Yu Lian moved the muzzle aside, no longer paying attention to the private who had nearly been scared senseless. He squeezed the trigger again in a burst, sending bullets through the crowd and through two savages dancing with their mouths gaping wide, before one punched through a hydralisk's chest with a sharp crack.
"You... you can do that too?" Ina looked at Yu Lian in surprise for the first time.
So, what kind of person had I—no, what kind of person had the owner of this body—been?
Yu Lian was filled with curiosity about his current "self." The so-called "warrant officers" in the Commonwealth were actually officer cadets—in other words, gifted students from advanced military academies who hadn't graduated yet. They were true darlings of heaven, able to look down from the clouds on the dregs of the security forces. In the military, they were known as the "elite officer group," and their careers rose as smoothly as a ride up an orbital elevator. If they didn't earn a general's star before retirement, they'd have done exceptionally poorly.
By comparison, the other two officers in the squad—the swordsman lieutenant and the second lieutenant who kept wanting to abandon him—were probably from the so-called "regular group" or "nonprofessional group." Their ages said it all: one was at least in his early forties, and the other must have been thirty-five or thirty-six. They were typical career officers, realists who'd consider themselves lucky to retire with a colonel's benefits.
...Uh, speaking of which, Lieutenant Monderson was busy hacking at bugs. Where was the second lieutenant, who also had powered armor?
Yu Lian quickly spotted him in the crowd. He wasn't near the front at all; he was hanging back, standing somewhere he could run away from at any moment.
"Second Lieutenant! What are you doing? You've got powered armor. What are you afraid of? If you won't go up, you can't expect unarmored people to do it!" Yu Lian's gaze paused on the power maul hanging from the man's gear. He confirmed that the thing was in perfect condition; one swing would be enough to shake the overnight shit out of a zergling or hydralisk.
And, in fact, that was exactly the case. These bugs were obviously unevolved, primitive versions. They couldn't match human mobile infantry in powered armor, even through brute force alone. Even if everyone was using an AS40, an antique riddled with problems, powered armor still turned a mobile infantryman into a little human tank. Not just zerglings—even a hulking clawbug could put up a fight against one.
The second lieutenant's face immediately reddened, and he loudly protested, "Shut up! Warrant Officer, you're still a student. What would you know? I'm a coward—no, I need to stay at the command position..."
His face flushed, veins standing out on his forehead. He seemed to want to say something difficult to understand, like "It doesn't count as cowardice when an officer hangs back" or "I have to ensure the chain of command remains intact." But Lieutenant Monderson, who was busy hacking at bugs, shouted, "Second Lieutenant Don Russo! Get in position!"
The second lieutenant hunched his shoulders and muttered, "Oh." He gritted his teeth, finally hefted his power maul, and went to the front as if he were marching to the gallows. He sighed and looked like he was about to be hacked to death any second.
Giving his powered armor to anyone else present would have been more useful, Yu Lian thought.
Of course, we had to understand Second Lieutenant Russo. Even when wearing powered armor, danger was still part of the deal... For instance, the AS40 didn't come with a helmet. Or rather, its standard helmet had no fire-control system, camera, or air conditioning. It messed with your vision and was so damn uncomfortable that no normal person wanted to wear it. People often went on missions without it, preferring to slap on a bulletproof helmet that looked completely out of place.
But you couldn't expect bugs to be so considerate that they wouldn't chop your head off, could you?
Still, to be fair, although the second lieutenant was a coward and had wanted to abandon the badly wounded Yu Lian, he was a capable fighter. After all, he was from the "nonprofessional group." If he couldn't rely on his practical skills, what else did he have—his academic credentials? His power maul swung this way and that with a fair degree of skill.
With the precise fire of Yu Lian and Ina, the two "special marksmen," and the three MTs holding the line up front, the rest of the squad—at least proper soldiers—didn't do anything so stupid as infuriate heaven and drag the team down. The bug corpses on the other side soon began piling up. Their strange stench, somewhere between insect fluid and animal blood, grew stronger and stronger.
They could actually make excellent farmland fertilizer—high-quality organic fertilizer, in fact—as long as you could stand the smell, Yu Lian thought.
By his estimate, there were at least two or three hundred bugs in this wave, but wiping them out wasn't a problem. Even he began to feel a little more at ease.
Yes, the goal was to "wipe them out," not "drive them back."
But soon, Yu Lian thought he heard a faint whistle cut through the hot air and vanish. Then the creatures later known as the zerg suddenly stopped in their tracks, like puppets controlled by someone. They all turned around and retreated like a tide.
Just as they had surged in like a tide moments earlier. They obeyed every command, moving in perfect unison, without the slightest hesitation or panic.
Everyone stared, dumbfounded, with no idea what had happened. No one had noticed the fleeting, subtle disturbance from before, except Ina, who raised her brows slightly and suspiciously scanned the surroundings.
Yu Lian cursed under his breath and pushed hard against his body until he managed to sit up a little straighter. He gripped his rifle with one hand.
"Phew..." Lieutenant Monderson let out a long breath and lowered the chainsword in his hands. Only then did he notice the ache in his arm.
Even wearing powered armor, that battle had taken a lot out of him.
He looked at the sergeant beside him, who was nearly as tall as he was even without armor. The sergeant had been swinging a specially made power axe as big as a wagon wheel for several minutes, yet he wasn't even red in the face or out of breath. Monderson couldn't help thinking that these Bian bears were beasts by nature.
Lieutenant Monderson fished a small aluminum flask from his armor's utility pouch, took a swig, then casually handed it to the sergeant beside him.
Second Lieutenant Russo, who had watched the whole thing from the back, immediately flushed bright red.
But before the sergeant, who was wearing a simple smile, could take the flask, Yu Lian snapped, "Everyone, spread out!"
Nobody listened. They were all confused. Even Ina, who had worked so well with Yu Lian just moments ago, looked puzzled.
"Warrant Officer, know your place!" Second Lieutenant Russo shouted even louder. At last, he'd found a reason to snap back at Yu Lian.
This weak body really was just a student's, Yu Lian sighed inwardly. Then he raised his rifle and aimed it at Second Lieutenant Russo.
Hey, even if you were furious with him, that was no reason to shoot a superior on the spot, was it? He knew these "Moon people" were all arrogant darlings of heaven, but he'd never heard they were this mentally unstable!
Second Lieutenant Russo was horrified. His first reaction wasn't to raise his gun, but to raise both hands.
Ina reacted the fastest. She raised her rifle and aimed it at the back of Yu Lian's head, just about to shout at him, when he pulled the trigger.
Should I shoot? The sergeant major hesitated for a moment.
But several bullets had already left the barrel. They didn't hit Russo; they skimmed past his waist at an angle and struck the sandy soil.
The sand rippled like the surface of a calm lake disturbed by a stone. A low growl came from between the brown-yellow rocks and reddish sand.
"Enemies underground!" The lieutenant finally caught on. "But why didn't the sensors pick them up?"
Because the massive crocodile-sized spider bug crawled underground more quietly than a groundhog. The old tactical sensors, which hadn't been upgraded, had mistaken it for one. Yu Lian wanted to explain it that way.
"Spread out!" Ina shouted.
The sergeant major had far more authority than Yu Lian. The soldiers obeyed her instinctively.
Second Lieutenant Russo was still confused. He still couldn't tell whether Yu Lian had tried to shoot him and missed. Ordinary people couldn't react in time in that moment, and they subconsciously shut out the roar only inches away. Even when a huge insect blade emerged from a crack in the dirt and severed his neck from behind, Second Lieutenant Russo still hadn't managed to put two and two together.
His head fell to the ground, the expression frozen on his face still one of confusion and bewilderment.
Piece-of-shit rifle! What kind of gun couldn't shoot a spider bug through thick rock and sand? If this C10 was the only thing he had, Yu Lian would have loved to smash it on the ground.
Everyone poured fire at the spot where the insect blade had emerged, but it was now empty except for the churning rocks.
The furious Lieutenant Monderson didn't stop them. Instead, he grabbed his comrade's power maul and swung it down onto the ground with all his might. He didn't know what orders to give, either, so he could only lash out with brute force. Seeing this, the giant sergeant also raised his battle axe and joined in, pounding the ground with loud thuds.
"This is just venting..." Yu Lian sighed. He took off his armored glove and slowly pressed his hand to the ground.
"Warrant Officer..." The plain-looking, plain-built medical officer, whose name he didn't even know, looked worried. She was concerned that the badly wounded Yu Lian would come into direct contact with the ground out in the alien wilderness without protection, catch some parasite, and add to her workload.
Yes, this planet was obviously teeming with parasites. Wasn't that clear as day?
"Cease fire," Yu Lian shouted to the others.
Nobody listened.
"Cease fire!" Ina, who had been standing nearby, repeated it at more than nine times Yu Lian's volume.
Everyone stopped firing, including the still-furious Lieutenant Monderson and the Bian sergeant.
Yu Lian closed his eyes and silently felt the faint rhythms of the ground.
In the past, he wouldn't have needed to go to such trouble. A Seventh-Ring Saint's exceptional senses could detect the movements of every bug deep underground from hundreds of kilometers away. But now that he had become so weak, he had no choice but to use mortal methods.
Even so, these were essential skills for any capable pioneer or ranger.
The land had its own rhythm. The zerg's crawling broke that rhythm.
That was what the mentor Yu Lian respected most had taught him.
It sounded mystical, but really, it was no different from how ancient scouts lay on the ground to listen for sounds. Yu Lian had simply accumulated enough experience that his hand was all he needed.
The more classical the method, the less likely it was to become outdated. That was the whole point.
As mentioned before, spider bugs, ambush predators among the zerg, made less noise tunneling underground than groundhogs—let alone humans' footsteps or the sound of horses' hooves. But even so, they did make some noise.
"Seventeen... twenty-one... twenty-five... thirty!" Yu Lian muttered a string of numbers no one really understood. After a few pauses, he suddenly shouted, "Ina! Two meters, three o'clock!"
The sergeant major, who had somehow gotten her chainsword ready, turned without hesitation and swung. The chainsword's roar was quickly drowned out by the sound of bone and metal being torn apart.
The enormous creature, shaped like an armored spider, silently raised half its body. But this time, its huge bone pincers missed their target and were immediately cleaved apart by the chainsword.
It made no cry of pain. It just tried to burrow back underground, but Ina reversed her grip on her rifle and fired a burst point-blank into its carapace.
The giant spider was blasted back several paces, and the bear sergeant and the big black sergeant had rushed in by then. The former was naturally strong and still wielded his oversized power axe; the Black sergeant, the second-biggest man in the squad, had no powered armor but was swinging a battle hammer made from high-carbon crystal. The two surrounded the giant bug and battered it with blow after blow. At a glance, they looked like they were pounding rice cakes.
The giant spider was torn to pieces. It twitched a few times, then lay still.
Only then did the medical officer, who had stared with her mouth hanging open the entire time, finally manage to cry out, "Ah!" She then let out a long breath. She looked at Yu Lian, and for some reason her face reddened. She was just about to say something when he grabbed her hand and pulled her aside.
The medical officer was yanked down onto the sand, but that let her dodge the insect limb emerging behind her.
Another spider bug had exposed half its body above ground without anyone noticing. Its attack missed, and it was preparing to retreat.
But Yu Lian had already opened fire.
He emptied half a magazine, broke its mandibles, pierced the carapace on its head, and finally destroyed the central nervous tissue inside.
He was relieved that these two spider bugs were unevolved juveniles. If they'd been the future adult stalkers, able to extend their insect spines hundreds of meters and pierce a tank's underside in one strike, everyone would have been doomed.
Yes, just as the Commonwealth's regular military still used "antiques," the zerg swarm disaster that would one day cast a terrifying shadow over the civilizations of the entire galaxy was still developing in secret.
Yu Lian propped himself up halfway and stared intently at the lieutenant, who had only just come back to his senses. He said in a low voice, "Sir, this area is far too open. We have to move at once!"
The fierce desert wind blew by. Second Lieutenant Russo's head rolled several meters away, its bloody face already unrecognizable.
Before you continue