The General's Love Glitch - Chapter 1

In the year 100 of the New Stellar Calendar, humanity regarded vampires as their greatest threat. The Federal Government, in collaboration with planetary administrations, secretly launched a campaign to eradicate the vampires.

By the end of that same year, planetary governments reported that all local vampires had been exterminated. The Federal Government dispatched high-ranking officials to verify these claims across the planets.

However, the Federal Government overlooked one insignificant minor planet.

…

On the barren surface of Planet G30, dust and smoke billowed as two armies clashed fiercely over the planet’s basic energy resources.

It was the era of the New Stellar Calendar, where starships and mechs dominated warfare. Soldiers from both sides fought by piloting mechanized suits.

The battle was intense. Jun Jue watched as her soldiers fell one by one. The disparity in numbers between her forces and the enemy’s was overwhelming, leaving almost no chance of victory. With one hand maneuvering her Silver Fox mech, she simultaneously gathered her psychic energy, preparing to protect the soldiers who had fought alongside her through life and death.

Suddenly, two of her personal guards charged to the front lines.

“Boom!”

A particle cannon blast from the enemy struck one of the guard’s mechs with devastating force. The mech and the soldier inside shattered into fragments, raining down like a meteor shower. The guard perished heroically, the impact even cracking open a massive fissure in the ground. Jun Jue’s own mech was jolted back a step from the shockwave.

The other guard stood firm at the front, bellowing with fearless resolve, “General, retreat now! I’ll cover you!”

Before Jun Jue could respond, another explosion erupted, a blinding firestorm that bloomed like a colossal mushroom cloud. The searing heat, akin to volcanic lava, surged outward. Soldiers in mechs with weaker shielding had their skin scorched to the point of cracking and blistering.

Jun Jue felt a faint discomfort on her exposed skin. Her sharp, slender brows furrowed as agonized groans from her suffering soldiers filled her ears.

Was this the new weapon the Tyran Star had secretly developed behind the Federal Government’s back?

Even the enemy forces seemed stunned by the devastating power of their own weapon, pausing their assault for a long moment.

Thick, ashen smoke spread, obscuring visibility.

Jun Jue issued her command.

“All units, retreat immediately!”

She began to withdraw, only to realize none of her soldiers had moved.

The dense gray-white smoke engulfed them all, merging with the sky as if the world itself was ending.

Before Jun Jue could repeat her order, every soldier surged forward recklessly, like puppets controlled by unseen strings, souls already lost.

In an instant, a violent gale swept through, dispersing the smoke. The scarred terrain of the planet beneath them was riddled with devastation. By the time Jun Jue’s vision cleared, all her soldiers had fallen. The barrels of multiple enemy heavy mechs, armed with particle cannons, were now trained solely on her.

Jun Jue was the only one left standing in her army, while enemy reinforcements continued to pour in relentlessly.

The lead enemy mech, crimson like a boiled lobster and elongated like a centipede, let out a deranged laugh.

“General, what an honor! We’ve long heard of your unparalleled combat prowess and military genius. But now, with your entire force annihilated and no reinforcements in sight, surely you have no tricks left to turn the tide?”

“Even someone as formidable as you can’t defeat our endless legions. Why not surrender now?”

“The Federal Government may pay lip service, calling you ‘General,’ but they gave you so few troops, didn’t they send you here to die? If you defect to Tyran Star, we’d treat you far better.”

“General, are you tempted?”

The tall, slender red mech finished speaking and let out a couple of smug laughs, as irritating as the mosquitoes the federal government had ordered exterminated two years ago.

Jun Jue curled her lips into a faint, disdainful smile. Like a phantom, she flashed into enemy territory. The cold steel arm of her Silver Fox mech moved effortlessly, crushing a full circle of 12 heavy mechs barehanded.

The twelfth heavy mech collapsed at the same time, a spectacular sight.

Every enemy mech scrambled backward in retreat even that lanky red one now wished it could put a light-year between itself and Jun Jue.

Turns out, Jun Jue really was the living King of Hell, no joke!

“General, you-let’s-let’s talk this-this out-don’t-don’t-”

Jun Jue, annoyed, manipulated Silver Fox to teleport beside the slender red mech and seized it by the throat.

Though it was the mech whose fate was being strangled, the pilot inside shared its senses. The soldier in the cockpit was already suffocating, struggling to beg for mercy but unable to utter a single syllable. Jun Jue cleanly snapped the red mech’s long neck, its pilot declared dead on the spot.

By now, every enemy mech had raised its weapons, aiming straight at Jun Jue. Yet she didn’t flinch. Instead, she advanced toward the barrels of their cannons, closing the distance between herself and the enemy.

“Federal soldiers would rather die than surrender!”

Her voice rang out like a droplet plunging from a mountain stream into a deep spring: resonant, forceful, and piercingly clear.

Just as the enemy weapons unleashed a barrage of fire at her, her psychic energy, without warning, latched onto the mental vulnerabilities of every enemy soldier on the battlefield.

Shells large and small struck Silver Fox, sending the mech staggering. Inside the cockpit, Jun Jue spat blood but merely wiped it away with a careless swipe. Closing her eyes, she channeled her psychic energy for the kill.

Like invisible threads, her power coiled around the necks of every enemy.

Jun Jue mustered all her strength for the final strike, ten thousand enemy soldiers decapitated without a single visible wound.

The immense exertion left her body drained, her vision swimming.

Silver Fox collapsed heavily onto the ground. As Jun Jue lost consciousness, the mech automatically reverted to its prototype form, a small silver fox pendant landing beside her severely wounded body.

…

On this desolate stretch of land, a chase was underway.

The crisp, metallic clinking of chains rang out incessantly.

A beautiful, delicate-looking girl sprinted barefoot for her life, pursued by two men in black. Though covered in dust, her fair skin was still visible beneath the grime. Sharp rocks cut into her feet, but she barely noticed, compared to the terror of being recaptured, the pain was nothing.

The faster she ran, the more frantic the metallic jingling became.

“Clink-clank-”

The sound came from the silver-chained collar locked around her neck, its tight grip leaving a glaring red mark on her skin.

Her name was Ruan Wei. She didn’t dare stop for even a second, terrified that slowing down would mean being dragged back into hell.

Her body was covered in wounds, but more than pain, it was exhaustion from the endless sprint that weighed on her.

Gasping for breath, she was running on fumes now, propelled forward only by momentum and sheer terror.

The wind whipped her bangs into her eyes, but she didn’t bother brushing them aside. She just ran. And ran.

Up ahead, it sounded like a battle was raging explosions, the acrid stench of gunpowder, thick plumes of smoke tinged with fire.

Though it was clearly a death warrant, Ruan Wei saw it as a glimmer of hope and ran desperately toward it. Even if she were mistakenly killed, it would be better than being dragged back to that dark basement, where old wounds never healed before new ones were added.

The thought of those sunless days gave her strength when she had none, and she surged forward with renewed vigor.

Two men in black, panting heavily, came to a stop: one bald, the other with a scarred face.

The bald man cursed in frustration, “Damn it! That little bitch went that way! Should we keep chasing?”

The fact that two grown men couldn’t catch a young girl made the scarred man’s face burn with humiliation. He spat viciously.

“Chase what? That’s where the Federation Soldiers and the Tyran Star forces are exchanging fire. One’s the central government, the other’s a notorious space pirate. Our planet GR03 can’t afford to provoke either.”

“Besides, even if that little bitch isn’t spotted, she’s as good as dead. And if they find out she’s got residual vampire blood, you think those Federation officers would let her live?”

“I get it, boss. Those guys could kill her easier than squashing an ant.”

“Exactly. Force majeure. We’ve still got a few half-human, half-vampire freaks like her locked up anyway. Losing one won’t matter.”

“But what if she tells the Federation about the vampire bloodlines still on our planet before she dies?”

“What can we do? Report back immediately and let the higher-ups figure out how to cover it up!”

…

Unaware that her pursuers had turned back, Ruan Wei kept running for her life.

The battlefield, once raging with gunfire, had suddenly fallen silent. A flicker of relief passed through her, if the fighting had stopped, sneaking in to find shelter might be safer.

But no sooner had the thought crossed her mind than she saw rows of towering battle mechs collapsing like a tidal wave.

Her bloodstained lips parted in shock, but her body, driven by momentum, kept moving. She didn’t dare stop.

Finally, she reached the battleground. There were no structures here, just a shallow crater at the center, littered with lifeless mechs like a bloodless Colosseum from ancient Rome.

Human greed knew no bounds, and war persisted even in the New Stellar Era. The only small mercy was that mech combat spared the horror of bloodshed, death came cleanly, unless, of course, the entire mech was torn apart.

Ruan Wei hid behind the cold shell of a fallen mech, cautiously peeking out. After a long, tense watch, she finally confirmed that the two brutal men chasing her hadn’t followed.

Maybe they thought she wouldn’t survive running into a warzone?

She pondered the reason briefly before shaking her head, too exhausted and hungry to think further. Leaning against the mech, she caught her breath.

She needed food. As a child born of a human and a vampire, she wasn’t as vulnerable to sunlight as purebloods, avoiding midday exposure was enough.

As for sustenance, she could eat human food… or drink human blood.

Previously imprisoned in an underground dungeon, the villains had only fed her human blood because consuming blood was the most effective way to maintain her vampiric abilities.

She actually missed human food dearly. Soft bread, sweet fruit juice, and little snacks like spicy nuts, she loved them all.

But it had been so long since she’d eaten any of it that she could barely remember the taste, only that it was delicious.

Her long-empty stomach began to protest, growling loudly.

Ruan Wei wasn’t sure if she had rested enough, but she had to get up and find something to eat. She had finally managed to escape, she couldn’t just starve to death now.

Pushing herself up with the help of the cold mech beside her, she let go before she was steady and collapsed weakly back onto the ground.

The icy touch reminded her of the venomous snakes the villains had placed in her cell.

She suffered from severe skin hunger. As a child, she could cuddle with her parents, but when she was eight, those villains broke into her home and killed them. She had wanted to protect them, but she was too weak, not only could she not save them, but she was also taken away and locked in an underground prison for ten years. After prolonged captivity and the draining of her vampiric abilities, she remained weak to this day.

While imprisoned, she could still cuddle with her fellow sisters, but to prevent them from plotting an escape, the villains separated them.

During one of her skin hunger episodes, a scar-faced man had tried to take advantage of her, but his superior happened to catch it on surveillance. Fearing further degradation of her half-vampire bloodline, the superior punished the man severely, leaving him with that scar.

After that, no one dared to lay a hand on her again.

When those above learned of her skin hunger, they sent her a venomous snake. It was vicious, the moment she moved, the snake would lash out with its tail. It was a nightmare she didn’t want to remember.

Her fear of the snake suppressed her skin hunger, but now that she had escaped, the craving had returned.

Hungry and desperate for physical contact, Ruan Wei sat on the ground, glancing around. Everything here was cold and mechanical, reminding her of the snake.

Disappointed but not giving up, she craned her neck, trying to widen her search.

Huh?

There was someone!

A real person!

Ruan Wei blinked slowly, making sure she wasn’t seeing things.

Over there! it really looked like a person. Or maybe it was already a corpse.

A corpse was still better than a snake.

Too weak to stand, she could only prop herself up with her hands and crawl painfully toward the figure.