"Senior Jin, as the commander-in-chief of the coalition army, you have the future of the entire Blood Demon Sector on your shoulders. Think about the possibility I just described. Do not let all the demons of the Blood Demon Sector die in your hands!"
Jin Tuyi was amused. He shook his head and said, "I do find it a bit unbelievable right now. How did such a childish man like yourself come up with such a flawless infiltration plan while ensuring that all the details are immaculate?
"Let's put your groundless words aside for a moment, which, for the record, are just a joke in my eyes.
"Even if I am convinced by you, so what? Do you think that, just because I am the commander-in-chief of the coalition army of demons and the nominal monarch of the Blood Demon Sector, I can stop the world war with a declaration?
"Let me tell you something. The war is not started by me alone. The real starter of the war is the general will of the twelve demon emperors of the Pantheon of Demons, or rather, the general will of all the demon emperors, demon kings, all the silver-blood demons, and even the entire demon race! It is the will of the Blood Demon Sector that started the war before I was elected as the representative of the 'war will'!
"Once a war machine is activated, it will be alive. Like a ravenous, quickly-growing beast, nobody can stop it from maturing and raging, not even its creator!
"I became the commander-in-chief of the coalition army of demons and the nominal monarch of the Blood Demon Sector not because of my charisma, not because of my personal combat ability, but because I am the one who is most suitable to push the war forward right now!
"The bottom line is, the 'commander-in-chief of the coalition army' is just a tiny rivet on the steering wheel of the enormous war machine or a relatively conspicuous tusk in the mouth of the war beast!
"Do you believe this? If I convene a meeting of the twelve demon emperors at this second, and I declare that 'human beings and demons are of the same origin, and we should seek reconciliation instead of attacking each other', I will be killed by the other eleven demon emperors collectively in the next second, and a new commander-in-chief of the coalition army, who is colder, crueler, and hates human beings a hundred times more than I do, will be assigned the next second to continue carrying out the will of the enormous beast!
"This is a war. This is the will of a people. You think that, by convincing or killing a certain someone, it will be enough to stop a people from going mad? I am growing more and more suspicious about how you are distributing your computational ability as a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator."
Li Yao was rendered speechless, with cold sweat covering his forehead.
With a glimmer of contempt in his eyes, Jin Tuyi sighed and said, "It is impossible. The nation has already gone insane. It is rushing at full speed on the cliff of destruction. There is no way that you or I can stop it!
"This is an abnormal, congenitally deficient nation—a freak that is born in the fire of war. It only survives to this day through the benefits of wars. But in order to loot more war benefits, the nation is dedicating more and more resources to wars like a snowball! To get resources, it must wage a war, and to wage a war, it must collect even more resources. The vicious cycle of war is everything about the nation. Without wars, the nation will fall apart! How are you going to stop it?
"I have some boring data here. Would you like to hear it?
"In the last fiscal year, the military budge of the nation was 34% of the GDP, not counting the indirect expenses such as the excessive infrastructure for the usage of wars. If such costs are taken into consideration, perhaps half of the resources of the entire nation have been poured into wars. This is certainly 'military above everything'!
"In this nation, soldiers who do not work and only fight take up 15% of the whole population. Roughly speaking, every five civilians are supporting a soldier who will consume tremendous resources!
"To support the enormous war machine, the government is not only levying dozens of kinds of fancy war taxes, defense taxes, and legion construction fees, but also taking from the budges of other fields such as education, medical care, and insurance. Still, the deficit is getting huger and huger. Perhaps, in the next ten years, the gap will be beyond repair, and the government will collapse!
"To reduce the deficit, and to make a fortune through wars, the government and the major forces of the nation are all selling war bonds and victory funds, attracting the ordinary citizens and the bottom-level soldiers with trophies and war benefits so that they will devote the last coin in their pocket into the endeavor again.
"But whatever the war bonds and the victory funds are, they can only be redeemed with a complete victory and the tremendous war benefits that are looted during the war!
"In front of you right now is exactly such an insane country!
"Now, just with a few words of yours, you are trying to make the nation stop the war in exchange for worthless peace?
"Let me tell you something. If the war ends today, the government and the top hundred forces in the nation will all collapse tomorrow! The only reason they can survive to this day is that the public believes that they will bring a satisfactory victory and an astronomical quantity of trophies tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or the day after!
"Do you understand now? We are not talking about the difference between human beings and demons, not rightness and evilness, not the existence of the Imperium of True Human Beings; we are talking about the simplest question of benefits!"
Li Yao took a long breath and said firmly, "I understand that the Blood Demon Sector is a barren world that is already on the verge of collapse because of the shortage of resources. You need a war to survive, but I believe that there must be a second approach!
"Wars bring resources, but communication will, too. The Blood Demon Sector, the Heaven's Origin Sector, and the Flying Star Sector are highly complementary to each other! If we dedicate our resources to communication and construction instead of a war, we will be able to cast our influence on an even broader world!
"The handiest example is Boneyard!
"Boneyard is only ten thousand lightyears away from us. Although it is not easy to reach the place with the teleportation technology of the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector, the Flying Star Sector actually boasts very mature space jump technology and starship production technology!
"Even if we do reach Boneyard, the environment there is too harsh, with overwhelming tsunamis every now and then. Therefore, it is impossible for the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector to develop it on their own. But with the help of demons whose bodies are strong enough for the rough environment, we will be able to develop Boneyard profoundly and collect all the available resources on it!
"After all, demons were created in the first place because human beings tried to survive on the planets with harsh environments and therefore performed minor modification on their bodies!
"It doesn't matter whether or not you are willing to turn into human beings. What matters now is that our technology and benefits can be combined in order to explore a large space of survival instead of fighting in the small pond until there are no winners left in the end!
"Boneyard will only be a start.
"The Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector are two worlds with a single galaxy. We have only one star in the entire Sector. Other than the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector, other planets are neither habitable nor boast too many resources that are of use to us. It is also one of the reasons we have to attack each other.
"But the Flying Star Sector is different. In the territory of the Star Ocean Imperium, the Flying Star Sector was a prosperous world that was closer to the heartland of the imperium, with dozens of galaxies and hundreds of resource planets!
"The Flying Star Sector is vast and sparsely populated. The citizens of the Flying Star Sector are not able to develop the resource planets where the environment is usually harsh. Instead, they encounter many dangers in the boundless sea of stars!
"But if the Flying Star Sector, the Heaven's Origin Sector, and the Blood Demon Sector join hands, we will be able to develop the resource planets and establish a new universal fleet with the resources that we collect as a foundation. We will be able to explore more Sectors and let more worlds join the embrace of the alliance!
"The new alliance will be able to collect and utilize resources at an efficiency dozens of times higher than any of the three Sectors right now. The combination of the studies of spiritual energy and biochemistry will also yield even more magnificent warriors and weapons!
"Only such an alliance will be able to compete with the Imperium of True Human Beings and protect our home!
"This is a future that I have come up with after considering for a long time. Perhaps it is still too immature and groundless, and there will certainly be many problems. But Senior Jin, don't you think that such a future is thousands of times better than the destruction of the Blood Demon Sector when it goes down the path of active aggression?"
Jin Tuyi stared at Li Yao silently for a long time.
Right when Li Yao thought that he had been convinced, Jin Tuyi laughed again.
There was derision in every wrinkle on his face.
The commander-in-chief of the coalition army said casually, "That is indeed a very impressive future. After hearing your words, it appears to me that this is the only way to fight against the Imperium of True Human Beings, isn't it?"
"Exactly!" Li Yao announced resolutely. "With my computational ability, this is the only approach that I can come up with to make all my compatriots survive. Therefore, no matter how difficult it is, and no matter how many obstacles there are, I will still walk down on the road without turning back. If I run into pebbles, I will kick them away. If I run into giant rocks, I will smash them into pieces!"
Jin Tuyi smiled. "Young man, I appreciate your sincerity and your genuine belief, and the 'beautiful future' that you just described has slightly aroused my interest, too. But there is just one little problem. Do you think that the 'aggressive nation' that I introduced just now is the Blood Demon Sector?"
Li Yao was dazed. "What do you mean?"
"All the data I provided just now, and the insane, feverish nation I depicted, is not the Blood Demon Sector but the Star Glory Federation, your motherland."