Prologue

Page 1 of 3

“Ignition Project, commence!”

“Rocket propulsion energy charging, launch countdown: thirty minutes!”

Aboard the Fourth Federal Fleet warship of the Earth Federation, Lu Wenxian, the highest executive of the “Ignition Project,” pressed the button, launching ten thousand Federation Seeds. These seeds would carry the legacy of Earth’s civilization, bearing over one hundred thousand data records of culture and knowledge, including written documents, and set forth into the sea of stars!

Survival was their only demand, and should they endure, to rekindle the flame of Earth’s civilization was the hope of billions of humans in the Federation.

Earth was doomed.

The apocalypse had arrived—catastrophes were relentless, and alien invaders threatened on all sides.

A biological virus swept the globe; ten percent of humanity was infected, losing their minds and turning into zombies, amassing into legions that attacked the living everywhere.

Meteorites rained from the sky, volcanoes erupted, tsunamis surged inland, earthquakes struck repeatedly—natural disasters ravaged the world, destroying a third of all cities and killing billions.

Spatial anomalies and dimensional collapses tore holes in reality; alien races invaded with superior technology and overwhelming force, endlessly plundering Earth’s resources and enslaving or slaughtering humans. Two-thirds of human territory was now occupied.

With doomsday upon them, humanity teetered on the edge of extinction.

No effective defense or cure for the virus had been found; natural disasters could not be predicted or prevented, and the aliens were simply invincible. Aside from the Federation’s military, most civilians had fallen into despair, ceasing to resist—surrendering at the first sight of the enemy, content to be enslaved.

Humanity was in peril. Some within the Federation proposed the Ignition Project: select ten thousand exemplary men and women of the Federation, place them aboard near-light-speed starships to wander among the stars, searching for a new home and spreading the Earth Federation’s civilization.

“Commander, the alien legions are here!” a soldier reported to Lu Wenxian.

Lu nodded, his gaze fixed on the display—a horde of tens of thousands of alien troops approaching. He issued orders to the Fourth Legion’s one hundred thousand soldiers: “Defend! Guard the Ignition Project with your lives!”

“First Legion, received! We swear to defend it with our lives!”

“Second Legion, received! We swear to defend it with our lives!”

...

“Tenth Legion, received! We swear to defend it with our lives!”

“Rocket launch countdown: 25 minutes and 29 seconds!”

“Second and Fourth Legions, fire warship laser cannons! First and Third Legions, initiate energy interference! All other legions, prepare mortars!” Lu Wenxian commanded, launching an active counteroffensive—pure defense would never withstand the aliens’ advanced and powerful weaponry.

Twenty warships fanned out, hovering midair, crimson energy building and flashing. Within ten seconds, the energy was at full charge—the laser cannons fired, slicing the sky and bombarding the aliens.

The tens of thousands of aliens mainly fought individually, piloting compact attack vessels in dense formation. Unable to evade in time, nearly a thousand of these craft were blasted from the sky.

Smoke and fire swirled as most of the falling ships exploded, their pilots shredded in the blasts.

The aliens tried to cluster their ships into a defensive formation and counterattack, halting midair and activating their weapons.

First and Third Legions seized the moment, activating their warships’ interference devices to emit energy waves that scrambled the aliens’ communications, foiling their plans.

Multiple battles with the aliens had taught the Federation some of their weapons’ properties—for instance, alien weapons drew energy from their users rather than from pure mechanical sources like human weapons. Also, the aliens’ attack craft could link together via similar energy frequencies, forming larger offensive or defensive constructs—achieving an effect multiplied exponentially.

The remaining legions unleashed their mortars—thousands of shells thundered into the alien ranks. While the airborne aliens were difficult to lock onto, those halted midair and unable to form their defenses due to interference became easy targets.

Though a mortar shell could shatter an armored vehicle, against the aliens’ personal craft, its power was limited—one or two shells could not breach their basic defenses. Only when three or four shells struck in unison could one craft be blasted apart, ejecting the pilot in a bloody arc.

Yet the aliens possessed a mysterious energy unknown to the Federation, which shielded their bodies. Even a direct hit was not lethal—most pilots simply spat blood and fell to earth, still capable of fighting.

Those who crashed quickly regrouped, forming squads of ten and charging toward the six legions operating the mortars.

“Cease mortar fire, raise defenses! Second and Fourth Legions, continue laser barrage! First and Third Legions, drop interference, charge lasers, and target the aliens on the ground!” Lu Wenxian issued new orders, determined to annihilate the bulk of the enemy before they could reach the base.

“Rocket launch countdown: 17 minutes and 56 seconds!”

The mortar teams withdrew their weapons, slitting their palms so blood could flow, gripping shields tightly. Sixty thousand soldiers linked their shields, forming a steel wall five kilometers long and thirty meters high, separating the Ignition Project’s rocket launch base from the oncoming aliens.

These special shields were forged by Federation scientists from alien weapon materials. Though humans had no inherent energy like the aliens, their blood could be used to activate these weapons—less powerful, but retaining the ability to combine for joint effects.

The price was terrible—using the shields required a constant supply of blood. When the blood ran out, the user withered and died.

Second and Fourth Legions continued to target the airborne aliens, but these craft, designed for solo combat, were fast and agile, evading most of the lasers and closing in on the warships—over four thousand in total.

First and Third Legions obeyed orders, switching to target ground aliens with their charged laser cannons. Crimson beams slashed down, tearing through alien bodies, but not halting their advance.

Nearly five thousand aliens surged towards the launch base, each leap spanning nearly a hundred meters. Instinctive danger sense helped them dodge the lasers, while cold weapons appeared in their hands, their edges thirsting for human blood.

“Rocket launch countdown: 15 minutes and 23 seconds!”

They had arrived.

The nearest group of aliens reached the human steel wall.

Flooding their legs with energy, they leapt ten meters high, gripping the steel with their hands, preparing to climb again.

Black holes opened in the wall—long spears thrust out, shattering alien skulls in sprays of blood, bodies tumbling to the ground.

Behind the wall, the soldier wielding the spear collapsed, bloodless and withered, never to rise again.

His body was dragged to the rear, while another soldier stepped up to take his place.

With spear in hand, pouring out their blood, trading life for life—this was the way Federation soldiers most wished to face the aliens.

Spears stabbed through the wall, killing each climbing alien. Corpses piled up outside the steel wall, and within, the bodies of fallen soldiers mounted in heaps behind the lines.

As the battle intensified, the aliens ceased their solo assaults, instead forming groups of ten, combining their energy to manifest massive battering rams a meter in diameter.

Page 2 of 3

The aliens hefted these giant rams, slamming them repeatedly against the steel wall. The tremendous force sent waves rippling through the wall, barely maintaining its form. Inside, the defending soldiers coughed blood in unison, half their blood pouring into the wall, faces pale and muscles shrunken, their bodies shrinking rapidly from the loss.

The assault continued—dozens of rams pounded the wall again and again, the aliens retreating to safety after each strike. The soldiers’ spears could not reach them, and the laser cannons in the sky dared not fire—the aliens were too close to the wall, and friendly fire was a real risk.

The defenders could not hold—the majority withstood only two or three strikes before withering to death. The next in line would step up, wounded hands gripping shields, maintaining the wall.

“Rocket launch countdown: 11 minutes and 48 seconds!”

Meanwhile, the Federation’s airborne legions faced crisis.

The aliens in their attack craft finally reached the forty Federation warships. Their craft transformed from fighter jets into humanoid mechs for close combat.

Cannons emerged from the mechs’ shoulders, gathering energy and firing upon the warships.

The massive ships, unable to retaliate effectively at close range, could only raise energy shields and endure the bombardment.

“Deploy the battle mechs! All four legions, supply energy!” Lu Wenxian ordered the Federation’s latest innovation into action.

Specialized hatches opened on twenty warships, each releasing ten humanoid mechs—similar to the aliens’ but painted bright red, connected to their ships by energy conduits filled with blood-red liquid. These conduits drew from special reserves called “Active Blood Sustenance Chambers.”

These mechs were alien models adapted to run on blood, but a single human’s blood only powered a mech for thirty seconds. Scientists devised a solution—constructing large blood reserves onboard to sustain the mechs in battle.

Each chamber contained the equivalent of one hundred people’s blood, enough to keep ten mechs fighting for five minutes.

The Federation mechs launched together, wielding specially forged swords and blades to conserve energy. Using the mechs’ own energy weapons required the blood of five people per attack—a costly exchange.

The pilots, all top martial arts masters, could maximize the blades’ effectiveness.

The mechs struck first, blades cutting the air, slashing toward the aliens.

The alien mechs countered, firing shells, but as the designs were so similar, the Federation mechs suffered little from these blasts—no decisive damage.

The martial masters, adept in their craft, made the heavy mechs seem as agile as swallows, darting close and slashing deep wounds.

The aliens responded, shifting their weapons into massive broadswords, swinging with great force.

The martial masters tried to dodge and counterattack, but the mechs were too cumbersome—taking heavy blows, half their bodies caving in.

Yet a master of the blade would not be deterred—his lifelong training unleashed in a flurry of hundreds of cuts, slicing alien and mech into a hundred pieces.

All two hundred martial masters fought as such—once accustomed to the mechs, their skill turned alien slaying into an art, each stroke felling an enemy.

But even the greatest could not stand against four thousand foes. For every alien slain, dozens more closed in—their swords and blades raining down. In the end, the two hundred masters only managed to bring down seven or eight hundred aliens.

One blade master, his mech riddled with mortal wounds, blood streaming from his lips, found himself unable to continue. Burning his life force, he charged into a cluster of aliens, shouting “Long live the Federation!” and detonated himself.

The combined power of the mech and the master’s life force exploded with the force of dozens of bombs, obliterating scores of depleted aliens.

“Rocket launch countdown: 7 minutes and 57 seconds!”

In less than four minutes, all the martial masters in mechs had fallen to the overwhelming alien onslaught—two arms could not fend off four.

“Veterans, self-destruct at designated points—drive the aliens where we planned!” Lu Wenxian called out, crucially.

More and more masters, exhausted and drained, followed orders, burning their life force and detonating in the midst of the enemy, crying “Long live the Federation!”

The self-destructions of nearly two hundred could not be withstood; aliens scattered, fleeing the blast zones, not realizing these points formed a half-encircling net, herding over three thousand aliens toward the warships.

With the trap nearly sprung and the aliens clustered around the ships, Lu Wenxian ordered, “Initiate self-destruct sequence! All personnel, abandon ship!”

As his order rang out, the twenty ships opened wide, warping light with energy pulses to obscure their condition. Forty thousand soldiers evacuated, plummeting from the ships as alarms blared and red lights flashed—the self-destruction countdown at ten seconds.

In those ten seconds, the soldiers dropped more than ten kilometers from the ships—while the aliens, just gathering around, were caught unawares.

The self-destruction sequence started.

Each ship could house a thousand crew—twenty ships exploding together was unimaginable. The sky itself darkened, an eight-kilometer-wide void forming as space itself collapsed into nothingness.

It was a long while before the light returned, but the three thousand aliens and the warships were utterly erased, leaving nothing behind.

“Rocket launch countdown: 6 minutes and 23 seconds!”

The soldiers opened parachutes at three thousand meters, four legions marked by color, forming four neat ranks as they descended.

Lu Wenxian, parachuting with the First Legion, commanded, “First Legion, land behind the Wall, support the defenders! Second, Third, and Fourth Legions, land behind the aliens and encircle!”

The legions responded, adjusting their chutes—First Legion veering toward the steel wall, the other three speeding toward the alien rear.

“Rocket launch countdown: 5 minutes and 14 seconds!”

All four legions had landed and begun to counterattack the aliens.

The great steel wall split into four massive shields, as the remaining two thousand defenders on the ground and one thousand from the First Legion formed four defensive phalanxes, advancing step by step to press back the aliens.

The three legions landing behind the aliens assembled, with ten thousand extracting shields to form another steel defense, the rest assembling bows and spears from their kits, vowing to wipe out the remaining aliens.

Lu Wenxian led the advance, driving the aliens back—those who did not retreat were skewered by spears charged with a soldier’s life force, each one taking an enemy down.

The three thousand aliens, terror-stricken, abandoned their battering rams and retreated.

With every step the aliens fell back, the Federation soldiers pressed closer, soon pinning them against another steel defense.

“Rocket launch countdown: 3 minutes and 56 seconds!”

“Archers, loose! Spears, throw!”

The command was given—tens of thousands of arrows and spears rained down on the aliens.

Page 3 of 3

The spears, each filled with a soldier’s entire lifeblood, carried their will and energy—every hit meant the alien was blasted to pieces.

The arrows, less powerful—costing only a tenth of a soldier’s blood—still wounded or killed when striking the heart or brow.

A single devastating volley carried off thousands of aliens, but five or six thousand soldiers also fell.

Only two thousand aliens remained.

Those that survived, driven by the will to live, ignited their inner energy and unleashed their unique power—Beast Transformation.

Each alien, once humanoid, howled to the sky as energy boiled within them, then dropped to all fours as fur sprouted, morphing into massive beasts. The transformation was not over—their eyes turned blood-red, bloodlust surging, their bodies swelling to three meters tall.

Lu Wenxian’s expression did not change; he had seen this power before.

Research indicated that in beast form, the aliens’ strength and defense increased three- to five-fold.

Mindless now, these monsters attacked the steel bulwarks on both sides, each blow carrying immense force, shattering shields with ease.

The soldiers holding the shields died instantly as their blood was drained.

Reinforcements immediately filled the gaps, refusing to let the aliens break through.

“Rocket launch countdown: 2 minutes and 46 seconds!”

“All soldiers! Reassemble spears for a second throw!” Lu Wenxian ordered. This was the decisive moment.

The soldiers quickly disassembled their spears, combining the parts of ten into one—these required ten men’s blood to throw, but the power was far from simple addition.

Utilizing the exponential property of alien weapons, the reassembled spears struck with the force of five mortar bombs each—delivering area-of-effect devastation, comparable to half a master’s self-destruction in a mech.

In an instant, more than thirty thousand of the fewer than fifty thousand remaining soldiers fell as three thousand reassembled spears were hurled.

Fifteen thousand bombs exploded in that confined space.

The result was apocalyptic—a five-kilometer stretch of scorched earth blanketed in alien remains, blood streaming like rivers, smoke and the stench of flesh filling the air.

“We’ve won!” The surviving soldiers peered through the holes in the steel wall and could not help but cheer.

More and more joined in—shouts and cries of victory echoing as the last aliens fell.

Lu Wenxian, commander of the Fourth Federal Legion and chief executor of the Ignition Project, could not help but clench his fists and laugh through tears at the sight.

They had finally triumphed! The Ignition Project was about to succeed! The Federation’s hope was about to embark!

“Rocket launch countdown: 1 minute and 20 seconds!”

Lu Wenxian led the surviving eleven thousand four hundred and sixty-three soldiers to the safe perimeter of the launch site, gazing at the fully charged rocket, the Seeds about to set out, the bearers of the Federation’s legacy—the hope of all humanity. The soldiers grinned broadly, as if this were the most glorious moment of their lives.

But as they smiled, tears streamed down their faces.

Seeds! Hope! Godspeed!

“Raise the flag! Sing the Federation Anthem!” Lu Wenxian called.

A soldier took the Federation banner from his pack and raised it high.

Beneath the fluttering crimson flag, all eleven thousand four hundred and sixty-four soldiers sang—their voices soaring and echoing over the launch base.

The blood and souls of billions of Federation sons and daughters had woven this flag, and as long as the soldiers stood, it would never fall.

“Rocket launch countdown: 30 seconds!”

Boom—

Another alien legion appeared in the distant sky.

“No!” Lu Wenxian cried out in despair.

Panic and chaos broke out among the troops—how could there be another alien force?

“Regroup! Form the steel wall! Even in death, protect the rocket launch!” Lu Wenxian shouted.

The soldiers snapped out of their panic, slashing their palms, gripping their shields, and forming the steel wall to resist the alien legion.

“Long live the Federation!” Lu Wenxian roared, burning his life force and pouring his blood into the steel wall.

The soldiers echoed him, all roaring, giving their lives and blood to the wall.

“Long live the Federation!”

...

End of page 3 of 3