Forcibly Marked by My Fiancé’s Best Friend - Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Finishing his sentence, Lian Xu decisively cut the connection, turned off the signal receiver, and continued piloting the craft through the orbital track. According to the flight path, it would take another hour to reach his destination after exiting the orbit.

As the second most barren wasteland in the galaxy, the Desolate Star was a dumping ground for those burdened with crimes. It was long considered a wilderness, a squalid settlement for refugees and outlaws.

Lian Xu had been dispatched here to find rare earth elements.

Previously, no one from the Imperial Planet had specifically come here to mine resources, simply because they couldn’t imagine finding anything useful in such a wasteland.

Shen Zaizhou had given him a three-day limit—exactly when the pheromone threshold test results were due.

He had timed it perfectly: if Lian Xu returned within the deadline, things would proceed as planned. If he failed, all prior promises were void.

By the time he landed, the sky was dim; night had already fallen on the Desolate Star. The darker it became, the harder it was to observe the surroundings, and the higher the danger grew. Lian Xu sat in the craft, unbuckled his seatbelt, and recalled Shen Zaizhou’s promise.

He had to seize every possible opportunity to investigate. Being a combat team leader wasn’t enough; many Cabinet records were restricted, but Shen Zaizhou had access.

The new flight craft’s defense systems were sophisticated. While he had been maneuvering against the external enemies in the sky, Lian Xu had familiarized himself with all the functions and could now use them with ease.

Yet, he still felt a lingering sense of unease.

Sounds resembling the low growls of wild beasts echoed from all directions. Dense raindrops hammered against the hull of the craft, creating a faint, rhythmic pitter-patter.

Whoosh. A dark shadow streaked past. Lian Xu’s hand tightened on his seatbelt; he reacted instantly, shutting off all lights. The flight craft vanished into the pitch-black environment. He activated his light-brain, glancing at the faint, flickering lights in the distance, then opened a hidden video file to play on a loop.

A faint voice emerged: “Baby, I like you… I like you so much… Don’t marry that waste, okay? I’ll give you whatever you want.”

…

“Baby, look at the camera! You’re the prettiest kitten in the world!”

“Why do I call you baby? Probably because I like you too much. What? Why do I like you? Baby, you ask too many questions!”

“Baby… sweetheart… my beautiful kitten, can I marry you? Don’t forget me when you leave. Wait for me to find you…”

Watching this, Lian Xu could no longer restrain himself. He slammed the light-brain face down onto his lap, pausing the projection. The corners of his eyes turned a sudden, sharp red. He bit his lip, desperately stifling his voice.

“Liar… you deserve to die just like him!”

The howling of the beasts suddenly ceased, leaving only the sound of rain. The scattered points of light were rapidly converging on the craft’s landing site.

Slap—

A bloody hand slammed against the glass of the right-side cockpit.

Slap— Slap—

More and more bloody hands began slapping against the glass in succession.

Lian Xu lifted his light-brain. By the faint glow, he saw the bloody prints on the glass and the decaying, skeletal faces pressed against the window—faces that looked like rotted human remains.

Whether they were human or something else, he didn’t know.

Hardly anyone ever visited the Desolate Star, and the intelligence brought back was scarce.

Three years ago, the Savage Star grew restless. The Desolate Star, being the closest territory to the Imperial Planet, became a conduit for invasion. The Emperor sent an army to lie in ambush here, but months passed without a single useful piece of intel. On the day the second team arrived, they sent only one message: Killed in action.

After that, there was only silence.

The incident caused widespread panic; no one dared return to the Desolate Star. Soon after, the Savage Star’s warships landed on the Imperial Planet, and thousands of invaders stepped onto the soil. War was imminent. At that time, combat decisions were made by the Cabinet, and all bases were under their jurisdiction.

A Cabinet minister personally visited the battlefield, infiltrated the enemy, and captured a core leader. From him, the minister learned the names of several key strategic deployers. Thus, the war was named after those three deployers. Through one grueling battle after another, the Imperial Planet suffered heavy casualties, but the Savage Star invaders kept coming in waves.

That was until a young Alpha appeared. Leading a force of fewer than a hundred men, piloting outdated mechs and flight crafts, he successfully cut down the enemy’s formidable left-wing army. This finally tore a hole in the enemy’s lines, turning the tide of the defense.

That Alpha’s name was Shen Zaizhou.

Since then, the “Lakala War” has been renamed “Operation Lakala.”

Shen Zaizhou’s emergence was sudden; the Star Tower had almost no records of him. Even among those who had been on the battlefield, not everyone had seen this Alpha.

Despite both contributing to the war, Shen Zaizhou received the Emperor’s favor, while the minister remained largely unknown.

This was a key factor in the current friction between the two sides.

Thinking of this, Lian Xu closed his eyes and exited the video. Another page on his light-brain contained the situation report from that year and a brief, two-sentence description of the Desolate Star—info Shen Zaizhou had sent him at the SCA headquarters before he left.

Lian Xu’s fingers moved quickly, sending a concise summary of his current situation back to the base.

Then he swiped the screen, his gaze lingering on the Alpha smiling at the camera in the video.

Clang—

Rocks pelted the craft’s exterior. Lian Xu frowned imperceptibly.

His eyes flashed as he saw a girl hiding behind a tree on the slope near him.

He instinctively cut the signal and shut down the light-brain, sliding the bracelet back onto his wrist.

His heart throbbed in rhythm with the stones hitting the hull.

Lian Xu reached for his waist and pulled out a handgun. Click. He chambered a round. He opened the cockpit hatch and stepped out cautiously.

The hatch was programmed to close automatically once it sensed he had left.

Lian Xu moved silently behind the tree, covering the little girl’s mouth and pulling her into his arms. “Shh—don’t make a sound. I’m taking you out of here.”

The girl realized the person behind her meant no harm and nodded obediently.

Lian Xu looked up at the humans pelting the craft. They seemed to have no self-awareness, carrying torches and mumbling unintelligible words like a pack of walking dead.

Strangely, despite the intensifying rain that had soaked Lian Xu within minutes, the torches in their hands continued to burn with a brilliant, dazzling flame.

“Run—away—” A weak, slurred voice suddenly sounded from behind him.

Lian Xu’s body stiffened. Someone had stood behind him without a sound. A hand, showing bare white bone, rested on his shoulder; the area above the wrist was barely covered in rotting flesh, emitting a faint stench.

The raspy, hoarse low howl came again: “Too—late—”

It sounded like both a reminder and a warning.

Before Lian Xu could turn around, the crowd pelting the flight craft seemed to receive a signal. They turned their heads in unison, their crimson eyeballs—nearly falling out of their sockets—staring lifelessly at the Omega.

Under the washing rain, his scent-blocker patch began to fail. The pheromones gradually exposing themselves on the Omega carried the scent of living flesh, attracting the walking dead.

They began to converge on Lian Xu, torches held high.

The little girl tried to hide behind Lian Xu, but seeing the corpse behind him, she could only crouch by the tree.

Lian Xu patted the girl’s head, soothing her: “Be good, don’t be afraid.”

“Mmm… sob…” The girl immediately covered her mouth tightly, afraid her crying would attract more of them.

BANG—

Lian Xu pulled the trigger. The first person to charge him took a bullet to the forehead and collapsed instantly.

The others seemed startled by the gunshot and stopped their advance.

The figure behind Lian Xu might have offered a warning, but he was, after all, like the others—void of self-awareness. Being closest to the Omega, the smell of pheromones drove him into a sudden frenzy.

Lian Xu glanced at the hand on his shoulder, suppressing his disgust as he tried to move it. To his surprise, the hand reacted instantly. Less than a second after leaving his shoulder, it clamped back down, gripping him with terrifying strength.

Long, sharp fingernails like blades sliced through his uniform and sank deep into Lian Xu’s shoulder.

Lian Xu was silenced by the agony. He bit his lip hard, gripping a withered tree with one hand so tightly he peeled off a layer of bark.

Blood seeped from between his fingers, mixing with the mud.

The rain didn’t wash away the scent of blood; instead, it made the metallic tang in the air even thicker.

More than pheromones, these walking dead craved the scent of blood. They dropped their torches and scrambled up the slope, claws bared. With his shoulder pinned, Lian Xu’s movements were severely restricted. He was forced to a half-kneeling position, supporting himself with one hand while firing repeatedly with the other.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

After several shots, a large group of corpses fell before him. His magazine was empty.

“Go—go—away—”

The voice behind him spoke again.

Lian Xu let out a helpless, bitter laugh. His shoulder was pinned; he couldn’t even stand up, let alone go anywhere.

Since the creature could speak, it meant a shred of human consciousness remained. Lian Xu thought of a desperate plan to escape.

He tried to talk to the corpse behind him.

“Who are you?”

“Human—am human—”

Lian Xu’s eyes widened. It worked!

He continued: “A human. I’m a human too. We’re the same. Let go of my hand, and I’ll take you out of here.”

“Leave—go home—”

“Yes, go home,” Lian Xu followed his lead. “I’ll take you home, as long as you let go.”

The creature seemed to listen. Trembling, it lifted its hand, drawing its bloody nails out of the flesh of Lian Xu’s shoulder.

Lian Xu gasped for air.

Suddenly, the people at the bottom of the slope tilted their heads toward him and pointed their fingers in unison.

“Trai—tor—”

As if commanded simultaneously, they pointed at him mechanically.

Lian Xu froze. He had never been to the Desolate Star; he couldn’t possibly know these people, yet his “kind” was behind him.

“Stay behind me,” he told the girl.

The girl was terrified of the corpse behind him but managed to crawl cautiously to his back.

Lian Xu threw away his gun and pulled a palm-sized knife from his boot. He swung around, severed the wrist of the corpse behind him, then grabbed the rotting shoulder and slammed the creature against the tree, aiming the blade directly for the eye.

“Ba—” The corpse waved its other hand in the air. “—by.”

Lian Xu froze. Adam’s apple bobbed. Gritting his teeth, he threw the corpse aside. He knelt down and asked the girl: “We have to break out, or we’ll be eaten. Don’t be afraid, I’ll protect you. Will you come with me?”

The girl nodded.

Lian Xu picked her up, turned, and charged into the crowd of corpses, his knife precisely slicing through throats.

However, slitting throats was useless. Their bodies seemed drained of blood; not a drop spilled. Their throats were no longer a lethal point. They continued to swarm him despite the gashes on their necks.

They bared sharp claws, waving their arms as more and more of them closed in from all sides.

Lian Xu fought the unkillable corpses, his stamina draining rapidly. Forehead shots could disable them, but knife wounds only left scars. They didn’t bleed, let alone die for good.

The numbers were overwhelming. Lian Xu couldn’t dodge them all. Just as he dealt with one in front, another lunged from the side, clawing his arm and leaving a gruesome gash.

He was surrounded, with no way to get back to the flight craft.

He hadn’t wanted to come out. A rainy night was hard to defend, especially against a massive horde of whatever these things were. But if he hadn’t come out, they wouldn’t have left until dawn; the torches would have attracted even more creatures, and the girl’s life would have been in danger.

But now, looking at the endless stream of approaching corpses, Lian Xu couldn’t help but wonder if he had misjudged. Maybe he shouldn’t have come down.

The little girl gripped Lian Xu’s collar and sobbed: “Fire. They’re afraid of fire.”

“Afraid of fire?” Even Lian Xu hadn’t expected that the corpses carrying torches would be afraid of the very things in their hands.

The situation was dire; there was no time for deep thought. He set the girl down and said, “I’ll hold them off. You go grab a torch.”

The girl clutched the hem of Lian Xu’s clothes, her entire body shaking.

Putting a child in such danger was irresponsible. Lian Xu frowned; if he pushed through, he might be able to carve a path to the craft.

“Come, I’ll carry…”

“Brother, you have to do your best,” the girl interrupted, wiping her tears before he could finish. “I believe in you. But you must not die!”