206: Chapter 210 This batch of goods wasn't sent for customs clearance; it was sent for production.

Docking Port No. 7 has been sealed shut.

After the outer gate closed, the entire corridor resembled a metal intestinal tube welded shut in space, with no way forward or back. Red lockdown lights flickered on one by one, cutting the five escort ships into segments of static shadow.

The lead escort frigate had already gone silent.

The people and machines on the bridge had powered down together; blood splattered the bulkheads, and the main control screen remained stuck on the final authentication page before being pierced by a bolt shell. The four ships behind were still alive. Being alive meant they would still struggle, still burn protocols, still kill their own, and in that final moment, drag the most valuable things down with them.

Li Cang was in no hurry to press the attack.

He sat in the commander's seat, looking at the cross-section of Port No. 7. The entire docking corridor was 3,400 meters long: the front section was a standard berthing mezzanine, the middle was the permission verification well, and the deepest part was the cargo unlocking zone. The main transport ship was currently stuck in the middle, sandwiched between two escort frigates like three joined shell plates.

This was an excellent position.

Inconvenient for turning around.

Inconvenient for dispersing.

And inconvenient for self-destructing too quickly.

"Cut the air." Li Cang pulled out a control line and pressed it down gently.

The nearby auxiliary control Servitor executed the command immediately.

All auxiliary circulation pumps in Port No. 7 stopped running. The air pressure curve began to drop. The emergency red lights in the corridor flared to maximum intensity, and white gas began venting from the gaps between the hulls. There was no roar. Only the low, thin sound of system depressurization, like someone slowly venting air right next to one's ear.

Inside the main ship, the transport officer, Lorne, grabbed the edge of the console, his entire body swaying forward from weightlessness and vibration.

"Pressure lost in the main corridor!"

The adjutant gripped the safety ring tightly, his face already turning pale. "They're vacuuming Port No. 7!"

"Switch to independent circulation." Lorne didn't shout, but his voice was cold and hard. "The cargo section cannot freeze. Reclaim temperature control and self-destruct permissions."

The command was sent. What the console returned to him, however, was a vast expanse of gray.

Half of the sovereignty was lost.

It wasn't that the whole ship had lost control, but rather the part they relied on most—the protocol layer connecting to the station—had been forcibly severed. It was as if a person still had hands and feet but found that the breath in their throat was no longer under their control.

The small door at the rear opened.

Internal Ring Inspector Irene Perot stepped out.

She wore a plain white long coat without any decoration, her long hair tied up, her face without makeup, and she carried no sidearm. She didn't look like an officer; she looked more like a researcher who had just stepped out of a cleanroom. Yet the moment she appeared, both Lorne and the adjutant subconsciously stood a bit straighter.

It wasn't respect; it was a reflex.

She walked to the main console, glanced at the screen, and reached out to press a deeper hidden interface. Once that interface opened, the lighting on the entire bridge changed. The originally piercing red was pushed back, and a narrow blue-white border floated at the edge of the screen.

"External permissions haven't completely failed yet," she said. "The receiving station can still acknowledge."

Lorne frowned deeply. "Something's wrong with the station. The main tower might have already—"

"Might?" Irene glanced at him. "I don't need 'might'."

Her fingers continued to tap down, pulling up the whitelist master protocol.

"We can't get out, and they can't get in. The cargo area is an independent skeleton. Even if the entire docking port explodes, half of it can be burned up inside first. There's enough time."

Lorne's heart sank.

He understood what that sentence meant.

If things really went that far, the first to die wouldn't be them, but the cargo.

Irene didn't care at all whether she could evacuate; she cared that the things in the ship must not fall into someone else's hands.

"Inspector," Lorne finally spoke, "at least confirm the station's identity first."

Irene nodded.

"Of course we will confirm."

She attached the master protocol to the external terminal and initiated a final round of manual verification toward the Frost Prison No. 4 main tower.

In the main control room of the Exile Fortress, Celine watched the stream of blue-white permissions jumping up, her face turning a bit paler.

She recognized that string of code.

It wasn't a level that Frost Prison No. 4 should encounter. It was a complete master copy used only within the Internal Ring research chain.

"What's wrong?" Li Cang looked at her.

Celine stared at the screen for a long while before speaking: "If she discovers the acknowledgment is fake, she'll burn the ship first, then blow up Port No. 7."

"You know her."

"I've seen her signature," Celine's voice was hoarse. "Irene Perot. A whitelist inspector for the Shadow Third Research Array. She isn't here to deliver goods. She's here for the final inspection."

After hearing this, Li Cang simply nodded.

"Even better."

He pushed the voiceprint disguise module to the center of the main screen and pulled up the surveillance from the section of the main tower corridor that hadn't been blown apart. In the image, only half the lights were on, the blast doors were closed, and most of the blood on the floor had been washed away by Servitors. It was just messy enough, yet not so messy as to be irredeemable.

"Respond to her according to her level."

Celine turned her head and looked at him.

"Do you know what she's inspecting?"

Li Cang pressed the record button.

"It's certainly not your conscience."

Celine closed her eyes, exhaled, and then spoke. Her voice was stripped of texture by the system and ground into a flat tone ninety percent similar to the original, transmitted out through the whitelist acknowledgment line.

"Frost Prison No. 4 Sample Zone, Celine Alos. Port No. 7 receiving permissions normal. The main tower has encountered localized impact; the elevator shaft is locked, but the outer defense line remains under control. Please have the main transport ship transfer Level 1 cargo and await internal inspection."

After the voice was sent, the main control room was very quiet.

Everyone was waiting.

A few seconds later, the other side replied.

No extra pleasantries, just a clean female voice.

"Open the inner gate."

The corner of Li Cang's mouth twitched slightly.

"Open it for her."

The heavy inner gate at the deepest part of Port No. 7 slowly receded, revealing a section of the processed receiving corridor in the direction of the main tower. The lights were white-bright, the floor was clean, and the doors were shut, as if only half the functions were still struggling to operate.

The main transport ship began to slowly move forward.

As it moved, the two escort frigates followed, shifting positions to protect the central cargo container area as much as possible. Lorne stared at the external feed, becoming more uneasy the more he looked. The corridor was too quiet. Too quiet for a prison that had just been attacked.

"It's too quiet."

Irene didn't look at him.

"A warehouse is supposed to be quiet."

As she finished speaking, the main ship had completely entered the cargo unlocking zone. The escort frigates on both sides also pressed in. Just as the rear escort ship crossed the line, Li Cang's finger pressed down on the black key of the main console.

"Close."

Not a second word.

The inner gate, outer gate, side locks, and top mezzanine of Port No. 7 slammed down simultaneously.

This time, it wasn't just the doors closing. Even the auxiliary valves used for buffering air pressure and unloading gravity differences were locked shut. The entire corridor was completely turned into a sealed iron box.

Following that, the lights went out.

Not row by row.

All of them.

After the darkness descended, only the emergency light sources of the escort ships and the main ship remained in the corridor. That bit of light wasn't enough to illuminate the three-thousand-meter-long steel intestinal tract; it was only enough to trace a few pale blue outlines around the edges of the ship hulls.

Irene finally looked up.

She watched the surveillance screen go completely black, and for the first time, her face lost a bit of its calm.

"Switch to external channels."

Lorne was already doing it.

No response.

He reached for the manual release valve and then tried to trigger the cargo area's independent self-destruct. Still no response.

In that instant, the entire main ship suddenly sank.

It wasn't engine imbalance.

It was as if an invisible hand had pressed down on the entire section of armor atop the hull.

Then, the top plate split open.

The sound of metal twisting pressed down segment by segment along the ship's beams, so loud it made one's teeth ache. The first crack was just a thin slit. A second later, that slit was forcibly pried open from above by something, and a massive, serrated blade slowly probed downward.

Sparks fell.

Brightening, then darkening.

Lorne looked up at that blade, his throat tightening. He finally realized that the other party had no intention of negotiating takeover permissions with him. They were opening the entire ship like a tin can.

"Explosion prevention team—"

Before he could finish, the top plate collapsed entirely.

An Executioner Knight dropped heavily from the upper docking mezzanine, its entire frame smashing through three layers of skeleton and stepping directly into the main ship's cargo area. The shockwave sent several nearby operators flying on the spot, slamming them against the bulkheads, where they shattered like squashed, rotten fruit.

Immediately after, the escort frigates on both sides exploded almost simultaneously.

Not from being hit by main cannons.

The inset armor had been sliced open from the side, and Astartes poured in through the cracks in rows.

This iron box of Port No. 7 was finally locked from the outside, and the killing began inside.

Irene stood before the main console, not dodging.

Her fingers were steady as she continued to press toward the final manual button for the self-destruct permission. Even if the ship had been stepped through, she still intended to burn the cargo first.

Then, a bolt shell shattered her wrist.

Her white coat was quickly soaked with blood. That severed hand still hung on the edge of the console, fingers twitching twice before dangling down.

Lorne's speed in drawing his gun wasn't slow, but Number One was faster.

A black-armored figure crashed through the smoke, pressing directly in front of him. A power sword swept up, slicing through the gun first, then the breastplate. Lorne stumbled back to the edge of the console, looked down at the wound on his chest that split all the way to his abdomen, as if wanting to say something, but in the end, said nothing, only slowly sliding down along the side of the console.

The bridge, the cargo area, and the permission console all fell together.

In the main control room, Li Cang switched the view to the actual cargo container area.

He had waited so long and calculated so much because this was what he wanted to see.

In the deepest part of the main ship's belly, rows of heavy white sealed cabinets were losing power. These weren't ordinary cargo boxes; they were more like upright coffins. The outer walls of the cabinets were covered in dense red warnings, and they were all uniformly stamped with the black seal of the Shadow Third Research Array.

An Astartes dragged the first sealed cabinet out and slammed it onto the floor.

The cabinet door popped open.

Standing inside was a "person."

Or rather, a weapon made to look like a human.

She had the stature of a young girl, with silver-white hair and skin so thin it was nearly transparent. Below her collarbone, she was covered in dense sealing runes and interfaces. Both eyes were closed, her eyelashes frosted over. A long, thin black crystal was embedded in her spine, extending all the way to her tailbone. Even more eerie was the circle of air around her, which seemed smoothed out by hand; all sounds became muffled the moment they reached her vicinity.

The second sealed cabinet was pulled open.

It was the same.

The third, the fourth, the fifth...

A whole row.

"What is this?" Number One asked of his own accord for the first time.

Li Cang didn't answer immediately.

He looked at the row of husks in the screen, silent as sacrificial offerings, and watched the ripples at the edge of the detectors that kept shivering but could never get close to them. He slowly pulled up another set of data.

[Project Number: Silent Species.]

[Purpose: Constructing regional anti-psionic suppression fields.]

[Status: Final pre-mass production calibration batch.]

[Note: Can be connected in parallel, arranged in arrays, and inserted as carriers into large-scale tactical frameworks.]

Li Cang stared at that last sentence, not moving for a long time.

The anti-psionic insulating paint in the Exile Fortress, made from ground-up cultivation broken swords and toxic dregs, was useful enough, but it was ultimately just a crude method slapped on the surface. Now, the Federation had delivered the real good stuff right to his door.

Not just one piece.

An entire batch.

"No wonder," Li Cang finally spoke. "The batch from the prison could only serve as batteries. What you've sent is the power station."

In the corner of the screen, Celine looked at that row of Silent Species, and for the first time, a real crack appeared in her eyes.

It wasn't fear.

It was the blankness of a shattered cognition.

She used to guard the sample zone and thought she had seen the Federation's ugliest side. Now she realized that what she had guarded was only the failure bin. The finished products destined for the production line and future wars were things she was never allowed to touch.

Irene lay in the blood, her wrist stump still dripping. Yet she smiled, her face against the floor, her expression hidden, her voice very soft.

"You think you've gotten the cargo."

"What you've gotten is war."

Li Cang looked at her.

"You're wrong."

He zoomed in on the image, circling the row of Silent Species, the floor full of white sealed cabinets, and the transport authorization master copy just stripped from Irene's console all into the same recovery box.

"What I've gotten is the key to the next door."

After saying this, he turned off Irene's audio.

The main control room fell silent again.

Outside, Port No. 7 was still flashing red, and sparks occasionally erupted from the wreckage of the escort ships. But none of that mattered anymore. The truly valuable things had rolled from the hands of the Federation's Internal Ring into his inventory.

"All of it, take it away," Li Cang ordered. "List the living specimens separately, the master copy separately, and don't waste the cabinet shells either. That batch of Black Crystal Spines—I want them entered into the warehouse separately."

He paused, then added another sentence.

"Take Irene away too. Someone like her is worth more than a permission card."

On the screen, Number One began directing the personnel to move the sealed cabinets.

Astartes never knew the meaning of tenderness. They hoisted those heavy white cabinets and turned to leave, their footsteps dragging long shadows through the scattered shards of white light. The Knight remained stuck above the cargo area like a silent sentinel, looking down at this docking slaughterhouse that now belonged to a new master.

Li Cang enlarged the master permission page stripped from the main transport ship's console.

Besides this delivery to Frost Prison No. 4, there were three other dispatch records behind it.

One to the Internal Ring research zone.

One to an unnamed deep-space station.

The last one had no destination, only a single word.

[Holy Ark]

Li Cang looked at those two words, his finger tapping gently on the table.

He knew the door had already opened further inward.

This time, it wasn't he who had broken it open.

The Federation had delivered it themselves.