The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge

2181. Shepard's current situation

Unknown star field in the Milky Way, Krakul planet, the home planet of the Korok people.

After more than three months, Shepard had to admit that no matter how many places she had been to, Krakul planet would be the most special one.

In the cities of this planet, there are giants walking everywhere, more than two meters and three meters tall, and some even reach four meters. And these giants, without exception, all have hideous faces, and all the horrible shapes that can be imagined are vividly reflected on these giants.

Sharp barbs are already basic operations, tentacles full of suction cups, big mouths full of fangs, vesicles flowing with pus, densely packed sharp teeth... Even the best horror painters can't imagine such a wide variety of types.

In such an environment, if a person with a slightly weaker psychological endurance, I'm afraid he will have a mental breakdown in a few days.

However, fortunately, Shepard, Huang Yehao, and Ashley Williams are the elites among the elites, so they are naturally unlikely to be shaken by such illusions. These scary giants are actually all illusions.

That's right, this is the home planet of the Korok people, and the Korok people are a race that is good at creating Force illusions.

Their bodies are very small, just a slug that is no more than 30 cm long and has more than ten slender limbs, and creating Force illusions is their means of self-protection.

Of course, for the Korok people, this is not just self-protection. Using Force illusions to deceive and blackmail is their main purpose.

Because of this ability, the Korok people are born to live in concealment and deception. In such an environment, every Korok person is vicious and full of lies. Such a society has actually become a deformed and distorted society.

The life span of the Korok people is very long, at least tens of thousands of years. But with such a life span and such an ability, the Korok people have never become a powerful civilization. The main reason is the social relationship with almost no trust.

The current Korok government is a council of elders, which is used to mediate disputes and conflicts. In each city, there will also be branch mediation courts to deal with relatively small matters.

Apart from this, the Korok people have no more administrative agencies. There are only some industry associations or interest groups, and these groups are full of fraud and intrigue.

Under such circumstances, the entire Korok civilization can only maintain the status quo and gather a certain amount of power to do some large-scale projects. It is already the limit. Civilization wants to develop? That's impossible.

When Shepard came to Krakul, the civil war on the planet had not stopped.

Because the Korok civilization could not resist the erosion of the god of decay Mnggal-Mnggal, it could only raise a large number of combat creatures like magnified leeches, Lugubula. Lugubula can devour Mnggal-Mnggal without being infected, and it is because of this that the Korok people can defend their planet.

But Mnggal-Mnggal didn't care, it surrounded the entire Krakul planet. All habitable planets within hundreds of light years were swallowed up by Mnggal-Mnggal, and the Koroks had no way to escape from this huge cage.

Under such circumstances, the Koroks had no hope of escaping and relocating unless they gave up their home planet. But this was unlikely. Because the social form of the Koroks made it impossible for them to have such an industrial system to build a spacecraft that could accommodate the entire civilization, and there were no materials to support such a long-distance voyage.

What's worse is that in order to resist the erosion of Mnggal-Mnggal, the Koroks raised a large number of Lugubras, and later commissioned the Kaminoans to help them improve the genes of Lugubras to make the combat effectiveness of this combat creature stronger.

But the stronger combat effectiveness also made Lugubras' appetite grow.

In the end, the materials of the entire Krakuer planet could not sustain such a large number of Lugubras. So under the extreme shortage of materials, the civil war finally broke out.

This civil war lasted for decades, and the Koroks split into more than a dozen factions to fight each other, with heavy casualties. In the end, more than a dozen factions merged with each other, and only the two largest factions remained, still existing and continuing to fight.

However, the battles between the Koroks were all carried out by controlling Lugubra, and they would not step onto the battlefield themselves, so their civil war was more intense than cruel.

This was the situation Shepard faced when he arrived, and this is why all the Koroks he saw created extremely hideous and terrifying illusions for themselves. Because in such a war, they would not trust anyone at all, and could only protect themselves through such illusions.

Shepard also felt very troubled, because at present, the Koroks are the race that knows Mnggal-Mnggal best, and they also have the ancient artifact that may be able to fight against it-the Mind Harp (content of Chapters 2051~2054).

But in this case, the Koroks could not play any role in the action against Mnggal-Mnggal. And the battle has continued to this day, and you don’t even know how many people on both sides of the war are secretly controlled by Mnggal-Mnggal.

Shepard could only wander around and deal with the last two factions. The names of these two factions are very tongue-twisting when pronounced in the standard language of the Galaxy, so Shepard used simple symbols to call them - Pistol Faction and Elder Faction. The Pistol Faction is because their flag is a weapon similar to a pistol, and the Elder Faction is because this is the faction where the Elders' Council is located.

The Mind Harp is controlled by the Elder Faction.

In this process, Shepard also played her good social coordination skills, running between the two factions, first wanting to achieve a truce between the two factions.

To this end, she led her team to carry out several deterrent actions on the battlefield. Including kidnapping commanders, misleading troops, stealing combat plans, blocking logistics supplies, etc.

It has to be said that their combat capabilities are really strong. For the Korok people who only know how to use combat creatures Lugubra to fight wars, I don't know how many levels higher, the Normandy is like a ghost, shuttling around, and there is no way to resist it.

As a result of such trouble-making actions, the warring parties finally could not continue the war and were forced to reach a ceasefire.