The whispers began the exact second Rhaevia Rythundeir set foot past the towering gates of the Imperial Military Academy. The cold, sweeping wind of the outer campus carried every single word directly toward her, sharp and laced with effortless cruelty.
"Is that actually her?" a student nearby asked, leaning toward his friend while gesturing with a subtle tilt of his head. "That’s the Rythundeir family’s youngest daughter."
The boy beside him scoffed softly, adjusting his uniform collar. "The E-rank one?"
"Shh, don’t say it so loudly! Her mother is an esteemed 3S Guide, and her father is a 3S Duke."
"So what if they are? She’s still an E-rank trash."
A few neighboring students snickered at the comment, exchanging amused glances. Rhaevia heard every single word with total clarity, but her stride never once faltered. She simply kept walking forward, her boots clicking evenly against the metallic floor.
The academy grounds were unlike anything she had ever known in her previous lifetime. Silver spires pierced high into the clouds, while heavy military drones hovered silently above the training fields, their optical lenses constantly scanning incoming students.
Beyond the massive outer defensive walls rested gigantic starships, their polished hulls gleaming brilliantly under the glow of artificial sunlight.
Everything in this era was terrifyingly advanced.
Rhaevia quietly observed the high-tech surroundings, her gaze steady and analytical. So this was the Interstellar Civilization.
Even now, she found the reality difficult to accept completely. Her last memory had been defined by the reek of blood, towering flames, and the deafening roar of a falling city. She had been humanity’s last standing commander on a ruined, apocalyptic Earth.
She remembered swinging her blade, feeling it sever the neck of the Zombie King before darkness swallowed her whole. Death should have been the end of her story.
Yet, when she opened her eyes again, she had transmigrated into the body of another Rhaevia. A twenty-year-old noble daughter born into immense power, yet cursed with a pathetic E-rank rating. A girl the entire capital mockingly dismissed as useless trash.
"Hey, Trash Guide."
A male student suddenly stepped out from the crowd, deliberately blocking her path with an arrogant smirk.
"Your parents must be thoroughly embarrassed by your existence," the boy sneered, crossing his arms arrogantly. "Imagine having two legendary 3S parents and producing an E-rank failure."
Another student stepped up behind him, chiming in with a loud laugh. "Maybe all the family talent was completely drained by her three prodigy brothers."
Rhaevia stopped and met their gazes directly. Her dark eyes remained entirely flat, devoid of any anger or insult.
To a woman who had clawed her way through a horrific zombie apocalypse, childish taunts from sheltered nobles were barely worth acknowledging. She calmly stepped around the boy without uttering a single word.
"Hey! I’m talking to you, E-rank!" the boy yelled out, visibly irritated by her total indifference.
Rhaevia did not bother to turn back.
Her immediate priority was to understand this new environment, evaluate the inhabitants, and assess potential threats. That simple rule had kept her alive through years of brutal warfare, and she had no intention of abandoning it in this strange new world.
Three hours later, the vast assembly ended, and the freshmen were ordered onto a heavy military descent shuttle.
"We are heading to Training Planet V-17," the chief instructor announced through the cabin comms, his voice echoing over the hum of the engines. "You will remain locked with your assigned squads throughout the atmospheric descent and tactical deployment."
Rhaevia took a solitary seat by the thick, reinforced window, watching silently as the shuttle thrusters fired up.
The vessel accelerated rapidly into the sky, leaving the grand silver structures of the academy far behind until they vanished entirely. Soon, the blue atmosphere gave way to the deep, silent void of space.
Eventually, a swirling green-and-brown planet emerged in the viewport.
Rhaevia frowned slightly as she watched the primary flight console overhead. Something felt distinctly off. The shuttle’s visual display began flickering erratically, throwing strange yellow atmospheric turbulence warnings across the interface.
A sharp text prompt flashed onto the screen:
[Warning: Atmospheric pressure fluctuation detected.]
A split second later, a second red prompt replaced it:
[Navigation deviation: 0.7 degrees.]
Rhaevia’s eyes narrowed instantly as her hardened battlefield instincts flared. A deviation of 0.7 degrees seemed tiny, almost utterly meaningless to an untrained civilian. But military-grade shuttle navigation systems were built for absolute precision. They did not drift without reason.
She kept her eyes glued to the monitor. Within seconds, the numbers ticked upward at an alarming rate.
[2.4 degrees.]
[5.8 degrees.]
Rhaevia immediately unbuckled her safety restraint and stood up.
"Instructor," she called out, her voice cutting cleanly through the noisy cabin chatter.
The lead instructor turned around with an annoyed scowl. "What is it, cadet?"
"The navigation system has been manually tampered with," Rhaevia stated flatly.
The entire passenger cabin fell completely silent as students turned to stare at her in disbelief.
"What ridiculous nonsense are you talking about--" the instructor started to bark.
Before he could finish his sentence, the shuttle’s primary alarm system shrieked aloud, bathing the entire cabin in flashing red light.
[WARNING! CRITICAL NAVIGATION FAILURE!]
The heavy military shuttle violently tilted sideways, plunging into a sudden steep dive. Panic erupted instantly as students screamed, their bodies thrown violently against their safety harnesses.
"Execute emergency trajectory correction!" the chief instructor screamed, rushing toward the primary control panel alongside two assistants.
"The main stabilizers aren’t responding at all!" an assistant yelled back frantically over the roaring alarms.
"Engage the manual override immediately!"
"It’s locked out! The system was overridden from an external source!"
Rhaevia gripped the edge of her metal seat, her knuckles turning white as she stabilized her footing against the extreme gravitational force. Through the thick viewport window, dense clouds rushed upward to meet them at a terrifying velocity. They were falling far too fast.
A second later, the shuttle tore through the thick cloud layer, and the view below cleared completely.
Rhaevia’s pupils contracted sharply.
Spread out beneath them was no designated military training camp. There were no landing pads, no defensive outposts, and no academy bases in sight.
Instead, a vast, desolate, and blackened wasteland stretched out as far as the eye could see. Crawling across the toxic black terrain were vast, squirming swarms consisting of thousands upon thousands of monstrous creatures.
Zergs.
Rhaevia’s eyes turned icy cold as she realized the reality of their situation. This was no simple mechanical malfunction or tragic accident.
Someone had deliberately sent them here to die.