84: Chapter 84: Fighting Side by Side in the First Battle, She Protected the Entire Village with a Psionic Barrier

It exploded.

The first tripwire wasn't triggered by being stepped on — it was the Chaos Scout's chainaxe sweeping through the reeds and snagging the fuse.

The explosive blast sent swamp mud flying over a man's height, the splatters mixed with purplish-black Chaos bodily fluids and fragments of armor the size of fingernails.

The shockwave swept across the sandbag defense line on the south side, causing sand to trickle down. Shrapnel tore a gash in one sandbag, and coarse sand poured out like endless blood.

Locke reached out to press down on a sandbag that had been knocked askew by the blast and roared at those behind him.

"Three of them!" His voice cut through the whining of the idling chainaxes. "One on the left flank, one in front, and the biggest one is in the reeds on the right! Lin Mo — how do we split them?"

Lin Mo crouched behind the sandbag, his palm pressed against its damp surface. His fingertips could feel the tremors coming from beneath the mud layer — the low-frequency vibrations of Chaos heavy armor stepping into the swampy mire, each step sinking into a deep pit that collected water.

"The left flank is yours, I'll take the front." Lin Mo's gaze never left the fastest-moving shadow in the fog. "Riflemen, listen for my command; don't fire until they are within forty paces. This batch of lasguns has barrels two inches shorter; Old Tom says they dissipate heat faster — but the effective range is also fifteen paces shorter."

"Fifteen paces shorter?" The young militiaman on the right tightened his grip on his rifle.

"So we can't waste ammunition." Lin Mo turned to look at him. "What's your name?"

"He Xiaoman. From Riverbend Town. I've farmed for six years and only touched a gun last month."

"Farming and shooting are the same principle — you can't rush them." Lin Mo patted his shoulder. "Wait for Zhao Laoqiang to fire the first shot. Watch how he does it, and just follow along."

The veteran leading on the right breathed extremely slowly, his rhythm as steady as the thirty years he'd spent shooting. An old scar crawled across his index finger, which hovered outside the trigger guard, motionless.

"Zhao Laoqiang, where do you plan to aim the first shot?"

"Depends on what weaknesses it exposes when it charges out." Zhao Laoqiang twitched the corner of his mouth. "Sir, to be honest, I've been shooting for thirty years, but I've never encountered Chaos. Where is their armor thinnest?"

"The seam at the left armpit, the seal is exposed." The mirror of the emperor popped up a half-frame tactical analysis at the edge of his vision. Lin Mo pointed to the weak point marked by golden lines. "Look at that scout; the armor at the left armpit joint is a layer thinner than elsewhere; it's a modification defect. Within forty paces, a laser can punch through."

"Understood."

"Any other questions?"

"None." Zhao Laoqiang pressed the stock tight against his shoulder. "With you watching here, if I miss this shot, you can take my old rifle, and I'll go back to Riverbend Town and keep farming."

A burst of purplish-black mist exploded in the reeds. The Chaos Scout charged out — the chainaxe was running at full speed, the metallic whine of the spinning teeth tearing through the morning mist. The Khorne runes on the armor looked like dark red tree roots, spreading outward along the seams.

Lin Mo lowered his voice: "Forty paces — Zhao Laoqiang, fire."

Zhao Laoqiang's index finger sank slightly.

The laser beam traced a straight red line through the morning mist, striking the left armpit seam. The scout charged to within twenty paces of the sandbags before freezing abruptly. The chainaxe slipped from its hand and slammed into the sandbag, sawing a large gash, and sand poured out with a rustling sound. Purplish-black bodily fluids gushed out from the cracks in the armor and flowed into the mud.

He Xiaoman stared in a daze.

"Don't just stand there —" Lin Mo pressed down on his barrel. "Put another shot in the chest to confirm the kill."

He Xiaoman pulled the trigger. The laser hit the scout's chest armor; the already fallen body twitched once and then went completely still.

"I hit it... I hit it!" His hands were shaking, and his voice was trembling.

"Everyone shakes on their first shot." Zhao Laoqiang began to eject the energy cell. "You won't shake after the twelfth shot. After one hundred and twenty shots, you'll be able to hit your target with your eyes closed."

From Locke's direction came the muffled sound of metal striking metal, followed by the wet thud of a heavy body slamming into the mud.

"Locke —" Lin Mo pressed the communicator. "How is it on your end?"

"Cleaned up." His breathing was as steady as when he was drinking tea in the square.

"Casualties?"

"Zero. You?"

"Zero." Lin Mo stood up from behind the sandbags and brushed the mud off his knees. "The southern defense line is held."

"Obviously." There was a hint of a smile in Locke's voice that only appeared during battle. "When has a defense line I've guarded ever been breached?"

The Medical Station tent swayed slightly amidst the sounds of explosions. A corner of the tarpaulin roof was lifted by the blast wave and fell back down, like a lung taking deep breaths. Alice was checking the healing progress of Deputy Medical Officer Vian's ribs, her fingertips pressing on the callus — she could feel the newly formed callus through the skin; it wasn't strong enough yet. Another explosion occurred outside the tent, closer than the last one.

"Your ribs haven't knitted firmly yet." Alice withdrew her hand. "Go to the rear, the shallow tunnels of the Underground Shelter, and evacuate with the non-combatants."

Deputy Medical Officer Vian didn't speak. It took her less than a second to pull on her hospital gown, grab the medical kit from the bedside and sling it over her shoulder, her surgical gown already on.

"Vian, I am giving you an order."

"Lieutenant." The Deputy Medical Officer tightened the ties of her surgical gown and looked up, meeting her gaze directly. "When I was training at the Astral Knights field hospital, the instructor said one thing — on the battlefield, there are no wounded, only those who can still move and those who cannot. I choose the former. Are you going to discipline me?"

Alice looked at her for two seconds. That gaze didn't look like a superior to a subordinate; it looked more like a doctor evaluating another doctor's physical limits. Then, she pointed to the cloth shed behind the tent — wooden supports held up the tarpaulin roof, twenty paces from the operating table; it could block the wind, but not bullets.

"Behind the cloth shed, place the hemostatics on the first level, infection control on the second, and fracture fixation on the third. Follow the classification we discussed last night."

"Understood. If a casualty needs both hemostasis and fracture fixation —"

"Stop the bleeding first. Fractures can be temporarily fixed with splints, but if blood loss exceeds three minutes, they cannot be saved. This priority is different from the Knights' manual —" Alice paused, "— but it works here."

"Because there are no Imperial standard operating rooms here?"

"Because from the moment the first wave of the assault hits to the first casualty being brought in, the window is only two minutes." After Alice finished speaking, she opened her right palm outward, fingers slightly spread. A faint golden light spread from her fingertips like an almost invisible oil film, silently covering the entire Medical Station tent. "The Chaos Scouts' Psyker tracking devices are scanning this area. If they lock onto the Medical Station, the dozen or so wounded inside and the non-combatant medics won't last three minutes."

Deputy Medical Officer Vian saw that layer of golden light. She wasn't surprised — on the day of the crash in the swamp, she had seen brighter psychic light. But she noticed a detail: when Alice maintained the barrier, her brows were furrowed tightly. It wasn't the furrow of strain; it was the instinctive tightening of forehead muscles after reaching extreme focus, exactly the same as when she stared at her lighter.

"How long can this barrier hold?"

"Forty minutes." Alice's voice was steady, the sweat on her forehead already sliding down her temples. "Enough for them to finish this battle, and enough for us to finish treating the first batch of casualties."

"And after forty minutes?"

"Then we hold for another forty minutes."

"What if the battle lasts longer than eighty minutes —"

"Vian." Alice interrupted her and turned her head. In her ice-blue almond eyes, there was no fear, only the kind of calm possessed by those who have served in the Astral Knights for over ten years. "When you asked me this question, what did you think I would answer?"

The Deputy Medical Officer stared at her for a moment. Then she picked up an unpacked tourniquet from her side, bit one end to tear it open — her hands were still stained with the blood of the previous casualty.

"Next."

"Correct."

On the roof of the Arsenal.

Old Tom set his calibration wrench on his knees and leaned over to the mortar sight. Two characters were engraved on the iron plate on the side of the barrel — "Anvil". Beside him, his seventeen-year-old apprentice was loading a shell, his hands shaking.

"Don't shake."

"I'm not scared." The boy's voice was thin amidst the cannon fire.

"I didn't say you were scared; I said your hands are shaking." Old Tom finally turned to look at him. "You dropped three shells last time. Fuses that have been dropped can shift; I don't trust things that have been dropped unless I've inspected them myself. Did you wipe them clean?"

"I wiped them three times."

"Bring them here."

Old Tom took the shell and ran his fingertips around the body — checking the fuse, checking the casing seams, checking the primer — only then did he put it into the breech.

"Watch closely." He pressed his eye back to the sight. "The one in the center, a head taller than the rest, Khorne runes seeping out from the armor seams. See it?"

The boy squinted for a long while. "I see it... It's walking toward the main gate, sinking deep with every step."

"Do you know why it sinks so deep?"

"Because... it's heavy?"

"Because it's wearing heavy assault armor. This armor can withstand direct fire from the front, but when the knee joint moves, it exposes a gap less than a foot wide." Old Tom kept the crosshairs steady. "Anvil doesn't fight battles it isn't sure of. I'm hitting its left knee — not the head, not the chest."

"Why not just shoot the head?"

"The head is the thickest part of its armor; even if you hit it, you won't penetrate it." Old Tom's tone was like a blacksmith teaching an apprentice to judge the temperature of molten steel; unhurried, but every word had to be taken to heart. "Hit the left knee, break the armor gap. Shrapnel shatters the joint, it drops to one knee, and once the armor shifts, the chest seams are exposed. The second shot goes into the seam and explodes inside the armor. Understand?"

"Understood — break the joint first, then kill the target."

"Correct."

The gap appeared for only an instant. Old Tom pressed the firing button — the shell landed three meters from the target, shrapnel slicing into the attacker's right ankle. The attacker lost its balance and slammed one knee into the mud.

"Second shot, load."

The boy handed over the second shell. His hand was still shaking, but much less than before. The moment the enemy knelt, Old Tom lowered the muzzle by one degree, without a moment's hesitation. The second shell penetrated through the chest armor seam and exploded inside the armor. The sound was muffled, like distant thunder swallowed by the swamp water and then slowly spat back out. The attacker tilted backward and collapsed heavily. Two chainaxes slipped from its hands and slammed into the mud, their teeth still idling and humming.

"Hit it —" The boy's throat was dry.

"Obviously." Old Tom picked up the wrench to wipe the barrel. "Anvil doesn't strike unless it hits, and when it hits, it's fatal. Remember that?"

"Remembered — break the joint first, then kill the target."

"Good." Old Tom nodded. A nod was the highest praise he could give. "Now keep loading; the rest aren't cleared yet."

On the west wall, the remaining Chaos Scouts didn't retreat because the center had fallen; instead, they made a fatal misjudgment — they accelerated their charge, their formation spreading wider and wider. Old Tom saw it clearly from the roof, and the corner of his mouth twitched — not a smile, but the expression of a blacksmith seeing scrap metal thrown into a furnace.

"They're spreading out —" The boy pointed nervously to the west.

"Good that they spread out." Old Tom pressed back to the sight. "The three firing points on the west wall are waiting for the moment they spread out and become isolated. Remember: crossfire isn't afraid of many enemies; it's afraid of enemies clumping together. Only when they're spread out can we take them one by one."

The three crossfire groups opened fire simultaneously. Three laser beams locked onto the scouts maneuvering along the water's edge — the chest armor was first melted into a hole, then the second and third beams struck, the hole connecting into a seam, splitting from the collarbone all the way to the abdominal armor. The charging figures of the scouts tilted backward abruptly and collapsed into the swamp water.

The boy's eyes widened. "It really is one shot each —"

"Of course. I set it up."

At the relay station window, Yang Shitou locked onto the last scout attempting to flank from behind with his binoculars. The guy held his shield over his head and was sneaking along the riverbank in a low crouch. Yang Shitou saw through his intention at a glance — the target wasn't the Arsenal, but the Medical Station. The drainage ditch was the only obstacle between him and the Medical Station.

"Old Tom —" Yang Shitou's voice came through the communicator, kept extremely low, every word as precise as a knife. "Riverbank direction, one hundred and eighty paces from the Medical Station. Shield held overhead, heading for the Medical Station. You're at the eleven o'clock position, can you see him?"

"Eleven o'clock, I see him." Old Tom had run out of shells and casually picked up the long-barreled lasrifle in the corner. The barrel was twice as long as the standard issue, with double the accuracy and double the recoil. His shoulders, which had rested on hammers for a lifetime, could absorb all the recoil, and the muzzle didn't move a hair. "Kid, take the binoculars and look closely. This shot won't hit the shield, won't hit the helmet; it's hitting the shoulder armor seam exposed when the shield is raised — a gap of less than an inch. This is the seventh target I've hit today."

"The previous six were all hits." The boy replied — this time there was no nervousness in his voice, but rather a touch of Old Tom's certainty.

"The previous six were all hits." Old Tom repeated, and his index finger pulled the trigger.

The laser struck the shoulder armor seam dead center. The scout toppled over on the riverbank, the shield slipping from his hand and falling into the water. A circle of white ripples slowly spread across the swamp water surface, then slowly faded away.

Yang Shitou was silent on the communicator for three seconds.

"Hit. Target confirmed neutralized."

"Are you counting in your head again?" Old Tom leaned his long-barreled rifle against the parapet. "You had this same habit during the swamp ambush last time; you insisted on waiting three seconds after confirming a kill."

"Habit." There was a subtle tremor in Yang Shitou's voice. "Three seconds is enough for a Chaos scout's corpse to cease all abnormal reactions. I once saw a scout suddenly trigger a self-destruct device thirty seconds after falling. Ever since then, I wait three seconds every time."

"Good habit."

"I learned it from you. You check artillery shells the same way—if one gets dropped, you insist on checking it yourself before you're at ease."

Old Tom didn't reply. He picked up the calibration wrench and paused.

"Notify Lin Mo that the western side has been cleared."

Lin Mo was crossing the square when he heard the report of success from the west over his communicator. He passed by the Medical Station tent and looked inside through the half-lifted door flap—Alice had just finished securing a leg brace for the first casualty, sweat streaming down her temples. The Deputy Medical Officer Vian was tearing open a tourniquet package with her teeth, her hands covered in blood.

The tent was wrapped in a layer of pale golden light.

He stopped. He gazed at that light, thin as a cicada's wing, undulating slightly in the morning breeze. The detection waves from the Chaos Psyker tracker swept over, only reading the Warp reflection characteristics of the swamp fog, unable to find the life signals of the dozen or so ordinary people inside.

"Old Tom—" He pressed the communicator, "Can you see the barrier from your side?"

"I can see it." There was a rare emotion in Old Tom's voice—not surprise, but the instinctive appreciation of a blacksmith seeing fine craftsmanship. "It's golden, covering the entire Medical Station. The psychic fluctuations are as even as a steel plate I've leveled. Your Psyker has a steady hand; how steady? Even more uniform than the rifling in the Anvil's barrel."

"I don't know where her limit lies yet," Lin Mo said. "But this battle lasted less than forty minutes; she can hold it."

"And next time?"

"Next time—" Lin Mo looked toward the flickering purple-black rift deep in the swamp. "The next battle won't last only forty minutes."

The first rays of dawn illuminated the entire battlefield. The mist over the swamp had cleared completely, and the reed beds returned to their usual gray-green—save for a few crushed patches and fragments of purple-black armor scattered by the water. The first skirmish in Blackstone Town, from the first tripwire mine detonation to the confirmation of the last scout's death, had lasted less than forty minutes.

Lin Mo stood on the roof of the Arsenal, overlooking the entire swamp. The mirror of the emperor flashed at the edge of his vision; this time it wasn't a tactical display, but a data stream playback. Eight enemies were completely annihilated, with only one minor injury on their side.

But his gaze lingered on the last line of the data stream. Three pale golden characters: First Wave.

"Locke." He pressed the communicator.

"Speak."

"These eight were just scouts. The standard tactic of a Chaos hunting party is to use scouts to probe defensive firepower configurations, then reorganize their attack formation against exposed weaknesses. They spent forty minutes probing our firepower distribution this time; next time they come, they'll have our complete firepower map in their hands."

There was a long silence on the other end of the communicator.

"Then we won't give them the same configuration." Locke's voice carried not a hint of worry; it sounded like a stone that had been grinding in his throat for years, finally turned over, heavy and solid. "How do you plan to do it?"

"Bury fifty more tripwire mines on the south side of the swamp. Move Old Tom's long-barreled rifle. Shift all western wall firepower points twenty paces to the left, completely offsetting the coverage of the crossfire net. The firepower map they gathered last time will be rendered useless."

"Anything else?"

"Double the ammunition reserves. The Medical Station's psychic barrier needs a limit test—Alice held for forty minutes just now, but the next battle won't be just forty minutes."

"I'll go tell her."

"No need." Lin Mo walked down the iron ladder. "I'll go myself. She doesn't like others making decisions for her, but she listens to data."

He walked into the Arsenal workshop. Old Tom was already cleaning the cannon barrel—the Anvil was polished until it gleamed, with six checked shells neatly stacked beside it. The apprentice was squatting in the corner, recording every word Old Tom said today on a scrap of cloth, writing in tiny, careful strokes.

"Old Tom—"

"The cannon needs to be moved." Old Tom didn't wait for him to finish. "I thought about it while on the roof; if Chaos comes again, leaving the Anvil on the roof is just handing them a target coordinate. On top of the west wall, it's one level lower than the roof, but it has thirty degrees more firing angle."

"Same as what I was thinking." Lin Mo sat down beside him.

"But there's no rain shelter on top of the west wall."

"I'll have someone build one for you—"

"No tarpaulin." Old Tom interrupted him. "Tarpaulin will catch fire from the muzzle flash. Use sheet metal; I'll weld it myself. Two days."

"Is that fast enough?"

"Two days." Old Tom repeated, his tone as short as a hammer striking an anvil, leaving no room for negotiation. "The Anvil can't get wet. If the rifling gets damp, it'll deviate; a difference of an inch means half a person's width off at three hundred paces."

"Fine. Two days. There's plenty of sheet metal."

"I only need two square meters. Any more is a waste." Old Tom finished cleaning the last cannon barrel part and set it on the Anvil. "Also, for this new batch of tripwire mines, I've increased the fuse sensitivity by 0.1 seconds. Don't give them a chance to use chain-axes to clear mines next time."

"0.1 seconds will shrink the trigger radius."

"That's why I'm burying fifty more." Old Tom tucked the calibration wrench back into his belt. "Trading quantity for accuracy. Same principle as hitting the left knee with the Anvil."

Outside the factory. Alice retracted the psychic barrier outside the Medical Station. The pale golden light slowly faded in the morning sun, like a layer of thin frost melting into the sun. She walked out of the tent, the sunlight falling on her face—sweat still clung to her forehead, but her steps were steady. The Deputy Medical Officer Vian followed behind, still clutching half a torn-open tourniquet—after the first wave of impact, no new casualties had been sent over.

"Your barrier—" the Deputy Medical Officer spoke first.

"It held for thirty-seven minutes. Three minutes earlier than expected; the battle ended faster than I predicted." Alice interrupted her—not out of impatience, but because she was accustomed to speaking in data.

"I'm not asking about the time." The Deputy Medical Officer put the tourniquet back into the medical kit. "I want to ask, the psychic fluctuations of that barrier were as even as an oil slick on water. This level of precision is a standard of Level 7 or higher in the Astral Knights' psychic evaluation system. What is your rated psychic level in the Legion?"

"The rating is Level 5."

"And in reality?"

Alice glanced at her. Something flashed in her icy-blue almond eyes—not pride, nor humility, but the instinct of someone who knew her own strength, weighing how much to reveal when asked.

"In reality—I don't know where the upper limit is."

The tourniquet in the Deputy Medical Officer's hand dropped to the ground. She had served in the Astral Knights for seven years and had seen no fewer than a hundred Psykers; she had never heard anyone say that. It wasn't "I'm higher than my rating," but "I don't know the limit"—this meant she had never been pushed to her limit.

"Does this—" the Deputy Medical Officer bent down to pick up the tourniquet, her voice very low, "does the Legion know?"

"No. And I don't intend to let them know."

"Why?"

Alice turned around, looking at the faces being cared for inside the Medical Station tent—miners, militia, Aunt Zhang from the mess hall, and a seventeen-year-old sentry with a shrapnel wound on his calf. None of them had military ranks, and none of them had records in the Imperial archives.

"Because in the Legion, psychic level determines your value. A Level 7 Psyker would be transferred to Terra, to the front lines, to any place that needs a top-tier Psyker. Then I would never be sent to this frontier planet again."

"You want to stay here."

"Yes."

"Why? The Imperial front lines have better medical equipment, more resources—"

"On the Imperial front lines, no one would ask me after surgery if I'd like another peppermint." Alice's voice suddenly softened, as if speaking to herself. "On the Imperial front lines, no one would hand me a cup of warm herbal tea after I finish a purification, saying, 'You drink first, I'll go check on the wounded.' Every single person here—" she looked at the figures in the tent, "—they need me, not because of my psychic level. It's because I can get up at 3:00 AM to change their dressings."

The Deputy Medical Officer was silent for a long time. Then she stuffed the tourniquet back into the outermost layer of the medical kit.

"Then that limit you mentioned—"

"I'll test it in the next battle." Alice's voice regained its steadiness. "Lin Mo will come to talk to me about this later. He will bring data—he knows I don't listen to suggestions without data."

"You know him very well."

"I wouldn't call it knowing him well." Alice's lips curved upward very slightly—the arc was exactly the same as when she first held a lighter. "I just know that before this man speaks to me, he will have drawn the swamp map three times."

Lin Mo stood at the edge of the square. He heard the last few sentences of the conversation but didn't walk over; he simply shifted his gaze from Alice and let it fall toward the purple-black rift deep in the swamp that had not yet fully closed. The edges of the rift shimmered with an unnatural luster in the morning light, like a half-healed wound that had been torn open again.

He turned and walked back to the Intelligence Center. The map covered in markings was spread out on the table. He picked up a charcoal pencil and drew a red circle on the south side of the swamp, twice as large as the previous one. He flipped it to the back and began to list all the preparations for the next Chaos attack.

Line 1: Double ammunition reserves.

Line 2: Full reorganization of the crossfire network; all firepower points shifted by more than twenty paces.

Line 3: Lieutenant Alice Vian—psychic barrier limit test. No upper limit, until she can no longer hold it.

Line 4, the pen tip paused on the paper for a second, writing very slowly—If the next Chaos wave is not a hunting party: Initiate emergency contact protocol with the Astral Knights.

He put down the charcoal pencil and looked out the window. The sunlight had completely dispersed the mist, and the swamp had returned to calm; the water surface reflected the morning light, no different from any other quiet morning.

But he knew the rift was still widening. The first wave of scouts was just there to measure. The next ones wouldn't be eight, wouldn't be a standard hunting party—it would be an attack scale recalculated by Chaos after accounting for their losses.

The communicator rang.

"Lord Lin Mo—" It was Yang Shitou's voice, his tone carrying a tension he rarely revealed. "The psychic detection readings from the swamp direction have been rising since just now. It's not Chaos scouts; it's further away. The intensity of that signal is greater than all eight scouts combined."

Lin Mo gripped the charcoal pencil tightly.

"Distance?"

"Not sure, but the azimuth perfectly matches that purple-black rift from yesterday. The rift is widening—three times faster than observed this morning."

"Continue monitoring, report readings every five minutes." Lin Mo stood up and picked up the map on the table. "I'm coming up now."

He pushed open the door of the Intelligence Center. In the square, Locke was already rearranging the sentry rotation schedule. The cannon barrel Old Tom had cleaned gleamed with a cold light in the sunlight. In the Medical Station tent, Alice had put on her surgical gown again—not for this battle, but for the next. Her psychic barrier had been retracted, but her stance was exactly the same as when she held the barrier—upright, focused, ready to do it again at any moment.

Lin Mo crossed the square and patted Locke on the shoulder.

"The order to prepare for battle—"

"Already issued." Locke didn't even look up. "I opened the monitoring for the whole compound, did you forget? Next time they come, we'll be waiting."

Iron-blooded comrades guarding a single city, Reed flowers stained with blood in the light morning chill. Deep in the rift, wind and thunder stir, Three hundred nameless ones await the morning star. —Memory fragments sealed within the mirror of the emperor

The first tripwire mine detonated. Forty minutes, eight corpses of Chaos scouts.

Three hundred people without military ranks—blacksmiths, doctors, sentries, apprentices.

No one asked them if they could fight, no one taught them how to fight.

But the rift was still widening.

The readings on the spectrum analyzer jumped past the warning scale—the intervals at which Yang Shitou reported numbers were half as long as usual.

Those eight corpses themselves were the data the scouts were meant to bring back.

The next ones to come won't step into the same trap again.

The morning light shone on the square. The cold light of the cannon barrel had not yet faded, and the swamp water was as quiet as yesterday.

The curve on the spectrum analyzer was still climbing.

Everyone heard it.

There was no need for Lin Mo to say it a second time.