Chapter One: What a Scandal

Severe dizziness clouded his mind; his vision blurred, and all he could feel throughout his body was pain—nothing else. In his ears, aside from the ominous drumming on his eardrums, there was only more vexing noise and clamor.

Yet, Yu Lian felt a trace of happiness.

After all, the last memories before everything went black had been anything but pleasant. He didn’t know why he’d awakened, but in that instant, his pupils had ignited with brilliance like stars, and the gamma ray burst unleashed from his colossal maw could have torn apart even a Titan dreadnought.

With his senses as a high-level psychic and decades of experience traversing the galaxy, he could only conclude: “No hope! I’m done for! Wait for the next life!”

Yet, the eternal oblivion he expected never came. That alone was worth popping a bottle of champagne.

So, was it those two kids who fished me out? For mere smugglers to rescue me from the jaws of the Star Dragon King, they’d have a tale to brag about for centuries.

Alright! Once I recover, whatever you wish to learn, I’ll teach; whatever you want to know, I won’t hold back.

“He’s finished. We really should…” a man’s voice spoke urgently.

He took back his earlier thoughts—smugglers are smugglers, after all!

“Three comrades have died today already! Commander!”

Yes, that’s the kind of idealistic, principled smuggler I admire… Wait, this is a rather young woman’s voice, isn’t it? I don’t recall there being any beautiful ladies on your ship.

Because her voice was pleasant—brisk yet sharp—Yu Lian deemed she must be beautiful.

“But his powered armor is wrecked, and now he’s like this… Do you want us to drag him back piece by piece?” The previous voice, intent on abandoning him, grew more exasperated.

“I didn’t take that as a question, Commander!” The (in Yu Lian’s opinion) beautiful woman refused to yield.

“Watch your tone, Sergeant Silica!”

At this point, even Yu Lian, whose intellect and judgment hadn’t recovered to a tenth of their usual sharpness due to his groggy head, sensed something was amiss.

Commander? Sergeant?

He hadn’t dealt with any military organization for at least five or six years. He was sure that any proper military group, upon encountering him, would either mourn bitterly or rejoice ecstatically, but never show this attitude.

Driven by a desire to finally figure out his situation, his eyelids felt less heavy. He forced them open. The first sight he caught was a boundless expanse of golden sandstone, shimmering faintly. The heat drove dust-laden air to form mirages at the horizon, distorting vision. Above it, a cerulean sky, and two suns—one blue, one red—hung like the eyes of deities.

As the old verse goes, “The desert’s lone smoke curves and straightens, the river’s sunset shines in twin circles.”

“Is this Tatooine…? Ugh, I’ve been making that joke for decades—how dull am I?” Yu Lian mourned his own poor taste, and half a second later, realized he must be on New Jade Gate, the first colony planet developed by Earthlings in the Andromeda Galaxy.

He knew every grain of sand and speck of earth here.

New Jade Gate… In a sense, his second homeland, but that was before Earthlings lost the planet.

“In New Jade Gate, we’re just newcomers, only a few years in! Don’t you see? We’re surrounded by crisis!” The man called “Commander” by Sergeant Silica spoke loudly.

What a time warp! Only a few years? Isn’t it currently Galactic Common Era Year 884? Humanity lost this ‘Andromeda’s golden diamond’ nearly half a century ago!

It had long since been renamed “Iron King Domain” by its new master—a tasteless Kaitai name, to be sure.

“They’re coming!” A third voice, tinged with fear, called out.

Yu Lian heard hurried, heavy breathing; the grinding of mechanical skeletons; the click of bullets chambering; the roar of power axes and chainsaw swords. All this felt surreal to him, so he felt no tension—only as if he were caught in some absurd farce.

He propped himself up—just that motion exhausted all his strength—quickly assessing his situation.

No matter how disjointed things felt, no matter how every bone seemed to tremble with pain, he knew he had to grasp the present circumstances. This was the essential quality of a “free knight,” a seven-ring psychic, one of the most (infamous) renowned rangers in the universe.

He was lying on a powered stretcher. Within a ten-meter radius, a dozen armed personnel hustled into formation. They were clearly exhausted—some were even trembling—but at least none had fled, so their courage was commendable.

However…

“They’re standing too close together, and there’s no sense of layered firepower distribution. This is early infantry tactics before Patton’s reforms. Our parallel universe’s tech tree must be skewed, or else there’s no way such tactics would persist into the space age.” Yu Lian shook his head in sigh.

“…Warrant Officer, you’re awake?” He heard Sergeant Silica’s voice, then saw her face draw near.

If you expect a fragrance from a girl clad in blood-stained, dust-caked powered armor, her face covered in grime and fatigue, you’re dreaming. Yet, despite the wear and tear, she showed no sign of distress. Under her neat golden short hair was a sharply defined face and a pair of fiery red eyes no normal Earthling could possess. Vibrant yet piercing—a true beauty.

Silica… Sergeant? Red eyes! Surely not?

Yu Lian felt he knew her, but only from news and videos.

And never this young…

“Rest assured, soldiers of the Commonwealth never abandon their comrades!” she declared, meticulously checking her rifle.

Commonwealth? But, young lady, why are you wearing an AS-40 external power suit only pirates and the Black Cat Gang cobble together, and carrying a C10 kinetic rifle discontinued for nearly thirty years? Is this a period drama?

Yu Lian wanted to say as much, but as a ranger who’d roamed half the universe, he knew this wasn’t a performance.

These people were genuinely tense, fearful, gritting their teeth to face something.

“It’s too open here. We can’t afford to linger, Lieutenant Monderson!” The “Commander” who wanted to leave him behind kept ranting, now addressing a middle-aged man in outdated powered armor.

Lieutenant Monderson hesitated for a moment, then bit back, “We’ll rout them here! To your post, Lieutenant!”

His tone was firm—almost too firm, as if compensating.

The officers’ argument ceased, not because the younger lieutenant wanted to stop, but because their gaze was now fixed on the approaching dust cloud, close enough that its stench could be smelled.

They hadn’t noticed that the awakened Yu Lian had already sized them up.

The epaulet insignia was orange—a mark of the Outworld Colonial Garrison, even lower on the pecking order than the “Marine Gorillas.” The so-called “Garrison fodder.” As the name suggests, they sat at the very bottom of the military’s hierarchy.

Silver swallow insignia with a star, and without one, did indeed correspond to lieutenant and second lieutenant ranks.

As for Sergeant Silica, her insignia was a bronze stripe with crossed swords—third class sergeant, as expected.

These were genuinely Commonwealth military insignia. But hadn’t that nation already… Yu Lian glanced again at the stern-faced Sergeant, lingering on her heroic yet beautiful face, and vaguely guessed his current predicament.

What is this—second round?

“Fire!” Lieutenant Monderson roared.

A dozen kinetic rifles crackled with electromagnetic halos, unleashing a barrage of hundreds of steel spike rounds into the dust. The ensuing blood-curdling shrieks and the flying mangled limbs—part insect, part beast—created a dense, nauseating fog of blood and stench, surging ever closer.

Clearly, the rifle barrage couldn’t deter them.

“What the hell are these things?” a black sergeant gritted his teeth.

Beside him, an even bigger staff sergeant kept firing, one hand already gripping the power axe at his waist. He was the tallest and strongest in the squad, towering above even Sergeant Silica and the annoying lieutenant despite lacking powered armor.

Yet, even this bear-sized giant showed obvious nerves.

If these were “natural” creatures, they’d never charge into a hail of bullets. The fact that they did defied common sense—bringing terror born of the unknown.

“Argh! Roar!” Alien monsters resembling oversized hyenas but sporting insect-like claws on their flanks burst from the dust, fierce and menacing. There were at least a hundred visible, with untold more hidden by the haze.

Among them, upright giant shelled “cobras,” instantly towering over two meters, brandished mantis-like scythe limbs.

Terrifying indeed—emotionless predators, in swarms so numerous they couldn’t possibly be carnivores. Their thick armor, shrugging off bullets as they advanced, seemed an evolutionary quirk.

Everyone was terrified, holding on through sheer grit. But Yu Lian only felt humiliation—so much so he nearly wept in frustration.

Help me up! Bring my atomic light spear, my Tempest blaster, and my Dawn sword! After all, I’m the one who fought the Ether Dragon three hundred rounds! Even your queen has lost to me more than once!

Yet now I’m being trampled by the lowest-tier leapers and stingers—what kind of disgrace is this?