For humanity, burn the stars.

Above the bizarre and dazzling skyscraper city, a huge spaceship emitted a piercing shriek as it swept across the air like a steel behemoth.

In the center of the layered cities built on the planet, a huge void slowly opens, leading all the way to the real planetary surface below.

The giant spaceship slowly aimed at the void in the third-level urban area and steadily descended vertically.

The spaceship continued to traverse the other five cities along the way, and the environment gradually changed from luxurious to ordinary, and finally to gloomy.

Above the lowest level, the spaceship slowly came to a stop.

This is District 51.

This is the lowest, most despicable corner of the planet, a veritable giant garbage dump.

Looking around, the horizon is always a sea of ​​garbage and mountains, and several identical spaceships have descended from other passages.

Accompanied by the ear-piercing noise of metal scraping, mountains of waste poured out of the lower hatch like a waterfall, crashing heavily into the filthy sea of ​​garbage below.

Twisted metal components, broken electronic parts, rotting organic residue, murky liquid...

"Boom—crash!"

At the foot of the garbage mountain, several figures who couldn't escape in time were instantly swallowed up.

The filthy garbage mixed with dark liquid splashed out, and several withered limbs twitched and were torn apart, only to be completely covered by the subsequent torrent of garbage.

However, this horrific scene did not cause the slightest ripple.

Around the garbage heap, many more creatures of the same kind ignored it, their murky eyes showing no pity or fear.

They are only obsessed with the 'fresh' garbage that has just fallen.

So these ugly creatures scrambled and crawled, struggling to climb the ever-growing mountain of garbage.

-----------------

Li Lin huddled in a corner of the makeshift shack he had painstakingly built with scrap metal of aerospace grade, staring coldly at the hellish scene outside through the observation window.

The creatures that live here carry huge, heavy, snail-shell-like grayish-brown hard shells on their backs, while their exposed skin has an eerie bluish-gray hue.

A neck as thin as a duck's neck connects to the head, and on the huge head are a pair of protruding, lifeless eyes the size of tennis balls.

As for the oral cavity, it was a terrifying mouthpart that split vertically and was covered with tiny but sharp teeth.

These snail-people have five withered fingers on their hands, but most of their hind legs are severely atrophied, paralyzed, and powerless, like two muddy, rotten noodles dragging behind them. They can only move forward by wriggling their forelimbs and torso.

Only a few with intact hind legs are now exerting all their strength to try to seize the initiative and grab those possible 'good things'.

Looking at the newly dumped garbage in the outside garbage heap, and the creatures climbing and wriggling up the garbage mountain to fight for it, Li Lin felt a deep sense of disgust.

However, what followed was an even deeper despair.

Because at this moment, he has the same body as those strange creatures outside.

Li Lin struggled to adjust to the weight behind him, stood up, and the only mirror in the room reflected his image.

His appearance, identical to the strange snail-shell creatures outside, reminded him that he was no longer human.

No, perhaps in essence, we can still be considered human, albeit with some difficulty?

Standing in front of the mirror, Li Lin thought to himself with a self-deprecating smile.

Because Li Lin is actually a time traveler, he knows exactly what happened here.

This is the Earth from the game "Star Ocean" in my previous life, an Earth that was defeated and enslaved by aliens.

Having mastered FTL (faster-than-light) technology, Earth encountered alien civilizations from other star systems on its path of outward colonization and exploration.

—【Vera】, a race whose strength far surpasses that of human civilization.

Even though humanity resisted to the very last moment, they were still defeated without any doubt.

In the civilization of the [Vera], there is no concept of surrender or prisoner of war.

Therefore, after conquering the Earth, they modified the surrendered humans, giving birth to the strange creatures known as "Shell People".

They took away their appearance, lost their language, and even their civilization was erased.

Of course, this part of the story is already part of the background content, and many players may not even care about it after playing the game.

In fact, many players, even after learning about the "Shell People's" background, still continue to enslave them after taking over this Earth.

After all, it's just a game, and they wouldn't consider these things to be the same kind.

In fact, Li Lin thought so too.

In his previous life, Li Lin was a hardcore player of "Starry Sea," so much so that he became so engrossed in the game that he died suddenly in the game pod.

His gaze swept across the base of the massive city that obscured the sky in the distance, his heart filled with absurd and bitter anger.

Bad news, I died suddenly while playing StarCraft in my previous life.

Good news! I've been transported into a game, and I've even become a human among the vast universe's populations.

Even worse news: he was transported into a modified human.

Li Lin used to have some racial biases, and even found it difficult to accept people of other races.

But now... he has transmigrated into a "shell person," which makes all of this incredibly ironic.

Forget about transmigrating into a yellow-skinned person, he'd be fine as long as he's human, regardless of whether he's white or black.

The result was that it was a "shell person" who couldn't even be considered a human...

He clearly has a human heart, yet he is imprisoned in this twisted, ugly, and inhuman form. What immense suffering this must be!

Those "shell people" were transformed into objects of entertainment, and they knew nothing about their past as humans.

Therefore, they are able to live with a clear conscience.

But Li Lin couldn't do it.

Li Lin stubbornly and unwaveringly believes that he is still human.

Even though this body and this situation make this persistence seem so pale and meaningless.

A surge of uncontrollable rage suddenly welled up inside him.

Li Lin roared and slammed his fist into the mirror that reflected his 'shame'.

"Splash—!"

The lens shattered instantly, sending sharp fragments flying everywhere.

The nauseating, ugly reflection of himself in the mirror shattered, disintegrated, and scattered across the ground.

Looking at the fragments on the ground, Li Lin's chest heaved violently, his vertically split mouth opening and closing slightly, emitting heavy breathing sounds.

The shattered mirror brought no relief, only a fleeting, false sense of destructive pleasure.

After venting, there is an even deeper exhaustion.

He quickly fell silent and picked something up from the corner.

—It was a long, strip-shaped object carefully wrapped in high-temperature resistant, fire-resistant aerospace fabric.

This was the only thing he cherished in this hell, or rather, the only thing that could give him a false sense of security.

If he were in the game's opening phase, even the most difficult one—a spaceship start without a fixed planet—he would be confident he could develop his character.

However, as a "shell man" kept as a pet, he had no chance of facing the massive alien civilization of [Vera], and he couldn't even regain his human form.

Countless times, despair overwhelmed him like a tidal wave, making him want to end this absurd and painful life.

But in the end...

Li Lin, hunched over and dragging the heavy shell, opened the door that had been pieced together from the hatch of a scrapped aircraft.

At least there's still some hope.

If this is indeed Starry Night, and players can be found here, there might still be a sliver of hope.

It was this tiny glimmer of hope that kept him going in this hell.

He has been here for some time now, but he still hasn't determined the exact time.

The 'Shell People' don't speak the same language. No matter if he uses Chinese, English, or anything else, Li Lin has no way to communicate with them.

Therefore, his current target is also that garbage mountain containing a large amount of waste.

However, he wasn't scavenging for a living; he was looking for information to determine the time elapsed since the game launched.