The flames were burning.
Outside the window, energy beams fired by fighter jets and mechas tore through the sky, shattering the dazzling and magnificent starry sky into pieces.
The temporary base was pitch black. The intermittent sound of electric current crackled, and the momentary light from the explosions illuminated the devastation scattered everywhere.
The sound of dripping blood was barely audible amidst the roar of fighter jets and explosions.
The sharp pain coming from his chest was gradually growing numb.
The loss of blood was taking away his body heat. Rong Zhiting could feel his life slipping away along with it, and his heartbeat growing weaker by the fraction.
The sound of explosions was gradually fading into the distance. The only thing he could feel was the person holding him tightly.
“Brother Bai!” he forced out in a breathy voice.
“Mm, I am here.” The Omega general, usually calm and composed, tried his best to maintain a steady voice, but his warm tone still could not hide the slight tremor.
“I am so cold. You must hold me a little tighter.”
The person complied and held him tighter. It was a reassuring embrace, but unfortunately, the hard exoskeleton armor could not bring a shred of warmth.
The strength the person used, and his unceasingly trembling hands, signaled an irretrievable truth.
“Brother, I am so sleepy. Can I sleep for a while?” His voice grew weaker and weaker, and his consciousness began to blur. Every single word required immense effort to speak.
“All right, go to sleep.” He heard the other person’s voice tinged with a faint sob, but in the dark, he could not see that person’s expression.
“Do not be afraid, go to sleep peacefully. When you wake up, you will get better.”
The battle-hardened general knew all too well that in the absence of any medical supplies, for an F-rank Alpha with extremely low self-healing capabilities, this kind of fatal wound was beyond saving. Yet, he was still uttering words of comfort.
Powerless words.
Such words had never been heard coming from this person before.
But at this moment, he said them.
As if coaxing a child who was falling asleep uneasily.
As if he did not know that once the person in his arms closed his eyes, he was destined never to wake up again.
The fiery glow of the explosions outside the window illuminated that warm and handsome face.
An unprecedented grief and vulnerability.
He felt some warm liquid fall onto his face.
That was tears.
Yet that person was still smiling, as if trying to make him feel at ease, unaware that the smile at the corner of his own lips was unimaginably strained and bitter.
He wanted to raise his hand to wipe away the tears for that person, but he no longer had the strength to move a single finger.
An unprecedented reluctance and attachment.
If he just left like this, all the grief and pain after death would turn into nothingness, then what about the person left behind?
How could he leave him alone to struggle in an endless sea of future grief? How was his general supposed to spend the rest of his life all alone?
Yet, in the end, he was powerless to resist the fading of life, and closed his eyes in the embrace of the person he loved most.
The next second, Rong Zhiting woke up in the darkness.
In the pitch-black room, he slowly blinked his eyes. His stiff muscles relaxed, and he let out a deep, long sigh of relief.
It was a dream.
For the thirty-some nights since his rebirth, he had often dreamed of that day of death.
And whenever he had such a dream, he knew he would find it hard to fall asleep for the rest of the night.
The nights on the Fringe Star had no lights, let alone the human voices and bustle of a big city. Inside the abandoned house, looking through the cracked window glass on the concrete wall, one could raise their head and see the pitch-black night sky.
Dark, heavy clouds obscured the Guardian Moon, looking like it was about to rain, and the room was pitch black. The howling wind blew in through the cracks of the window, making a wailing sound that was practically like ghosts crying.
The room’s makeshift air purifier glowed with a red light, struggling to filter the toxic air while making an overloaded, rumbling sound.
Rong Zhiting got up from the steel-framed bed in the corner, turned on the nightlight on the wall, fetched some sealing glue, and expressionlessly and silently resealed the crack in that window, successfully stopping that annoying ghostly wailing sound. Afterward, he turned on the backup air purifier, took apart the nearly scrapped purifier in a few quick motions, and skillfully began to repair it.
By the time he finished repairing the wretched purifier, it was already past 1:00 AM.
Rong Zhiting casually put the purifier aside and silently looked at the pitch-black night outside.
To be honest, even now he found it hard to believe that after his death, he had actually returned to this year of being nineteen, back to this desolate and dilapidated Fringe Star, two months before he was admitted to the military academy.
After a while, he propped himself up by his knees, nimbly put on the protective suit hanging on the wall beside him, put a collar-style voice changer around his neck, pulled the protective mask down to buckle it onto his face, pushed open the door, and walked out.
Outside the door, the boundless abandoned city was draped in pitch-black shadows under the cover of the endless night. The howling wind passed through the half-collapsed urban ruins, resembling the roars of demons, cold, desolate, and eerie.
This was Fringe Star EQ952B3, located in the fringe territory of the Federation. It did not even have a formal name, and was only designated by a string of cold numbers.
This was one of the most backward planets in the Federation territory, and also the place where he grew up.
Past wars had caused large areas of urban ruins on this once-prosperous planet. The surface climate was extremely harsh, radiation had polluted the land and water sources, and the air still retained trace toxins left behind by high-risk weapons.
The abandoned cities gradually weathered and collapsed over time, with not a blade of grass growing. The remaining people built underground cities beneath the ruins as new places to live.
In the night, Rong Zhiting skillfully bypassed the collapsed road surface, climbed over the weathered and collapsed concrete walls, and nimbly traveled through this urban wasteland.
This was a route he had walked countless times, and even in the darkness, it did not affect his movement in the least.
About twenty minutes later, he arrived at the entrance of the underground city.
The entrance of the underground city had a translucent protective barrier capable of blocking radiation and filtering toxic gases.
A yawning guard at the entrance glanced casually at his pass, waved his hand, and let him through.
The old elevator made an annoying noise, and a dozen seconds later, the iron lattice door opened with a rumble, revealing a chaotic and crowded underground metropolis.
There were very few people on the streets of the underground city late at night, and the rare pedestrians all wore expressions of deep fatigue.
After entering the underground city, Rong Zhiting turned into a narrow alley, pulling out a black cloak to wear over his body as he walked to conceal his figure. He did not remove his protective mask; the one-way visible material of the mask completely blocked his face. Then, he changed his walking pace.
This method of hiding his identity by adjusting subtle habits was something he had learned from a certain general in his past life, and apart from that person, no one could spot any flaws.
The place he was going to would spell big trouble if his identity was exposed.
Walking through the winding alleys for a dozen minutes, he arrived at a hidden entrance.
Following the stairs all the way down to the iron door at the end, a fierce-looking brute blocked his path.
“Kid, do you know what kind of place this is before daring to barge in?” The brute’s eyes held contempt as he sneered. “Ignorant of the immensity of heaven and earth. If you know what is good for you, get lost quickly.”
Rong Zhiting did not speak, his eyes behind the mask gazing coldly at the brute.
“What kind of attitude is that?”
The brute became irritated by the look, reached out to grab his collar, and looked like he wanted to pick a fight.
“Little bastard, I kindly gave you a warning, and you refuse a toast only to drink a forfeiture?”
However, his hand was grabbed by a sturdy arm ten centimeters away from Rong Zhiting, with a force so great that it left him unable to move.
The brute glared angrily behind him, but the moment he saw the newcomer, he immediately wiped the fierceness from his face and became respectful.
“Brother Liu, why are you here?”
“This is a regular customer.”
The newcomer was a tall Alpha who did not even look at the brute, simply nodding toward Rong Zhiting.
“Do not take offense. This kid is new here, and you have not been around for a while, so he mistook you for a fresh face. You know the rules of the black market; newcomers are not allowed entry without a regular customer bringing them.”
“No matter.”
Rong Zhiting used the voice changer, and the sound produced was a non-organic mechanical voice.
Behind the iron door, it was far livelier than the sleeping underground city above. People coming and going almost all wore cloaks or masks, and those showing their faces wore disguised ones; in short, their true appearances could not be seen. The shops on both sides looked completely normal on the surface, but only regular customers knew what they actually sold.
Rong Zhiting entered a bar whose business looked so desolate it seemed on the verge of closing.
Only the owner was busy behind the counter. Seeing him enter, the owner put down the cup in his hand, walked into the back storage room, and brought out a fairly heavy iron box. He placed it on the counter, turned the box around, and opened it in front of Rong Zhiting. Inside were thirty tubes of translucent liquid, marked with various numbers and codes.
“A1-type nutrient solutions, advanced repair potions, and C5-type gene strengthening fluids, all high-end military-grade goods. Old rules.”
The rules of the black market: inspect the goods on the spot, pay with one hand and deliver with the other. At this stage, bargaining was not accepted, and no refunds or after-sales service were provided past this point.
You could not skip inspecting goods in the black market. Even the same batch of goods sold in the same shop could vary in authenticity and quality. Not inspecting goods meant you were a foolish and wealthy fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered, but being stingy and hesitant after inspecting and paying meant you had no money, no background, and no confidence, leaving you just waiting to be robbed. As for playing dirty tricks, that was courting death.
Rong Zhiting was familiar with all the unwritten rules of the black market and would not leave behind any loopholes for himself.
After inspecting the goods, he unhesitatingly pulled out an unlabeled black card to pay the bill. His fingers touched the iron box, and the iron box vanished, stored away into his storage device.
The bar owner smiled with satisfaction and said, “The next batch of goods arrives in a week. Same as usual?”
Rong Zhiting nodded, turned around, and walked out of the bar. Walking a bit further into the deeper sections, he entered a shop that rented and sold mechas.
At this hour, the mecha shop owner was not around, probably fast asleep, with only a clerk dozing off while tending the store.
When he walked into the shop, the clerk was propping his head up and nodding off, almost knocking his head against the table. Startled awake just as he saw someone enter, the clerk hurriedly patted his face, plastered a smile on it, stood up, and greeted him. “Why are you coming over at this hour?”
“Decided to go out on a temporary whim,” Rong Zhiting said in his inorganic mechanical voice. “Is 6991 in stock?”
“It is, it is! The boss gave instructions to reserve that mecha for you unless there are special circumstances.” The clerk smiled cheerfully, his smile carrying more than a hint of ingratiation.
Rong Zhiting had a deal with the owner here: he could freely use the rental mechas here, and in exchange, he would help the owner repair mechas and perform daily upkeep and maintenance.
The clerk knew his boss valued this person greatly and could not afford to offend him. Mecha repair technicians were exceptionally scarce on the Fringe Star, and their asking prices were outrageously high. Ever since this person arrived, the boss no longer needed to spend a fortune finding those repair technicians. Whenever Rong Zhiting came, the boss would be all smiles, so naturally, the clerk had to greet him warmly.
The mechas in this shop were old models from decades ago, mostly dragged back in a scrapped state from urban battlefield ruins outside, put up for sale or rent after repairs restored their basic functions. There was also a very small portion of retired military mechas stripped of their weapons brought in through private channels, belonging to newer models with superior performance.
In the warehouse, forty to fifty tall, old, and bulky mechas were neatly arranged. Among them, a grey-black mecha had undergone special modifications, making it look much more agile than the other old mechas. Back then, Rong Zhiting had relied on modifying this mecha to reach a cooperation agreement with the owner.
Ordinarily, modifying a mecha to this extent would take an exquisite craftsman at least a week, but Rong Zhiting used only 15 hours excluding breaks, which completely blew the owner’s mind.
Ever since then, apart from the routine repairs and maintenance outlined in their deal, the owner would occasionally ask Rong Zhiting to modify mechas. As long as the modifications were not too complex, Rong Zhiting would usually take them on, earning a fair bit of extra cash along the way. However, he claimed he did not do weapon modifications to prevent being targeted by certain individuals and dragged off to do weapon modifications.
At this time, he had not undergone differentiation yet. Although he possessed the combat awareness of his past life, his body had not undergone systematic training, so his physical prowess was truly mediocre.
Coming to the black market to buy things was an absolute necessity; he had no desire to become an accomplice to illegal armed forces.
After all, he still needed to follow the trajectory of his past life, take the military academy exam, and go find his Brother Bai.
In his past life, it was in this year of being nineteen that Rong Zhiting took the exam with the top theoretical score and a barely passing physical fitness score, successfully entering the 73rd Military Academy of the 6th Star District, the only military academy that recruited from this Fringe Star.
This utterly ordinary military academy changed his life.