Chapter 44 — Promise of the Broken Blade

Wasteland Camp of the Blind Spot, at the break of dawn.

A sickly grayish-blue glimmer rose on the reddish-brown horizon; that was the cold color refracted by high-dimensional radioactive dust in the thin atmosphere. The biting morning wind, wrapping fine sand within it, shuttled back and forth among the abandoned steel-plate structures, emitting piercing whimpers. On the makeshift training ground in the center of the camp, dust flew as dozens of mortal miners clad in heavy work armor stood in formation. Everyone's face hung with sweat and dirt, their breaths condensing into puffs of white mist in the freezing air.

"Raise the shields two inches!" Veteran Caleb's loud voice echoed over the training ground. "When the gravity rays of the 11th House Sky Sentinel sweep down, if the polarized coating cannot tilt at a sixty-degree angle, your entire arm, along with the steel shield, will instantly turn to charcoal! Do it again!"

Elias stood at the very front of the formation, holding a heavy steel training knife. His posture was straight, his eyes calm and sharp. He was leading the warriors of the First Assault Company in demonstrating close-quarters combat techniques. Every single one of his movements was extremely crisp and precise, lacking any flashy routines, entirely composed of lethal moves honed during life-and-death struggles with alien beasts and divine envoys in the underground waste mines.

Just then, a somewhat wild sneer came from beside a giant rock at the edge of the training ground.

"Crude, too crude."

The crowd turned their heads to look, only to see Orion, wrapped in the dead-grey waste-lead explosion-proof blanket, standing while leaning against a magma rock. After a few days of recuperation, his tall, imposing body was able to stand steadily. Although the law circuits inside his divine body were still broken, the demigod coercion carved into his bones, exhaling with every breath, still made the surrounding mortal warriors feel a heaviness in their chests. The scar above his left eye looked somewhat ferocious in the cold grey morning light, and his short, dark brown hair was messy in the wind.

"Hey, god-slaying boy." Orion casually picked up a broken piece of heavy scrap steel plate from a nearby scrap pile. The thing was originally an angle iron used for welding armor plates; it was only half a piece, and the edges were extremely sharp. "Is this how your mortal combat techniques are rehearsed step-by-step? When the Aries Lord's divine soldiers charge, they won't give you the chance to strike a pose at all. Under the absolute gravity suppression of the laws, you'll have trouble even lifting a finger, and you expect to be able to angle your shields?"

The air on the training ground instantly froze a little. A trace of indignation flashed in the eyes of several mortal warriors, but seeing the residual warmth of the faintly glowing pale gold divine blood on Orion's body, they could only swallow their anger back down.

Elias turned the steel knife in his hand around, his lake-green pupils calmly watching this demigod: "Then how do you think we should train?"

"How to train? Train with death!" A wild battle intent erupted in Orion's eyes. Carrying that piece of broken scrap angle iron in one hand, he strode into the center of the training ground, his heavy steps pressing deep footprints into the gravel. "Although I don't have [Orion's Bow], and my divine markings are more than half shattered, dealing with you mortals who have never seen high-dimensional divine warfare, this piece of broken iron is enough. Come, god-slaying boy, let me see just how many moves you can last under my broken blade!"

Caleb frowned, subconsciously wanting to stop him, but Elias raised his hand to stop the veteran.

"Okay," Elias simply replied.

He slowly drew into a stance, legs slightly bent, center of gravity lowered. He did not use the short blade containing the embers of mortal fire, but tightly gripped the most ordinary steel training knife in his hand. Under the starry sky of this blind spot, free from the rendering of destiny trajectories, there was no retreat or fear in the boy's eyes, only a nearly extremely cold focus.

"Catch!"

Orion shouted violently, his tall body bursting with unbelievable physical speed in an instant. That broken scrap angle iron turned into a pale arc of light, tearing through the oncoming dust fog, smashing toward Elias's neck with an extremely brutal, wild, and tricky downward cleaving posture!

Clang!

A deafening sound of metal clashing exploded with a boom. The gravel in the center of the training ground was violently rippled outward by this strong kinetic impact.

In the nick of time, Elias sidestepped and glided, the steel knife in his hand forming a semi-circular block, dangerously deflecting this massive force that was enough to smash an elephant's spine. His leather boots plowed a deep mark in the gravel, and his arms tingled faintly from the strong counter-shock. But there were no fluctuations in those lake-green eyes; instead, borrowing this force, his figure lunged forward like a civet cat, the cold steel knife stabbing straight toward Orion's soft spot beneath his ribs where the divine markings were shattered!

"Good strike!"

Orion laughed loudly. Without the enhancement of star-tracks, his body displayed an extremely terrifying flexibility, side-spinning to dodge the blade, his left elbow driving straight for Elias's chest like a heavy hammer. Elias didn't block it head-on, but used a rolling motion to slide three meters away on the ground. The moment he flipped up to stand, he once again pulled into a defensive stance.

The two engaged in a fierce melee in the sand and dust.

The sounds of collisions, panting, and the intense friction of steel and angle iron were continuous.

The mortal warriors around watched, dumbfounded. They had never imagined that Elias could actually hold out for so long under the physical combat suppression of a demigod. Although Elias had no glow of divine energy over his entire body, his unique "astrolabe blind spot Anomaly" trait meant that all of his combat moves were completely outside the prediction models of any destiny algorithm. Every time he deflected from a dead angle and counterattacked in a desperate situation, it was human instinct erupting purely for survival.

Clang!

After another violent collision, the steel knife in Elias's hand could not bear the intense load. With a crisp snap, it broke cleanly in half.

Orion stopped his offensive, the scrap angle iron in his hand pressing two inches in front of Elias's throat. He was also panting heavily in large gulps, his chest heaving violently, the shattered star map tattoo flashing with dark red magma light beneath his skin.

He looked at the streak of blood on Elias's cheek, looking at this blond boy who, even with a broken knife, still had a calm face and hadn't even blinked.

"You have no fear." Orion withdrew the broken iron. The high-and-mighty arrogance in his eyes had completely disappeared, replaced by an extremely deep shock and resonance. "Your muscle memory, your neural reflexes, are all grown just to survive dead-end situations. In the Heavenly Court, all warriors rely on the instant-kill bonuses of the star-tracks and the protection of the gods to fight; but you have nothing, yet you can fight me to this extent."

Orion looked at the broken iron in his hand, then at the broken knife in Elias's hand, and suddenly burst into loud laughter, his voice carrying an indescribable sorrow and arrogant pride:

"I fled in the heavenly realm for a hundred years. I thought in this universe, I was the only death row prisoner cursed by the laws of death tribulation fighting a lone battle. I watched those gods high above manipulating destiny every day, watched mortals numbly go through birth, aging, illness, and death under the arrangements of the star-tracks, and I felt this world was just a lifeless, rotten puddle. But I never expected that in this forgotten garbage blind spot, there would actually be a group of mortals like you who refuse to kneel and be fuel."

He suddenly took a step forward, his five thick fingers tightly gripping that broken piece of scrap angle iron, stabbing it heavily into the hard gravel between the two of them. The metal striking the gravel let out a harsh, muffled thud.

"Elias!" Orion stared into the blond boy's eyes, his voice carrying a roar like thunder rolling across the sky. "My [Orion's Bow] has already shattered on the jump star-path of the Sky Sentinel, and the law circuits in my divine core are seventy to eighty percent rotted. But today, with this broken iron left in the wasteland, I will establish an unyielding oath to you right here!"

He raised that thick arm, covered in the residual warmth of golden divine blood, pointing straight at the grey void overhead that was gradually being surrounded and blockaded by scarlet physical light spots and the Aries fleet:

"On the day the heavy battlecruiser flagship of the Aries Lord descends upon the blind spot and completely hauls in the net, I will use this piece of broken iron and my remaining demigod life to tear open a path of survival for you mortal vanguard warriors on this cold, desolate wasteland! If the destiny trajectory of the LinBoo Astrolabe has already sentenced you ants to death, then I will use this broken blade to smash their iron cage of laws to pieces! I want to see which is harder, the death knot woven by Ananke, or my cursed spine!"

On the training ground, for a moment, an absolute dead silence fell.

The cold wind, wrapping coarse sand, battered the faces and steel armor of the dozens of mortal warriors around, making light rustling sounds. Those miner warriors, who had originally been filled with extreme fear and resistance toward this "god with golden blood," felt the blood in their chests, almost numb from prolonged oppression, reignited by this battle intent that was wild to the extreme at this moment. The terror in their eyes faded and melted away bit by bit in the cold wind, replaced by a coarse, profound, and resolute battle intent.

Right then, the curtain of the protective shed was pushed aside, and Chief Astrologer Lyra trotted out in a hurry. She was still holding half a can of unused lead mud paint. Seeing this scene on the ground, she was so angry she ground her little canine tooth with a squeak, the messy hair on her forehead trembling. "Orion! Are you crazy?! The causality rejection in your body was just suppressed by the lead mud, and you actually ran to the training ground to fight Elias! Look at your chest, the divine markings have split open again!"

Orion turned his head, glanced at her, and laughed loudly, "Little astrologer, don't try to manage me with your rules and regulations. My natal chart is a death knot; a death knot means I'm not afraid of this little injury at all!"

In the shadows at the edge of the training ground, Vespera (Umbra), wearing her dark grey trench coat, silently watched all this.

In those beautiful violet eyes of hers, an indescribable ripple flashed for the first time.

This violent resistance against the order of destiny displayed by Orion, although still belonging to "foolish chaos" in her divine logic, this unyielding posture—refusing to submit to the astrolabe's algorithms, preferring to break himself to smash the iron cage of laws—was paradoxically a truth that the woman Astra could never understand. Astra always tried to use light to gently stitch loopholes, but some loopholes—some shackles forced upon the heads of living beings—could only be considered a true release when forcefully smashed by such violent physical power.

She coldly pursed her lips and shifted her gaze back to Elias again.

This blond boy was using his insignificant mortal spark to attract one anomalous deviation off the tracks after another to his side.

Perhaps, he could truly ignite a prairie fire that would burn through the entire astrolabe in this pitch-black, dead-silent blind spot.

Elias looked at the broken iron stuck in front of him, the corners of his mouth pursing into a resolute and gentle curve. He took a step forward, bent down, his right hand tightly gripping the hilt of the broken iron. Exerting force abruptly, he pulled it out from the hard red sandy ground with one motion.

"The oath of this broken blade, our Vanguard accepts." Elias raised the broken iron, speaking in a deep voice to Orion. "As long as our wildfire is still burning, the iron cage of the Divine Court will never lock us in."

"Brothers, continue training!"

"Yes! Supreme Commander!" Dozens of warriors roared in unison, the sound of metal armor clashing soaring straight into the clouds.

The grey-blue cold light of dawn finally thoroughly pierced the heavy radioactive dust fog, tightly enveloping this group of lives drawing their swords against destiny deep in the wasteland. The war drums had already begun to beat violently in the clouds of the heavenly realm, but down here on the bottom layer of the blind spot wasteland, the wildfires of mortals and the demigod had already linked dead tight, never to extinguish.