Chương 86: AFS(April Fools Story): Chapter 1 - Attack of the Space Crabs?!

Goddamn it! Now I had to cultivate all the fuck over again! Wait, where the fuck was this place? Considering that the room this new body sat in was filled with something like futuristic 3D high definition screens... I had no fucking clue. At least my seat was comfortable. Unfortunately, the screens showed some horrifying movie of a fight between a large golden cat robot and some giant black monsters with crab claws.

It was like I was watching a live action version of one of those animated big robot shows from my first past life, before I was Fairy Lin. Seriously, the fuck was going on?! I mean, the last thing I remembered I was on the few remaining lightning strikes of my tribulation when that fucking cock mosquito, Bloodsword came rushing over to me. Only that asshole knew the reason. I had told him earlier to stay the fuck away from my tribulation so it didn't call his own down…

and of fucking course, he came running at the last minute. His interference made my tribulation so goddamn large that the next few lightning strikes destroyed my original body with my 1000 years of cultivation. I was about to use a special technique to escape the tribulation and reach one of my extra bodies — because when you're a Nascent Soul and above that's what you prepare — but I fell into a tear in space-time. Somehow that tear brought me here. Seriously, where the fuck was this?

Did the damn harem author write another story or something? Pain shot through my head. Memories of the original body flooded my consciousness… as well as the contents of a web novel. Oh sure… now I get the contents of the book I'm in. I spent a thousand fucking years knowing nothing except that I was in a goddamn harem novel, and it was only at this point that I received some guidance from this universe. Fuck!

Fortunately, as an Immortal Ascension stage practitioner, I was used to handling large amounts of information. The short of it was that I was in a novel written by the author's 'cute older sister' (her words, not mine). After the woman finished publishing the novel, she admitted that the setting was in the universe of Devouring the Heavens, the book her brother wrote (with his approval)... The story I'd been living in for a thousand fucking years...

Hell, I had completely forgotten the book title before I had even entered the Indomitable Will sect. I only remembered because now I had access to some of this novel's end chapter notes. Anyway, this story took place far in the future. In fact, there had been an era in the mortal realm where spiritual energy vanished from the universe (Considering the title "Devouring the Heavens," I blamed Bloodsword for this). With no spiritual energy, people forgot how to cultivate.

They developed technology and created ships that could travel the universe. Then spiritual energy slowly returned to the mortal realm and people started to naturally take in spiritual energy (almost similar to the spirit beasts that had gone extinct). All these humans developed their own system for naming each cultivation realm. These evolved humans naturally took in spiritual energy and stopped increasing their power at whatever rank their genetics allowed. They didn't know how to cultivate!

Those few who had attempted it all died. Which made sense. Not only did they not have the right knowledge to develop a cultivation path from scratch, the human body must have changed! In all likelihood, the humans might also have unknowingly interbred with transformed beasts who found themselves stuck in their human form once the spiritual energy vanished. But that was not the most important thing here. The important thing was the plot of this book.

It was about an orphan girl, Liu YaoYao who had the soul of someone who transmigrated from the recent past (compared to myself). She was an old engineer who had worked on the first versions of the giant fighting robots called mechs. She also found a massive space for herb growing and a family recipe book that had many ancient prescriptions that helped heal people's spiritual problems.

She didn't know it, but she had one of the highest spiritual powers in the school — the highest belonging to the male lead, Prince Chad (because it wouldn't be a shoujo if the male lead wasn't the strongest young guy with the most powerful backing in the Empire). Then we came to my situation. The person whose body I was shoved into… er, landed in. She was a cannon fodder antagonist (mediocre mech pilot, expert mech sniper), Lady Victoria Lin. She had been the childhood friend of the taciturn Prince Chad.

The names made me cringe. There were two types of mech novels. Those that the author wrote to be nationalistic — likely in order to earn social credits — and those that had countries that combined a variety of cultures into a new one. This was the second variety. Which explained the variety of names and combination of facial features. When it came to appearances, Victoria had hit the jackpot — if I did say so myself. Comparing this body to my past life's, she seemed to have an 80 percent external similarity…

if I disregarded her red hair and blue eyes. With her gorgeous looks and high spiritual energy, everyone assumed that Prince Chad and her would get together. She had also thought that and allowed herself to fall for Chad. When love-obsessed Victoria saw the Prince playing nice with some super badass mech engineer girl she continued with her poor life decisions. She made trouble for the protagonist. Fuckin' idiot. Of course, Victoria always got her ass handed to her.

Eventually, the Star Bugs attacked their military school. These entities were the enemy of all humans. They repeatedly invaded human systems to steal resources or eat food (which was anything from rice to radium). Victoria was next to Prince Chad when the sudden attack happened. With her mediocre close combat skills, and a destroyed flight pack, she could only hide behind Chad and take potshots at the heavily armored giant bugs… with her shitty training rifle. That was when Chad received a call from Liu YaoYao.

Space Bugs had attacked her. While she had rigged up something to defend herself, it would only work for a short time. She needed help. Chad, being a Chad, dropped everything, didn't even tell Victoria that he was bailing and just rushed to Miss Liu's side. With Victoria's terrible skills in close combat, the cannon fodder passed out after a single hit by one of the tank type bugs. The bug proceeded to kick the shit out of her mech. It would have killed her if the cabin/escape pod hadn't been built so well.

In the end, the crab attacks left the poor girl's beautiful face disfigured and had taken the life of her little adopted brother, Wang MingRen. She had blamed Miss Liu on both her disfigurement and for her brother's death (considering he'd helped lure most of the bugs away from her, the Lady wasn't wrong). Victoria vowed to take revenge. Of course, she was eventually killed off.

'Eventually' being the key word. Victoria had been written as one of those low-level antagonists that just would not die. Her death took way the fuck longer than it should have. Hell, I had the book implanted into my head, and I even thought she should have died sooner. Oh shit. I was in her body now. And I was at the point in the book where Prince Chad was going to abandon his childhood friend for the girl he'd come to like. On the screen in front of me, Chad's golden panther mech fought with several bugs.

He was using his spiritual energy primitively, but effectively. Fucking cliché taciturn male lead. I mentally shook my fist at him. Once this love-brained guy left me with no warning, I'd have one goal: Survive. Though I was unfamiliar with this machine, my body still had the right knowledge and muscle memory to somewhat control it. If I lived through this, I'd see if I could save Victoria's little brother who died during this attack. Let's see…

according to her memories, my body was at SS level and my spiritual energy was also at SS level. From what I could feel, that was at low Gold Core… but since the cultivation base wasn't there, it wasn't exactly gold core. My mech was also only SS level. Chad, being a Chad, had triple S's for everything. His mech froze for a second. He was probably getting the help call now. And in my lesser mech, I could never keep up with him. My best bet was to use my questionable borrowed skills work for me.

I attempted to move an arm. While it worked, I looked like damn amusement park robot. Fuck, I had too little time to acclimate to this comparatively weak body. I blamed Bloodsword for this shit! He and his braindead wives could suck it. If I ever met him in this life, I would put his ass straight on my 'to murder list.' At least I could still use my divine sense. Due to lack of cultivation, that was something that was missing from this world as well. Focus.

I spread my senses out and analyzed the bugs that surrounded me. Hold on. These weren't Star Bugs. These were Star Crabs! The ultimate evolutionary form, just adjusted to fit a specific need. There were three small ones that came up to my mech's waist. These were strikers, made to get in and out and fuck shit up with very light armor. They looked like thin, black crabs with evil-looking, snappy claws. Then there was the massive tank crab. It was big and thick. Each of its steps caused the ground to tremble.

Its enormous claws could crush my mech if it came near enough to me. Fortunately, I didn't have any of the praying mantis or humanoid crabs near me. Those were the really dangerous types. They could think and use tools. Their primary task was to give orders instead of just follow them. Next, I analyzed my own mech. It had a training laser rifle. Victoria had been shitty at close combat, but her ranged attacks were pretty good.

Her goal had been to become a Mech Warrior Sniper during her required time in the military. She also had a backup laser sword and a cold knife in case her opponent came too close. Though, with her shitty close combat skills, she'd be dead if they did… Which was what was going to happen here if I hadn't taken over. I owned this body now, and I would fucking keep it. And since this life was now mine, I could repay Victoria by saving her adopted brother. But first, I had to survive this fight…

mostly so I could develop a suitable cultivation technique for this body! I still hadn't reached immortality. Like fuck would I let something like getting thrown to the interstellar age stop me from reaching the immortal realm! Muahahaha! One second the Chad's gold panther mech protected me from all harm. The next, it practically vanished from my view screens. Fucker didn't say a word as he went to go save Liu YaoYao. And my ass was left all alone. This text was taken from Royal Road.

Help the author by reading the original version there. Immediately, I dropped my shoddy training rifle. While it worked a little against these bugs, it wasn't nearly good enough. Victoria had a sniper rifle… that was currently being repaired. That meant that I had to rely on the options she had been the worst at. I took out the sword on my hip and activated it. It was too light, and this body didn't have any stored sword Qi. I would have to forge a spiritual sword later.

Fortunately, this plasma sword was hot enough to cut through just about anything (though it did take awhile to cut through the Star Bug's armor). Fortunately, there were three thin crabs here ready to test it out. And one tank crab I was not looking forward to fighting in this bastardized version of spiritual armor. Awkwardly, I ran up to the closest small, thin crab, used my mech's arm to deflect its weak claw and get me closer to its base. I twisted my sword and cut off the bug's arm at the joint.

It dropped exposing the soft crab interior. My plasma sword fit right into the hole I'd created. There wasn't even much friction. I'd spare the details, but if this thing was a real crab, it would have been half cooked by the time I pulled my sword out. Then, I kicked the dead crab over, aiming it at the nearest alive one. Honestly, it had been the most inelegant kick I'd ever used. But the shell monster still flew over and knocked into the one I'd been aiming at, causing both to crash into the ground together.

While that distracted the center crab, I took this opportunity to avoid a violent slash from the tank and rushed over to the striker bug that was still coming toward me… Unfortunately, due to my lack of skill with this machine, I probably looked a lot like a drunk fighter. Drunk mech? Whatever. When I neared the monster, its small claw zoomed toward my mech's face, where most of my sensor equipment was located. I just bent away from the attack when it tried to shove a claw into my chest.

That was where my fucking cabin… my actual body was located! Motherfucker! Fortunately (or unfortunately) I was someone spiritual beasts despised. That meant I had to always be on guard when fighting non-humans. I had been ready for this kind of attack centuries ago, literally. I twisted my sword up and cut off the claw cleanly at the joint where it connected to its body, then I once again briefly shoved my hot blade into the hole I'd made.

Sure, it was the same move as last time, but why mess with something that worked? This was just another crab lightly cooked for someone's dinner… if these things were edible? And… They weren't. According to my borrowed memories, Star Bugs fucking ate metal and even radioactive substances. They had organs that could cause a regular human to bleed from their eyes just from looking at them. They were not normal. Nor were they good.

The author had written this whole species as having one goal, and that was to devour the universe for its queen. I did not feel any ounce of remorse for these beasts like I would for a spirit beast from my last life. These things were the invaders, after all. The tank bug clicked its claws angrily and rushed up to attack me just as the remaining little bug became untangled from the half cooked crab I set it. This was bad. I had two of these alien fuckers on me. Fortunately, I had another bug corpse to use.

Well, I already knew that these lesser bugs weren't the smartest. May as well use what works! Once again, I kicked the crab dinner at the small bug that was coming towards me. Because it really wasn't very intelligent, it fell for it again, leaving me free to attack the big guy. Fuck, this thing was bigger than my mech by a large amount. But it also had more obvious weak spots. It was just that they were hard to get to with a rifle. No wonder Victoria died.

I ran towards the shell of a tank crab that Chad killed before he bailed. He didn't even bother to remove it from crushing part of the school's uniform shop. Seriously, fuck Chad. When I reached the dead tank crab's back shell, I darted up it… while running like a wobbly headless chicken. Fortunately, I still had enough momentum to practically fly over to the living tank crab. It did not like having an enemy mech on its back at all!

With a jerk and a jump that rattled my golden core quality bones, it tried to throw me off. The jolting, it reminded me of one of those old bull riding toys from my original life. Only I was riding it while stuck in a machine I barely knew how to use. To hold my ground, I pulled out my cold, metal knife and dug it into a small hole that one of Victoria's earlier shots had made. This helped me stay on the alien as it writhed and bucked.

While riding the wild crab — and with plenty of drive to make it dead — I quickly found the joint I was looking for. The one closest to the thinking organ of this creature. I waited for just the right moment and used the crab's movement to propel my awkwardly moving ass toward the spot I wanted. Just before I flew past the spot, I stabbed into the massive joint using my knife and caught myself. Its claw came toward me. Was it trying to save itself? Ha! Too late, motherfucker!

I shoved my plasma sword into its thinking organ. The whole alien crab monster shuddered and fell to the ground. Unfortunately for the remaining striker-type bug, it landed right on top of it, pinning it down. I jumped — well, closer to fell — off the big guy. I glanced at my last enemy. Honestly, since I'd thrown two of its dead allies at it — three if I counted the tank crab — I almost felt sorry for this monster. Almost.

I already knew it would kill me given the chance, so I simply cleaned it up and sighed in relief. That was the last Star Bug near me. Now I could go to an armored shelter… Oh, wait. The brother. Well, adopted brother, technically. But Victoria had still treated him like her blood related brother even if he didn't like her at all. That was fine with me. I wasn't Victoria. And I didn't need anyone's approval. I especially didn't need someone else's family.

Using the original's hazy memories, I pulled up her brother, Wang MingRen's, information. Then I accessed his GPS location. Fortunately, he was on campus and not too far away. Ah, wasn't that over near the Main Character, Miss Liu? Oh right. In the book, he'd helped Liu YaoYao by attacking an enormous group of Star Bugs that were chasing after her. He had led them away, allowing her to get inside.

Then she'd grabbed the rifle from a mech she'd been working on, hooked it up to the building's power, and use it to defend herself long enough for Chad to get to her. I gotta say, the sister of the dumb harem novelist was a way better writer than her brother. Probably. Not having read the original novel, I couldn't say for sure. After picking up the rifle I'd abandoned, I ran using the mech's fastest speed. It was still too damn slow. There had to be a way to make this sorry excuse for armor go faster. Let's see.

A mech in this world was more like a technologically advanced spiritual weapon — or spiritual armor — but without all the advancements that a weapons master would know to add. Even if I could use a technique to increase my speed, I couldn't use it on this tool like I could on an actual armor set. That said, what if I used something similar to the Any Blade is my Sword technique? Like, Any Armor is my Body? Well, I didn't know if I could do that with this body, but perhaps I could do something similar.

I could try inserting my primitive spiritual energy inside the mech and control it by manipulating my spiritual energy. As a Golden Core level practitioner, I had enough Qi to do that. Of course, by pushing the mech faster than should be possible, it wouldn't last long. But, even though we risked our lives for things, life was more important. At first, using the primitive spiritual energy within me was like trying to play with water from a rain shower head when I was used to playing with a whole waterfall.

If I weren't in so much danger, I would have thought that starting over from scratch would be better. But I had been manipulating spiritual energy for a thousand years. This was strange, but, if I couldn't quickly adapt to strange situations, I would have never lived as long as I had. Eventually, my energy infused into the mech. That made things much easier. As I considered the mech as my body I used it to cast a simple movement technique.

From there, it didn't take long for me to get near my cheap brother's location. It helped that I could use my divine sense to locate all the nearby Star Bugs. When I reached my brother, I saw him fighting a horde of small crabs. These ones were about half the size of the small ones that had attacked me. They also weren't as strong. The issue was that there were sixteen of these fuckers attacking him! At least the young man didn't have any tank crabs stopping him from kiting these guys.

Unfortunately, he had something worse. A praying mantis crab took potshots at him from the back of the horde using some kind of organic alien rifle bullshit. Well, since I was here, I may as well call him. I sent in a contact request and aimed my training rifle. Ah, using spiritual energy to control a mech made aiming way easier. It took a lot of energy, so I understood why no one did it here.

They also might not have the necessary techniques to improve control or the right spiritual energy density to really get it to last, but that was beyond the point. Wang MingRen picked up. I couldn't see his face, but I could hear his voice.

"Victoria, this isn't a good time."

"Of course it's a good time. I'm here to save your ass!" Then I fired at the Mantis Crab. It turned its triangle-like head and blinked its gleaming multifaceted eyes at me. I hit it a few more times. But the shots didn't do much damage. Which made sense since Victoria's rifle was more a training rifle than one actually used for battle.

"You shouldn't be here. You'll just be a distraction for me."

"We can talk after I've killed this guy. Just focus on the small ones and don't let yourself get overrun by these little crabs."

"Crabs?" Wait, did the interstellar not have crabs? Whatever. I dropped my rifle and once again brought out my plasma sword.

"Victoria! Why are you dropping your rifle?"

"It's a piece-of-shit training rifle. You think it's effective against these bullshit Crab People?"

"… Victoria. Are… are you okay?" The teen sounded concerned. Grimacing, I said, "I got hit in the head and now I'm a changed person... Call me Lin." Silence.

"Don't think too much, just fight!"

"Mmm." I used another simple movement technique to rush to the Mantis Crab. It started taking shots at me. I used the mech as my body to cast a shielding technique that encompassed my complete form. It took a step back as if I'd startled it. The mantis started firing on me more and more, draining the energy I was putting into the shield. It even started running backward and attempted to get behind some of its smaller compatriots.

While laughing, I jumped on the back of a small crab then landed in front of the Mantis, a move that made the metal scream at me. Yeah. I may have been overdoing it. Whatever. I aimed at the joint between the bottom of the neck and the body. My plasma sword cut into it just a little before the Mantis stepped out of the way and fire more shots at my chest. Ah ha. I guess this one really was smarter than the others. Well, it would still die.

The mantis then dropped its own organic rifle and brought up its giant mantis-like crab claws it had for top arms. I attacked its claws. It survived being slashed by plasma. Well, it took some damage at least. Being super-heated like that would damage just about anything, at least a little. Honestly, this just made me want to see what these genocidal aliens could take. And could their shells be broken down and used to create spiritual weapons?

After I exchanged a few attacks with the monster, I realized it didn't have much in the way of fighting technique. Mostly, it relied on its superior armor and speed to kill its targets. But armor and speed weren't enough to hurt me. And even having its little friends come help, wouldn't work against me as they were shockingly easy to defeat. But these little guys did allow the Mantis Crab to live longer. It aimed its claws at my arm joint.

I moved forward and wrapped my arm around its large claw arm, trapping it briefly. This move apparently shocked it so much that it froze for a second. This gave me just enough time to finally finish what I'd been trying to do. I cut its triangle bug head off. Then I threw its body at a bunch of the little guys who were sneaking up behind me Ha! I had divine sense. There was no sneaking up on me. Muahahaha! From there, it didn't take much effort for my brother and myself to clean up all these little bugs.

I was also feeling the drain on my spiritual energy.

"We're going to make our way to the shelter now." I heard hard breathing over the line and the young man responded with, "… okay."

"How are you doing on weapons and energy?"

"My spear is cracked, but still usable. I have a plasma dagger, but it's low, and my sidearm only has a few rounds left." He paused.

"What about you?" It took me a moment to find the notifications. Apparently, my sword had only a dozen more minutes of fight left in it, and after picking up my dumb rifle again, I noticed that it had plenty of power… because it was a dumb practice weapon.

"Let's avoid any dangerous areas."

"Okay." I spread out my divine sense and located the nearest shelter. It was only a couple of miles away. And there was a nice clear path between us and it. I started running, and my brother followed. After a minute, he called out, "How are you running so fast?" Huh? I turned to see him way behind me.

"How are you running so slowly?"

"I'm not slow. Your mech shouldn't be able to go this fast. How are you doing it?" I chuckled as I slowed down.

"Well, back in ancient times, people who cultivated could use a forbidden technique that allowed them to burn their cultivation, or life, or potential, or some other thing in exchange for increased power right away. That's essentially what I'm doing now. As soon as I stop, this mech is going to be trashed."

"… I didn't realize you read fantasy novels." I nearly coughed up blood. Fantasy novels?! Well, technically, I had been living inside one… now I was still living inside one, only so far into the future that it was now a science fantasy. Whatever. I stopped at a large building where a lot of the logistic students took their classes. Several student presences brushed against my senses. From the novel, I discovered that the logistic building had been obliterated, killing several promising students.

One of them was another tertiary male lead. Which was a shame because the war against the Star Bugs would have gone a lot smoother with proper logistic personnel. Well, may as well save another life or two while I was here. Using the speakers on my mech to call out, I yelled, "Hey! We're going to the shelter. This is your one chance to have an armed escort. I'll give you 5 minutes to get out of here and into a vehicle." The bodies within my sense moved fast.

I remembered in my original life, I'd randomly shared a ride with a man who did accounting for the military. He'd complained that he only handled numbers but they still made him run six miles in the morning. He thought it was a bit silly and annoying. But the reason they made him do it? Probably for bullshit situations like this where being able to run could save their life. Good logistics personnel were fucking worth their weight in spirit stones. A few people left the building.

One of them took out a button that reminded me of a spacial ring. A decently sized flying car appeared in front of him hovering in mid-air. He quickly entered it and waited for the other people to get in. After I sensed the movements of the Star Bugs around us, I paused for an extra minute to allow a swarm of those suckers to run through the path we needed to take. Some of them even crawled on top of one of the new buildings, taking out a few signs and windows that seemed to annoy them.

The last few people exited the building. One of them nervously clutched a case that looked medical related, not logistics related. She shoved it inside the car and wiped the sweat off her brow. Once the group was in their vehicle, we once again started running toward the nearest shelter, while keeping the flying car between us. It took us only a few minutes to reach the building.

As the logistics students all filed out of their flying vehicle and into the heavily defended shelter, I focused on making sure that none of the bugs came to attack us. Fuck! A flying bug zoomed toward us!