The jungle was dense, trees spearing into the sky.
A gust of wind swept through, a few leaves loosening from the crowns and fluttering down. A tiny bird with brilliant plumage beat its wings across the canopy, chirping as it hopped to another branch.
The air ahead wavered. After a muffled thump, low scrub between the trunks flattened under some invisible weight. In the next breath, within the deep shade of the giants, a dark‑green mech dropped its disguise.
The cockpit at its chest slowly irised open. Ye Cheng drew a few breaths of fresh air and felt like she'd come back to life. On solid ground, the pain in her body seemed to ease, but the pounding in her skull only grew worse. A thread of blood ran down, nearly sealing her eye. She swiped a hand across her face—her palm came away slick and red.
Motion sickness plus a concussion… She gave a bitter smile.
She'd blacked out after the mechs and warships dog‑piled her; the soft jolt on landing had dragged her back. Safe touchdown—she'd gotten lucky. Thinking back to what the mech had said before she fainted, she guessed Yilan Star and Golden Star XI belonged to different camps. Those mechs and warships probably wouldn't chase her here. But leaving this mech sitting out like this would have trouble knocking soon enough.
With that in mind, Ye Cheng grit her teeth, hauled in a breath, and scrambled toward the hatch. The instant she stuck her head out, the height made her knees go weak. She flattened herself against the rim, too scared to move.
It was that high? How was she supposed to get down?!
She didn't notice that behind the nearest giant tree, something massive was lifting its head.
Its territory invaded, a gigantic rhino‑like beast with a razor‑sharp horn over two meters long pawed the earth. Triangular eyes glinted viciously.
Ye Cheng finally caught the noise off to the side. One glance—and she wished she were still curled in the cockpit.
If it were a normal rhino, fine. But this thing was taller than a two‑story house—could you even call it a rhino? More like a land‑whale!
The behemoth didn't give her time to crawl back in. It thundered into a charge at the humanoid mech. In seconds, that spear of a horn slammed straight into the frame. Ye Cheng lost her grip; the violent lurch pitched her out of the hatch.
By luck, she hit a thick, springy nest of grass. The impact made every bruise scream, but nothing got worse. The dark‑green mech, rammed full on, lost its balance and crashed heavily to the side.
Coughing in the billowing dust, Ye Cheng fumbled for the mech's position. Attack after attack had left her no time to breathe. Heavy footfalls pounded nearby. She knew it as surely as anything: up against a beast this size, if she didn't get back into the mech, she was dead.
The breeze through the trees was mild, but the dust cleared fast. Ye Cheng finally spotted the cockpit's angle. Behind her, the giant rhino twisted with surprising agility through the trunks, then swung to line its horn with Ye Cheng as she tumbled and scrambled toward the hatch.
The beast launched into a charge. Hearing the rush at her back, Ye Cheng didn't dare hesitate. She focused hard, threw everything she had into a sprint for the dark‑green cockpit—just as the monster bellowed and slammed forward again.
She slid inside at the last heartbeat, like a darting fish—and immediately got tumbled like a sock in a spin cycle. When the shaking stopped, the explosion of controls made the stars dance in her eyes. Hoarse and ragged, she forced out, "Shennong… quick—cough—attack it!"
The humanoid mech didn't move its lower body. One hand snapped a massive whip‑like weapon from its waist and cracked it forward.
Ye Cheng had just managed to swallow down a mouthful of blood, ready to steady herself and help drive the mech to scare the beast off, when a shriek tore the air. An instant later, a sheet of scarlet rain splashed past the still‑open hatch.
Her heart gave a violent jolt. She didn't even dare blink. Shaking, she turned to the side display. It obligingly offered a close‑up: a tree trunk plastered with blood, meat, and viscera—and below it, the colossal rhino's body, nearly sheared in two, still twitching.
Her stomach heaved. She lurched to the hatch rim and threw up over the other side. She retched for five, six minutes, until her stomach was scraped hollow. When she finally collapsed, sweat and blood had soaked her thin blue tunic through.
One impossible thing after another had hammered at her nerves until her blood‑wet head felt ready to quit. She inched down the mech's tilted side to the grass and had nothing left.
No… I can't leave the mech out like this. Too dangerous. I have to put it away…
As the thought formed, a wisp of light slipped from a plain white bracelet on her left wrist, drifted to the mech's hull, and wrapped it in a soft glow. The glow flickered—and the mech vanished. Bands of light rippled over the white bracelet, then faded.
Well, that's… Ye Cheng lifted the bracelet weakly for a look, exhaled in relief—and blacked out again.
Roughly ten minutes later, cautious footsteps sounded in the jungle.
Yang Yu advanced with a plain black longsword in hand, tracking the faintest signs of prey. He'd heard a Rockfire Megarhino bellow in the distance and had followed the sound here. But the closer he got, the more puzzled he felt—the air was thick with fresh blood. At this concentration, it was like someone had hacked apart a full‑grown Rockfire Megarhino.
He spotted spatters on a tree trunk ahead and tightened his grip on the sword, edging forward. Pushing through a low thicket, he stepped into a scene to make any normal person's scalp crawl: a hulking Rockfire Megarhino sprawled dead beneath the trees, its body almost cleaved in two. Blood freckled trunks, matted the grass, soaked the earth. The brutality of it was shocking.
His first thought, though, was who could have done it. A Rockfire Megarhino's hide was thick and tough, its horn and bones harder still—sharp enough to punch through most stone. Ordinary weapons couldn't scratch it.
Studying the site from a distance, he picked out several traces of a mech's presence, but his doubts only deepened. The megabeast's cross‑section showed no scorching. What kind of mech could split a creature like this, hide and bone together, with a cold weapon?
A few steps farther, Yang Yu saw someone lying in the grass—a girl, by the shape. A quick scan of the surroundings showed nothing else lurking. He hurried over and helped her up.
He froze when he saw Ye Cheng's face. He glanced around, then down at her again, incredulous. After checking her injuries, he let out a breath, thought for a moment, and tapped a white bracelet on his left wrist.
A pale‑blue holo‑screen blossomed before him. He tapped through a few menus, saw a message, and murmured, "Travel?" His expression settled into something more serious. He dismissed the screen, and a glimmer flared—summoning a black humanoid mech at his side.
Lifting Ye Cheng, Yang Yu rode a collapsible flex‑ladder up to the cockpit, set her inside, then vaulted in after her. The black mech rose into the air without a sound.
An hour later, the mech located several escape pods scattered through the forest. Yang Yu settled the mech a distance away, carried Ye Cheng out, stowed the mech, and headed toward the pods at a run.
Up close, the scene was even worse than before.
There were six escape pods in all, each able to carry thirty people—but every pod had been attacked. Two were so charred as to be unrecognizable; three were split in pieces, their occupants flung who knew where; only one remained intact.
Yang Yu sprinted to the last pod and cracked it open. A dozen people were inside. A few were clearly beyond saving; the rest still breathed. He turned them one by one and finally found a gaunt, middle‑aged man, half his body soaked in blood. Look closely and you'd see he shared seven parts of his features with Ye Cheng—easy enough to guess their relationship.
After a quick check, Yang Yu frowned. The man's left hand had been nearly blown off; the white bracelet at his wrist was snapped into pieces. His head had taken a massive hit—blood had dyed half his body red.
Yang Yu swept his gaze around, then held his right hand over the man's skull. A fine thread of silver‑gold, smoke‑like energy coalesced and drifted down, winding over the wound. The torn flesh knit a fraction.
He dared not do more. He withdrew his hand, slipped out to bring Ye Cheng into the pod, laying her with the others still unconscious, then ducked back out again.
Before long, a juvenile Rockfire Megarhino burst from the trees with a hunting party hot on its heels. They stumbled on the disaster and dropped their quarry to rush over. One of them screwed up his courage and crawled into the intact pod, then shouted, delighted, "There are survivors in here! Call the rescue teams!"
Ye Cheng didn't know how long it was until she woke again. When she did, she took in the hospital room and the doctor and nurse at her side—and thought that at last, she'd reached the standard scene every transmigrator hits sooner or later.
She sat up and realized nothing hurt anymore. The doctor, seeing her wake, led with, "Ms. Ye Cheng, can you understand me? May I run a basic intelligence test?"
So this body's name is Ye Cheng too? She blinked. Did their identical names cross the wires on her soul?
Not the time to think about that. More importantly, the doctor was speaking a language she knew by heart—Chinese—though the accent was a little off. Also, from that one sentence, it seemed she didn't even have to pretend amnesia. But to test the basic intelligence of a… She eyed her proportions—fourteen, maybe fifteen years old. A basic intelligence test for a young teen? Standard hospital protocol, or had they decided her brain was broken?
She nodded slightly. The doctor began.
"What is five plus three?"
"…Eight." Grade‑school arithmetic?
"My gender is?"
"…Male." Her eyes work just fine.
"Please raise your left hand."
Ye Cheng raised it, feeling mildly insulted.
"What is Level One of the Universal Transit Rank System?"
"Uh…" Before she could even decide how to bluff, the nurse behind the doctor gave her a pitying look. A light went on for Ye Cheng; she went with it. "I… don't know. Can you tell me?"
"It's the pitch‑black midnight. Then which planet is the central administrative capital of the United Nations?"
Ye Cheng groaned inwardly. Why the baby questions first and the weird ones after?
When she didn't answer, the doctor switched tack. "Do you remember what happened to you?"
She shook her head, lips pressed tight, and gave up on answering. The doctor let it go and handed her a cup of water.
"Thanks…" Ye Cheng drained it in one go.
A clear voice rang from the corridor. "How is Ms. Ye's condition?"
—