34: Chapter 34 Asteroid Belt, Ambush Victory

The vanguard of the Black Legion ultimately failed to reach Blackstone Town.

They were intercepted in the Asteroid Belt.

Marcus sent back a brief message from the abandoned communication station—the station's antenna was still functional. Using that ancient equipment, he intercepted a communication channel of the Chaos Forces and deciphered their march route: they planned to pass through the Asteroid Belt on the outskirts of Hope Star and launch a direct raid on Blackstone Town from low orbit on the northwest side. Lin Mo received this message. He did not reinforce the northwest defensive line—instead, he changed the entire defensive strategy.

He ordered Locke to lead the main force out of Blackstone Town and deploy ahead of time onto several large rock bodies at the edge of the Asteroid Belt. This was a risky decision—if the intelligence was wrong, Blackstone Town's defenses would be in an unprecedented state of emptiness. Locke did not question it. He spent several days setting up positions on the rock bodies, deploying most of the laser weapons and elite marksmen along the path the Chaos Forces were bound to take.

He didn't even ask Lin Mo about the source of the intelligence. He simply nodded and turned to assemble the troops. Marcus sat beneath the communication station's antenna, replaying the intercepted Chaos Forces communication several times to confirm there were no errors in the deciphering—coordinates, time, flight speed, all of it was correct. Then he leaned back in his chair, feeling for the first time that his work repairing this pile of scrap metal hadn't been in vain.

When this decision was announced at the Intelligence Center, it caused a brief silence. Yang Shitou stood in the corner, his face expressionless—but after Lin Mo finished speaking, he took the initiative to volunteer to stay behind and guard Blackstone Town. This was the first time Yang Shitou had spoken up of his own accord during a meeting. Lin Mo looked at him for a few seconds and nodded.

The battle broke out in the early hours of the morning. The Chaos Forces' formation was relatively loose as they entered the Asteroid Belt—they hadn't expected to encounter resistance in such a place. Locke's ambush circle closed with extreme precision: the first volley of laser fire concentrated on striking the leading small assault craft, causing them to block the path of the following troops in the channel; the second volley of Flintlock fire rained down from the rock bodies on both sides onto the Chaos infantry trapped in the channel; the third wave—Locke personally led the charge.

The battle lasted only a few hours before it ended. Standing on a rock body scorched by lasers, Locke tallied the results: several Chaos assault craft destroyed, a number of Chaos infantry annihilated, and a batch of Chaos weapons and ammunition captured.

The cost was one soldier.

Xiao Wu—the seventeen-year-old blacksmith's apprentice, the youth who had followed Locke since the days of Blackstone Village—was hit in the neck by shrapnel from a Chaos assault craft during the charge. He didn't die instantly. He was still awake when Locke dragged him behind cover, even speaking to him: "Captain... I'm a little sleepy..."

Locke pressed his palm firmly against his neck. Blood seeped through the gaps between his fingers, warm and emitting white steam in the sub-zero temperatures. Xiao Wu's eyes kept closing, and Locke kept calling his name, but by the end, Xiao Wu no longer had the strength to answer. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

Locke wrote "several" on the battle report, omitting the specific number. But on the way back, as he sat beside Xiao Wu's body wrapped in white cloth, he placed his own ration of dry food on top of the shroud. It remained there, untouched by anyone, until they landed on the makeshift runway in Blackstone Town.

The chaos attention level dropped from sixty-eight to sixty-two. This ambush made Chaos realize one thing: the defenders of Blackstone Town would not just sit there and take a beating—they would take the initiative to attack. Lin Mo was in the Intelligence Center when he received the battle report. After reading Locke's report, he took a red pen and drew a small arrow next to Blackstone Town's location on the map of the Eastern Star Sector—pointing outward. The era of defense was beginning to transition into an era of offensive action.

*They look for weaknesses in the sky,*

*We dig traps on the ground.*

Lin Mo shifted his gaze away from the map and glanced out the window. Under the grayish-purple canopy of the sky, the chimneys of the Arsenal were still quietly emitting smoke. Every day he spent on this planet taught him the same lesson: in this universe, there are no permanent victories, only a defense that never slackens for a single day.

*—Locke's self-muttering while tallying spoils after the ambush battle*

---

He knew this was only the beginning. But the beginning itself was the best news.

When news of the ambush victory reached Blackstone Town, he was in the Intelligence Center reorganizing the map of the Eastern Star Sector. He stopped his pen when he heard Locke's voice over the communication channel and leaned back in his chair for a while. It wasn't relaxation—it was finally being able to confirm that his risky decision hadn't been wrong. He noted a few words next to that Asteroid Belt on the map: Available Ambush Coordinates. From then on, this route was included in Blackstone Town's tactical reserve.

While Locke was sitting in the transport bay counting ammunition on the way back, he remembered a moment during the battle: the reaction speed of the opposing Commander when the Chaos assault craft entered the ambush circle—it was about half a beat slower than he had expected. It wasn't a matter of capability—the Commander's attention had been distracted by something else before the battle even began. Locke etched this observation into his mind but did not write it into the report. He had learned one thing on the battlefield: the enemy's distraction is your best opportunity.

The moment the Chaos assault craft entered the ambush circle, Locke's finger stayed on the trigger for an extra second. It wasn't hesitation—it was confirming whether the opponent's flight speed matched the intelligence. Only after confirming it was correct did he order the fire. The hit rate of the first volley was nearly thirty percent higher than expected because he had delayed the firing time, allowing the Chaos Forces to penetrate further into the ambush circle.

After the battle, a recruit asked him why he had waited that extra second. Locke, squatting on the ground cleaning blood off his battle axe, said without looking up, "In war, it's not the one who fires first who wins—it's the one who fires at the right time." The recruit stood beside him in silence for a long time, then bent down to pick up a few dropped shell casings and put them into his ammunition pouch. He likely began to understand what Locke and Lin Mo had been teaching them—patience is scarcer than courage, and more valuable than courage.

The steam hammers of the Arsenal sent out rhythmic thuds in the distance. Each strike came at a fixed interval—thump—thump—thump—like a heart that wouldn't stop, pumping blood for the entire town. Lin Mo listened to that sound in the Intelligence Center, using it to calibrate the rhythm of his own breathing. He needed to ensure his judgment wouldn't grow dull from fatigue and that he wouldn't overlook those tiny, potentially fatal pieces of information due to the pressure of time.

Locke believed in one thing: there are no perfect plans on the battlefield, only perfect habits. Therefore, his way of training recruits wasn't to teach them how to execute tactics, but to make their bodies remember what to do even when they were so tired their brains stopped functioning. Changing magazines, crawling forward, judging cover—these actions had to be practiced until they could be performed without thinking. Because Chaos won't wait for you to be ready before attacking. They will appear at the moment you are most exhausted, most lax, and most want to give up. Locke had to ensure that when that moment came, everyone in Blackstone Town would have bodies that moved faster than their minds.

*—Self-Check System · Automatic Supplemental Recording*

The patrol brought back a strange old man. He claimed to be a retired combat medic from the Imperial Guard who had wandered the borders for many years before reaching Blackstone Town. He was missing two fingers on his right hand—which he said had been bitten off during a Chaos invasion decades ago. When he arrived, he carried only a worn-out medical bag; the instruments inside were long since rusted, but they were arranged with meticulous order.

Alice checked his medical knowledge—she asked three professional questions, and the old man answered two and a half. The half was because he remembered the diagnostic method but couldn't recall the exact drug ratios. Alice glanced at Lin Mo, and Lin Mo nodded.

"The medical station is short-handed," Alice said to the old man. "Report here tomorrow at five."

The old man didn't say thank you. He simply placed his worn medical bag at the entrance of the medical station, then walked inside and sat on a stool in the corner. His sitting posture was that of a standard combat medic on standby—hands on his knees, eyes observing everything around him. He hadn't been on an operating table in decades, but his body still remembered.

Old Tom had trial-manufactured a new pair of hemostatic forceps that afternoon—smaller and more precise than the Imperial standard. When he handed them to Alice, she used them to grip a piece of gauze, then turned them over to inspect the biting surface of the jaws. The serrations were finer and denser than any she had ever used. "Where did you learn this kind of precision?" she asked. Old Tom spat into his hands and rubbed them together: "Repaired clocks for forty years." Alice looked at him for a while and placed the forceps into her most frequently used tool kit. It was the first time she had placed a non-Imperial standard tool in that position.

That night, news of the ambush victory spread throughout Blackstone Town, and the townsfolk spontaneously lit bonfires in the square. Lin Mo stood on the steps of the Town Hall watching the square—he didn't go down. He wasn't used to such scenes, nor did he feel it was a time for celebration. The next battle wouldn't be late just because this one was won.

Alice saw him when she came out of the medical station. She walked over and stood beside him for a while. The light from the bonfires reflected from the square, making her profile flicker between light and shadow.

"Aren't you going down?"

"Not really."

"I didn't come here to tell you to go down, either."

She fished a peppermint out of her pocket and handed it to him. It was exactly like the one he had left at her door that night—she had kept a few, reluctant to finish them all.

Lin Mo took it, peeled the paper, and put it in his mouth. The coolness of the mint spread from the back of his tongue, feeling even colder in the chilly wind. He glanced at her—she was eating one too, her lips slightly pursed as if trying to keep the coolness from reaching her nose.

"You know," she said with the candy in her mouth, her voice slightly muffled, "when I was on the Imperial transport ship, I sometimes dreamed of someone giving me something. Not an order, not a mission—just... giving. Every time I woke up, I couldn't remember what was given."

"Do you remember now?"

She didn't answer. But she tilted her head and glanced at him, her ice-blue eyes no longer looking ice-blue in the light of the fire—they were a deeper color he couldn't name. Then she turned her gaze back to the flames in the square and spoke no more.

They stood side by side on the steps for a while. There was no need to say anything. In the distance, people were laughing, and Locke was by the fire telling the recruits stories of his hunting days when he was young. The wind blew some smoke from the bonfire over, then blew it away again.

*[To quell the waves, one wishes only to return wrapped in a horsehide shroud; why must a general return alive through the pass?]*

*—Li Yi, "Song of the Frontier". Memory fragment from the mirror of the emperor*