As everyone watched Warrant Officer Yu Lian also assume a sword stance, preparing to charge, their hearts stirred, blood surged, and they felt their whole being burn with passion.

“This Moon Person… Warrant Officer Yu Lian, he must not want any of us to die in vain from a spiritual energy user’s dying counterattack. Although he is still young and has a very boyish face, he is truly a responsible man!” Lieutenant Parkin was extremely moved.

“You are more particular than I imagined! Alright, then I’ll go along with your foolishness one more time!” Ash Stein looked at Yu Lian with a slight surprise, and his favorability finally increased by a tiny bit.

This Sand Person is a true man… he truly deserves an honorable death! They thought, looking at Kaz Khan, who, enduring his injuries, still maintained a fighting stance.

The end of a hero cannot be too plain, too desolate, or too realistic; it needs to meet public expectations. So, what could be more legendary and dramatic, more capable of igniting public emotional resonance, than an earth-shattering duel to the death?

People seek the praises of courage and honor in the gaps between blades, and comprehend the true meaning of soul and will on the boundary of life and death. Only then can the true essence of heroism be forged! A life as dreamlike and illusory as a phantom must truly gain substance by facing vivid blood up close, facing the opponent’s eyes, and facing their demise in your hands!

This is proper space opera style, isn’t it?

Yu Lian looked at the people around him and knew these guys had gotten the wrong idea again. But having lived three lives, he still didn’t understand why they wouldn’t use explosives? What was the dialectical relationship between hacking with a broadsword and honor?

But there was no helping it; what most people thought became the natural tradition and ritual.

Fortunately, a man with strength has the right to be willful. Allowing Kaz Khan… this man who was destined not to become a hero, to exit in the way he desired, indeed suited Yu Lian’s aesthetic.

Yes, not some nonsense about honor! Just willfulness and aesthetics!

Anyway, he didn’t think Kaz Khan would be his opponent, even if the other party had already broken through to the second ring.

Furthermore, he definitely wasn’t thinking that a “Heavy Infantry” with limited mobility was the perfect whetstone to practice his skills from his previous life.

He definitely wasn’t coveting Kaz Khan’s heirloom and planning to secretly take it for himself.

Of course, some expressed different opinions. For example, Ina’s voice now sounded in Yu Lian’s earpiece: “Officer, I think… well, you’ve worked too hard, you should rest.”

Yu Lian could swear that if he weren’t her direct superior, she would have definitely said something like, “I think you’ve had your head kicked in by a donkey.”

So what if his head was kicked in? For experience and for looting bodies, a man occasionally needed to be willful.

“Ash! Cover me!” Yu Lian shouted.

Covering him was good! He wouldn’t have to fight to the death and could still participate in the spoils. Ash was a little flattered for a moment, thinking this guy was quite humane.

“Come on! Earthling, this is my last stand!” Kaz Khan roared with solemnity, as if rivers trembled at his voice.

A hero at the end of his road, a tiger fallen to the plains, yet still full of heroic spirit!

“Get ready, I grant you an honorable death!” Yu Lian laughed loudly, his white clothes like snow, advancing with a song.

I am witnessing an epic! Everyone was moved to tears, feeling like they couldn’t even breathe. Except for a certain Master Sergeant who was rolling her eyes at a sniper position hundreds of meters away.

Thus, they did not notice that an airship had rapidly arrived at the battlefield, its nose-mounted Gatling gun lowering its muzzle, unleashing a furious barrage of bullets at Kaz Khan, who had just taken his stance.

The scorching line of fire immediately enveloped his body completely.

Everyone froze. Yu Lian was, of course, stunned too. However, he was better off than the completely dazed crowd because, due to the close proximity, he could even see tumbling scales, flesh, and fragments of internal organs in the rain of bullets.

However, the airship seemed to still be uneasy. After unleashing at least 1,000 rounds from one ammunition compartment, it supplemented with eight rockets, completely transforming the area into a blazing inferno.

“Is it trying to blow me up too?” Yu Lian’s skin stung from the heat, and he quickly retreated a few steps.

He knew that Kaz Khan was now beyond dead. Not to mention he was just a “Heavy Infantry”; even if he had an additional ring, he wouldn’t have survived such a saturation bombardment.

Yu Lian looked at the distant flames, as if hearing the desperate wails of the future founding father of the Sand People before his death, and for a moment, he didn’t know what expression to make.

The changes in history are truly regrettable!

In this timeline, even if Kaz Khan’s name were to remain, it would only be as a minor villain, barely a line or two?

Yu Lian’s mood was very complex, and he didn’t want to speak for a while, a look of regret on his face. When the airship stopped firing, he silently approached the still-burning crater, gathered a pile of charred or half-charred flesh, and then, with lightning speed, pulled out a small crystal from it and put it away.

The second piece, obtained…

Of course, to others, this was clearly a hero cherishing a hero. Even though he had been blasted to dust, he was still trying to collect the other party’s remains.

It wasn’t until the airship landed nearby, and a familiar figure in power armor leaped out of the cabin and strode towards them, that Yu Lian, who was collecting Kaz Khan’s remains, quickly stood up and saluted the other party with a somewhat stiff military salute.

“Are you stupid? Hmm, are you stupid?” The other party returned the salute with a more casual gesture than Yu Lian’s, while already scolding: “Do you need to put yourself in danger just to cater to the other party’s dying self-satisfaction? Or have you made no progress after three years at the academy?”

“Well, the ‘Awakened Watch Treaty’…”

“Treaty your head! You are first and foremost a soldier of the Commonwealth, and only then a spiritual energy user, don’t you understand that?”

Yu Lian felt that what the other party said was very reasonable, so he stood at attention and loudly said: “Eleanor… uh, reporting to Officer Bonaparte, Warrant Officer Yu Lian, acting Commander of the 12th Garrison Station, reporting to you!”

“Reporting your head! How did I teach you before? Battle, isn’t it about maximizing the elimination of enemies while doing your best to protect yourself? Warrant Officer Yu Lian, this is a battlefield, not some game for imperial nobles!”

Speaking of which, Eleanor, as the supreme Commander who personally led the charge, what right do you have to lecture me?

However, he now understood why he and Eleanor were so compatible.

On the other side, Lieutenant Parkin truly hadn’t expected the legendary “Flower of the National Defense Force,” the “Number One Beauty of the Defense University,” to have such a demeanor. He was stunned for a long while before hastily saluting: “Commander, Lieutenant Grumman Parkin of the 101st Company of the Hell Paratrooper Division, reporting to you!”

Eleanor gave Yu Lian a “I’ll settle this with you later” glare, then immediately switched to an impeccable professional smile and shook hands with the other party: “Thank you for your timely reinforcement! It is with your loyalty and Wisdom that we were able to achieve such a brilliant victory! Oh, where is Captain Winter? I also need to thank him in person.”

Yes, this was indeed a great victory! Major Elder Hessen, a major hidden danger, and Kaz Khan, a future major hidden danger, had both died, and the general rout of the Sand People had begun more than an hour ago. Any effective resistance was completely crushed. Not to mention the airships and drones in the sky and the mobile infantry on the ground, even the militiamen who had fought their way out with Eleanor could join this one-sided hunting game without worrying about enemy counterattacks.

Post-battle statistics showed that at least over two hundred thousand Sand People died within a hundred-mile radius of Tulon, with most of them perishing in various stampedes and infighting during the chaos. Even years after the battle ended, people could still find weathering Sand People corpses in the wilderness.

Furthermore, over a hundred “Frankenstein” tanks, plus over two hundred anti-aircraft guns, and the ten plasma heavy cannons on the Alqi Highlands, all became spoils of war for the Colonial Garrison.

Of course, apart from the heavy cannons on the highlands, more than half of the other spoils of war were blasted into scrap, only to be recycled as waste metal later, but they could still be recorded in the military achievements statistics, couldn’t they?

In any case, the Commonwealth army had indeed achieved its most brilliant victory in nearly 10 years, and the main protagonists were the garrison forces, the lowliest rank in the military hierarchy. This was truly enough for the New Yumen Governor’s Office and the high command of the garrison to boast about until the next century.

Eleanor was naturally in a very good mood. Now, not only in terms of graduation ranking, but also in terms of battle achievements, she could leave her classmates and even seniors from ten previous classes far behind. Thinking of this, when she arrived at the highlands and shook hands with Captain Winter, her professional smile contained a few more genuine emotions.

“Are these cannons in good condition?” Eleanor asked.

Captain Winter didn’t quite understand why she asked that, but he still replied loudly: “I can guarantee they are in perfect condition, ma’am.”

Eleanor nodded, glanced at the heavy cannons, and smiled: “Heh, Alliance Tsunami Type 4? Do you think I’d mistake it just because it has a chassis from a different workshop? Good stuff. Not to mention ground targets, for air targets, it can reach near-Earth orbit, right?”

Yu Lian was worried that Eleanor would order these cannons to be dismantled and dragged back to the city, so he stepped forward and said: “Officer, we cannot relax yet.”

“Oh?” Eleanor glanced at Yu Lian with interest, lifted her beautiful chin, and gestured for him to continue.

Eleanor’s overly calm reaction surprised Yu Lian a little, but he continued: “Those goblins are employees of the Compass Merchants. According to their confessions, these heavy cannons were also transported by the Compass Merchants. I suspect those tanks and anti-aircraft guns are also the work of the Compass Merchants. But how could the Sand People possibly have connections with this multinational arms broker? There must be another force operating behind the scenes.”

Eleanor nodded, her expression still calm, and said: “That’s not strange. There are quite a few scoundrels who are envious of our colonial interests in the Andromeda Galaxy. But what does that have to do with our current situation?”

“We have indeed won, but it’s a fact that Tulon was besieged for nearly a week. It’s also a fact that settlements, industries, and even garrison stations outside Tulon were attacked. But on this planet, besides Commonwealth citizens, there are also a considerable number of foreign nationals. Other nations are fully entitled to use this as a reason to question our ability to maintain order, and can even legitimately send troops. The reason would be perfectly justifiable, simply stating they are here to evacuate their citizens.”

Yu Lian had thought about this argument for a long time; it was well-reasoned, logical, and didn’t sound like nonsense, so even Eleanor wouldn’t doubt it.

Indeed, Eleanor merely raised her eyebrows in surprise, then praised him: “Not bad, you’re improving quickly! I knew you had that potential!”

…Wait, isn’t your reaction slightly different from what I expected?

Captain Winter was listening intently when a call came through his earpiece, and his face immediately changed.

“Lieutenant Colonel, three destroyers are approaching the planet from outer space and will soon enter near-Earth orbit!”

Oops, it’s a big chapter of 4000 words. I’ve always been a staunch 3k-er, unlike those seductive 2k-ers out there! Also, if the intended information and plot of a chapter aren’t completed, I always write more; I would never cut it off abruptly. For such a principled author, please support me, dear readers.