Cold Stars Illuminate the Endless Night [Interstellar]

A badass who fights her way up from the slums to become a leader x a cool, proud, aristocratic young master

Sheng Ran was born on a desolate planet called Jiale, where civilization has crumbled and the world is rife with filth, bloodshed, and riots. An orphan who knows nothing of her parents and has no name, she is even more unfortunate in that she is an Omega.

When she was young, she was enslaved and kept captive by the powerful at a base. Then she unexpectedly saved a fugitive from across the stars, and received a gift that changed her fate:

A memory chip containing the history of civilization, and a crimson curved blade that symbolized a medal of honor. They gave her dulled sense of self the chance to awaken.

She escaped the base and spent years disguised as a Beta, wandering the slums. She trained her mental strength on her own using knowledge from the memory chip, hunted mutated Zerg alone, and carved out a path of her own.

On her way to join the Jiale army, she rescued a young Omega master from beyond Jiale. Thus Sheng Ran gained her first companion, someone who shared her ideals and whose soul resonated with hers. And thus Sheng Ran gained a name of her own.

The kindhearted young master held her amid a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood and said, "If we survive, I'll take you away from Jiale."

But why leave Jiale? Sheng Ran knows that what she has always wanted is not to escape. She wants to overthrow the chaos and rebuild order.

She wants Jiale to see the daylight and dawn of its former days once more.

Li Zhuo is the youngest son of the Helder family, a top financial dynasty in the Holy Light Autonomous Territory. But as an Omega, even after passing the genetic lock trial and attaining an SS-grade mental strength, he is still shut out of the center of power, left with nothing but empty, useless adoration.

In Li Zhuo's eyes, all affection from anyone outside his family is tainted with deceit. More than seventy percent of Alphas and male Betas are pig-brained beasts, whether commoners or nobles. He despises them all equally.

The young master Li, who deliberately avoided an invitation from the Second Prince and boarded a starship, was hijacked by space pirates in the delta-Zelmo star cluster. While fleeing, he accidentally drifted to Jiale. There, Li Zhuo witnessed Ermino's genocidal slaughter of Jiale's people.

Li Zhuo remembers his elder brother saying, "Ermino and Jiale have been enemies for generations. Neither side will show mercy. If you don't wipe them out, one day they'll turn on you."

But Li Zhuo was saved by someone from that generations-old enemy: a beautiful, red-haired Omega woman from the slums. Though not particularly muscular, she took on three ill-intentioned Alphas at once and smashed their heads in. She brutally chopped them up and fed them to the dogs, then led him in and out of battle amid waves of mutated Zerg.

She was like a vivid, blazing crimson flame in the deepest darkness.

She said, "Humanity's blades and guns should be aimed at the alien Zerg nests in the far northern star ruins, not at our own people."

She said, "Of course Omegas can enlist. Of course they can be the bravest soldiers. We can be flowers, blooming beautifully in warm soil or on icy cliffs, in fertile earth or in ruins."

Li Zhuo silently took his place at Sheng Ran's side, fighting shoulder to shoulder with her, leading the fallen planet of Jiale back to prominence from this wasteland.

Then their unbreakable blades turned toward distant stars. Their epic journey across the sea of stars was only just beginning...

"Boundless auroras swallow the cosmos. The endless night has come. Above the abyss, it is as though ten thousand voices cry out: stranded suffering, searing sorrow, screamed madly and scattered across the earth."

"An angel of fire descends."

"Cold stars light the long night, and a torch grants me light."

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◆ Cover design is being commissioned.

Theme: Don't yield to instinct, and don't be bound by convention.