With his knuckles pressed against the rust-streaked bulkhead, Special Forces operative Karen’s breath fogged up the visor of his helmet, while the Obsidian Vein dagger in his palm emitted a faint hum. Three days earlier, his team had been conducting a search-and-rescue mission aboard a derelict interstellar warship when they were ambushed by an unknown creature. Teammates disappeared one after another, leaving only him—armed with this dagger salvaged from the wreckage of the Obsidian Legion’s flagship—to hold out here. The titanium alloy blade is etched with twisted interstellar runes, and the bone-like ridges on the hilt are carved from the vertebrae of a void beast, said to be capable of devouring biological energy. Suddenly, a metallic screech echoed as the hatch was forced open; scarlet compound eyes gleamed in the darkness. Karen tightened his grip on the dagger, and its blade instantly flared with an ethereal violet aura. He charged forward, easily slicing through the creature’s armored exoskeleton—but upon contact with its viscera, the blade began to tremble violently, as if greedily siphoning off energy. When he finally dispatched the foe, he turned to find the nameplate of a missing teammate embedded in a groove on the dagger’s hilt—and to his astonishment, the comm device crackled with the very distress signal he had sent three days earlier.