142: Ghostly Walk! "Dead Objects" in the Corridor!

The communicator in Zhang Yuan's hand emitted a faint crackle of static, and he ended the call.

"Magenta" Protocol... He had never imagined that this contingency plan, designed to deal with the most extreme internal betrayal (such as the Inquisition suddenly turning hostile), would be activated because of the name of one Chapter.

He leaned against the cold alloy wall and smiled self-deprecatingly.

Perhaps he was overreacting.

The Blood Ravens Chapter's "heirloom" joke was a meme in another universe, but here, it represented a tacitly approved greed and overreach in the name of "recovering relics."

His fleet, every single ship, every piece of technology, was a heretic creation that absolutely could not be "recovered."

He could gamble on the honor of a Space Marine, but he could not gamble with everything he had.

"I hope I'm just overthinking it," he whispered to himself, but his footsteps moved without hesitation toward the ship's core area.

Even a one-in-ten-thousand risk had to be met with one hundred percent preparation.

He turned around, facing the empty alloy corridor.

To execute his orders, Horner had cleared all non-essential transit areas from the cargo hold to the bridge.

The long corridor, illuminated by overhead light strips, gleamed with a cold metallic luster and stretched infinitely forward, so silent that he could hear the faint friction of his power armor joints.

Zhang Yuan started walking, his pace quick and steady, his metal boot soles striking the deck with a dull, rhythmic sound.

Absurd.

These two words were all that remained in his mind.

The Blood Ravens Chapter, addicted to theft?

Before he transmigrated, this was a joke players loved to talk about, an enduring, stale meme on forums.

But this was the cruel reality of Warhammer 40K; how could a Space Marine, an Angel of the Emperor, possibly...

But, what if?

What if there was a sliver of truth behind that joke?

This ship contained all his life's work.

From Swann's engineering department to Nova's Ghost academy, and his own private laboratory, the technical data and prototype equipment stored within, if any of it were leaked, would be enough to stir up a storm in the Empire.

He could not gamble.

Just as his thoughts were racing and he continued walking around a corner, his movements froze.

Not far ahead, a figure was walking toward him.

It was a crew member wearing a standard blue uniform, with an ordinary build and an ordinary face, head lowered as if checking a personal data terminal on their wrist.

In this corridor that should have been cleared, their appearance itself was an anomaly.

Zhang Yuan frowned, an indescribable sense of weirdness gripping his nerves.

Too quiet.

The person's footsteps were completely drowned out by the sound of his own heavy power armor.

Their movements, the stride of every step, every swing of the arm, carried a kind of... mechanical precision.

There was none of the subtle swaying that a living creature should have to maintain balance.

They were like a pre-programmed robot.

Zhang Yuan slowed his pace, and the psionic energy within him—that power which had become increasingly active, surging like molten lava since Abathur's birth—was quietly mobilized under his will.

A circle of invisible perception spread out from him as the center.

This was a crude application of his Zerg Swarm master talent that he had figured out, a biological-level scan.

The scan results fed back into his mind.

Ilaria and Titus were two burning flames of different natures.

Ordinary crew members were clusters of weak, flickering candlelight.

And the silent Soulless One, Lekos, was, in his perception, a pure "void" that devoured all light and heat.

But this person in front of him...

The feeling fed back was neither flame nor void.

They were like a rock.

A piece of metal.

A complete "dead thing" that did not interact with any surrounding energy.

In the ironclad rules of the Warhammer 40K universe, an inexplicable anomaly was equivalent to a fatal threat.

Zhang Yuan did not ask, did not issue any warning.

Just as the two were about to pass each other, he moved.

Without any superfluous movements, without even raising his hand, just a thought.

A violent, unrefined surge of psionic energy, like a bursting flood, erupted from the depths of his consciousness!

That power was so immense and primal that the moment it left his body, it sparked blinding purple arcs of electricity that crackled wildly around him!

"Bang! Bang, bang, bang!"

The entire corridor's light strips, unable to withstand the shock of this escaping energy, shattered one after another in an instant!

Shards of glass and charred parts flew everywhere!

The corridor plunged into darkness instantly.

Immediately after, several red emergency lights clicked on, dyeing everything in an ominous blood-red hue.

And amidst the bursting sparks, the figure of that "crew member" was hit head-on as if by an invisible giant hammer, their feet lifted off the ground, and their entire body was pushed backward by an irresistible force!

"Boom—!!!"

A deafening roar.

They were pinned tightly against the sturdy alloy wall!

The violent psionic pressure caused the wall around them to cave in, twist, and deform!

A clear humanoid indentation appeared on the thick inner hull of the ship.

They were completely "embedded" into it.

Any mortal under this force would be instantly crushed into a pulp of flesh.

In the corridor, the electric arcs flickering due to the psionic overload gradually subsided.

Zhang Yuan stood where he was, the red emergency light outlining the cold, hard contours of his black cmc power armor.

He looked at the figure he had pinned to the wall.

Unharmed.

The blue uniform did not have a single wrinkle, and that plain, unremarkable face still maintained the posture of looking down at the data, without even a change in expression.

Zhang Yuan's pupils constricted.

As expected, there was something weird!

He increased his psionic output, and more purple energy, like tangible tentacles, coiled in from all directions, squeezing further inward.

The metal wall groaned under the unbearable strain, the indentation growing deeper.

"Who are you?" Zhang Yuan's voice echoed in the empty corridor, carrying the pressure of his psionic enhancement.

The person embedded in the wall finally moved.

They slowly raised their head.

Their lips moved, but the voice that emerged was not human.

It was a texture mixed with the grinding of metal and the shattering of ancient rock, carrying a condescending tone, as if a connoisseur were judging a newly unveiled work of art.

"Hmm... Truly an interesting form of psionic expression.

Primitive, wild, yet containing two completely different echoes of will... One is a chorus of chaos, the other a geometry of order.

Unprecedented.

The value of your 'exhibit' just increased by another notch, mortal."

The moment the words fell, their entire body began to flicker, like a hologram with a bad signal.

The blue crew uniform dissolved into countless points of light.

The face that belonged to a human, like a melting wax figure, shed its disguise.

The light dissipated.

What was embedded in the wall was no longer human.

It was a skeleton made of living metal, shimmering with a ghostly light!

Its body was taller and more slender than a human's, composed entirely of an ancient, green-lustrous metal, covered in countless gorgeous and complex golden patterns.

A towering metal collar, like a pharaoh's headdress, extended upward from its back, guarding that smooth metal skull.

In the skull's hollow eye sockets, two emerald lights burned quietly; in that light, there was no anger, no pain, only a pure scrutiny and curiosity belonging to a collector, as if it could see through the river of time.

It raised one metal arm, and with a gentle flick of its five slender fingers, the violent psionic energy that had been binding it was easily brushed away as if clearing a spiderweb.

It stepped out from the indentation in the wall it had been smashed into and landed steadily on the floor; its metal claws collided with the deck without making a sound, as if its weight did not exist at all.

It held a similarly gorgeous staff in its hand, and at the top of the staff, a green energy sphere was slowly rotating.

It looked around at the walls damaged by the psionic energy, then looked at Zhang Yuan, the green light in its eye sockets flickering, seemingly very satisfied with the "exhibit" before it and the "exhibition effect" it had caused.

Before this uninvited guest could speak again and deliver its usual opening monologue, Zhang Yuan, almost subconsciously, squeezed that name out from between his teeth.

The voice was not loud, but it was like a heavy hammer, shattering the eerie silence and striking his own heart.

"The Infinite... Trazyn."

The moment the name escaped his lips, what Zhang Yuan felt was not regret for his slip of the tongue, but a cold, bone-chilling sense of absurdity from the depths of his soul.

This was not some petty theft by the Blood Ravens Chapter.

This was a living piece of history, a walking story setting, a cosmic-level disaster that, before he transmigrated, was only mentioned as a joke and background fodder.

And now... it was right in front of him.

And the emerald light in the eye sockets of the metal skull opposite him condensed abruptly the moment it heard that name.

That eternal composure and scrutiny belonging to a collector was, for the first time, replaced by a trace of genuine "surprise."

It scrutinized Zhang Yuan for a few seconds, and that ancient, metallic voice sounded again, but this time, there was a hint of genuine inquiry in its tone:

"A mortal from a remote star sector that even needs to look up to the light of the Astronomican... how do you know my name?"

"Your value as a 'collection'..." The green light in Trazyn's eye sockets flared brightly, "appears to be far higher than I imagined."