79: Chapter 79 The Sky Falls, the Astral Knight Transport Ship is Shot Down by Chaos

The sky was torn open by force.

It wasn't thunder—the atmosphere of Hope Star never had thunderstorms.

It was the screech of supersonic metal structures being torn apart, sharp enough to scrape against eardrums and drill through every tightly closed window in Blackstone Town.

The flagpole in the square hummed incessantly from the shockwave, the steam hammers in the Arsenal suddenly fell silent, and Old Tom dropped his hammer and rushed out.

"What's that noise—" He roared at the empty courtyard, but no one answered.

Overhead, the sky remained a grayish-purple, but the horizon in the southwest was changing color.

Yang Shitou was the first to see the rift.

He was crouching in front of the receiver module at the relay station, clutching a screwdriver, struggling with a set of Imperial military amplifiers salvaged from the relics of Cassius—this was already the third morning; every time he connected them, the fuse would blow, and when he took them apart, he couldn't find any faults.

The circuit logic of Imperial military engineering clashed with the civilian principles he had taught himself in Riverbend Town, and every solder joint seemed to be working against him.

Just as he turned the screwdriver for the third time, the corner of his eye caught a strange color appearing on the southwestern horizon.

For four years, he had been accustomed to the grayish-purple sky and the rust-colored sunset, but this purple-black rift had never existed before—like a wound cut into the sky by an invisible blade, its edges roiling with the purple-black halo unique to the Warp.

"Holy shit—" Yang Shitou sprang up violently, the screwdriver hitting the stone floor and bouncing twice. "The sky is tearing! The sky is fucking tearing!"

The communicator at his waist slipped, but he caught it, his fingers pressing hard three times before hitting the send button.

"Square! Square! A rift has opened in the sky to the south—something is crashing down from it!"

People in the square looked up, some froze, and some instinctively backed away.

Yang Shitou didn't think shouting once was enough; he rushed out of the signal station, stood on the steps, and roared at the top of his lungs: "Don't just stand there! Wherever that thing hits will be a giant crater—everyone look to the southwest!"

Lin Mo heard the shout in the Intelligence Center, not through the communicator, but because Yang Shitou's voice had carried across the entire town.

He pushed the window open, and half the people in Blackstone Town were looking up at the sky.

That purple-black rift had expanded to span the entire sky.

In the center of the rift, a massive metal warship was falling—it wasn't in freefall; the ship's engines were still spewing unstable blue exhaust, attempting to force itself to stabilize.

But the hull was already severely tilted, the right engine billowing with thick black smoke, and three purple-black psychic tentacles extended from the rift, tightly coiled around the hull like a predator strangling its prey.

The screeching of the engines pierced the sky of the entire planet, and the smell of scorched metal began to fill the air.

Lin Mo only watched for three seconds.

During his time as a product manager, he had conducted user behavior analysis for air crash emergency responses, and those data points were now rapidly processing in his mind in a different way: trajectory prediction, debris scatter radius, and casualty pattern probability distribution.

He grabbed the communicator.

"Locke! Thirty degrees south latitude—"

"We're already assembling!" Locke's voice exploded from the communicator, with the background noise of chaotic footsteps and clashing metal. "Yang Shitou's shout was three seconds faster than your communicator!"

"How many people are you taking?"

"Everyone who can move! Twenty-three... no, wait, Wang Defu just ran over, twenty-four!"

"Bring cutting tools, medical supplies, and firefighting equipment. We set off in five minutes; the crash site is at least forty kilometers from town, and we must arrive before the wreckage cools."

"Understood!"

When Lin Mo rushed out of the Intelligence Center, the square was in a state of orderly chaos.

Locke was shouting, organizing the teams, his voice as coarse as sandpaper grinding on sheet metal: "First team, follow me to clear the path! Second team, go with Old Tom and carry the cutting tools! Third team, move the medical supplies!"

"Locke!" Aunt Zhang poked her head out from the doorway of the mess hall. "I've got two girls loading bandages and fresh water—how much do you need?"

"Load as much as there is!" Locke didn't even look back. "This is an Astral Knights ship—there won't be any fewer wounded on board than we have in our town!"

Old Tom was leading people moving hydraulic shears and crowbars out of the Arsenal, carrying a pair of hydraulic shears in each hand, his graying beard stuck to his chin by sweat.

He roared at two young militiamen: "Support the bottom with your hands! Support the bottom! These are hydraulic shears, not fire pokers—if the piston gets bent, are you going to chew through the hatch with your teeth?"

"Old Tom, should we take this winch?" A militiaman stumbled out of the warehouse, dragging a steam winch.

"Take it! The wheels will sink in the swamp; bring two steel rails to use as a base—wait."

Old Tom walked over quickly and crouched down, lifting the gearbox cover to check the lubricating oil level, his brow furrowing. "Not enough oil. Yang Shitou, run to the Arsenal and get that can of hydraulic oil on the third shelf. Run, don't walk!"

"Which can on the third shelf? The iron one or the ceramic one?"

"The ceramic one! The iron can has waste oil; if you pour that in, the winch will be ruined instantly—" Old Tom waved his hand. "Go!"

Aunt Zhang's mess hall crew was loading bandages and fresh water onto the cart—one bucket, two buckets, three buckets. She counted in a very soft voice, as if afraid that if she miscounted, one fewer person would be saved.

"Don't fill the third bucket—eighty percent is enough, make room for the hemostatic powder."

"Aunt Zhang, how much hemostatic powder should we bring?" A young girl ran over, holding two ceramic jars.

"Bring both jars. Don't drop them; if you drop them, you're not coming."

Wang Defu squeezed out of the crowd, carrying a coil of rope on his shoulder, with the military short blade he had brought back from his retirement from the Imperial Guard tucked at his waist—the knife had been with him for over thirty years, and the hemp rope on the handle had been replaced countless times.

He walked up to Locke, his voice not loud but as steady as if it were nailed to the ground.

"Forty kilometers of swamp road; the cart will sink halfway there. My suggestion is to split the fresh water and bandages into four parts for four people to carry, and use the cart only for the winch and hydraulic shears."

Locke looked at him. "You've walked it?"

"Thirty years ago in the Imperial Guard, I walked roads worse than this." Wang Defu shifted the rope to his other shoulder. "The mud in that swamp eats people without spitting out the bones—it looks flat, but if you step on it, you can sink to your knees."

"Do as you say." Locke turned and shouted at Aunt Zhang. "Aunt Zhang! Have people carry the water and bandages; clear the cart for the heavy gear!"

"Alright!" Aunt Zhang had already started unloading the water buckets. "Aunt Zhang—is that rope of yours strong enough to tie down the winch?"

"Standard Imperial Guard climbing rope; one coil can tow a mortar."

"That's enough."

Alice came out of the Medical Station carrying a first-aid kit, her long silver-white hair not yet tied up, scattering like shards of silver as she ran.

She only glanced at Lin Mo, without pausing, without unnecessary questions, her eyes conveying only one meaning: I'm going with you.

"What's in the first-aid kit?" Lin Mo asked.

"Six hemostats, twelve suturing needles, three jars of antibiotic ointment, four bags of blood plasma substitutes." She tied her hair while running, her movements as deft as if she had done it a thousand times. "It's not enough—if there are more than five critically wounded in the wreckage, the plasma substitutes won't be enough."

"Aunt Zhang is bringing fresh water and bandages; use physical hemostasis first, and save the plasma for the most critically wounded."

"I don't need you to teach me triage." She glanced at him, her tone cold, but her eyes held no hostility, only intense focus. "You clear the path, the wounded are mine."

"One last question."

"Speak."

"Your psychic abilities—if there is residual Chaos corruption in the wreckage—"

"I won't lose control." She interrupted him, her voice suddenly lower, as if speaking to herself. "In the fourth year of training for the Astral Knights, the instructor locked us in a Chaos corruption simulation chamber for seventy hours. I didn't vomit, didn't cry, and didn't kneel."

She slung the first-aid kit over her shoulder, turned, and took a step toward the assembly point, then stopped without turning back. "But after I came out, I took three showers, all in cold water."

Lin Mo didn't speak, watching her back as she walked toward the assembly point—her movements in tying her hair were twice as fast as usual.

Just as he ran to the assembly point, the golden light at the edge of his vision exploded without warning.

Unlike the fleeting fragments of the past, this was a complete frame, like an oil painting forced into his mind: in the cockpit, a woman with silver-white hair was trapped tightly in her seat by the seatbelt, blood from her forehead flowing down her brow bone, over her eyelids, and dripping onto her chin.

Her ice-blue eyes were still open, but her pupils were already beginning to dilate.

The moment the image vanished, Lin Mo stumbled, nearly crashing into the flagpole in the square.

He steadied himself, his palms covered in cold sweat.

"What's wrong with you?" Locke grabbed his arm. "Your face—"

"mirror of the emperor." Lin Mo's voice was very low, audible only to the two of them. "It gave me a vision. There's a woman in the cockpit, silver-white hair, head injury, still alive."

"What's her identity?"

"Same as Alice, an Astral Knight. My intuition tells me she's not an ordinary medical officer."

Lin Mo looked up at Locke. "The mirror of the emperor never gives me a complete vision at unimportant times. The last time was discovering the metal wall; the material of the door in the vision was harder than any alloy known to the Empire. This time, the probability of this woman being alive is far higher than her being dead—its prophecies are not metaphysics, but a probability calculation of timeline branches, and it always provides the line with the highest probability."

"So you trust it."

"I trust probability." Lin Mo took a deep breath. "Move out!"

That shout was hoarser than he had expected.

The search team arrived at the crash site forty-five minutes later.

No one spoke along the way, not because of discipline, but because everyone was gasping for breath.

The swamp road was just as difficult to walk as it had been during his time in the Imperial Guard; the mud was knee-deep in the lowest points, and the person clearing the path had to turn around and pull the teammate behind them with every step.

"There's fire ahead—" the militiaman in the lead shouted.

"Go around it, don't step on the burned mud." Wang Defu's voice came from the middle of the group. "The crust of burned mud is hollow underneath; if you step through it, you'll sink in completely."

There was no need for navigation.

When the ship crashed, it had plowed a furrow over two hundred meters long on the edge of the southern hemisphere swamp, with scorched earth and shattered metal debris covering the entire path, as if the earth had been sliced open across its chest by a giant plow.

The shrubs and low-lying ferns along the way had been uprooted by the shockwave, and several fallen tree trunks were still burning, the orange flames stinging the eyes under the grayish-purple sky.

The main body of the ship finally came to a rest in a shallow swamp. The right wing was completely broken, and the left wing was bent at an impossible angle—most of the rivets had been torn out, emitting the low, distinct hum of metal fatigue.

Two of the three engines had gone out, and the last one was still intermittently spewing blue pulses, unstable, like the heart of a dying person making its final struggle.

"Don't move—" Locke raised a hand, his voice overriding the pulsing sound of the engines. "The engines haven't completely shut down; if they explode, no one in front will escape!"

"Spread out to the east and west sides, maintain a twenty-meter distance." Lin Mo crouched down, his fingertips touching the water's surface at the edge of the swamp—a thin film of oil shimmered with iridescent colors in the setting sun. "Wang Defu, go to the east side and see what's leaking."

Wang Defu had already walked to the east side of the hull, bending down to check the traces on the ground.

He crouched down, dipped a finger into some liquid, brought it to his nose to smell, and then rubbed his fingers together.

"Archon! It's leaking engine hydraulic oil, not fuel!" He straightened up, his voice carrying from afar. "Hydraulic oil has a sour smell, fuel doesn't. I spent three years in the Imperial Guard repairing Chimera armored vehicles; I'll never forget this smell."

"What about the fuel tank?"

"I don't see any rupture—at least not on the east side. The oil film is residual liquid leaking from the engine."

"The fuel tank isn't ruptured... which means the engine was already leaking oil before it crashed." Lin Mo stood up and wiped his fingers clean on his trousers. "This ship wasn't shot down; it was being chased and attacked the whole way."

"Old Tom, come look at this." Locke was standing in front of the right wing wreckage, his voice suddenly lowering.

That tone was one Lin Mo rarely heard; it wasn't alertness, but rather something closer to a solemnity bordering on awe.

Old Tom walked over and crouched beside Locke.

The blue paint on the right wing had been torn into irregular fragments by the impact and high heat, revealing the silver-gray base metal.

But under a piece of paint that hadn't yet peeled off, an emblem was clearly visible—a long sword piercing a star, outlined with gold thread. Even after enduring high heat and impact, that gold thread was still as bright as a steel bar just pulled from a forge.

"Astral Knights." Locke's voice was low, yet everyone could hear him. "Last year, Caine Augustus—that two-meter-two Space Marine—showed me this emblem. Blue power armor, gold pauldrons, a sword piercing a star. He talked for an entire afternoon, and I didn't remember everything, but I can't forget the look of this heraldry."

"What's the deal with the Astral Knights?" a young militiaman asked in a low voice.

"You don't even know the Astral Knights?" Another militiaman patted his shoulder. "They're one of the oldest Space Marine chapters in the Empire. During the Horus Heresy, a single company held off the successive assaults of three traitor legions. I heard that the blue paint on their power armor is mixed with alloy powder left over from the Golden Age—the Empire can't make that anymore."

Old Tom didn't respond, his gaze pinned to that emblem. His hands, having forged iron for a lifetime, suddenly clenched, knuckles turning white. It took several seconds before he spoke, his voice much deeper than usual.

"When I was a blacksmith's apprentice, my master told me something. He said the Astral Knights' blue power armor was made using the last batch of refined alloys from humanity's Golden Age. The quenching temperature of that alloy was a thousand degrees higher than any steel the Empire can forge now." He touched the blue paint extremely lightly with his fingertip. "I've always wanted to see with my own eyes what this blue really looks like."

"You've seen it, so what now?" Locke asked.

"And then I discovered—" Old Tom stood up and brushed the mud off his knees. "It really can withstand being burned better than any blue I've ever seen. It's not about looking good; it's about being tough."

Lin Mo stood by the swamp, looking toward the ship's hull, the golden image in his mind flashing once more. He confirmed one thing: the woman with the long silver-white hair was inside this ship.

He turned and scanned the rescue team—twenty-four people, two hydraulic shears, one steam winch, six first-aid kits, four buckets of fresh water, twenty-four rations—all people he had brought out from Blackstone Town. He swept his gaze over every face: Locke stood at the front of the team, carrying the hydraulic shears, his expression composed—that composure wasn't a lack of fear, but a steadiness forged from fighting too many battles; Old Tom crouched beside the toolbox, his hands, looking like gnarled tree roots, already disengaging the safety catch on the hydraulic shears; Aunt Zhang placed the water bucket on the cart and was stuffing extra bandages into her pocket, pursing her lips with every roll she tucked in; Wang Defu stood at the rear of the team, his military dagger already drawn, the blade reflecting the last rust-colored glimmer of the setting sun—he had seen plane crashes before and knew there might be unexploded ordnance in the wreckage, or even more dangerous things. The faces of the few new recruits from Riverbend Town were still raw, but there was no fear in their eyes—over the past two years, they had experienced things worse than a plane crash.

"Listen up, everyone." Lin Mo turned to face the group. "The hatch might be jammed. There might be survivors or corpses inside the wreckage, or there might be nothing at all. I'll go in first to check the situation, and Locke will bring the second team in behind me. Without my signal—"

"Wait." Wang Defu spoke up suddenly. "Archon, let's settle one thing before you go in."

"Speak."

"If your communication cuts off after you go in, and a situation arises outside that requires a full evacuation—what should we do?"

Lin Mo glanced at him. This was a seasoned question—Wang Defu wasn't asking for a rescue plan; he was performing damage control.

"Three short whistles, blown twice in succession. Everyone is to retreat immediately to the high ground on the east side of the swamp," Lin Mo said. "If I haven't come out after the whistles finish, do not come back. Locke, lead the team back to Blackstone Town."

"I'm not—" Locke was about to protest.

"Locke." Lin Mo looked at him, his voice not loud, but every word like a nail driven into the ground. "You are the militia captain. Your responsibility is to bring these people back alive. The business inside is mine; the business outside is yours. Is that clear?"

"Clear." Twenty-three voices rang out, not quite in unison, but firm enough.

"Wang Defu, you keep an eye on the engine. If it sprays blue fire again, you yell, and everyone runs east."

"Understood."

Lin Mo read the same thing on every face: they trusted him. Not because of his title as Archon, but because every single time, he stepped into the swamp with them, moved wreckage with them, and stood in the mud until dark with them. In his days as a product manager, he had never felt this. Back then, his decisions affected user retention rates; here, his decisions determined whether these people could walk back to the plaza alive after dark.

The hatch was jammed by the deformed metal frame.

Old Tom crouched in front of the hatch for three seconds, his fingertips tracing the door gap.

"The hinge deformation is worse than it looks—" He looked up, his fingers still pressed against the gap. "The door frame has been pushed inward by at least four centimeters. The hydraulic shears need to cut from the base of the hinges, not the middle—the stress in the middle is too high, and the blade will snap."

"How long will it take?" Locke asked.

"Don't rush me."

"I'm not rushing you."

"Your foot is tapping." Old Tom didn't even look up. "Every time you tap your foot, you're rushing me."

Locke looked down at his right foot, which was tapping incessantly, and stopped it immediately. "Old Tom—tell me the truth, how hard is this door to open?"

"No harder than cracking that orc chieftain's skull back in the day." Old Tom finally looked up at him. "But it won't fight back, so don't be impatient."

The corner of Locke's mouth twitched rapidly—not a smile, but a muscular reaction he couldn't control after being called out. He crouched down and braced the bottom edge of the hatch with the back of his laser axe.

"First hinge—cut. I'll brace the door frame," he said. "You direct, I'll hold it, and those two will do the cutting."

"Alright." Old Tom nodded. "Remember, when you cut the second one, the door will sink; don't let up on the axe head."

"When have I ever let up?"

"Last time we moved that steam boiler."

"That boiler was three times heavier than this door—"

"Which is why you didn't let up." Old Tom smiled—this was the first time he had smiled during the entire rescue, and the only time. "Enough talk, let's begin."

Two militiamen took turns operating the hydraulic shears, while Old Tom watched the angle of the blade from the side. When they cut the second hinge, the blade slipped once. Old Tom reached out and pressed directly onto the blade, stabilizing it before the militiamen could even react.

"Don't rush. Rushing leads to slipping, and slipping leads to breaking the blade—" Veins bulged on the back of his hands, but his voice was as steady as if he were teaching an apprentice how to forge iron. "There are only two pairs of these shears in all of Blackstone Town. If this one breaks, the other is still on the rack at the Arsenal, and that's a half-hour round trip. Take it slow."

"Old Tom, your hands—"

"My hands are older than you are; they know when to pull back and when to brace. Continue."

It took a full ten minutes for the third hinge to be cut. The moment the hatch was pried open, a wave of heat mixed with the smell of burnt wires, blood, and pungent coolant rushed out, causing the few people in front of the door to step back in unison.

"Alice, give me a flashlight," Lin Mo said.

Alice took a spare flashlight from the first-aid kit and handed it to him. Her fingertips brushed the back of his hand—it was ice-cold, but not because of the temperature.

"If there's anyone inside, check their neck injuries first," she said. "If there's a spinal injury, stabilize it first; don't move them forcefully. Moving them the wrong way could mean a lifetime of consequences."

"You taught me that. Lesson three."

"I haven't forgotten," she said. "I was afraid you might have."

"I won't." Lin Mo clipped the flashlight to his shoulder strap, freeing up both hands. "Be ready outside. The first person I find—"

"Bring them to me, I know." Alice paused, her ice-blue eyes flashing behind the heat wave. "Lin Mo—once you go in, if the mirror of the emperor gives you a vision again, no matter what it is, don't try to force your way through it. The vision will pin you for three to five seconds. In the wreckage, three seconds is enough for you to miss a step."

"You've been observing me?"

"I saw you that time you almost ran into the flagpole in the plaza." Her tone returned to its usual coldness, but the end of the sentence came faster than any of the others, like a hand recoiling the moment it touched boiling water. "Hurry in. The hatch is open; the heat wave will exhaust the air inside."

Lin Mo bent down and crawled into the tilted cabin. It was pitch black inside, with only broken cables occasionally sparking blue, providing brief moments of illumination. He turned on the flashlight, the beam sweeping over overturned seats, shattered instrument panels, and medical supplies scattered all over the floor—this was a medical transport ship, not a warship. The cabin was tilted at more than thirty degrees; he had to hold onto the bulkhead with every step to keep his balance.

"What's the situation inside the cabin?" Locke's voice came through the communicator.

"The corridor is intact, no collapse. There are purple-black scorch marks on the bulkhead—they weren't caused by impact, but are residues of Chaos psychic weapons." He walked through the corridor, every spot touched by his flashlight confirming his judgment. "This ship was already attacked before it crashed; it took at least three hits before it started to go down."

"It could still maintain its attitude after three hits?"

"The pilot was skilled. Extremely skilled."

The flashlight swept over an overturned first-aid kit, with scalpels and suture needles scattered all over the floor, glinting coldly in the intermittent sparks. He walked around it and stepped on something soft—looking down, it was a medical glove stained with blood that hadn't yet dried.

"The blood hasn't dried yet; the crash happened less than two hours ago," he said into the communicator.

"What does that mean?" Locke's voice came back.

"It means the Chaos pursuers might not be far away either. Everyone outside, stay alert. Locke, have Wang Defu keep his eyes on the sky, not just the engine."

"Understood."

The cockpit hatch had been half-blown away. The crack was very narrow, as if it had been blown open by a directional charge from the inside—someone had tried to escape, but the explosives weren't enough, creating only a slit. He squeezed through the crack sideways, his shoulder brushing off two pieces of loose metal debris.

When the flashlight beam swept to the rear seats of the cockpit, his breathing stopped abruptly.

A woman was strapped into the seat by her seatbelt. Her long, silver-white hair was splayed over her shoulders, and blood from her forehead trickled down her brow bone to her chin—it was exactly the same as the image in his mind. Every detail matched: the trajectory of the blood, the angle at which her hair was splayed, the faint reflection of the ice-blue eyes in the flashlight beam.

Her eyes were open.

Lin Mo stepped back half a pace, not out of fear, but because he needed to suppress his suddenly accelerating heartbeat. His product manager's instinct allowed him to suppress his emotions and prioritize observation: her breathing was steady, her chest rising and falling rhythmically, and her only external injury was the impact wound on her forehead; there were no penetrating injuries. He stepped forward and reached his fingertips toward her carotid artery.

It was still beating. Steady. Slower than normal, but not the slow, thready pulse of shock—it was more like some kind of deep physiological hibernation.

"I've found her," he said into the communicator. "Cockpit, one female survivor, impact wound on the forehead, breathing steady, pulse stable. Locke, take the second team to check the cargo hold and tail section—watch out for the Chaos psychic residue on the bulkheads; don't touch the purple-black marks with your hands, use a stick to clear them."

"Received." Locke's voice paused for a moment. "Lin Mo—is it the woman you saw?"

"It's her. Exactly the same."

There was silence on the other end of the communication for two seconds. Then Locke's voice sounded again, half a degree lower than before: "Then it's not a coincidence. Be careful."

Lin Mo took out his folding knife and cut the seatbelt. The woman's body slid slightly the moment she was released, and he reached out to support her. His movements were very light, as if he were dismantling a precision instrument—the habit of a product manager analyzing user feedback data, which he applied to everything that required caution. She didn't react; her breathing remained steady throughout. He checked her pupils; they reacted normally to light and were not dilated. The only external injury was the impact wound on her forehead; the bone shouldn't be broken, but the blood loss was significant. He used his personal bandages to stop her bleeding, and as he wrapped the bandages, his fingertips brushed against her hair—that silver-white wasn't dyed; from root to tip, it carried a faint metallic luster.

"Who are you?" he whispered, more as if asking himself. Then he picked the woman up and walked out of the cockpit.

Passing through the corridor, the flashlight swept over an intact holographic screen. The screen was still running in a low-power energy-saving mode, scrolling with the ship's hull number and crew manifest. Lines of high gothic scrolled by; he stopped and mapped those letters into his mind one by one. Behind the final name was marked—

Lieutenant Alice Vian, Astral Knights Regimental Psyker Medical Officer, rank: Lieutenant.

He repeated the name twice in his mind. Lieutenant Alice Vian.

When he had previously opened the secret letter from Terra left by Cassius, the encrypted notification on the back mentioned a transfer of Astral Knights medical officers, but a name starting with 'A' on the list had been half-blurred by water.

At the time, he hadn't connected those letters to anyone, but now, it all clicked perfectly.

The light outside the cabin had brightened significantly.

Locke froze when he saw him emerge from the wreckage carrying someone, his hydraulic shears nearly slipping from his hands.

"Is she still alive?"

"She is." Lin Mo looked down at the person in his arms. "She was the only one in the cockpit; the others might be in the rear cabin."

"We found two in the cargo hold, both alive. One has a broken leg, the other has their chest pinned by a pipe—Old Tom is cutting the pipe now."

Locke's gaze landed on that silver hair—the strands were stained with blood, yet the chest was still rising and falling steadily. "Her hair... it's the same color as Alice's."

"I noticed."

"It's not a coincidence, is it?"

"No." Lin Mo didn't say anything more. "What's the situation in the tail cabin?"

"The bulkhead collapsed. The third team is clearing it, but it might not be possible to clear."

"Keep clearing it. Notify Wang Defu: has the engine pulse frequency changed?"

Locke asked over the comms, and Wang Defu's voice quickly returned: "The frequency is dropping, from four times a minute down to two—it's not about to explode, it's dying out. The engine can't hold on much longer."

"Keep an eye on it," Lin Mo said. "Don't let your guard down even if it cuts out—sometimes fuel lines only rupture after the engine dies."

Locke turned and walked a few steps, then turned back to add: "Take her to the temporary Medical Station over there. Alice—"

"I know."

"I'm not giving directions." Locke paused, a rare flicker of hesitation crossing his bearded face. "Her rank... according to Imperial military regulations, Astral Knights medical officers outrank us. We have to listen to her."

"She doesn't look like she's here to give orders."

"How do you know?"

Lin Mo looked down at the unconscious woman in his arms. "People who give orders wouldn't use their own bodies to shield against a crash. She was sitting in the back row of the cockpit—that's the position with the highest mortality rate during a crash. She was protecting something."

Locke said nothing more and turned back to the wreckage.

Lin Mo carried the survivor across the swamp.

The mud beneath his feet had a heavy, suction-like grip with every step, as if the planet were weighing the person in his arms.

When he finally stepped out of the swamp, he saw the Psyker medical officer setting up the temporary Medical Station—her hair was tied back, the first-aid kit was spread out on the ground, and hemostats were lined up in her hands, orderly and methodical.

She looked up and saw the person in his arms.

Then, she put down the hemostat she had been halfway through placing.

The same silver-white hair, the same Astral Knights insignia—he noticed she was wearing that black military undershirt she rarely wore, and pinned to the collar was that silver badge she had mentioned to him countless times, the one he wanted to melt down for parts.

She stood up from the ground, her movements not as fluid as usual; her knee seemed to catch on something, slowing her down by a beat.

She walked over quickly, and the moment she saw her colleague's face, she spoke her first words.

"She is a Deputy Medical Officer from the medical ship. We—" Her voice faltered, dry and tight. "We trained in the same cohort."

"Do you know her name?"

"Vian." Alice picked up the hemostat, her fingers tightening on the handle. "Lieutenant Alice Vian. Deputy Medical Officer of the Astral Knights Third Medical Squadron, rank of Lieutenant. Fourth-level Psyker—one level lower than me, but her diagnostic scores were the best in the entire fleet."

She placed the hemostat on the gauze tray, her movements half a beat slower than usual. "She saved me once during training. There was an accident during a simulation, and a piece of shrapnel embedded itself two centimeters below my left scapula. She pulled it out with her bare hands through a psychic barrier. When she pulled it out, her hand was burned by the psychic backlash, stripping away a layer of skin, and our blood mixed together."

"So you today—"

"I had to come today." Alice didn't look up. "I owe her a life, and today marks exactly three years."

Lin Mo placed the wounded woman on the stretcher.

Alice crouched down, pressing her fingertips to the carotid artery to check the pulse, lifting the eyelids to check the pupils, and then gently probing the bone structure along the edge of the wound on the forehead.

Every movement was precise, swift, and without a shred of excess—yet Lin Mo noticed that when she probed the wound, her little finger twitched extremely quickly. It was only for an instant.

"The wound was treated well." She didn't look up. "Did you do it?"

"I stopped the bleeding."

"The bandage is well-tied, the pressure is just right."

She finally looked up at Lin Mo, her eyes holding something indescribable, somewhere between scrutiny and confirmation. "Any aftereffects?"

"What?"

"You carried her the whole way—didn't it trigger anything?"

"No. She hasn't woken up."

"I'm not talking about her." Alice stared into his eyes for two seconds. "I'm talking about you. You carried a person out of the cockpit; didn't the mirror of the emperor give you any new visions?"

Lin Mo understood. This was what she was asking about.

"Not after I entered the wreckage, but before I went in, yes."

"What was the content?"

"Her appearance. Exactly the same. Every detail—the path of the blood flowing from her brow bone to her chin, the angle at which her hair was spread, the reflection of light in her pupils." Lin Mo looked at the unconscious woman on the stretcher. "The mirror of the emperor wouldn't provide a complete vision for an ordinary survivor; I know that."

"As long as you know." Alice stood up, her gaze shifting from the stretcher to his face. "Then what do you intend to do?"

"Wait for her to wake up." Lin Mo said. "Then ask her—why she was being pursued, what the ship was transporting, why she was the only one left in the cockpit, and why her eyes were still open."

Alice was silent for a moment.

She turned to look at the purple-black rift still slowly writhing in the sky—it had shrunk, but it hadn't closed, like a pair of half-lidded eyes, still watching a corner of this planet.

She then turned back and straightened her posture.

"Are you the person in charge here?"

"Lin Mo. Archon of Hope Star."

She looked at him with that scrutinizing gaze for another two seconds.

Just then, the militiamen by the swamp brought out the third survivor—the one with the broken leg. Old Tom walked alongside the stretcher, cursing the whole way: "I told you not to use brute force! With the leg bone shattered like this, if you don't carry them right, the bone shards will pierce the blood vessels, and they'll be dead by the time they reach the Medical Station—support the knee! Not the ankle! The knee!"

"Lin Mo." Alice withdrew her gaze and looked at him again. "Archon, I have only one question. Think carefully before you answer—you are speaking to an Astral Knights medical officer, not a Hope Star militiaman, not your subordinate. You are speaking to a Psyker who is loyal to the emperor, but never subservient to any Planetary Governor."

She paused. "I want to know, how much do you understand about the psychic fluctuation frequency of the mine in your hands?"

He opened his mouth.

The golden light at the edge of his vision flashed out first—this time there was no vision, only an intense intuition, cold as ice water poured down his spine, chilling him from the back of his head to his tailbone: in this woman's blood, there was the scent of the key he had been searching for all along.

It wasn't a lock; it was a key. It wasn't that he was trying to open something, but that something was trying to open him through her.

She was the key. And the silver-haired woman on the stretcher was the one who had brought the key.

He closed his mouth, swallowing the words he hadn't spoken.

Then he looked into Alice's eyes—those ice-blue eyes, refracted by the flashlight and the sky's light, suddenly seemed much deeper than usual.

"Not very much." He said. "But I can learn."

"Learn?" Her lips moved slightly, not a smile, but like a hairline crack forming on an ice sheet. "You, someone who hasn't even been assessed for a psychic level, telling me you can learn while facing a mine with psychic anomalies that the entire Empire can't find a second of?"

"I learn fast."

"How fast?"

"Four years ago, when I first arrived on this planet, I couldn't even make a gunpowder rifle." Lin Mo looked into her eyes, his voice steady. "Now, the Blackstone Town Arsenal can produce twenty a month. Everything I've said I would learn, I have achieved."

Alice didn't respond immediately.

She looked down at the hemostat in her hands, the metal tip still stained with the blood from the Deputy Medical Officer's forehead.

Then she placed the forceps into the sterilization tray, her movements very gentle, as if afraid of waking the person on the stretcher.

"I'm going to treat the next wounded person." She said. "What you just said—when the rescue is over, I want you to say the third-to-last sentence again."

"Which one?"

"'I learn fast'." She turned around, her silver hair sweeping across her shoulder. "Next time you say it, I want you to add a specific number."

As twilight fell, the purple-black rift in the sky finally stopped expanding.

It hung in the southwestern sky, the purple light at its edges flickering weakly, as if breathing, or perhaps waiting for something.

The surface of the swamp returned to calm, the thin oil film shimmering with iridescence under the last of the daylight, spreading slowly and silently.

The militiamen by the wreckage were still clearing the tail cabin, the sound of Old Tom's hydraulic shears interweaving with the creaking of the steam winch.

"The third bulkhead plate—" Old Tom's voice came from the wreckage. "There's someone trapped underneath! Alive! Give me a crowbar, I need a crowbar!"

"Damn it—" It was Locke's voice. "The leg is pinned, but they're moving—Old Tom, you stabilize the bulkhead, I'll pull them out—one, two—"

Immediately came the sound of someone being dragged out of the ruins, with several voices sounding at once: "Alive! Alive! Aunt Zhang! Get the plasma!"

In the Medical Station at the edge of the swamp, three stretchers were lined up.

Alice moved back and forth between the three wounded, stopping bleeding, cleaning wounds, suturing, and bandaging—her movements remained precise, but every time she walked to the Deputy Medical Officer's stretcher, her pace would unconsciously slow by half a beat.

Lin Mo stood by the swamp, gazing at the rift.

In the Medical Station behind him, the silver-haired woman lay quietly on the stretcher, plasma substitute dripping into the vein on the back of her hand, drop by drop.

Lieutenant Alice Vian—the name was still spinning in his mind. Not spinning, but carving. It was as if someone had used this name to draw a symbol he couldn't yet read onto that page of memory he dared not easily flip through.

And the other Alice, the Alice who was currently suturing wounds for the injured at the Medical Station—he had seen the crack that formed beneath the ice when she looked at him earlier.

Ice was never meant to resist heat; ice was meant to seal away things that were even hotter.

She cared far more about the woman on the stretcher than she was willing to let anyone know.

When the sky went completely dark, fog rose from the swamp.

The fog on Hope Star always carried a scent of sulfur, not the sulfur of the mining area, but the geothermal steam rising from beneath the swamp.

The mist enveloped the wreckage, the stretchers, and every militiaman moving metal scraps in the dark.

From the direction of the signal relay station came a very faint, rhythmic pulsing sound—it was Yang Shitou, who had remained in town to debug the equipment, still stubbornly scanning the airspace that had been torn apart.

Lin Mo watched the last faint purple light of the rift disappear into the night fog.

A thought suddenly emerged, or rather, it was pushed into his consciousness by the mirror of the emperor.

The rift had closed.

But what it had let in would never leave.

The woman who had fallen from the rift did not have ordinary blood flowing in her veins—she was the key he needed most in this entire game.

She was also named Alice.

Two Alices; one had already taught him the basics of Psykers, and the other still lay on the stretcher, relying on plasma substitute to sustain her life, carving into his consciousness, in a completely unknown way, a name he could not yet read.