211: Chapter 215 Take your keys and open your doors.

The universe here was like a puddle of mud.

The Exile Void Fortress silently glided through a high-density interstellar dust belt. Stealth shield power was pushed to its maximum. The massive hull no longer reflected any light, heat sources were confined to the bottom deck, and even the main thrusters' exhaust had turned a deep, dark red. It resembled a floating giant iron coffin, blending into this abandoned sector that even the navigation main axis refused to mark.

There were no glowing stars ahead.

Only three dead, depleted dwarf stars hung in the darkness in a triangular formation. Between them, countless intricate gravitational turbulences pulled at each other. If a normal merchant ship were caught in such a place, it wouldn't even have a chance to send a distress signal.

Yet, under the intersecting gravitational shadows of these three dwarf stars, a massive metal structure was hidden.

White Tomb Anchorage No. 3.

It was unkempt, its exterior wrapped in a thick layer of camouflaging rock, looking like an irregularly shaped asteroid. Without scanning with a specific frequency band, it was impossible to see the tens of thousands of long-range Lance arrays and the layers of nested deflector shield generators hidden beneath that rough rock.

This place was hidden deeper than Frost Prison No. 4.

And it was much heavier.

In the main control cabin, the temperature was set very low.

Li Cang sat in the Commander's chair. The main screen in front of him was split into three sections. On the left was the external optical image, in the middle was a fragmented radar layout of the anchorage, and on the right was the spare communication codebook stripped from the transport fleet.

"Entering the defense zone soon."

He spoke softly, a glass of lukewarm water sitting by his hand. Not a ripple moved.

In the bottom left corner was the Silent Bell Chamber in Docking Bay 4. The brass rails connected to the nine Silent Species had been scorched to a dark black. In the center, a section of spine was plugged into Hommel's residual brain. The residual brain's eyelids were half-drooped, its white eyes staring forward as preservative fluid bubbled faintly in the tank.

It had now been reduced to a biological key.

"Send the signal," Li Cang glanced at the Sub-control Servitor. "Use the name of the Third Research Array Recovery Department. Broadcast Hommel's signed documents."

The Servitor's eye-lights flickered slightly, and a short burst of light waves pierced through the camouflage antenna into the gravitational silence zone ahead.

In less than five seconds, a crimson forced interception warning popped up on the main screen.

The opponent's anti-air fire control radar was like a group of startled venomous snakes, instantly locking onto the Exile Fortress. Although they couldn't see through the giant ship's specific tonnage and structure, the disturbance in the gravitational field was enough for them to raise their muzzles.

After the sound of crackling static, White Tomb No. 3's docking channel lit up.

It wasn't a normal inquiry.

It was a high-frequency interrogation code with a neural-probing effect.

"This is White Tomb No. 3. Incoming vessel, you have entered the Inner Ring backup zone under maximum alert. Cut power, lock engines. State your array code and final identification key. Failure to verify within ten seconds will result in immediate vaporization."

The voice was cold and stern, leaving no room for negotiation.

Li Cang picked up the water glass and took a sip.

"Quite the attitude."

He didn't touch the intercom; instead, he clicked on the control interface of Hommel's residual brain and sent over the spare communication code he had just stripped, along with an underlying approval logic carrying a heavy Inner Ring pedigree.

"Ten seconds isn't enough," Li Cang tapped the armrest. "Show him the full version."

The data packet slammed into the firewall on the other side.

The other side went silent.

For a full half-minute, the fire control radar's locking cursor hesitated before dropping half a notch, turning from red to yellow. The electronic voice in the channel disappeared, replaced by a slightly deep male voice.

"Recovery Department Seventh Formation? Weren't you on your way to Frost Prison No. 4? Why have you come to White Tomb No. 3 with the Chief Censor's master signature?"

There was a hint of wariness in that voice.

The Commander of White Tomb No. 3 was not stupid. People from the Inner Ring were most meticulous about their trajectories. Since they had reported a business trip to the prison planet, suddenly changing coordinates to a backup anchorage was a flaw.

Li Cang didn't panic.

This kind of questioning was expected. The more a place followed rules, the more it feared the official seals stamped above those rules.

He pulled up the fragments of jargon Celine and Irene had confessed earlier, pieced them into a paragraph, and threw it into a voice changer, grinding it into a tone carrying the obvious arrogance and fatigue of an Inner Ring bureaucrat.

"Frost Prison No. 4's systems are down."

The frequency-shifted voice was sent over.

"Gate Seven blew up. A high-risk leak occurred in the sample area. Mission aborted. To prevent this master core from being contaminated, we had to silently cut into the backup route. Turn off your scanners. If you want to verify, wait until the inner cabin docks, then confront the Chief Censor yourself."

These words didn't explain too many details.

It only conveyed two things: I'm in big trouble; the thing in my hands is worth more than your life.

A dead silence filled the main control cabin.

Li Cang looked at the yellow cursor on the screen.

He was gambling. Gambling that the opponent wouldn't dare take the responsibility of blowing up a project's main brain on the spot, and gambling on the opponent's instinctive obedience to the Inner Ring hierarchy. If the opponent was truly tough enough to fire regardless of the consequences, he would just take a round of shelling and then rely on the armor to ram his way in. It would just be more trouble and cost materials to repair the ship.

Time ticked by.

Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds.

Suddenly, all the yellow lights on the main screen went out.

In the thick gravitational debris belt ahead that seemed capable of swallowing everything, two parallel blue guidance light strips slowly lit up. The thick camouflage rock layer slid to the sides, revealing a metal port gate wide enough to accommodate a medium-sized city.

"Identity verification passed."

The voice from the other side rang out again, its hostility withdrawn, leaving only the coldness of official business.

"Guidance is open. Take Heavy Armor Channel 3 and dock at the Inner Ring isolation berth. The decontamination team will meet you at the gate. Remember to shut down your main thrusters."

Li Cang looked at the open gate.

Behind the gate were complex bridges, dense maintenance arms, and rows of unignited Federation Frigates. Further in was the core command area glowing with white light. The opponent had opened up their hardest shell.

The corners of his mouth curled into a faint, cold arc.

Without a gun to their heads, they were defended like an iron barrel.

Wave a fake pass, and they stick their own necks out.

"Enter the port."

Li Cang didn't push the main joystick.

The Exile Fortress retracted its last trace of stealth ripples, like a sated beast preparing to rest, and glided steadily into the belly of White Tomb No. 3 along the blue guidance light strip.

One layer.

Two layers.

Three layers.

Those hideous long-range Lances on the outer wall were left behind. The firepower checkpoints along the way retracted their defensive walls. The fortress continued deep into the most core and vulnerable heart of the entire anchorage. Surrounded by load-bearing steel skeletons and main life-support power lines, an explosion here would instantly paralyze the entire anchorage.

They treated the Exile Fortress as a disaster-stricken allied flagship.

Once the hull came to a steady stop under the guidance of a row of giant electromagnetic locks, the external docking channel had already attached. Several teams of Federation decontamination soldiers in heavy protective suits stood at the channel entrance, holding high-precision Defibrillators, waiting to decontaminate the "fleeing officer."

"They're ready to receive guests."

Li Cang leaned back in his chair, his gaze sweeping over the rows of green docking confirmation lights. All the green lights were lit, indicating that the entire fortress was physically locked in place. If the opponent closed the door and wanted to catch them, he wouldn't be able to escape even if he wanted to without his engines.

But this was exactly the position he wanted.

"No need to be so polite as to open the door."

His finger slid to the control panel of Docking Bay 4, which was a crude authorization valve he had pulled out separately and was controlled entirely by a physical lever.

"Number One. All elites in position."

In the internal channel, Number One's response was only the dull sound of a Bolter being chambered.

"Number Fourteen, stand at the very front. Knights, preheat your primary weapons."

Li Cang slowly straightened his back, his palm resting on the valve.

"Tell them."

"I've come to collect the anchorage."

He pushed the lever all the way down.

In the bottom deck of Docking Bay 4, the Silent Bell Chamber—sewn together with mud, scrap, and high-purity residual brains—suddenly erupted with a burst of black-purple electric arcs. The nine Silent Species raised their heads simultaneously. What flowed through the brass pipes was no longer blood, but the harshest high-frequency anti-suppression fluctuations.

Dong—

This sound did not expand outward through speakers.

It traveled along the Exile Fortress's thick Adamantium Armor and slammed directly into the internal air of White Tomb No. 3.

The sound did not propagate through this physical space.

It slammed directly into every neural line built on the foundation of spiritual pressure and formations.

The outer docking deck.

The decontamination officers leading the teams were just about to press the forced opening button of the docking port when they suddenly felt as if a steel nail had been driven into their brains.

The Defibrillators in their hands let out a loud "crackling" sound, short-circuiting into a cloud of black smoke.

Immediately after, the lights of the entire Inner Ring isolation berth went out.

It wasn't a regional power outage.

It was that all networks relying on spiritual energy conversion and high-dimensional algorithm power generation suffered fatal delays and disconnections the moment the bell toll rippled out. The emergency red lights on the ceiling had just lit up when the explosion-proof hydraulic doors automatically dropped halfway, stuck in mid-air, letting out a piercing metal groan.

Inside the main control area.

The Commander who had just spoken with Li Cang was holding a glass of water with an expressionless face. The glass hadn't even reached his lips when the main display screen on the wall suddenly collapsed like an avalanche.

[Intranet hit by high-intensity abnormal degaussing]

[High-level mental link interrupted]

[Defense shield module unresponsive]

The Commander was stunned. The glass fell to the floor and shattered.

"What's going on? Who turned on the interference!"

"Sir!" An operator clutched his head, blood seeping through his fingers. "It's not a malfunction! It's suppression! An extremely lethal anti-spiritual pressure field has unfolded within the cabin... our fire control and internal locking programs are all dropping frames!"

"That's impossible! The Seventh Formation only carries a partial copy..."

The Commander's voice was cut off abruptly.

He turned his head and stared fixedly at the thick holographic viewing window. It faced the inner port berth.

The side wall of that black giant ship was not a smooth docking port.

Boom!

A heavy, dull explosion caused the entire metal ring corridor to tremble violently.

The docking bridge didn't open; it was smashed open from the inside.

The dozens-of-meters-long armor plate was like a cardboard box pierced by a rhino, shattering and curling outward. Amidst the rolling thick sulfurous black smoke, the Number Fourteen Holy dreadnought mech was the first to charge out.

Its mountain-like body didn't even bother with camouflage. The multi-barreled smoothbore Macro-cannon on its left arm aimed directly at the decontamination soldiers standing dazed on the spot.

No shouting.

No mercy.

Tongues of fire surged.

Those so-called Federation elites couldn't even put up their shields because the echoes from the Silent Bell Chamber had already wiped out all the portable spell nodes on their bodies. High-Explosive Sabot Armor-Piercing Shells exploded in the crowd, and the first wave of blood mist instantly painted the metal walls of the entire port area dark red.

Behind the toxic fire and barrage sprayed by Number Fourteen.

Three thousand black-armored figures, like unleashed foul water, carrying still-roaring Chainswords, stepped heavily on the shattered metal deck and mangled flesh as they surged into the anchorage's internal corridors.

Astartes do not take prisoners.

They charged through the broken defensive lines, their shoulder guards smashing through automatic doors, and any still-twitching bodies were crushed into meat paste under their boots.

This was a pure physical push. In a home field that had lost all high-dimensional magic and long-range guided defenses, Warhammer-style close-quarters meat-grinder combat was the most inescapable death sentence.

Inside the main control cabin, Li Cang didn't even need to see the death of every enemy.

The red resistance cursors on the screen were like snow splashed with hot oil, melting and disappearing in large swathes.

White Tomb No. 3 believed too much in its doors.

Once the doors were tricked open, not a single hard bone could be found in its belly.

He leaned back in his chair, tapping a rhythm on the desk. Very steady.

"Cut off the main power. No living thing in the inner circle remains." His voice was flat.

Just then, the Sub-control Servitor suddenly let out a notification sound.

"Commander. White Tomb No. 3's underground hangar initiated an independent purely mechanical locking program before the full degaussing. There is a very large area not on their military supply report."

Li Cang turned his head.

"How large?"

"Size feedback..." The Servitor paused. "Six kilometers long. Two hundred meters wide. The weight exceeds the full-load threshold of conventional ships."

Li Cang's eyes finally darkened.

A six-kilometer-long independent military item. A locking program.

He knew it wasn't ordinary supplies.

It wasn't even a few frigates.

"It seems today's haul," Li Cang stood up, the smile at the corner of his mouth a bit cold, "has hooked a big, scaly fish."

He pressed the comms.

"Number One. Forget those fleeing trash. Take the men to the bottom deck."

"If the door won't open, call the Knights over and use the saws to cut the whole thing out."