a rather weak one. Still, it was already remarkable that a human state had reached even this level of power in a galaxy where alien races held the overwhelming majority of influence and viewed humanity as a race that had to be kept in check rather than allowed to develop any further.
Because of the history involved, the human race was jointly suppressed throughout the galaxy. It all stemmed from an event in the distant past when, to his knowledge, the major races and even the Super Tier 3 states had almost fallen at the hands of the Cosmic Human Federation.
It had been a Federation built and ruled primarily by humans, though it also sought inclusivity by accepting other races. However, those races were never given authority within the Federation itself, nor were they allowed to hold power over humanity. Instead, they were treated exactly as any human citizen would be, so long as they remained loyal to the Federation.
If they betrayed it, however, their entire race would be wiped out by the Federation.
In several cases, the ruling states of the present galaxy had once been vassal races of the Cosmic Human Federation. They betrayed it and were almost completely exterminated in retaliation. Yet what no one knew was that these races and powers had prepared for such an outcome. Their higher-ups had secretly fled the galaxy and taken refuge under the protection of greater powers that had interfered with the affairs of the Cosmic Human Federation.
Those higher powers sought control over this galaxy simply to expand their own territories. They nurtured the seven super races that had been nearly annihilated, allowing them to recover over the course of several million years.
Backed by those incomparably stronger powers—beings before whom the Cosmic Human Federation wasn’t even worthy of comparison to a single finger—they eventually returned to the galaxy and, not long afterward, completely obliterated the Cosmic Human Federation.
From that point onward, the human race suffered massacres on an unimaginable scale, marking the beginning of its darkest age—one that, even after millions of years, still continued.
And because of that suppression and outright unfair treatment inflicted upon the human race, it was rare to see a human power that had grown to such an extent. That wasn’t to say there didn’t exist any pure human Tier 3 powers. There were many, actually, but they were barely qualified for such a rank and could be brought down by almost any other power of a similar tier.
And that wasn’t to say humans were incapable. That wasn’t the case at all. Humans were one of the most intelligent races, with very few limits on their racial evolution. Rather, it was those other races that constantly eliminated talented humans who possessed the capability to push the limits of human technology and elevate their states to even greater heights.
Each and every one of them wanted to do exactly that and achieve those ambitions. But the cruelty of the galaxy—and indeed, of the universe itself—was that without enough strength, dreams remained nothing more than dreams.
t was because of this that the human race remained in such a state. Not to mention the bullying they faced and the oppression inflicted upon them by the very races they had once treated quite well. This was something Kallus, and almost everyone within the Celestial Void Empire, was aware of.
Yes, everyone—from the common citizen all the way to the highest-ranking officials.
That was because Kallus had deliberately promoted this history. He wanted to show everyone that showing kindness to those who did not deserve it was nothing more than doing injustice to oneself and to one’s own people, because sooner or later they would come back to bite you.
At the same time, he wanted to teach them another lesson: in this galaxy, one could afford to be foolish or even an idiot, but one could never afford to be emotional or soft-hearted toward one’s enemies, no matter who they were, or whether they had personally been involved in those events or not.
Those who were not of our race were to be treated with different expectations and in a different manner.
This was the message he wished to instill in his people, as well as a form of training, so that they would never become soft-hearted toward their enemies again, much like what had happened with the Minotaur Clan.
That very clan was, in fact, already plotting its revenge against the Celestial Void Empire, much to the astonishment of Kallus and the other leaders of the Navy. They had never expected that their act of kindness would one day come back to backfire on them.
And it was they who later led the Internal Navy—the branch built solely to maintain control over the Federation’s territories—to completely eliminate the last surviving members of the Minotaur Empire from the place where they had been resettled, leaving no one and nothing related to them in existence.
The star system where the Minotaur Clan had been resettled was carpet bombed. After that, biological weapons were released to completely wipe them out, along with every other living organism on those planets. And once that was done, another type of material-dissolving agent was deployed to erase nearly all non-natural structures and traces of civilization as well.
It was cruel, yes, but that was the only way around it.
The hatred between the two races had already taken root, and nothing else could truly resolve it. Given enough time, that hatred would only continue to grow and would eventually come back to bite Kallus, just as it once had the Cosmic Human Federation.
That was a mistake he had no intention of repeating.
And that was why the Minotaur race disappeared, with no one knowing where they had gone—or what had truly happened to them. Even those living within the territories of other states were wiped out, thanks to the fact that the Minotaur race tended to live in concentrated enclaves scattered across certain parts of the galaxy.
Those settlements were easily located by Kallus and systematically eliminated by the Shadow Forces—an organization that would go on to play a key role in his future conquests.
And for his plan to bear fruit, this alliance—or rather, this Federation—had to be formed, with them at the helm of it.
