38: When the firewood burned out, the black blade was drawn.

[Holy Terra - Pan-Pacific Toxic Mire Sector - Bottom of the Sunken archimedes Hive City]

The tremors stopped.

Above him, separated by thousands of meters of rock and steel ruins, the sounds of fighting and explosions that had lasted for twenty minutes—as if to shatter the Earth's crust—finally fell into a dead silence.

Inside the sewage pipe, the turbid air seemed to freeze.

C-19 maintained a tactical kneeling posture, his knees submerged in foul-smelling sludge. His right index finger, clad in a tactical glove, rested lightly on the wireless detonator of the plastic explosives, remaining as motionless as a powered-down Servitor.

On the inner side of his helmet's visor, in the upper left corner of the tactical HUD (Heads-Up Display), a row of dark red biological vital signals was pulsing. Those were the Thunder Warriors squad performing a feint at the upper main entrance.

The frequency of the signals was dropping sharply.

C-19 looked at the signal band representing "D-01 Captain."

In the past minute, that band had erupted into violent peaks nearing the threshold—physiological characteristics of adrenaline overload and a heart running at extreme capacity.

But now, it was rapidly flattening. This flattening wasn't due to calmness, but due to cardiac arrest.

"Beep—"

A long drone.

The band turned into a flat line without any ripples.

Immediately after, a gray icon representing "Signal Lost" covered the red life bar.

The other eleven signals had also gone out one by one in the three minutes prior.

C-19's breathing rhythm didn't change in the slightest.

His heart rate remained at a resting state of 45 beats per minute.

"Decoys wiped out."

He spoke into the communication channel.

His voice, adjusted by a laryngeal vocalizer, was dry and flat, stripped of all human-like trembling or fluctuation.

It sounded like reporting the sacrifice of comrades.

In the underlying logic of the First Legion "Dark Ravens," the concept of "sacrifice" did not exist.

There were only "costs" and "benefits."

The Thunder Warriors had paid the cost named "life" to purchase this twenty-minute tactical window.

If these twenty minutes weren't used well, that would be the true waste.

"Execute."

C-19 pressed down with his thumb.

Thump—Boom!

Unlike the earth-shattering explosions in movies.

This was a precisely calculated shaped-charge demolition.

Strip plastic explosives attached to the hinges and locks of the Adamantium seal door detonated instantly.

The shockwave from the explosion was constrained within a tiny range, instantly pulverizing thousands of years of rust and the alloy lock cores.

The half-meter-thick circular airtight door let out a dull metallic groan, lost its support, and collapsed inward with a crash, kicking up dust that had been settled for ten thousand years.

"Breach."

C-19 was the first to rush into the smoke and dust.

His movements were completely different from those of the dead Thunder Warriors.

Thunder Warriors were running tanks; every step was accompanied by the roar of servo motors and the vibration of the ground.

But C-19 was a gliding ghost.

He lowered his center of gravity. That power armor, pieced together from various remnants, was ugly in appearance, but its joints had been meticulously tuned. The hydraulic rods made only a very faint fluid sound when extending and retracting.

The seventy-nine Dark Ravens warriors followed closely behind him.

They deployed in tactical columns, their muzzles providing alternating cover. Without a single word of nonsense or a single redundant movement, they quickly occupied the fan-shaped area behind the door.

[Environment Scan Complete]

[Area Identification: Ancient Technology Archives - Foyer]

[Environmental Radiation Level: Low. Air Quality: Toxic (Filters On).]

[Threat Detection: Automated Sentry Turrets x 4 (Power Depleted/Offline); Servitor x 12 (Wandering Mode).]

This was a tomb of knowledge.

Massive data storage array cabinets, tens of meters high, stood like black tombstones, neatly arranged in the dim, vast hall.

The air was filled with the musty smell of old paper, the acidic scent of evaporated coolant, and the smell of aging, charred circuit boards.

"Clear."

C-19 raised his weapon.

It wasn't a Bolter.

It was a heavily modified large-caliber Autogun.

The gun body was rugged, wrapped in black electrical tape.

A high-capacity tactical flashlight was mounted below the barrel, and a thick, cylindrical suppressor, nearly as long as a forearm, was screwed onto the muzzle.

The beam of light cut through the darkness, falling on a staggering humanoid object.

It was a Servitor.

Its original human characteristics were almost entirely stripped away; half its skull was replaced by metal implants, and its right arm was replaced by a rusty industrial cutting saw.

Sensing the intruder's body temperature, its murky electronic eye flickered with red light. The vocalizer in its throat emitted a harsh electronic scream as it charged forward, waving its saw blade.

Behind it, the other eleven Servitors were activated simultaneously, surging toward the door with stiff, grotesque steps.

C-19 didn't retreat, nor did he charge. He simply adjusted the angle of his muzzle.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

If one didn't listen carefully, they might even think it was someone striking damp wood with a hammer.

The heavy suppressor swallowed the loud bang of the gunpowder explosion, leaving only the dull thud of the piston's impact.

Three 12.7mm solid steel-core rounds exited the chamber at subsonic speeds.

The bullets spun through the air, accurately drilling into the foreheads of the first three Servitors.

There was no explosion.

The massive stopping power of the kinetic kill directly blew off the Servitors' scalps.

Red and white brain matter, mixed with black engine oil and sparks, sprayed backward onto the dusty floor.

The Servitors' charging momentum came to an abrupt halt, their corpses collapsing like puppets with their strings cut.

This was the fighting style of the Dark Ravens.

No roar of a Chainsword, no explosion of a bolt shell, no hot-blooded roars.

Only calculated trajectories, precise impact points, and the dull thud of bodies falling.

They were precision gears off an assembly line, executioners walking in the shadows.

"C-07, C-09, establish firing points and block the entrance. C-12, deploy Claymore Mines. The rest, spread out and watch the overhead vents."

C-19 quickly assigned tasks in the communication channel.

His gaze never left the radar scan on his tactical goggles.

After confirming the hall was temporarily safe, he holstered his gun and strode toward the main control terminal in the center of the hall.

It was a massive Auspex array, still flickering with faint green light, like the caretaker of this tomb, operating in solitude for thousands of years.

C-19 pulled a universal data probe from a hidden slot in his left arm guard and roughly plugged it into the data port below the terminal.

Inside the visor, a waterfall of green code began to refresh.

[Handshaking...]

[System Identification: archimedes - Central Data Hub.]

[Authorization Verification: ...Failed.]

[Error Code 403: Access Denied. STC Standard Key authorization required.]

A red access denied pop-up occupied his field of vision.

"No key."

He took a device the size of a brick from his tactical pouch—it was a high-voltage capacitor salvaged from a scrapped engineering mecha, modified into a one-time overloader.

He connected the capacitor's wires directly to the terminal's main power line.

Since the software level couldn't be bypassed, he would break through via hardware.

Sizzle—Zap!

A burst of blinding blue electric sparks exploded at the interface, and the air was instantly filled with the smell of ozone.

The ancient terminal let out a shrill electronic wail. The originally steady green indicator light began to flash frantically, turning a dangerous red.

The images on the screen began to distort and tear.

The overloaded current was like a red-hot knife, forcibly slicing through the system's firewall. Countless blocked data streams were forced out like a flood breaching a dam.

C-19's tactical goggles operated at full capacity, and the data processing chip began to heat up.

Among hundreds of millions of pieces of junk information, he searched for the keyword specified by Li Cang... Warp storm records... useless... Hive City food rationing logs (M25.998)... useless... Bottom-tier mutant purge report... useless.

None of them.

C-19's eyes moved rapidly, capturing every passing stream of information.

Suddenly, a line of data highlighted in red, like a lighthouse lit in the night, firmly caught his eye.

[Archive Number]

[Source: Golden Age Deep Space Exploration Ship "Horizon" Black Box Backup]

[Content: Sol System Gravity Anomaly Deep Scan Map]

[Key Landmark: Mars - Noctis Labyrinth]

[Remarks: Extremely high-level Warp reaction detected. Suspected... Titan-class construct dormancy signal.]

"Found it."

C-19's voice remained calm, but his speaking speed quickened slightly. "Target confirmed. Noctis Labyrinth star map. Integrity 78%."

"Download everything."

"Along with all defense deployment maps and terrain scan data for this area. Take it all."

The progress bar began to slowly climb.

10%... 35%... 60%... Just as the data transmission progress bar reached 90%.

Thud.

Above, from the thick ceiling composed of multiple layers of composite armor plating, a dull vibration suddenly came.

Dust accumulated over ten thousand years trickled down, hitting the Dark Ravens' black power armor with a rustling sound.

"Alert. Heat source reaction surging directly above."

C-05, responsible for guarding above, issued a warning in the channel. "Sonar detected high-speed rotating mechanical sounds. It's the Pan-Pacific Empire engineering units. They're drilling through the floor."

After clearing out the Thunder Warriors on the upper levels, those deep-sea fishermen had indeed followed the high-energy reaction generated by the terminal overload.

They didn't look for stairs or elevators, but chose the most direct and barbaric way—drilling a hole.

"How much longer?" C-19 asked, his fingers flying across the terminal, trying to squeeze every last bit of computing power from The Machine to accelerate the transmission.

"10 seconds. The drill bit has made contact with the armor layer."

98%... 99%... Boom!!!

In the center of the hall's ceiling, a three-meter-diameter piece of heavy armor plating suddenly collapsed downward.

The massive "Sea Gods Wrath" heavy drill that had appeared on the upper battlefield pierced through the ceiling with a harsh metal-cutting sound and a shower of sparks.

It hung in mid-air, its massive spiral blades still spinning frantically, flinging out large amounts of hydraulic oil and rubble.

Immediately after, several thick ropes were thrown down from the hole.

Soldiers wearing heavy deep-sea diving suits, covered in barnacles and rust, slid down the ropes like a group of clumsy iron crabs.

Before they even hit the ground, the high-pressure pneumatic rivet guns and multi-barrel harpoon cannons in their hands began to spit fire.

"For the Empire! For the Sea God!"

A Pan-Pacific soldier who had just landed shouted fanatically and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

A red-hot industrial rivet hit a Dark Ravens warrior's shoulder guard, striking a shower of sparks and knocking him back a step, leaving a deep dent in the Ceramite armor.

But this didn't cause any panic.

The First Legion warriors didn't even look up at the hole.

As if they had rehearsed it countless times, they didn't even need C-19's order; all muzzles locked onto the predicted landing spots at the same instant.

This was an unequal slaughter.

The Pan-Pacific soldiers were still in mid-air, still excited for the coming slaughter. Meanwhile, the Dark Ravens had already established a lethal crossfire network.

"Free fire." C-19 coldly uttered two words.

Thump thump thump thump—

Dense, suppressed gunfire instantly filled the hall.

Those Pan-Pacific soldiers who had just landed or were still on the ropes instantly became sitting ducks.

Their heavy diving suits, which they took pride in for resisting deep-sea pressure and mutant beast bites, were as fragile as gauze in the face of close-range, reinforced steel-core armor-piercing rounds.

Large-caliber bullets easily tore through the thick brass helmets and rubber protective suits, entering flesh, tumbling, and shattering.

Blooms of blood blossomed in the air, like a red rain.

Corpses slammed heavily onto the ground with wet thuds.

[Transmission Complete.]

A green prompt box popped up on the terminal screen.

C-19 yanked out the data probe and carefully tucked the thumbnail-sized storage core into the sealed compartment inside his chest plate.

There was the safest place in the world for him; as long as his heart was still beating, this core would not be lost.

"Withdraw."

He had no intention of lingering.

The mission was complete; killing one more person was a waste of ammunition.

"C-12, the gift."

C-12, in charge of demolition, nodded, took two cluster explosive charges from his waist, pulled the delay fuses, and tossed them into the middle of the pile of corpses directly under the drilled hole.

That was a gift for the latecomers.

Subsequently, the black reapers of the First Legion, carrying the future hope of the Empire, melted like shadows into the dark passages deep within the data hall.

And behind them.

BOOM!!!

A violent explosion shook the sunken Hive City once more.

Flames and shockwaves instantly engulfed the archives hall, collapsing more of the ceiling and consuming those greedy pursuers still trying to rappel down... Outside the Hive City.

On the surface of the fluorescent toxic sea, a dilapidated industrial transport barge, seemingly welded together from various pieces of scrap metal, hovered ten meters above the water. Its engines spat blue flames, kicking up massive sprays of water.

The cabin opened, and several winch cables were lowered.

C-19 grabbed the hook of a cable and was the first to be pulled from the water. Then came the other Dark Ravens warriors.

He looked down at the massive sewage outlet below.

There, the turbid toxic water continued to flow. And in the deeper darkness, within that steel tomb, the corpses of twelve Thunder Warriors were slowly cooling.

They had traded their lives for this star map.

C-19's visor flickered. He felt no sadness; that was a useless emotion.

He only felt a heavy sense of responsibility.

The transport ship's hatch slowly closed, isolating that hell from the outside.