Chapter 656: The Passage of Time and Weapons
Three months flew by in the blink of an eye. During this time, Su Chen had taken control of a total of six planets. It might seem like a significant number, but compared to the myriad life-bearing planets in the Milky Way galaxy, it was far from sufficient.
As a result of his control over these planets, Su Chen's permissions had been unlocked. Currently, the strength of his most powerful units had advanced to the fifth tier of the Small Galaxy.
Su Chen felt that this progress was somewhat rapid. After all, he was still far from controlling an entire Large Galaxy. However, the unlocking speed was almost equivalent to him having control over half of a Large Galaxy. So, he inquired with the System, and the System explained it this way:
"The initial unlocks are straightforward; the further you progress, the more challenging it becomes."
Su Chen immediately understood. If he wanted to unlock the second sequence of permissions, he would need to control an entire Large Galaxy. While the early permissions might unlock quickly, it would become increasingly difficult as he advanced.
While taking control of these planets, Su Chen was extremely cautious. He made sure that his forces had complete control over these planets. As long as there was enough energy, he could endlessly produce troops, and each planet had a substantial number of troops guarding it to prevent any disturbances.
Su Chen knew that military management alone wouldn't suffice. He allowed the inhabitants of these planets to select their own representatives for management, though this was limited to administrative authority only.
All of these planets were now part of the Red Alert Empire's territory. The empire had expanded its borders to a diameter of one thousand light-years. Such a vast distance would have made communication with his subordinates nearly impossible if it weren't for System updates.
Su Chen noticed a trend: the closer they got to the center of the Rota Empire, the stronger the planets they encountered became, both in terms of military and technological prowess. However, they still remained within the capabilities of the Red Alert Empire. If they ever encountered an enemy they couldn't handle, they could simply deploy the Superweapon.
The Superweapon had undergone multiple upgrades in the past three months. Now, each one of them could contend with a ninth-tier Small Galaxy on its own. When combined, they were no less powerful than the initial Tenfold Annihilation.Considering that these Superweapons weren't even fused together and could rival the original Tenfold Annihilation, Su Chen was quite satisfied.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the Superweapon had reached a bottleneck and couldn't be further upgraded for the time being. Su Chen inquired with the System and received an answer.
The issue was that the development of the Superweapon had outpaced the capabilities of the Base itself. To continue upgrading the Superweapon, he needed to elevate the Base's buildings to a similar level. This required research at the Operational Laboratory. The more research he conducted, the more advanced the technology would become, automatically improving the Base's structures.
Alternatively, the System could issue specific tasks, and completing them would also lead to upgrades.
Of course, there were other methods, such as the Platinum-tier Lottery and triggering the ten-pull gacha, but these were largely dependent on luck. When it came to luck, Su Chen was always confident he would draw the short straw.
Now that he controlled more planets, the Super Soldiers had become insufficient. Su Chen decided to appoint Su Yi and other outstanding individuals from various military branches as Controllers for these planets.
He could only trust his own people. He didn't place his trust in the natives of these planets.
During these battles, Alice demonstrated her incredible strength as an artificial intelligence with self-consciousness. The Warships under her control had never been defeated in space battles. Even on the surface, with her presence, victory was assured. Her mastery of details was truly awe-inspiring.
No matter which planet you were on, the birth of artificial intelligence was always a formidable challenge, especially one possessing self-consciousness like Alice. It could be said that Alice might be a unique existence within the Rota Empire.
Today, there were many more types of weapons in the Red Alert Base, especially the Superweapons; there were suddenly two more!
These two Superweapons were from Red Alert 4, which Su Chen had recently unlocked.
Curiosity piqued him when it came to this Red Alert 4 that he had never seen before. He truly wanted to see what Red Alert 4 was like. However, what he saw was a completely different world of Red Alert.
Due to the effects of a time paradox, history had been altered, causing changes in the factions within the game.
Red Alert 4 was no different; this time, the problem wasn't a time machine but a time paradox!
The time paradox had erupted, leading to temporal chaos. The worlds of Red Alert and Red Alert had merged, forming the world of Red Alert 4.
In other words, there were suddenly four factions:
Soviet Union, Allied Forces, Yuri, and the Empire of the Rising Sun.
All this information was conveyed to Su Chen by the System, which had recounted the background of a parallel world's Red Alert 4 to him. After all, it was all just a game, and any narrative could work.
After listening to it all, Su Chen's mouth twitched. Could it really be so casual?
Regardless of Red Alert 4's background, just on the surface, it seemed like Red Alert 4 was a combination of the previous Red Alert games, which essentially duplicated what he already possessed, seemingly without any added value.
However, it wasn't until he took a closer look that he realized he was mistaken.
Due to the time paradox, the entire world had become a strange and chaotic place. Simply put, many areas had turned into forbidden zones.
These forbidden zones were quite peculiar. At first glance, they appeared normal, but as soon as a living being entered them, they would either age rapidly and die within a short time or experience reverse growth until they disappeared entirely.
In the end, they determined that the issue lay with time within these forbidden zones.
These zones existed all over the world, becoming subjects of research for countless scientists. Eventually, they developed Weapons related to time, aptly named Time Weapons.
At this point, Su Chen was thoroughly astonished.
Time Weapons, it sounded absolutely incredible!
However, after he carefully reviewed all the units in Red Alert 4, he discovered that Time Weapons had significant limitations.
For instance, the Time Weapons possessed by the Soviet Union could only be used by a single individual, and once used, that person would die; in other words, it was a one-time use.
The Time Weapons of the Allied Forces would alter the timeline of their faction with each use, either moving it forward or backward in time, and the most crucial aspect was that they themselves wouldn't even be aware of the change.
In any case, each type of Time Weapons had various flaws, and they had tried everything but couldn't resolve these issues. In the end, the four factions decided that they would only use Time Weapons as a last resort.
However, there were only two factions that possessed Time Superweapons: the Soviet Union and the Allied Forces. Both Red Alert and Red Alert had their respective factions, and when the time paradox occurred, it seemed that these two identical factions had merged into one, inadvertently creating these two Superweapons related to time. (To be continued...)
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