Above the Blood Moon

Twenty minutes later, Da Huang was still searching for some identifiable chips while frantically analyzing the data from the chips he had already collected.

Lu Yao sat back down on the ground, his fingers unconsciously stroking the rough body of the EMP electronic pulse gun, its metal surface bearing fine scratches.

He tried to pull the trigger, but the bolt didn't budge. The red moon still hung in the sky, like a warning light that would never go out.

"So..." he muttered to himself, "how the hell did I end up in this time-travel world?"

Before Lu Yao could even feel sentimental for a few seconds, a hand gently patted his shoulder, and Da Huang sat down next to him, its metal body making a dull thud as it hit the ground.

"Master, I have good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first?"

Lu Yao turned his head and looked at Da Huang's face.

"Stop keeping me in suspense, tell me the good news first."

"The good news is I know where we are."

Dahuang raised its right arm, and the mechanical claw drew a circle in the air, pointing to the endless pile of waste around it. Lu Yao then sat up straight.

"This is the Deep Space Graveyard, also known as the Forgotten Graveyard or the Scrap Planet. Its official name is DL-7 Resource Recycling Area, but nobody uses that official name; it's too long."

"Deep Space Graveyard..." Lu Yao repeated the name. "What kind of place is this? Is it a junkyard on some planet?"

"More or less, but not from a specific planet; this is the junkyard of the entire star system."

Big Yellow's visual sensor band then flickered, as if it were organizing its thoughts.

"According to the contents of this memory chip, there was an extremely powerful civilization in this star field 300 years ago. They mastered space jump technology and planetary colonization technology, and possessed various powerful interstellar weapons. However, for some unknown reason, a great calamity struck, and that civilization perished."

This chip contains all the known information about the period before the first year. After the catastrophe, civilization recovered and gradually explored this starry sky. They began interstellar colonization of various planets surrounding the blood-red star above us, with twenty-one main settlement planets. They named this blood-red star Blood Moon.

These twenty-one planets are home to three completely different types of civilizations: the original humans, who use a kind of dark matter energy called superpowers to enhance their bodies; the AI ​​civilization, who are mortal enemies of the modified humans.

The last type of civilization is the modified humans. They have no concept of a nation, and their government system is almost non-existent. In this civilization, the entire world has completely degenerated into a capitalist society. Six major corporations join forces to control seven planets using capital. They are also responsible for the management of cities, and they are mortal enemies of the AI ​​civilization.

In addition, there are six independent planets. Some of them are home to three major civilizations, while others are home to a single civilization.

So these six planets joined forces to form an organization called the Star Alliance, which included six planets such as Mirror Sea, Echo Star, and Deep Space Graveyard.

Seventy years ago, after a major war between an AI civilization and a cyborg human civilization, the Deep Space Graveyard was completely occupied by cyborg humans.

"A modified body?"

"Literal meaning."

Big Yellow raised his left arm, which he had ripped from his companion.

"They replaced parts of the body with machines—arms, legs, internal organs, even the cerebral cortex."

Lu Yao subconsciously touched his arm. Underneath the skin was warm flesh and blood. Everything was still intact, everything was still human.

Why did they...?

"Why the crazy modifications?"

Da Huang picked up where he left off, as if he knew Lu Yao would ask that question.

"There are many reasons. Some are for survival, some planets have harsh environments and cannot survive without modification, some are for power, and of course, it may also be for social class."

At this point, Da Huang's panel kept flashing, scrolling through lines of code, seemingly searching for something.

"There's something even crazier. I just read from that chip that someone sold their entire family to a brothel in order to get a combat cybernetic body."

"Some people volunteer to participate in experiments with an 80% mortality rate in order to buy an advanced neural processor. Here, the body is not sacred, but a commodity, a part that can be disassembled, upgraded, and traded."

"The cyborg human faction is like a concept originally proposed on Earth: cyberpunk. Here, money is life, my master."

Lu Yao felt his throat was a little dry.

"Then you are AI, in this territory of cyborg humans."

"That's the bad news."

Da Huang said that the halo around the vision sensor had dimmed a bit.

"Cyclic humans and AI are mortal enemies. They fought a great war hundreds of years ago, and countless people died. Although there is no full-scale war now, border conflicts have never stopped. Ordinary service robots are okay, but those of me with fully-developed AI personalities..."

It didn't finish its sentence, but Lu Yao understood.

"They will absolutely tear you apart."

Big Yellow nodded, making only a small gesture.

"It would be better if it were dismantled. What I'm afraid of is that they'll interrogate the data before dismantling it, or they might simply turn it into a combat puppet. Modified humans both hate and covet AI technology. They hate it because AI almost wiped them out, and they covet it because AI technology is indeed advanced."

It paused for a moment, then added:

"I'm doomed o(╥﹏╥)o, they're not going to tear me apart, are they?"

The tone of the sentence was supposed to be cute, but Lu Yao could hear the seriousness in it; Da Huang was genuinely worried.

"No," Lu Yao said, not even realizing the weight of this promise herself. "I won't let them..."

boom--

Another explosion came from behind them. Lu Yao and Da Huang covered their heads and turned around.

About 100 meters away, a burst of fire erupted from the side of a waste pile, scattering rubble and metal fragments everywhere, and several motorcycles emerged from the smoke and dust.

That can't even be called a motorcycle.

These motorcycles looked like monsters assembled from various scraps. The frames were made of rusted spaceship keels, the engines were exposed, and the exhaust pipes spewed black smoke. On either side of the handlebars, Lu Yao squinted to make sure he wasn't mistaken; there were two human heads hanging there.

The two heads had shriveled, blackened skin, hollow eye sockets, and hair hanging down like withered grass. One of the heads even had a extinguished cigarette dangling from its mouth.

The cyclists were equally crazy.

There were a total of five motorcycles, each with two people. The drivers wore goggles made from recycled helmets, and their exposed skin showed large areas of metal modifications, with mechanical arms extending from their backs.

The passengers were carrying various weapons: sawed-off double-barreled shotguns, rifles with welded bayonets, and one person was carrying a rocket launcher.

They roared as they rushed out of the blasted hole, the wheels screeching as they crushed the debris. One of them pulled another bundle of explosives from his pocket, lit the fuse, and threw it forcefully at another pile of rubble, blasting open another hole.

"What are they looking for?"

Lu Yao lowered his voice; he now understood why the space station had collapsed.

"They're probably looking for untouched areas. Most of the Deep Space Graveyard has been searched countless times, but some of the debris piles are too deep or structurally unstable, so no one has dared to dig them up. These scavengers are using explosives to clear a path, betting that there's something valuable down there."

As it spoke, the armor on its chest suddenly slid open to the sides, revealing the storage compartments inside, and it used mechanical claws to take out two rifles from them.

It checked the magazine of the first gun, made sure it was full, and then handed it to Lu Yao.

"Next, my master."

Lu Yao caught it instinctively. The rifle was heavier than he had imagined, at least ten kilograms. He had never touched a real gun before, only seen them in games.

"I don't know how to use it," he said.

"It's very simple," Big Yellow had already picked up the second gun. "Just align the three points, then pull the trigger. The recoil is a bit strong, so you have to keep your shoulder firmly against it. Also, they're looking over here."

Lu Yao looked up and, sure enough, one of the scavengers was pointing in their direction and shouting into the walkie-talkie. Because of the distance, he couldn't hear what was being said, but the meaning was clear: they were excited.

All five motorcycles turned at the same time.

The wheels left arcs on the waste pile, raising a cloud of dust. Instead of charging directly at it, they spread out in formation, flanking from three directions like a pack of wolves hunting.

When the distance closed to fifty meters, Lu Yao could see the expressions on their faces clearly. Those people's expressions were full of excitement, like hungry wolves seeing their prey.

The motorcycle stopped.

Ten people jumped off the vehicle and skillfully sought cover. One hid behind an overturned container, one crouched next to the broken wreckage of a mech, and another lay on the ground using a pile of scrap metal as cover.

The leader was a tall man with the left half of his face completely made of metal. A red mechanical eye flashed with a scanning light. He raised his hand and made a gesture.

The others picked up their weapons.

Then he spoke, his voice amplified by the loudspeaker, carrying a harsh electrical noise, speaking in a language Lu Yao couldn't understand.

"A big guy with a full-body cybernetic body, and a penniless bastard with no cybernetic body at all."

He paused, his mechanical eyes focusing on Big Yellow.

"Kill them and sell the goods. Watch out for that big guy; that armor doesn't look cheap."

The moment the words left his mouth, Big Yellow immediately fired his gun; he was never a robot that would sit idly by and wait to die.