69: Chapter 69 The arc is moving; Old Tom finds a person in the data.

On the twentieth day of the plasma engine's stable operation, the sky over Blackstone Town seemed to brighten a little earlier.

The forging hammers in the Arsenal were louder than ever, each strike causing the ground to tremble slightly. The production line ran twenty-four hours a day without stopping, and brand-new laser gun batteries and armor plates flowed out of the workshop like water, piling up in the courtyard to bask in the sun. The lights on the training ground never dimmed, and the recruits' training volume had doubled, yet no one complained—they all remembered that blue-white light, remembered Captain Locke saying that someone was holding up the lamp over their heads in a place they couldn't see.

Old Tom had not left the data terminal for three days.

He locked himself in the innermost compartment of the workshop, with three old terminals dragged back from the orbital station running simultaneously, and green code flowing down the screens like a waterfall. Half-eaten oatmeal and empty water bottles were piled on the table, and the ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts. His eyes were bloodshot, his fingers typed rapidly on the keyboard, and his knuckles turned white from the force.

Ever since Lin Mo gave him the Ultramarines alloy plate and the permissions for the orbital station's database, he had become like this.

"Old Tom, take a break." Yang Shitou pushed the door open with a bowl of hot porridge. "You haven't closed your eyes for three days."

"Wait until I decrypt this layer." Old Tom didn't even lift his head, his fingers never stopping. "The Ultramarines hid something in the database. Not just that log. There's more."

"What's the rush?" Yang Shitou placed the porridge next to him. "The engine is already built, are you still afraid of what they might be hiding?"

Old Tom finally stopped. He turned to look at Yang Shitou, the bloodshot veins in his eyes looking like a spiderweb.

"You don't understand." He said. "That blue light didn't just light up our lamps. It lit up something else."

The alarm in the Intelligence Center blasted at 3:00 AM.

Marcus was guarding the control console, yawning as he stared at the real-time curve of the Chaos frequency band. For twenty days, the Chaos arc had maintained a stable contraction speed with no abnormalities. Everyone assumed that, at least for a month, Chaos would not launch a large-scale offensive.

Then, without warning, the curve jumped up by four decibels.

It wasn't a localized fluctuation. It was the entire arc, from the northern end to the southern end, jumping upward simultaneously.

"What the hell—"

Marcus lunged at the console, his fingers tapping rapidly on the keyboard. The backup system started automatically, running the data again. The result was exactly the same—the entire Chaos arc had contracted inward by a full day's travel in the past four hours. It wasn't gradual; it was a leap. It was as if an invisible hand had pushed Chaos from behind.

"This is impossible."

Marcus stared at the screen, sweat instantly breaking out on his forehead. The Chaos arc had never had such an anomaly. Previous contractions had been localized and slow, like a tide coming in bit by bit. But this time, the entire battle line was advancing simultaneously.

He grabbed the communicator and dialed Lin Mo's private line directly.

"Lord Lin Mo! The arc has moved! The entire arc! It contracted by a full day's travel at the same time!"

There was a three-second silence on the other end of the communicator.

"I'll be right there."

When Lin Mo arrived at the Intelligence Center, Marcus was pacing in front of the console with his arms crossed. On the screen, the red curve representing the boundary of Chaos erosion had moved significantly inward from its position twenty days ago.

"Has the data been verified?"

"Verified three times. Three different reconnaissance stations, the results are completely consistent." Marcus pointed to the curve on the screen. "Look here, and here. All the nodes jumped at the same time. It's not Chaos maneuvering troops; it's something on our side that attracted their attention."

Lin Mo's gaze fell on the middle section of the curve. There was a small protrusion there, which was the abandoned frontline base occupied by Operation Nail. Unlike the jump-like contraction of the entire arc, the position of this protrusion had barely moved.

"It's not our nail." Marcus looked where he was looking. "The signal strength at the nail is very stable. The anomaly is global. The entire Chaos boundary of Hope Star is contracting inward simultaneously."

Lin Mo didn't speak. He walked to the large map on the wall and traced the new position of the Chaos arc with his finger. Then, his fingertip stopped directly below Blackstone Town.

"It's underground."

"Underground?"

"The night the plasma engine was ignited, the mirror of the emperor detected energy fluctuations underground." Lin Mo's voice was calm. "The intensity was three times the usual. There was also a legion-level identification code of the Ultramarines."

Marcus's face turned pale instantly.

"You mean—Chaos sensed something underground?"

"Yes." Lin Mo turned around. "They aren't attacking. They are surrounding. They want to trap the thing underground, along with us, on this planet."

Just then, the communicator rang. It was Old Tom.

"Lord Lin Mo." Old Tom's voice carried an undisguisable weariness, and a trace of imperceptible tremor. "You need to come here immediately. I've decrypted the final layer."

"What did you find?"

"I found a person." Old Tom said. "In the data. A person who has lived for thirty thousand years."

When Lin Mo pushed open the door to Old Tom's workshop, he smelled a strong scent of smoke and coffee. All three data terminals were lit, and the largest screen in the middle displayed a blurry human face.

It wasn't a photo. It was a 3D model, composed of countless green code points, the outline still being constantly corrected.

"What is this?" Lin Mo walked to the screen.

"A hidden file in the Ultramarines database. It was encrypted with seven layers. It took me three days to crack it." Old Tom pointed to the face on the screen. "This is the station commander of the Seventh Observation Station. He is also the author of that personal log."

"What is his name?"

"No name. Only a codename." Old Tom tapped the keyboard, and a line of green text popped up on the screen: Watcher 007.

"Watcher?"

"Yes. Not an observer. A watcher." Old Tom tapped his fingers on the table, a habit when he was nervous. "The Seventh Observation Station wasn't built to observe the target's awakening. It was built to watch over the seal."

Lin Mo's pupils constricted slightly.

"A seal?"

"Yes." Old Tom tapped the keyboard again, and a complex structural diagram appeared on the screen. It looked like a massive underground labyrinth, with a spherical space at the center, surrounded by layers of alloy walls and energy barriers. "This is the complete blueprint of the underground structure. Thirty thousand years ago, the Ultramarines built a seal here. They locked a person inside."

"Who?"

Old Tom took a deep breath.

"An Ultramarine." He said. "A traitorous Ultramarine."

The 3D model on the screen finally finished. A young face appeared on the screen. He was wearing Ultramarines power armor, with his helmet tucked under his arm. His eyes were blue, as clear as the sky. There was a faint, almost imperceptible smile on the corners of his mouth.

"His name is Caelus." Old Tom's voice was very low. "Captain of the 13th Company of the Ultramarines Legion. During the Horus Heresy, he defected with his entire company to the side of Chaos. Then, just as the rebellion was about to succeed, he betrayed Chaos again, took something extremely important, and fled to Hope Star."

"What thing?"

"I don't know. There is no record in the database." Old Tom shook his head. "I only know that the emperor personally ordered the Ultramarines Legion to retrieve that item at all costs. Then, an elite force composed of one hundred Ultramarines pursued him to Hope Star."

"Did they catch him?"

"They did." Old Tom said. "But they didn't kill him. Nor did they take him back to Terra for trial. They built this seal here and locked him inside. Then, they left a Watcher responsible for guarding the seal."

Lin Mo stared at Caelus's face on the screen. The face was very young, looking no more than twenty years old. But he had been locked underground for thirty thousand years.

"The awakening progress mentioned in that log—"

"It's not him waking up. It's the seal loosening." Old Tom interrupted him. "The energy fluctuations from the plasma engine accelerated the decay of the seal. Now, the integrity of the seal is only at 66%. This is why the Chaos arc moved so suddenly—they sensed Caelus's aura. They are coming to take him back."

Lin Mo was silent. Only the humming of the data terminals remained in the compartment.

After a long time, he finally spoke.

"Why didn't those Ultramarines kill him back then?"

"I don't know." Old Tom said. "There is no record in the database. But I found the last log left by the Watcher. It was written one hundred years after the seal was built."

He tapped the keyboard. A line of green text appeared on the screen, the handwriting scribbled, as if written in extreme haste.

"The seal will never be opened. Unless—a mortal's light illuminates the darkness underground."

This sentence struck Lin Mo's heart like a lightning bolt.

"A mortal's light."

The blue-white light Old Tom lit in the corner of the Arsenal.

Thirty thousand years ago, that Watcher had already predicted today. He knew that one day, a mortal would light a light on this forgotten planet. And that light would become the key to opening the seal.

"There is one more thing." Old Tom's voice was even lower. "I found an automatic sending program at the very bottom of the database. The trigger condition set was when the seal integrity is below 70%."

"Send what?"

"A distress signal." Old Tom said. "A distress signal sent to the Ultramarines Legion. Twenty days ago, the moment the plasma engine ignited, this program automatically started. The signal has already been sent."

Lin Mo raised his head abruptly.

"What did you say?"

"The signal has already been sent." Old Tom repeated. "According to the speed of Warp communication, the Ultramarines' fleet will arrive at Hope Star in three months at the fastest, and half a year at the slowest."

There was a deathly silence in the compartment.

Chaos is surrounding. The seal is loosening. The Ultramarines are on their way.

Everything was erupting at the same time.

Lin Mo walked to the window and looked at the pitch-black night sky outside. The lights of the Arsenal were still on, and the lights on the training ground were also on. The entire Blackstone Town was immersed in a warm glow. No one knew that, thirty thousand meters beneath their feet, a traitor who had slept for thirty thousand years was about to wake up. No one knew that the emperor's angels of death were on their way.

They are coming. They will see Blackstone Town. See the plasma engine. See those mortals holding laser guns.

Then, they will do as they did thirty thousand years ago. Complete their mission. And leave.

They won't even look down at the mortals struggling beneath their feet.

"Lord Lin Mo." Old Tom's voice came from behind. "What do we do now?"

Lin Mo turned around. There was no expression on his face.

"Where is Locke?"

"At the frontline base. Reinforcing the fortifications with the men."

"Call him back." Lin Mo said. "Tell him to pick twenty of the most elite veterans. Tomorrow morning, come with me underground."

"You want to go to the seal?"

"Yes." Lin Mo nodded. "Before Chaos and the Ultramarines arrive, we must first figure out what exactly Caelus took away. And—why those Ultramarines didn't kill him thirty thousand years ago."

Old Tom looked at him. After a long time, he nodded.

"I'm going with you."

"No." Lin Mo said. "You need to stay behind. To oversee production at the Arsenal. If we don't come back—"

"There are no ifs." Old Tom interrupted him. "That light was lit by me. The key was inserted by me. I must go and pull it out."

He took a hammer out from under the table. It was the hammer he had used his whole life, the head already worn shiny.

"Although I'm just a blacksmith." He said. "I also know that the trouble I caused, I must solve myself."

The next morning.

Just as the sky was beginning to brighten, Locke returned from the frontline base with twenty veterans. Each of them carried a full load of equipment, with no expression on their faces. When Lin Mo told them they were going deep underground, not one person flinched.

"I'll take ten veterans to go in front." Locke carried his battle axe on his shoulder. "Old Tom will follow in the middle. Lord Lin Mo, you cover the rear."

"No." Lin Mo said. "I'll go in front. I have the mirror of the emperor and can sense danger."

Locke looked at him. He didn't argue.

"Fine."

Thirty people gathered at the entrance of Blackstone Town. The sun had just risen above the horizon, golden sunlight spilling onto them, stretching their shadows long. The forging hammers of the Arsenal were already ringing, and the slogans of the recruits could be heard from the training ground.

No one knew where they were going. No one knew if they would be able to return.

Lin Mo took one last look at Blackstone Town. Then, he turned and walked towards the mine.

Locke and Old Tom followed behind him. Twenty veterans, lined up in a neat row, followed silently.

Beneath their feet was the land of Hope Star.

Above their heads was a mortal's light.

And thirty thousand meters beneath their feet.

A door that had been closed for thirty thousand years.

Was slowly opening.

"The moon of Qin, the pass of Han, the long march of ten thousand miles, the men have not returned. If only the Flying General of Dragon City were here, never to let the Hu horses cross the Yin Mountains."

— Wang Changling, "Out of the Frontier". The memory fragments sealed in the mirror of the emperor surfaced quietly in the first ray of dawn.

Thirty thousand years ago, the Ultramarines left a seal here.

Thirty thousand years later, a mortal lit a light here.

Now, they were going to see for themselves what exactly that light had illuminated.