Chapter 41 — The Appearance of Orion

Last night, a faint yet piercing streak of golden light flashed fleetingly across the dreary grey sky at the edge of the blind spot. Accompanied by the shrill screech of a high-dimensional gravitational engine overloading and collapsing, a heavily damaged escape pod was hit by the polarized cannons of the Aries defense sector outside the Star-network blockade line, plummeting erratically into this debris field. To clean up the traces before the reconnaissance probes of the Aries fleet discovered any anomalies, Elias brought Caleb deep into this wreckage zone for a sweep early this morning.

When the radioactive dust fog slightly dispersed in the biting cold wind, this land revealed its truest, most desolate visage. Countless massive metal wreckages lay strewn all around; some were the outer shells of habitation pods that crashed during the planet's destruction, while others were the shattered hulls of cargo ships torn apart by gravitational tides. They were thrust deeply into the reddish-brown gravel, like gravestones of nameless mortals. There was no warm sunlight in the sky, only dim, distorted starlight piercing through multiple layers of exhaust gas and particulate barriers, refracting pale halos on the cold metal surfaces.

Veteran Caleb tightened the bulletproof cape around himself. His mechanical prosthetic eye silently spun and micro-adjusted in dark-red night-vision mode, taking in all the shadows within hundreds of meters.

"Elias, wait." Veteran Caleb suddenly raised his right hand, his footsteps pausing beside a massive piece of remelted rock, his voice kept extremely low. "There's an energy leak frequency ahead. It's not ordinary radiation, this frequency is too high. Lyra's astrolabe just caught an extremely faint tremor."

Elias, walking beside him, stopped, his left hand naturally resting on the hilt of the heavy cutting knife at his waist. His fluffy blond hair fluttered slightly in the cold wind, his lake-green pupils reflecting the jagged pile of boulders ahead.

"Where is the frequency?" Elias asked, his tone holding no panic, only vigilance.

"At the rear of the Habitation Pod Alpha-Three wreckage, about eighty meters away from us." Caleb lowered his electromagnetic rifle and gave a tactical hand signal, instructing the two reconnaissance company warriors behind him to split up and flank.

Camp intelligence officer Lyra hadn't come out today; she was guarding the main control cabin in the camp, using the Orbit-breaking Astrolabe to provide them with remote radar shielding. At the edge of this dead-silent blind spot, any minute movement required extra caution, because the Aries Lord's vanguard fleet was closing in step by step. They could not afford a single mistake of exposing their physical coordinates.

Elias strode forward, his leather boots stepping on the soft red sand with almost no sound.

When they rounded that curved alloy deck shaped like a behemoth's ribs, a strange fragrance suddenly rippled through the pungent sulfur exhaust. It was an extremely clear, uniquely searing metallic scent that did not belong to the mortal world, and certainly not to this dirty wasteland.

"The smell of blood..." Caleb's mechanical eye rapidly switched between infrared thermal imaging and energy spectral analysis, and he suddenly drew a sharp breath. "It's golden! Damn it, the blood on the ground is pale gold!"

Elias stepped forward quickly and pushed aside a half-covered rainproof blanket.

Between the cold, rough metal plates and the gravel lay a tall, imposing man.

The man's bronze skin was covered in a crisscross of wounds; in many places, the flesh was turned outward, revealing faintly glowing bones beneath. Most glaring of all, his collarbone and chest were covered in shattered, slowly dissipating sacred divine markings. Those divine markings emitted a faint golden fluorescence in the cold wind of the wasteland, and with every weak breath, pale golden divine blood seeped from the wounds, dripping into the reddish-brown dust with extremely faint vaporizing hisses.

The man's short dark brown hair was messy and untamed. There was a very deep, old scar above his left eye, as if he had been brutally clawed by some ferocious interstellar beast. Even though his eyes were tightly shut and his face was as pale as death, the tall, imposing stature and the untamable arrogance exuding from his entire body still made the surrounding wasteland wind and sand seem somewhat constrained.

Right in the center of his collarbone was a peculiar [Orion] star map tattoo. Every time he twitched slightly in pain, that tattoo would emit an extremely dim, dark red light like a fissure in magma, as if a fire were surging beneath his skin.

"A god..." The accompanying mortal warriors exclaimed, their faces instantly turning deadly pale. They subconsciously took half a step back, their fingers locking tightly onto the triggers of their electromagnetic guns.

In the understanding of mortals, gods were the supreme rulers, synonymous with bringing destruction and disaster. They had never imagined that one day, in the garbage dumps of the wasteland, they would see a bleeding god with shattered divine markings lying in the wreckage like a dead dog.

"Calm down!" Caleb shouted in a low voice, but the muzzle of his electromagnetic rifle was also deadlocked on the man's head, the red light spot in his mechanical eye shrinking sharply. "Elias, this is a god. Regardless of which star zone he belongs to, the moment his divine core recovers, or his physical coordinates are locked onto by the Divine Court's Star-network, the lives of over two hundred people in our entire camp will be evaporated by law cannons in an instant!"

Elias didn't speak.

He crouched down, extended his right hand, and paused his fingertips next to the golden bloodstain on the edge of the man's wound, feeling that high-dimensional law energy which, even weakened to the extreme, still produced a slight repulsion and stinging pain against his mortal shell.

At that very moment, the heavily injured man suddenly opened his eyes.

Those were eyes like the brightest stars in the night sky. Even stained with blood and dust, the battle intent and wildness contained within them erupted in an instant.

Whoosh!

Although his divine markings were shattered and he was heavily injured, the man's right hand still blurred into a residual shadow hard to track with the naked eye. His five fingers, like steel hooks, clamped in a death grip around Elias's neck!

"You're courting death!" Caleb roared violently, the muzzle of his gun pressing directly against the man's temple, the sound of the bolt pulling back crisp in the silent wasteland. The two mortal warriors also instantly raised their polarized shields, locking down all of the man's retreat paths.

However, the man didn't even look at the gun barrels pointed at his head.

His bright eyes merely stared dead at Elias, staring at this handsome mortal boy with fluffy blond hair.

"It's you..." The man slowly spoke, his voice dry and gravelly, yet carrying an innate arrogance and wildness. "I've seen you. Through the loopholes in the Star-network... you used that blunt iron mortal knife to chop off Gar's head."

Elias's pupils shrank slightly. He let the other's steel fingers pinch his arm, his tone as calm as a placid pool, "You were present at the time?"

"I was in the heavenly realm... watching through the loopholes in the Star-network as that arrogant idiot descended." The man laughed hoarsely. With every laugh, more pale golden divine blood seeped from the wounds on his chest. "A personal guard of the Aries Lord, actually butchered by a mortal without even a star-track. Haha... cough, cough!"

He broke into a violent fit of coughing, released his grip on Elias's arm, and collapsed onto the metal plate, the Orion tattoo on his chest flashing violently from the pain.

"Who are you?" Elias looked at him and asked.

"Me?" The man grimaced in pain, the scar above his left eye appearing exceptionally fierce. "I am Orion. A death row prisoner sentenced to death by the Divine Court's star-tracks, struggling under the star of doom. Or you could say... a demigod who refuses to die on his knees."

Orion.

This name made Caleb's expression change several times: "Orion? That legendary hunter possessing the bloodlines of a human and the God of the Sea, who was stripped of his divine core and subjected to the ultimate death tribulation an epoch ago for defying the Inner Cabinet? Why would you fall here?"

Orion closed his eyes, his breathing weak and rapid: "The Divine Court's pursuers... shattered my last remaining life star-track at the periphery of the star-path. They thought I died in the jump channel, but I don't die that easily. I smelled the scent of mortal wildfire, so I fell down here."

He slowly opened his eyes, looking at Elias, a wild curve lifting the corners of his mouth. "Hey, mortal. I witnessed the aftermath of your god-slaying. I am truly too curious about you... about your camp that can butcher a divine envoy. If you don't want the fluctuations of my divine markings to immediately attract the Aries Lord's battlecruisers, you'd better hide me in that dark room of yours that even astrolabes can't scan within three minutes."

He lay there, yet even in a desperate situation, even facing the muzzles and hostility of mortals, that arrogance and untamability carved into his bones hadn't diminished in the slightest.

Caleb's index finger tightened over and over on the trigger. His red mechanical eye flashed frantically with warning lights in its rough socket. He lowered his voice, his words carrying deep anxiety and vigilance: "Elias, we can't keep him. Even if this guy only has one breath left, he's a living divine entity. Even if the divine core and divine markings on his body are shattered, the dissipated high-dimensional energy frequencies will form a strong auroral effect in the cosmic vacuum. If the Aries Lord's vanguard fleet patrol probes sweep over this area, even with a one-in-ten-thousand chance of catching this frequency, all the defensive camouflage our Vanguard has done these past few days will be wasted! We can't risk this apocalyptic disaster for a dying demigod!"

"Elias! Caleb!" Right then, Lyra's urgent cry, carrying faint static, suddenly came through their tactical headsets. "A miniature reverse star-track polarized vortex centered on you has appeared on my radar screen! It's the high-energy divine blood amplitude dissipating from that demigod! Quick, you only have one minute! You must immediately use the Riot-proof Waste-lead Blocking Blankets to cover the star-core divine markings at his collarbone, and then use high-concentration lead powder to completely smother its energy field! Otherwise, the passive scanning probes of the Aries fleet Sky Sentinel will directly lock onto your physical coordinates in the next cycle! I've already sent the neutralization polarization parameters to your tactical terminals!"

"Heard you." Elias raised his hand and pressed his headset, not moving his feet, but staring coldly at the flickering [Orion] tattoo on Orion's collarbone. "But he just said it himself; he's a death row prisoner wanted by the Divine Court. The enemy of the Divine Court is our bargaining chip. Since the Aries Lord sent a vanguard fleet to blockade the blind spot, it means they aren't one hundred percent sure of the situation inside the blind spot. A fallen demigod who understands the Divine Court's tactics, knows the true strengths and weaknesses of the gods, and hates the Inner Cabinet to the core is a priceless living map for our Vanguard's upcoming battle for survival."

He turned around and gestured to the two reconnaissance company warriors behind him. "Go, bring those two [Riot-proof Waste-lead Blocking Blankets] used for patching armor plates on the warship. Also, inform Barnaby to prepare some high-concentration waste-lead dust and neutralizer. We are going to wrap his entire body and smother all the radiation frequencies of his divine markings in this gravel before the golden divine blood on this demigod's body completely vaporizes and sends the coordinates back to the Divine Court Star-network."

Caleb sighed, the muzzle of his electromagnetic rifle finally slowly dropping, but his expression remained extremely gloomy. "Elias, you're playing with fire. This guy's destiny chart is a death knot of heavy punishment from Saturn and Pluto; he's born to be a disaster that brings destruction. If his divine power goes out of control in the camp, or his death tribulation law detonates in the blind spot, we have absolutely no means to stop that kind of high-dimensional physical collapse."

"If the Divine Court's fleet presses in, even if we do nothing, we will die all the same." Elias tightened the cutting knife at his waist. "Since that's the case, it's better to grasp every variable we can get our hands on."

Soon, the two mortal warriors jogged over, dragging the thick, rough, dead-grey Riot-proof Waste-lead Blankets. These blankets were woven internally with extremely high-density lead wire and anti-phase polarizing filters, originally used to block the high-energy particle fallout of high-dimensional law sweeping cannons during space travel. Their physical density was extremely high, rendering them incredibly heavy.

Together, the few of them lifted the severely wounded Orion. Even during this painful moment of being roughly moved, with his wounds bleeding more pale gold blood from the intense friction, this demigod merely gritted his teeth tightly without letting out a single groan of submission. A few low growls like a wild beast rolled in his throat, and the Orion tattoo on his chest emitted a dark red, magma-like glow from extreme endurance.

When the thick waste-lead blankets wrapped his entire body dead tight, and layer upon layer of viscous waste-lead powder neutralizer was smeared on the surface, that strange fragrance and pale golden law fluctuation were finally completely isolated inside the lead layers. In Caleb's mechanical eye monitor, the golden light spot that was originally extremely glaring on the thermal imager gradually decayed, dimmed, and ultimately disappeared completely into the chaotic magnetic field of the blind spot, reverting to a physical dead object no different from the surrounding scrap metal.

"The divine energy reaction has decayed to below one-in-ten-thousand; the safety threshold in the direction of the astrolabe is met," Caleb reported in a low voice after glancing at the detector. "But his physical condition is extremely poor, his divine core is internally shattered, and his law circuits are broken over large areas. Whether he can survive until we return to the camp is an unknown."

"He will survive." Elias raised his hand to support the heavy waste-lead stretcher, his lake-green pupils full of unshakable steadiness and decisiveness. "A demigod who struggled in a death tribulation for a hundred years without dying won't die so simply in the dust of the wasteland. Carry him back!"

The night completely fell at this moment. The cold wind of the blind spot wasteland howled, whipping up a sky full of dust and sand, covering the last trace of footprints left by this mortal squad deep in the ruins. And in the orbital high altitude not far away, the probe beams of the Aries Vanguard's heavy battlecruisers were sweeping over the gravity dead corners at the periphery of the blind spot time and time again, searching for any faint echoes that might belong to the Null Error.

Two impending collisions of destiny quietly intertwined on the edge of the wasteland this night, in an extremely brutal and undignified manner.