Pale White Nebula

The instant the dragon crystal shattered, Yu Lian opened his senses and let the invisible energy pouring out of it flow into his body, filling his soul.

All those red, green, yellow, black, and purple things—the sort of stuff you could open a dye shop with—seemed to appear again. But instead of surging up his throat, they all poured into his head. This time, however, there was no outlet for them to vent through, so they could only follow his nerves and burrow deeper into his sea of consciousness. They entered his soul, a sea of chaos, and began to boil, as if they had found a new world.

"Boom!" Yu Lian faintly felt an explosion sweep through all the chaos in his mind. Every fragment of memory in that sea of soul was destroyed and broken down. The intense light nearly robbed him of all sight, driving the gray chaos toward oblivion. Yet in that oblivion, something new seemed to be taking shape.

The last sliver of Yu Lian's awareness stayed with those "entities" as they changed, waiting for them to gradually solidify and divide. He had no idea how much time passed before their orbits slowly stabilized. They gave off a gentle glow, drawing the destroyed fragments of his mind together again and restoring them, then bringing them into their orbits—like stars using their own gravity to keep planets in existence and stable.

A pale white nebula descended into Yu Lian's sea of consciousness.

That was the legendary soul ring, also known as a "star ring" or "star disk"—the source of transcendental power for every intelligent life-form in the known universe.

The "universe" within his soul began to resonate with the real universe. A power only Yu Lian could feel flowed from his mind into his body, healing his wounds, stimulating his blood and cells, and strengthening his bones, muscles, and nerves.

He came back at full health and strength.

Yu Lian felt as if he had witnessed the birth of a universe from beginning to end, yet in the real world, it had all happened in an instant. He raised his hand. He didn't even have time to marvel at the invisible power coursing through him or enjoy his fully healed body before he condensed unseen psionic energy into a beam and fired it.

The leapling, whose bone blades were already extended, looked as if an invisible giant hammer had smashed into its head. Its skull visibly caved in, and it died without a sound. The concentrated psionic beam didn't stop there. It punched straight through a hydralisk and a terrorclaw. Their upper bodies hit the ground and began to twitch, while their lower halves remained stiff and took several more steps before finally shuddering to a halt.

Ina still hadn't even reacted.

The pale white nebula in his mind shimmered like the halo of a star, a sign that the power factors of his psionic energy were beginning to surge. At that moment, Yu Lian, living through his third lifetime, officially set foot in the world of the transcendent once more.

To hell with the Spirit of the Universe! I don't want white! "Pale white" sounds like some nameless extra! I want the iron-rust color of a swordsman, or the rainbow hues of a mage! I'd even settle for the girly blue of the ranger I was in my last life! Yu Lian roared inwardly, desperate to hack something apart and let off steam. He broke into a run and charged toward the city gate!

"Bien! Baka!" Sergeant Baka continued shouting his incomprehensible, weathered battle cry as he raised his axe and ran after him.

"Charge! The only good bugs are dead bugs!" Youyou bellowed as he joined them, looking at a glance like a gorilla in armor.

At that moment, everyone's morale was through the roof. Even Sergeant Major Banks and Nurse Belinda joined the charge, though they were bringing up the rear... Come to think of it, Yu Lian hadn't seen them for a while. Had they been hiding somewhere slacking off?

In just a few strides, Yu Lian had leaped into the trench, while the others hadn't even cleared the city gate. That was the power of psionic energy: the evolution of the mind ultimately affected the physical world, strengthening his body and instantly healing his crippling injuries. His previously weak body now brimmed with stamina and strength, filling Yu Lian with unprecedented excitement and aggression.

He raised his hand and threw the crystal sword, sending it spinning like an oversized shuriken. Its sharp, high-carbon crystal edge sliced cleanly through three leaplings and a hydralisk before embedding itself in a terrorclaw's forehead.

Steel Dance... the ability to wield weapons in midair with psionic energy? Hm, it's not worth much against a skilled opponent, but it's pretty good for stomping weaklings. As Yu Lian thought, he snatched up his rifle and picked off a few bugs at close range with a rapid burst. Then he reached out with his free hand and pulled an abandoned battle-axe into his grasp.

With a rifle in one hand and an axe in the other, he swept past the stunned Ina and charged into the swarm. By then, the reinforcements had caught up, and the final melee began.

It wasn't all that brutal, of course. The bugs had to cross the slope under a barrage of fire, and by the time they reached the ridge, they'd already lost seventy or eighty percent of their numbers. Almost every survivor was riddled with bullet holes and burn marks. Honestly, if that gravel dragon whose belly had been bored into by a puppet bug hadn't caused trouble, Yu Lian's sloped firing line would have stopped every last one of them.

Yu Lian knew that once the fighting turned to close quarters, the greatest threat to everyone would be the terrorclaws. Ordinary people needed powered armor to take on such huge creatures. Yet even after he'd forced the lieutenant to bring out every suit in storage and reserve, fewer than thirty percent of the army had armor.

The big ones had to go first. Having made up his mind, Yu Lian slid into a step and leaned at an angle no ordinary person could manage, evading two leaplings' bites and lunges as he charged into the swarm. He jammed his rifle into the gap between a terrorclaw's bony pincers and fired a full magazine, blasting apart its central brain. Then he flipped his axe and wrenched one of its claws free.

Before the razor-sharp claw could hit the ground, an invisible force lifted it into the air. It accelerated with a sudden burst, striking like a javelin and punching through two hydralisks just as they opened their back plates to spray needles.

By then, Yu Lian had already slid along the ground beneath another terrorclaw. His bullets tore through the gaps in its relatively weak belly armor and shredded all its internal organs.

Ina stood behind him, completely dumbfounded. She could tell that many of Yu Lian's movements now exceeded the limits of a normal person; he had to be a psionic. What stunned her even more, though, was his clean, direct fighting style. Every attack, dodge, and advance was free of hesitation or wasted motion. At least, as a battle-hardened combat expert, Sergeant Major Ina couldn't find anything to criticize.

She felt as if she were watching a magnificent painting, with sword and gun for brushes and blood and fire for paint. Every stroke had a sharp, lethal, efficient rhythm, bringing the beauty of precision and efficiency to its fullest.

An indescribable feeling turned into a rush of heat that surged through Ina's chest, then rose toward... well, her face and forehead. She flushed red, feeling that the scene before her was simply too surreal to accept.

"...Even for a lunar, this is too much! Wait, it's even more ridiculous because he's a lunar! How can an officer fight this well?"

Miss Ina's thinking was simple: "lunars" were the elite bureaucratic class, the cream of the crop; and "elite bureaucrats" meant officers—the fat, self-important "bigwigs" up top. But didn't those people usually get promoted by putting on airs, spouting official jargon, taking kickbacks, and throwing their weight around in front of the rank and file, as easily as riding an orbital elevator? How could they possibly do anything useful?

Her thinking might have been simple and one-track, but on this point alone, Sergeant Major Ina was far more revolutionary than Lieutenant Monderson. No wonder she'd become famous in the future. If Yu Lian had known, he would have marveled that even in a world where both technology and ideas had gone crooked, there were still kindred spirits who saw eye to eye.

It wasn't until the bear-man and the old Black charged past her with roars like wild beasts that the sergeant major came back to her senses. She still couldn't relate to what was happening. It felt like she was in some third-rate absurdist action movie, so she gave up trying to think and raised her rifle to keep firing. Her shots always sealed off the places Yu Lian couldn't cover, killing or driving back any bugs that tried to attack him from the sides or behind. At the very least, she hit them hard enough to freeze them in place, giving her teammates the chance to finish them off.

Yu Lian smashed the empty C10 into a leapling's head. The stock bent out of shape, but the blow still sent the creature's fluids spraying. Then he hurled the crystal battle-axe, now covered in chips and cracks, at the forehead of the last terrorclaw. The huge bug let out several shrill cries on reflex, then convulsed for at least half a minute before finally going still.

Yu Lian took a deep breath of the hot air on New Jade Gate. The bugs' stench now filled his nostrils. He was clearly exhausted, so he stopped where he was and let the other soldiers, their morale soaring, rush in and finish off the remaining bugs.

I'm only an entry-level cultivator at the first ring. I'm still weak! Yu Lian told himself. He had no idea that, to everyone else, his performance had looked like a god descending from the heavens. How else could their morale have suddenly exploded?

In a universe where martial prowess was valued, but everything else had gone wrong, a commander who charged into the enemy ranks and cut them down was the easiest kind for ordinary soldiers to trust.

With a commander who could cut through the enemy ranks, and middle-ranking NCOs with both courage and combat skill, the soldiers finally overcame their fear of the bugs and fought bravely. Minutes later, after the last leapling had been beaten into a meat patty by several soldiers wielding their rifles like clubs, they looked around. As far as the eye could see, not an enemy was still moving, and everyone erupted into cheers.

They had finally won a glorious victory!

...Though, once again, it was a victory on a battlefield of cold weapons.