Kremin Star System—008.
The swarm's numbers had polluted the sky, blocking out light for ages.
Only the sparks rising from the surface signaled that the battle wasn't over so quickly.
"For the Empress! For Titania!"
Iron Cavalry clad in Sam armor charged forward, sacrificing themselves heroically.
Su Chen was among them. Watching the numbers on the screen dwindle, his heart tightened.
Even throwing himself onto the battlefield, he couldn't shake the guilt brought by death.
With the system's support, this was, after all, just a game.
Even if it was a VR game.
He had two main approaches.
First, leverage the Iron Cavalry's strength to stage a reputation comeback.
Make the Iron Cavalry a feared existence across the Republic and the universe, where infamy alone could serve as a deterrent.
If that path failed, he had Plan B: lead the Iron Cavalry to another star system and build a new home.
In a game with system support, could he really be bullied by a bunch of NPCs?
But these bugs were genuinely tough to fight.
"Silver Finger, can't you just give me a Wind Spirit Moon Shadow cheat? I'm struggling to kill bugs here—why can't I enjoy the thrill of mowing them down?"
[Sorry, that function is currently unavailable.]
[Detected: You have unallocated skill points. How would you like to distribute them?]
"All martial arts in the world bow to speed alone. Dump it all into movement speed!"
Suddenly, Su Chen felt the sky darken, the already faint light growing even dimmer.
He looked up, and a massive wave of the swarm descended again.
By estimation, turning a resource-rich planet into a dead star only required one unit of the swarm.
And that could breed three more units of the swarm in its wake.
So…
Once a single planet fell, it meant facing triple the swarm.
"Give me a bit of defense, please."
[Mecha Attack Power: 1]
[Mecha Defense Power: 1]
[Mecha Movement Speed: 10]
[No available skill points remaining.]
"Turning a perfectly good hack-and-slash game into something this frustrating—no wonder Big Herta's head is so pointy, ugh…"
Su Chen summoned the Sam armor and dove into battle.
But everything was too ideal.
As the game's user, Su Chen naturally had a revival mechanism.
However, this mechanism came at the cost of an Iron Cavalry's life.
If Su Chen died, he'd be reborn in another Iron Cavalry's body.
Because this game had no save mechanism—it was like an open conspiracy designed against Su Chen.
"Hey, Big Herta." Silver Wolf watched Su Chen on the screen, turning to the mastermind behind the game's design. "This isn't right. Targeting Su Chen like this—is that really okay? He's playing a completely different game from us!"
"I know, but don't you think this is fun? Don't you want to see what kind of decisions Su Chen will make?"
Silver Wolf was momentarily speechless. "Uh… but isn't this kind of experience a bit unfriendly to him?"
Big Herta flicked her hair. "When he aired Great Love Wolf Venerable, did he think about friendliness? When he wrote the script, did he consider your 76-account meme? So, don't you want to know how he'll react when immersed in a game like this?"