As Lin Ye clenched the handle of the Cangming Dragon Tooth Long-Sword Dagger, an encrypted alert from the Third Combat Zone erupted in his neural link 🚨. As a spearhead operative for the Deep Space Special Operations Team, he had been ordered to infiltrate a derelict space station overrun by the Insectoid Swarm and recover the lost Star Core blueprints. This dagger was the one he had inherited from the fallen team leader; its streamlined blade concealed miniature energy conduits that glowed with a faint, icy blue light 🔵 amid the station’s radioactive dust and haze. No sooner had he rounded the rusted airlock than three Scythe Insects lunged at him. With a swift flick of his wrist, Lin Ye’s Cangming Dragon Tooth slashed cleanly through their exoskeletons, and the instant burst of pulsed current from the energy conduits froze and shattered their bodies mid-air 💥. As he crouched down to wipe the blade, he suddenly felt a subtle tremor emanating from the dragon-head relief on the hilt, and a blurry image flooded his neural link: the previous team leader, wielding this very dagger, had detonated his own energy core right here in the same compartment. Staring at the pale-blue data streams flowing across the blade, Lin Ye abruptly heard an almost imperceptible dragon roar behind him 🐉, just as the station’s emergency lights flickered out.