Chapter 1225 - 344: Response, A New Battlefront

After Hou Minister continued asking a few questions that were irrelevant to Chen Ming,

he moved on to a more critical question: "Is there anything special about that insect queen? Why is it able to form a spiritual link with you?"

This question was something Chen Ming had prepared for a long time and answered, "I don’t know."

"When our spaceship crashed, everyone died, and I was the only one who survived."

"I had just crawled out of the wreckage when a few insects dragged me to the underground nest, where I saw that insect queen."

"Then my spiritual energy awakened, and I formed a spiritual link with it."

"To this day, I still can’t figure out why."

It’s hard for anyone to say for sure about spiritual energy.

Hou Minister moved past this question and continued to ask, and his next question was equally important: "How much power of the Insect Race do you control?"

Chen Ming once again spoke the truth: "Just that one planet."

However, Hou Minister skeptically asked, "Just one planet?"

Based on the information obtained from Chen Ming, the scale of power An Wuping possessed didn’t seem like it was something that just one planet could produce.

"It really is just one planet."

Hou Minister was clearly still somewhat incredulous, but he didn’t press further and instead changed the question: "I noticed that almost all of your Insect Race fleet consists of cruisers. Do you not have any higher or lower class ships?"

"I do, but I feel that smaller ships are just cannon fodder in terms of combat power."

"The biological spaceships of the Insect Race don’t have shields, and smaller ships can’t use the larger ships’ shields for cover, so most of the smaller ships have been integrated onto cruisers as fighter units."

"And as for the higher class ones, I indeed don’t have any main ships."

These are things that can be easily verified through records, so Chen Ming had no intention of hiding anything and maintained a cooperative attitude of answering whatever was asked.

"Why don’t biological spaceships have shields?"

"There’s no specific reason; it’s just that the insect queen can’t convert the shield system into a biological device, so without shields, they have to rely on armor to withstand attacks."

Hou Minister nodded and continued to ask, "Then why did you have your Insect Race attack the Mechanical Race?"

"That was Chen Ming’s need."

At this point, An Wuping decisively betrayed Chen Ming, stating, "Some of his resource extraction bases were dismantled by the Mechanical Race, and he didn’t want to confront them too early, so he sought revenge through me."

"I see, but if it was revenge, why did your Insect Race fleet suffer full obliteration?"

An Wuping’s expression subtly changed upon hearing this question, and he responded, "Because Chen Ming needed a full obliteration; this way, not too many traces would be left behind."

Here, I had my own thought that if the Insect Race fleet survived, they’d return to the mother planet sooner or later. To avoid being tracked and annihilated by the Mechanical Race, this was a suitable outcome."

Hou Minister didn’t quite understand An Wuping’s reasoning when he heard this, so he took An Wupu’s latter statement as a lie made under Chen Ming’s pressure.

After all, that’s tens of thousands of cruisers being casually disposed of.

In any star realm, those tens of thousands of cruisers would be a treasure to be cherished, but here, An Wuping casually let them go just to avoid revealing the mother planet’s coordinates.

Is it really like this? Or is it true that only one planet has been occupied by the Insect Race?

He asked, "Didn’t you previously help Chen Ming clear out large-scale Mechanical Race fleets? Didn’t they all jump from the mother planet? Aren’t you afraid of being discovered?"

"At that time, the Insect Race fleet almost completely wiped out the Mechanical Race, and even if survivors existed, they couldn’t reverse-track the mother planet’s location in such a short time."

"I have time to relocate the remaining Insect Race."

"Relocate? Where do you plan to go?"

"I’m not sure yet because I still have to continue working for Chen Ming, and there aren’t many suitable places nearby."

Hou Minister didn’t delve deeper into this topic.

An Wuping, after revealing the Insect Race mother planet’s coordinates, had already decided to relocate and, likely, wouldn’t make the mistake of exposing the coordinates again, no matter who it was to.

It’s pointless to ask about such crucial information relating to capabilities, so he changed the subject once more.

"What exactly did Chen Ming give you to make you sacrifice so much to help him?"

An Wuping didn’t answer, choosing to remain silent.

Hou Minister seemed to sense something and probed, "Aren’t you curious about how we discovered your Insect Race?"

An Wuping responded matter-of-factly, "How else would you discover it? I was working for Chen Ming, and he couldn’t cover up an attack of that scale. The Empire would have received the message from any ship that saw it, and that’s how it was discovered, wasn’t it?"

Hou Minister smiled and said, "But in reality, the Empire has not received any information from reconnaissance fleets lurking behind the Mechanical Race."

"Chen Ming deliberately leaked this information. It seems he wants to distance himself from you, but he hasn’t succeeded."

"And he probably didn’t expect you to be so decisive in speaking out against him."

After Hou Minister finished speaking, he saw An Wuping in a daze while his hand movements became increasingly frequent.

He suddenly felt that the relationship between Chen Ming and An Wuping might not be a partnership, but rather a one-sided cooperation with one strong and the other weak.

Considering An Wuping’s previous situation, it indeed seemed that he was under someone else’s control, and it was natural for Chen Ming to exploit this.

In his mind, he was secretly nodding at this point.