The villain queen eavesdropped on my inner thoughts and won't let me lie down?

The Imperials would not surrender before Her Majesty the Empress, but they felt the war's difficulty sharply increase and were somewhat unsure how to proceed.

The good news was that although the gods adopted a 'destroy you, what's it to me?' attitude, mortals, through past accumulation, had gained considerable self-preservation capabilities.

At least they still had a chance to fight for themselves.

The Natural Selection Front was established, and the God Burial Labyrinth system resisted the gods' attacks. Although the Empire made enormous sacrifices, pouring in a great deal of manpower and resources to set an example, they ultimately managed to stabilize the battle.

Switching to a wartime economy caused a significant drop in the Empire's living standards, and various entertainment activities were also restricted. The good news was that the Imperial people were quite understanding and gave a high degree of support.

Could this be considered one of the benefits of enlightening the people?

The old cabinet ministers felt that after the Empire's expansion, many policies were not as easy to implement as before. People would analyze the government orders, offer their own analyses, and even online petitions would arise, attracting the Empress's attention and forcing them to provide an explanation within a limited time.

Citizens who can think, ordinary people with their own analytical abilities, are definitely not the kind who would do whatever they were told in the past. They would weigh their own benefits and how much the people above would gain.

The Fearless Space made information flow too quickly and easily. The Qing Teng Empire had a 99.9% internet penetration rate; even disabled people could smoothly experience a normal body online through the Soul Mimicry Bracelet.

The remaining 0.1% were simply too young to have normal self-care abilities, and of course, they wouldn't have the qualifications to enter the Fearless Space.

In this environment, those lazy officials actually felt extremely uncomfortable. Their work was completely supervised by the people, and any selfishness could be monitored.

However, most of the time, it wasn't selfishness, but simply that their positions were different, the information they received was different, and administrative officials thought from a more macro perspective, making errors in interpretation possible.

Although misunderstandings could always be resolved, the older generation of officials, accustomed to the crude methods of governing in the past, inevitably felt that the Imperial people had become smarter and greedier, wanting too much.

In short, they were becoming increasingly difficult to please, posing various challenges to everyone's governance techniques and management skills.

But when the Empire fell into difficulties, and the threat of the gods to mortals began to be publicized in the Fearless Space, the Imperial people quickly showed their strong support for the Empire.

The Qing Teng Empire's wartime economic transformation was exceptionally smooth, both because of its efficient and incorruptible internal administrative system, which had been preparing and planning for this, and because the Imperial people genuinely supported the war from the bottom of their hearts.

The lower-level people of other countries and other worlds might not understand why a war between different worlds should affect the tax increases of their own villagers, who would be forced to plant designated varieties of crops.

But the Imperial people only needed to read the publicly available information, coupled with the popularization and propaganda of various media outlets and personal opinion leaders, and they would naturally understand the great threat of the gods to them and their merciless hostility towards mortals.

Under normal circumstances, if the Empress wanted to expand the territory, the Empire's people would be willing to donate three months' salary. Now that the Empire had reached a moment of life and death, without much mobilization, orders to fully drive the Empire's war machine were smoothly executed.

Then their God Burial Labyrinth played an applied defensive role, and the gods' army was blocked outside the fortress's defense line. Recent military operations had even expanded the Natural Selection Front's controlled planes, reducing the gap between the strengths of the two sides.

The initial theory of a swift demise, which had the potential to cause mortals to collapse, no longer had a market. The cooperation between the Imperial Fleet and the Tianming Army had produced results that convinced the people. People from various worlds had more confidence in protecting their own worlds and were willing to contribute their greatest strength to this cause.

In this situation, the pressure on the cabinet also became smaller and smaller, and their hope of victory was expanding…

Of course, this was only psychological. The previous accumulation was being consumed. Even with the mobilization of resources from different planes, the God-Slaying Fortress and the Imperial Fleet were still money-guzzling behemoths. Angelina was desperately gathering resources to support the front line so that commanders could complete their tactical deployments.

The Imperial people had already begun to tighten their belts, while other countries were gritting their teeth to support the continuation of the war.

The Qing Teng Empire was, after all, too young. Even a mortal nation of several hundred years, with ancient nobles, was like a pauper compared to the gods' camp, with its tens of thousands of years of history and its ability to sacrifice several planes in exchange for resources at any time.

"Let them slow down a bit. Our material allocation can only complete 70% of the target. Even the production lines can't operate at full capacity without limits. The yield rate is dropping too drastically."

The Minister of Industry stated the Empire's current constraints with detailed data.

"The planes we occupy also need to be developed and constructed to allow materials to flow, and all of this takes time."

Other ministers echoed. Although the war was on the edge of destruction, if they ultimately achieved victory, the benefits the Qing Teng Empire would receive would not be small.

Many people present had become representatives of the new bourgeoisie. They supported the war not only because they didn't want to die but also because they hoped to reap multiple returns in such a crisis.

The Eternal Night Empress's nature was definitely not to stop the progress of continued offensives; she always felt an unspeakable unease in her heart.

But her will could not become productivity. The lack of material supply was a real problem, and no matter how much she squeezed the officials and the people, she could not create something out of nothing.

Now, the Empire's war consumption was not basic materials, but magic crystal machinery that required industrial workers to process. It was the pinnacle of mortal control over matter and energy in this universe. The final processing steps could only be completed within the Empire, and the output could not be explosively increased by simply finding a bunch of efforts.

New production lines were under construction, and the occupied planes all had great development value, but all of that required time and could not catch up with the next round of attacks.

"Then, according to all of your opinions, let's temporarily slow down the pace of the offensive."

The Eternal Night Empress ultimately had no choice but to reluctantly agree with everyone's opinions and send an order to Roger's command headquarters at the God-Slaying Fortress to adjust the strategy to defense in the short term.

After the meeting, she stopped Margaret.

"Your Majesty, what are your orders?"

Margaret's voice was respectful, but it lacked its previous vitality.

The little devil was no longer extra happy because the Empress had singled her out, thinking it was a sign of favor.

The war rhythm was too dense and frequent, and she felt like she was as busy as an overloaded fan, spinning wildly between volunteers from different worlds, with the risk of being thrown off the base.

Any task the Eternal Night Empress assigned to her after leaving her alone made her feel like she was one step closer to collapse.

"Don't worry, I don't have any extra things to order you." The Eternal Night Empress couldn't help but smile faintly at her nervous appearance. "I'm just curious, haven't you been curious about Dio for so many years?"

"Dio? Oh… him." Margaret actually recalled the name for a moment before smiling at some of the past times. "I used to be curious, but now I'm too busy to be curious."

"You're friends, right? He hasn't come back to help in this situation, aren't you worried?"

"Friends will fade, right? Besides… we're just friends, right?"

"Do you really think so?"

"Does what I think matter? He won't appear in front of me!"

The little devil smiled self-deprecatingly. "The world is so dangerous, maybe he died somewhere? That's a pity. He was a good talent that Your Majesty discovered."

Times had changed, just like a game with serious numerical inflation. One generation of versions, one generation of gods. Dio's performance, which could be called amazing at that time, might now only get a sentence: "Is that it?"

The Eternal Night Empress curiously looked at Margaret's expression, feeling that she really seemed to be indifferent, and couldn't help but envy her.

This most narrow-minded, most vengeful guy can actually be more open-minded than me?

In fact, she had recently thought of some things and wanted to get some reference from other people's attitudes.

But Margaret's performance was indeed in the direction that she was quite resistant to in her heart.

It made her inexplicably feel like, 'This grandma is an adult, Your Majesty, don't treat me like a child who will keep dwelling on boring things, okay?'

But if you don't dwell on it, if you're generous and carefree and put the big picture first… wouldn't that make me seem like a very petty person?

That can't be!

The Eternal Night Empress hesitated and decided to do something not so good, throwing out a bombshell to stimulate Margaret.

She said meaningfully, "Mary, what if I told you that Dio didn't die at all, but has been appearing by your side in another identity?"

Margaret was really stunned for a moment, but soon smiled indifferently: "Not dead? That's good, after all, he helped me a lot. I wish him happiness."

"That's it?"

"Otherwise?"

Margaret felt a little puzzled by the content of today's conversation with the Eternal Night Empress.

These contents were too ordinary and completely did not fit the Eternal Night Empress's personality.

The Eternal Night Empress felt a little annoyed in her chest and knew that she couldn't continue talking, lest the clever Margaret would guess something, so she had to pretend to be nonchalant and said, "I see, you have indeed grown a lot, go and be busy."

Margaret really had endless work in her head and didn't think too much about it. She excused herself after getting permission.

Walking out of the Maple Spirit Moon Shadow Palace, her expression changed slightly, looking somewhat relieved: "So that's how it is, so it's always been like this… that's interesting."

She was still smarter than the Eternal Night Empress thought, or rather, women had intuition in this regard. She had thought about many things over and over again alone in the dead of night.

Now that she had received indirect confirmation from the Eternal Night Empress, she could basically confirm it.

But so what?

Does knowing that two people are the same person defeat the annoying gods?

Busy Mary, no time for love!

In the hall after Margaret left, the Eternal Night Empress leaned alone on the throne, her little eyebrows tightly frowned:

"Be open-minded… live in the moment… let it go? Could it be that I'm showing that I care too much and am too tsundere?"

She sighed lightly, feeling that if that guy took the initiative again next time, even if she didn't forgive him, she shouldn't act so over the top.

She wasn't always a maiden, she had to mature and become an adult bad woman…

No, Tabitha herself is already cold, and her set must also have huge problems, definitely!

……

……

God-Slaying Fortress.

"Has it reached the limit? Well, that's good, we also need to rest here."

Roger is now the commander-in-chief of the front line. Not only does he have the Empire's Second Fleet, which is overstaffed by a bit, but all the newly established fleets of the Natural Selection Front are under the God-Slaying Fortress, which is the first line of defense for the entire defense system.

The Empire's suggestion to switch to strategic defense has been sent over, but although the wording is a suggestion, Roger is also very clear after seeing the various production indicators that if he wants to continue fighting, he will have to overdraft the potential for development.

And just as he felt that the number of worlds controlled by the God Burial Labyrinth had reached a bottom line, the gods could not completely break through their defense system in the short term, and the warriors of the fleet were not robots that could operate indefinitely under high-intensity warfare.

It really needed a period of rest, and then plan the next round of attack, so that the gods would pay a greater price.

This was a long night, and no matter how anxious they were, they couldn't just set a fire to create dawn now.

After forwarding the Empire's suggestion to Shana and attaching his own thoughts, he called Little Joey, who was now serving as his adjutant.

As the God-Slaying Fortress became more and more busy and various forces mixed in, the Dark Night Guard had to maintain order here.

The gods were not just solid fools, and there would be strong people who were infiltrated by them and promised eternal divine positions.

There were always people who had a fluke mentality, thinking that even if the universe was destroyed, if they became gods, they could always survive, right?

This made it possible to carry out sabotage from within, so even within the Natural Selection Front, there were threats.

Little Joey had spare strength and resumed her role as his adjutant. The two cooperated tacitly, reducing a lot of his pressure.

Her dream of commanding heavy cavalry was not realized, and she could only command millions of tons of heavy armored assault ship groups to tear apart the gods' army's defense line.

With a beauty by his side, some psychological problems brought about by the constant accumulation of war pressure also had a way to relieve them.

Roger and Little Joey conveyed what the God-Slaying Fortress had to do during the defense phase. The two reached an agreement and were ready to convene the generals of all the worlds to convey this decision.

"Yes, sir."

Little Joey got up, but suddenly covered her mouth and rushed to the bathroom.

"What kind of fierce ingredients did you eat that could make a legend nauseous?"

Roger said jokingly, but his eyes were very concerned. He followed her and found that she glared at him rather resentfully.

He suddenly had a thought and sensed another weak life characteristic in her body. The still chaotic soul was constantly growing, and he immediately realized something: "Our child?"

Her face was red, and she nodded gently.

He didn't know what to say, suddenly becoming a dad after traveling through so many years…

It was quite subtle.

Although the timing wasn't ideal, the joy, fulfillment, and sense of accomplishment brought by the new life still filled his mind, and he subconsciously hugged Little Joey from behind.

She instinctively leaned back, relying on his solid chest, her hand stroking her lower abdomen, which didn't yet show any signs of pregnancy, also experiencing various different sensations brought about by her body's instincts.

Chapter 279: His Majesty Waited All Night in the Imperial Villa

To be honest, Roger didn't have much of a feeling for children, and even found them noisy.

But he wasn't the type to want to be childless. Bloodline inheritance, the continuation of life's meaning, and the idea of the little ones experiencing more happiness than he did...

The thought of such a scene was quite interesting, wasn't it?

So all along, he hadn't forced anything, nor had he deliberately avoided many things, thinking of it all with a natural mindset.

After all, there was always a problem among the strong, and that was the difficulty of getting pregnant. The probability was much lower than that of ordinary people, which seemed to be one of the effects of magic on the human body.

This was even more evident in many high-magic creatures and long-lived species.

Otherwise, if dragons had the reproductive ability of humans, and were also oviparous, capable of collective incubation and collective rearing, without considering the influence of their figures, the entire universe would probably become theirs.

However, although it was difficult for the strong to get pregnant, their powerful physical fitness determined that there was almost no danger in giving birth, and the possibility of their children having outstanding talents was also much higher.

Even a heartless bastard, who had been tempered to become more and more callous by this war, was suddenly filled with a joy that slowly spread after the initial surprise when he learned that he was going to be a father.

"Why don't you go back to the rear?" Roger asked Little Joey seriously.

"There are still many days until the birth. I want to help here," Little Joey shook her head.

"But it's not safe here after all..."