Rhaevia stared at the towering Zerg as its metallic, serrated mandibles clicked together in a terrifying rhythm. The single word echoed inside her mind like a heavy gong, vibrating through every nerve in her body.
King.
Her knuckles turned white as her fingers tightened around the cold steel frame of her plasma rifle. For the very first time since she had transmigrated into this E-rank body on Planet V-17, she felt an emotion she could not easily explain.
It was fear.
It was not the fear of death, because she had already died once on the blood-soaked, burning streets of an apocalyptic Earth. What truly frightened her was the sickening, overwhelming familiarity of that raspy voice.
It carried the exact same ancient, heavy resonance she had felt when her fingertips touched the black crystal in the dirt. It was the exact same oppressive presence that had just awakened deep within the dormant corners of her mind.
The massive Zerg commander slowly lowered its enormous, obsidian-armored head, bringing its glowing crimson compound eyes level with hers. A low, subterranean vibration hummed through its chest cavity as it spoke again.
"King..." it rasped, the guttural sound scraping against the rocks.
Rhaevia’s heartbeat accelerated rapidly, pounding like a war drum against her ribs. Why is a high-level Zerg calling an E-rank human Guide its King, she asked herself, her mind racing for a logical explanation?
She took one cautious, measured step backward across the dark soil, keeping her sightlines open.
"Who are you, and what are you talking about?" she demanded, her voice cutting sharply through the quiet air.
The Zerg commander did not offer a spoken answer.
Instead, the dark crimson energy core embedded deep within its heavy chest plate suddenly flared with a blinding, pulsating light.
Across the entire valley, the surrounding swarm of lower-ranked Zergs immediately lowered their razor-sharp claws, bowing their heads toward her in absolute submission.
Then, the towering commander simply vanished.
It did not retreat into the shadows of the canyon, nor did it attempt to flee across the plains. One moment, the enormous, lethal creature stood directly before her, dominating the landscape.
The very next second, its massive body dissolved into a vast, swirling cloud of black, metallic particles that scattered harmlessly into the night wind.
The remaining Zerg horde followed suit. One after another, the hundreds of red-eyed beasts turned away from the makeshift camp, melting back into the darkness of the wasteland without leaving a single trace behind.
The rescued cadets stood frozen in place, their weapons trembling in their hands. Nobody dared to move or speak a single word, utterly paralyzed by the unnatural event.
Rhaevia slowly lowered her energy rifle, her dark eyes scanning the empty valley. Her mind, however, was racing at dangerous speeds, piecing together fragments of a horrifying truth.
King. The word forcibly dragged a suppressed memory from the deepest, darkest corner of her soul.
She saw blinding fire, rivers of dark blood, and a ruined, collapsing city crumbling under an ash-filled sky. She saw thousands of human corpses piling up around her boots. And standing at the absolute center of that apocalyptic nightmare was the Zombie King.
She distinctly remembered standing before that monstrous, transcendent creature on Earth’s final, desperate battlefield. Humanity’s last general had been bleeding from a dozen fatal wounds, her sword forged of solid steel.
She had driven her blade straight through the Zombie King’s skull, ending the apocalypse at the cost of her own life. She remembered its deafening death roar, its terrifying crimson eyes, and its suffocating, holy aura.
And just before she had delivered the final, fatal blow, the monster had looked directly into her eyes and smiled.
"You will return," its raspy voice had echoed through her dying consciousness.
Rhaevia’s breath caught tightly in her throat as the realization struck her like a physical strike. Back on Earth, she had completely dismissed those final words as the meaningless delirium of a dying monster.
But now, an interstellar Zerg commander had addressed her with the exact same title.
Is this mysterious planet connected to my transmigration? She wondered, her mind spinning. Did I truly just die on Earth and get lucky, or was my soul intentionally pulled into this interstellar body for another purpose?
Her pale hands slowly curled into tight fists at her sides. The original Rhaevia Rythundeir had been deliberately kidnapped, artificially suppressed to E-rank, and abandoned on this specific planet long before the academy shuttle ever crashed.
Everything was connected by an invisible, sinister thread.
Before she could pursue the terrifying thought any further, the dark night sky above the valley suddenly brightened with blinding, artificial light. A deep, low-frequency metallic vibration rolled across the barren, rocky landscape, shaking the pebbles beneath her boots.
The ground trembled violently as the air pressure shifted. The surrounding cadets broke their silence, looking upward into the clouds with wide, tear-filled eyes.
"What on earth is that?" a student stammered, pointing at the sky.
A distant, thunderous roar grew louder and louder with every passing second. The thick gray clouds smothering Planet V-17 were violently pushed apart by massive atmospheric thrusters as giant military vessels descended through the sky.
One starship broke through the cloud cover. Then dozens of armored cruisers spread out across the horizon. The long-awaited imperial rescue fleet had finally arrived.
Rhaevia’s eyes narrowed coldly as she watched the massive warships descend toward the toxic training planet. Their heavy hulls bore the glowing, silver insignia of the Imperial Military, gleaming under the spotlight beams.
The flagship leading the fleet was completely unlike any standard rescue vessel she had seen during the academy’s prep orientation.
It was an absolute leviathan of engineering, far larger than ordinary military cruisers. Its reinforced, black-armored hull blocked out a massive portion of the night sky, its heavy anti-gravity engines burning bright blue against the thick atmosphere.
The stranded students erupted into hysterical, relieved cheers all around her.
"We’re saved! The military actually came for us!" a noble girl sobbed, collapsing onto her knees.
"Look at the size of that flagship! We’re finally getting off this death world!" another boy shouted, waving his arms frantically.
Rhaevia remained completely silent among the celebrating cadets, her expression unreadable. Her battle-tested instincts, forged in the fires of endless warfare, warned her that her true ordeal was only just beginning.
The gigantic battleship continued its heavy descent, hovering just a few hundred meters above the valley floor. Powerful white floodlights mounted along its underside illuminated the blackened, scorched wasteland below, washing away every shadow.
Then, a high-priority command transmission spread across every surviving cadet’s emergency communicator.
[ATTENTION ALL SURVIVING CADETS: THE IMPERIAL RESCUE FLEET HAS OFFICIALLY SECURED THE PERIMETER. REMAIN IN YOUR POSITIONS FOR IMMEDIATE MEDICAL EVACUATION.]
Rhaevia slowly lifted her head, her dark eyes locking onto the primary observation deck of the descending flagship.
Standing behind the reinforced viewport at the absolute center of the command bridge was a solitary, towering figure.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in an immaculate, dark blue Major General’s uniform adorned with imperial medals. His physical posture was rigid and imposing, his handsome face frozen in a cold, stoic expression.
Major General Raevor Veyr had personally descended to the surface.
And through the thick glass of the battleship, his piercing, dark gaze was already fixed entirely on her.