“This war must reach its conclusion.”
The grand voice spoke.
“Yes, and I believe the key to the best conclusion has always been held in his hands.”
Another hazy, flickering voice chimed in.
The Gazer stood silent in the darkness. After a moment, He suddenly turned His statue-like form toward the Recorder and asked, “Why haven’t you left yet?”
The Recorder: “...”
The Recorder: “?”
The Recorder, who could not remain in the Ethereal Plane for long, vanished in a fit of indignation.
The Gazer once again cast His gaze toward the mortal realm, toward that stretch of starry sky He had watched for thousands of years.
He would continue to watch, just as He always had.
And while He watched, it was unlikely anyone would hear the mutterings of that consciousness—born to wander the Ethereal, now slowly sinking into a dark slumber: “Beat them, Sun Star!”
…
【Beat them, Sun Star!】
The illusory voice echoed within Lei Ting’s perception. He knew whose voice it was.
As the bolt slid home with the smooth rotation of mechanical parts, Lei Ting turned toward one of the exits of the underground fortifications. Without looking back, he dropped a final instruction: “Calm the civilians. Prioritize children for the shelters. Send the remaining army out. Tell them not to look outside; just guard the shelters as best they can. Fight if you can; if not, then die.”
“...” One of the young people froze. “But... if we can’t win...”
“I said, then die. In war, they must always face a choice,” Lei Ting said. “A disparity in strength is no excuse to surrender. There is no justification for giving up resistance in the face of invasion, but...” He gestured toward the isolation bays, which stretched in dense rows deep into the strata. “There are three hundred and fifty million reasons to persevere right here.”
With that, he left immediately—he wasn't the supreme commander here, after all.
It was just that... a soldier cannot avoid the battlefield. Especially when, behind that soldier, are the people they are meant to protect.
“...”
The young people watched his retreating back until it vanished. Their leader remained silent for a moment before saying in a heavy voice, “Check your gear. Combat personnel, follow me to muster the troops. Everyone else, handle staff and logistics for now. Move!”
………………
…………
……
……
No matter how weapons, forms, or battlefield platforms changed, war remained a bloodthirsty machine.
When the chariot rolled over, it did not care whether it was soil or the bones and blood of others beneath its wheels.
Life was so fragile... even for the Orionids of today, who had undergone so many genetic adjustments.
Lei Ting stood on a hilltop, looking up at the sky.
The sky of this planet was a lush, verdant green, now veiled by a layer of dim, thin gold dust. Massive crystalline mountains and dense, orderly pillars tens of thousands of meters wide descended from outer space. They had not fully entered the planet’s gravitational pull, but their sheer mass was already causing chaos on the ground.
Then, countless irregular crystal spheres, waving tentacles tipped with yellow orbs and crystal blades, were hurled down. They broke through ‘Ruò’s’ protective barrier with ease, descending from the heavens like pale phantoms, howling as they rushed toward the surface.
Lei Ting looked at those crystalline pillars, whose forms were so regular he couldn't find a single error in their lines, then at the sky full of crystalline tentacle monsters. He suddenly let out a cold sneer.
—An obsessive-compulsive race that required even their tactical platforms to be perfectly geometric, yet they pursued chaos?
Did they not feel there was anything wrong with their current state?
The people underground had already powered up the last of the heavy mechs. Supporting infantry were taking up defensive positions. Though there was much clumsiness and confusion, the fact that there was ‘at least a reaction’ brought a small measure of comfort to Lei Ting’s heart.
Then, he abruptly raised his rifle and pulled the trigger at those magnificent things covered in revolting growths.
As expected, no matter how they changed, the ‘Giahe’s’ perception remained powerful. They were easily drawn by the sound of his gunfire. Faced with such a weak provocation, the crystalline tentacle monsters in the sky abandoned their search for the underground fortress’s vulnerable entrances. With piercing shrieks, they lunged toward the tall figure atop the low hill.
“Their intelligence is gone too,” Lei Ting commented.
He gazed at a certain hollow crystal pillar—or rather, he locked onto the most powerful energy signature within it—and raised his hand.
Inside that pillar, ‘Dun’ roared: “Destroy this—”
*Crack!*
Its words halted. Hundreds of tentacles covered in eyeballs froze in mid-air, then whipped around violently.
It watched blankly as its silver-gray, mountain-sized crystalline body split down the middle, revealing a jagged, light-dappled rift.
Then, the hollow crystal pillar was pushed back a precise distance by a god-like, majestic force, as if it were a mere drinking straw.
A figure flew up from the verdant planet. A power like golden sunlight spread out, flooding the entire world and driving the ‘Wraiths’—which had nearly pierced the rock strata with their terrifying chill—out of the planet’s atmosphere.
A black visor, black battle armor, a pitch-black cape, fluttering ribbons...
And a brilliant, golden laurel crown.
The man floated between the planet and the invading enemy with his arms crossed, looking like a glorious nightmare.
‘Dun’ didn’t even need to look at the several metal blocks following the figure like moons to know exactly who this was.
—The ‘Sun Star’.
Anyone would know what kind of cheers would erupt from the people inside the planet when that golden light flooded the world.
“‘Sun Star’...!!!!” ‘Dun’ emitted a shrill resonance, releasing a blinding light amidst the *cracking* sounds of its body fracturing. “‘Sun Star’, ‘Sun Star’! ‘Sun Star’—!!!”
—They were... they were so close to taking the next step!!!
“I hear you. No need to be so loud.” That peerless, irresistible will pressed into ‘Dun’s’ mind, carrying a low, calm voice: “I heard your ‘Jia’ has come to life? What did you do in the Ethereal Plane?”
“Filthy Orionid cancer!” ‘Dun’ roared. “How dare a child of carbon utter the name of the Great Deity! One day, our Great Lord of Ten Thousand Crystals shall return from the Bottom of the Spirit and crush you all with the ‘Giahe’!!”
“Oh,” Lei Ting said. “It seems you have no intention of having a proper conversation with me, or any other carbon-based lifeform...”
One of the ‘Sun Alloys’ orbiting him like a celestial body transformed into a golden streak and pierced forward. It was followed by countless more brilliant ‘Sun Alloys’. Like comets and their tails, they smashed through every obstacle and embedded themselves into ‘Dun’s’ body, coming to a halt around its energy core—which was rich with power yet covered in dense, sallow cysts—and rapidly encasing it.
‘Dun’s’ light dimmed instantly, even showing signs of being replaced by the golden sunlight. It let out a feeble scream: “‘Sun Star’... you, what are you... doing...”
“What an exquisite core structure. No wonder we needed to reference you back then... Don’t worry, I remember we paid the patent fees.”
Lei Ting tilted his head slightly, the radiance casting a streak of sunlight across his visor.
He closed his hand into a fist.
Centering on that mass of ‘Sun Alloy’, the countless crystal pillars, spiked spheres, and their supple tentacles—along with the ‘Wraiths’ captured by the vast, sun-like energy—were all crushed together by a titan-like force.
“Since you don’t want to talk,” Lei Ting said in a deceptively calm, thin voice, “then let us end this conversation and move on to the wonderful next step. As for other questions... I think ‘Jia’ will give me an answer.”
He was going to find... ‘Jia’...?!
Struggling desperately to resist that monumental power, ‘Dun’ shrieked: *No, stop, you absolutely cannot... the Great ‘Jia’ is at a critical stage. If this human, this cancer who occupies galactic resources in the name of order, if he harms ‘Jia’...*
*No, that’s impossible! How could a mere human harm a god? Heavens, the thought is sacrilegious. As a ‘Giahe’, I only need to... only need to worry if this fellow will affect... yes, affect...*
At the same time, a communication from Legion Commander Valiana suddenly popped up on the side of Lei Ting’s eyepiece. Once connected, her brow was furrowed as she spoke to Lei Ting in a heavy tone: “The Consortium demands that we mediate the conflict.”
“Why?” Lei Ting asked casually.
“I asked that question, but you know the result—a bunch of diplomatic platitudes.” Valiana spread her hands. “So, ‘Sun Star’...”
“They slaughtered a massive number of planets.” Lei Ting gazed at the mass of crystals he was about to crush into a ball through his manipulation of the metallic elements within. He said softly, “Are we to betray the people who died such unnatural deaths?”
“...We are soldiers,” Valiana said heavily. “Soldiers of the Federation. And managers of the Federation’s Legions. We must prioritize the Federation’s image and interests within the Consortium...”
“...”
From a distance, Lei Ting locked eyes with ‘Dun’s’ dense cluster of eyeballs, some of which were already beginning to burst.
“Is this how you’ve always done things over the years?” he suddenly asked.
“...” Valiana fell silent.
Was this how she had always done things?
Of course not. Or rather... certainly not from the very beginning.
“I once didn’t know how to compromise either, ‘Sun Star’,” Valiana whispered. “I’ve looked back on the past since our conversation five years ago, but... it’s a bit difficult for me now. You know, I’m old. When you’re old, it’s hard to be that high-spirited without any burden. Please, stop. What we need is negotiation, not an escalation of the conflict...”
“The ‘Giahe’ have suffered severe Ethereal contamination. I will leave evidence,” Lei Ting said calmly. “According to the Consortium’s internal secrecy protocols, any resistor has the right to kill such an enemy on sight.”
“Sigh...” Valiana sighed. “To be honest, in some recent transmissions, there’s information about the teammates in the ‘Giahe’ home star region... the ‘Guardian’ seems to have undergone some mysterious change. Very bad things are happening there. The mutations they’re showing now might be a direct distortion caused by the ‘Guardian’s’ malignant transformation. We need to consider the big picture, ‘Sun Star’. Understanding that transformation is more important than anything.”
Ah... is that so?
Is that how it is?
Lei Ting looked at ‘Dun’, at its silver-gray mountain of a body and its countless eyes.
From those frenzied eyes, he saw a frenzied soul.
Frenzied... frenzied...
A frenzied, massive soul full of malice toward everything before it. It did not belong to ‘Dun’; it belonged to ‘Jia’.
His keen perception told Lei Ting that it was a form of greed, expressed in an extremely poisonous way.
That thing felt that everything belonged to it. The galactic disc was its dining table, the planets were its snacks, and anyone who mined natural resources was its enemy.
The closest one was the Orionid Federation.
“...” Lei Ting heard himself respond: “No.”
He pulled his arm back and clenched his fist, wrapping the bursting, blinding flash in a layer of starlight and darkness that could only be seen through polarized light.
Amidst the sound of countless crystals shattering and the shrill, dying resonance, his voice was calm:
“You have no right to command the ‘Sun Star’.”
***
