Chapter 36: Iron-Blooded Human Supremacy Guard
The battle to wipe out the Demon Gang had ended in total victory, and Black Mountain had returned to peace. The residents got to work clearing the battlefield and collecting everything the gang had left behind.
Under Olivia’s arrangements, Finn and Jimmy moved into the best building in town. No one raised a single objection—Finn’s contributions had been plain for everyone to see.
After a hot shower, Finn stretched long and slow, then pushed open the window.
The building across the street was a food production base. Its windows were packed with lush green leaves, a refreshing sight that even seemed to make the air feel cleaner.
Ding-da-dong.
A crisp ringtone chimed from his pocket.
Finn pulled out his phone and lit up the screen. Someone had sent him a text.
The message surprised him a little.
This was a directed inter-world comms message. To send one, the sender had to know exactly which world the recipient was in.
In other words, someone had leaked his world coordinates.
The message would latch onto the information carriers and drift across the entire world, spreading like ripples over water. Only after that would the recipient have a chance of picking it up.
And it was only a chance. If the world was too vast, the signal first had to survive hundreds of millions of light-years without decaying. Then the recipient still needed the right device to receive it.
Finn’s titanium-alloy smartphone was a heavily modified piece of cutting-edge tech. It supported 50G networks, quantum entanglement comms, aether transmission, electromagnetic waves across every spectrum, dark-plane messaging, psychic signals, long-range voice projection, void resonance, telepathy, and more.
Besides all that, Finn’s phone could emit infrasound waves to lure in carrier pigeons and receive messages delivered by pigeon post.
The headphone jack could spit flames, the charging port could puff out smoke, and it supported every kind of beacon-tower and smoke-signal communication imaginable.
It supported every mainstream communication method used across the Endless Worlds. Most important of all, the phone could connect straight to the Myriad Realms Network!
To Celestial Sojourners, the Myriad Realms Network was every bit as essential as the internet back on Earth.
Finn lit up the screen and opened the message.
The sender was an old acquaintance of his: Iron-Blooded Human Supremacy Guard · General of Inspiring Might · Zane-Shawndrew.
Finn relaxed a fraction. It had to be that big-mouthed Su-Jin who’d spilled the coordinates of his world.
The message opened with the usual routine: a polite check-in, a few fake lines of concern for his health, and then straight to business.
They offered him a high-ranking position, generous pay, and a thousand stunning clone beauties, all as a sincere invitation for him to join the Iron-Blooded Human Supremacy Guard and fight for humanity’s bright future.
The Iron-Blooded Human Supremacy Guard—commonly shortened to the Human Supremacy Guard—was a cross-world military powerhouse that had already started to look like a nation in its own right.
Its core belief was simple: humanity first, always. Every action served to protect and advance human interests.
They would stop at nothing to achieve that goal. They had launched wars of extermination against alien races and carried out purges of other species and extraterrestrial life, earning them a reputation among outsiders as extreme human supremacists.
One of the organization’s most noticeable traits was that the vast majority of its members loved piloting mechs.
Proud of their status as the supreme race, they especially favored humanoid designs as a way to display their human identity.
Of course, humanoid mechs were far from the most efficient tools of war.
In cosmic conflicts, mechs with arms and legs never became standard equipment. They were mostly relegated to maintenance, logistics, or the occasional urban street fight.
After all, when battles were decided by faster-than-light speeds and extreme long-range engagements, no one had time to waste climbing into a mech for hand-to-hand combat.
Take the Star Cosmos Empire’s spherical combat mechs, for example. They were essentially giant eggs that could move and fire in a full three-hundred-sixty degrees, equipped with a kinetic redirection system that let them shift their momentum in any direction they wanted.
But that only applied to ordinary people and the average masses. In the Endless Worlds, plenty of individuals had long since moved far beyond the limits of normal humans.
The members of the Iron-Blooded Human Supremacy Guard were either cultivators, genetically enhanced humans, or some other kind of extraordinary powerhouse.
They all possessed superhuman physiques, eyesight, reflexes, and everything in between. To them, a mech wasn’t just armor—it was an extension of their senses, limbs, and even their minds.
Some cultivators could channel energy straight from their dantian in perfect sync with the mech’s fusion reactor, creating flawless resonance and reaching the ultimate state where pilot and machine became one.
For them, breaking the speed of light, pulling high-G overload maneuvers, slicing a warship in half with a single strike, or blowing up a planet with one shot were all routine.
That was precisely why the Iron-Blooded Human Supremacy Guard loved recruiting cultivators.
Zane-Shawndrew held the rank of General of Inspiring Might—a respectable mid-level position. He had taken a real interest in Finn, convinced the man had serious potential, and had extended multiple invitations for him to join the organization.
Finn actually enjoyed piloting mechs and Gundams. He loved the rush of commanding those colossal war machines. But every time the Human Supremacy Guard came calling, he politely turned them down.
Finn had always lived as a free spirit—unfettered and completely unbound. That was the standard way of life for most Celestial Sojourners.
Finn stared at the phone screen and read the message a second time.
One detail stood out. Using the familiar Earth calendar system, the text said that five hundred million years ago this world had been ravaged by war. The galaxy shattered and the universe had nearly gone dark.
Five hundred million years later—right now—the world was slowly coming back to life. The Iron-Blooded Human Supremacy Guard planned to establish a branch base here.
A flicker of excitement ran through Finn. If they set up a base, then… he could finally mooch off their network!
No wonder he couldn’t pick up the Myriad Realms Network signal. This world had no advanced civilizations that had broken through the dimensional barriers, so there were no network servers or anything like that in place.
Still, Finn kept his guard up. His real goal was finding the World Nucleus, and a cross-world outfit like the Human Supremacy Guard would definitely have its eyes on the same prize.
……
Knock, knock, knock.
A calm, measured series of knocks cut into Finn’s thoughts.
He put the phone away, walked to the door, and stood cautiously off to the side. “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” Olivia Hill answered softly from the other side.
Finn gently pulled the door open and gave her a quick once-over. “What’s up?”
Olivia had clearly dressed up for the occasion. She had traded her ever-present black combat suit for a sleek, form-fitting dress.
A pale golden sash drew in her slender waist, and the scalloped hem of her skirt swayed just above her knees. Her usually messy short golden hair had been neatly combed, falling smooth and tidy against her shoulders.
Finn gave a light sniff and caught a clean hint of mint. Had she actually put on mint perfume? What a clever girl.
Olivia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, bit her lower lip, and asked, “What brought you to our Refuge City? Are you going to stay?”
“No.” Finn shook his head. “I’m here to find something. I’ll be leaving in another two or three days.”
“You’re leaving?” Olivia’s voice rose in surprise. Disappointment flashed across her bright blue eyes, and her whole mood sank in an instant.
“Yeah. I don’t belong here.”
“What are you looking for? Maybe I can help,” Olivia said quietly.
“I can’t tell you that. It’s nothing special—just something pretty common before the Cataclysm. It’s just hard to find these days.” Finn brushed the question aside.
“Where will you look?” Olivia asked.
“Ironatom Refuge City, I suppose. Might as well try my luck there.” Finn paused, then added, “Do you know how to get to Ironatom?”
“Hmm… Ironatom…” Olivia rested her chin in her hand, thinking.
Her eyes suddenly brightened with delight. “I know! I have a map. Come over to my place and take a look.”