“I’ll remember this. You hear me?”

The voice came through clenched teeth, hard and sharp.

The moment Lyra Whitmore opened her eyes, that was the first thing she heard.

Her mind was still muddled, but she turned straight toward the sound.

A man was kneeling there.

He was tall, young, maybe in his early twenties. Handsome in a harsh sort of way. His brows and eyes were keen as blades, his thin lips pressed tight. His short red hair was wet, hanging in damp strands, and his whole face was full of stubborn fury.

He was on his knees.

A tight combat suit clung to him, but the zipper on the upper half had been dragged open, exposing lean, solid muscle across his chest and waist. There was nothing weak about him. Even kneeling, he looked like a drawn blade that refused to break.

Lyra shut her eyes.

In that short instant, a flood of images crashed through her head.

She had transmigrated.

The former owner’s memories rolled through her mind like a film strip, scene after scene, not giving her a breath to sort them out.

Same name. Same face.

But a life completely unlike her own.

This was an interstellar age. Humanity here was split into three kinds: Guides, Sentinels, and ordinary people.

Sentinels were born with terrifying combat power. Their physical abilities far surpassed normal humans, and they could manifest spirit forms outside their bodies. They were the sharpest weapons humanity had.

But Sentinels had one fatal flaw.

They could not resist contamination from the polluted species.

Hundreds of years ago, animals and plants across the stars had mutated without warning. From that upheaval came a new threat to human survival: the polluted species.

The reason Sentinels and Guides existed was simple.

To fight them.

Sentinels held overwhelming force. Guides, by contrast, were physically fragile, but they could soothe a Sentinel’s mental sea and cleanse contamination. That was their worth. Their weapon lay in the mind, not the flesh.

The former owner of this body was an S-rank Guide.

In the interstellar world, both Guides and Sentinels were ranked by level, from F to SSS. F was the bottom. SSS stood at the peak.

Her name was Lyra Whitmore.

Second daughter of the Whitmore family, one of the great noble houses of the interstellar age.

She also had an older brother.

Dorian Whitmore.

Like her, he was a Guide.

But his rank fell short of hers.

He was only A-rank.

Dorian Whitmore had spoiled the original Lyra rotten.

She had been born high, and she had an S-rank gift on top of that. Family, status, talent—stack those together, and a person was bound to be drowned in favor.

She had grown up in honey.

Too bad that honey was poison from the start.

A girl raised to think the world turned for her alone would not soften with age. She only got sharper, harsher, more overbearing. By the time she grew up, arrogance had sunk into her bones. She looked down on everyone.

If she had only thrown her weight around at home, that would have been one thing.

But this was the war zone.

In the interstellar age, human lifespans had lengthened across the board. By law, twenty-two was adulthood. Once they came of age, guides and sentinels were sent to the war zones to fight the polluted species.

The original Lyra had been assigned to the Ninth War Zone.

As a guide, her main duty there was simple: soothe and clear a sentinel’s mental field.

Interstellar law set a fixed monthly task quota for both sentinels and guides. Once that quota was met, any further missions required extra payment.

And under interstellar law, guides were always meant to be protected, favored, handled with care.

But guides were scarce to begin with, and the original Lyra came from wealth. After finishing her required quota, she had no need for extra star coins.

The trouble was, she did not want money.

That choice did not break interstellar law. It did not violate war zone rules either.

Yet it still made the sentinels grit their teeth in hatred.

Because every time she guided someone, she demanded the same thing.

They had to kneel by her feet. Bow their heads. Obey her like dogs.

Not every sentinel would swallow that humiliation.