"I f***ing swear," Lu Yuan said, his hands gripping the steering wheel, his foot on the gas, yet he remained still. In an instant, the surrounding guerrilla motorcycles and spiked off-road vehicles had him completely encircled, with dozens of guns of various shapes aimed right at him.
Lu Yuan wasn't intimidated by most of the rifles and airguns, which mainly fired 7.62mm bullets. What unnerved him was the 20mm autocannon mounted on the all-terrain vehicle, its barrel lowered and pointed directly at him.
It felt terrible to have his own massive weapon pointed at his head, but Lu Yuan knew his skull couldn't withstand a single shot from a cannon shell as thick as two fingers. He didn't have the ability to kill everyone around him in an instant; though he was a proud and somewhat arrogant orbital paratrooper, he was still a mortal being of flesh and blood.
Backing down was the only option.
From the metal speaker came a triumphant shout; even without a headset translator, Lu Yuan could guess what the native leader was saying. The turret maintained its close watch on him, just waiting for the order to reduce his truck to scrap.
Gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white, Lu Yuan ran through countless plans in his head, but each one led to death. To be honest, he really didn't want to die here, not like this, at the hands of a bunch of locals. It would be humiliating, and he could imagine being mocked even in the afterlife.
Survival comes at a price.
The voice from the metal speaker grew impatient. Lu Yuan's mouth twitched uncontrollably as thoughts of the hundreds of death notifications waiting to be delivered on the *Corona* filled his mind.
With a long sigh, he released the steering wheel, raised his hands, turned on his headset translator, and shouted, "Don't shoot, I'm coming out!"
He exited the vehicle with his hands raised. As soon as he hit the ground, four natives rushed at him, slamming the butts of their rifles into his back, making him stagger. Then came a relentless beating, each blow targeting his vulnerable spots. Lu Yuan could only curl up, covering his head, silently enduring the assault.
A sharp whistle cut through the air, and the blows finally stopped. The natives lifted the dusty, disheveled Lu Yuan, forcing him to his knees, guns pressed to the back of his head. One of them grabbed his hair, making him look up at the all-terrain vehicle.
Coughing up dust, Lu Yuan raised his head and saw a brown-haired native in a black leather jacket standing atop the vehicle, one foot on the roof, hands resting on his knee, with two armed guards behind him. This had to be the leader.
As soon as his eyes met the native leader's, Lu Yuan felt the violence practically radiating from those disproportionately small eyes, set in a scarred, deeply grooved face, marred by scabs and burns.
The leader studied him for a moment before pointing a finger and shouting something in a thick, nasal voice. Lu Yuan's translator took a few seconds to process before relaying the words:
"You! Which hunting clan do you belong to?"
Lu Yuan squinted at the leader, wondering if Earth's human society had really regressed to tribal chief structures. If these natives were anything like lions or leopards, fiercely defending their territory against intruders, then his recent skirmish—where he had killed or injured nearly ten of them—might have set them off enough to flay him alive.
Straightening his posture, Lu Yuan called out, "I'm a hunter from the *Corona* hunting team! A powerful team that rules the skies and hunts Leviathans!"
After speaking in Common, he immediately repeated it awkwardly through his translator. As he finished, he saw the native leader turn in apparent confusion to consult his guards, but they seemed equally at a loss. The leader stomped, but the vehicle roof barely made a sound. He glanced around at his subordinates and then shouted loudly:
"*Corona*! Where is the territory of the *Corona* team? Tell me, or I'll boil you into a stew to send back to your leader!"
Lu Yuan thought, *They wouldn't have regressed to cannibalism, would they?* In any case, he had to respond with the same mix of translation and native dialect: "The sky! Wherever the sun shines is our land! Guarantee my safety, and I will contact my leader, who will send you bullets, tanks, and aircraft!"
The leader withdrew his foot, standing with arms akimbo, a hint of hesitation on his face. Lu Yuan sensed his bluff might be working. The natives likely revered the sun, and his appearance and clothing were indeed quite different, so it was plausible they'd misunderstand.
While the leader hesitated, a dreadlocked figure leaned out from a truck adorned with a scorpion battle flag, gesturing with crossed arms and calling out, "Tian Guo" repeatedly. Lu Yuan's translator interpreted this as "heaven."
But the leader only laughed disdainfully, grabbed a guard's gun, and fired randomly in front of Lu Yuan, snarling at him. Lu Yuan could do nothing but lower his head slightly, swallowing his pride.
This movement seemed to trigger something in the leader, who burst into loud laughter, jumped off the all-terrain vehicle, and approached the truck with the dreadlocked figure, landing a punch on him. Snapping his fingers, he signaled some natives to climb onto the truck, yank down the scorpion flag, and ceremoniously present it to the leader. With the flag in hand, he climbed back onto the all-terrain vehicle, held the flag high, and shouted triumphantly.
"Hu-ah! Hu-ah! Hu-ah!" The natives, faces flushed from the sun, cheered wildly, brandishing their guns, while the scorpion flag was planted atop the vehicle's turret, unmistakably asserting their dominance.
As the cheers subsided, the leader spread his arms, calling out something indecipherable. Despite the translator's struggle, Lu Yuan caught one phrase:
"Even the messenger from heaven must crawl under the feet of the scorpion!"
*It's over,* Lu Yuan thought. Sure enough, the two natives who held him down kicked him over and searched him inside out, prodding his neck with their machetes to see how tough it was.
"Wait!" Desperate, Lu Yuan yelled in Common, "I can lead you to Heaven!"
The native leader paused, then the entire group erupted in laughter. The leader sneered, "Heaven! Heaven is in the sky! There's no road to heaven!"
"Tie this 'heaven man' to the back! Let the sky people see how to survive on the ground!"
Immediately, Lu Yuan's hands were shackled with iron chains, and he was hauled into the back of the all-terrain vehicle. The natives climbed aboard, banging on the truck doors and shouting, "Let him run! Let him run!"
The leader crouched down to gaze mockingly at Lu Yuan, those small eyes glinting with derision. Waving his hand toward the sun, he said,
"Your heaven has abandoned you!"
"Now, run back to your heaven!"