The joints of Lin Ye’s fingers turned pale from the exertion as he gripped the rippled handle of the Cold Abyss Blue Crystal Dagger. The soles of his boots crushed the shattered optical fibers scattered among the wreckage of the starship 💥. Three days ago, his teammate A Kai went missing in this sector of ship debris torn apart by a hyperspace jump storm, leaving behind only this standard-issue tactical dagger. The seven holes along the blade are miniature pulse emitters that can disrupt the neural detection networks of gamma-class parasites—standard equipment for special-forces units conducting deep-cover missions behind enemy lines. Following the faint glow emanating from the blade, Lin Ye tracked it to the core compartment of the wreck and found A Kai’s combat suit, but no sign of the man himself; all that remained was thick, fluorescent bodily fluid oozing and writhing across the walls 🔦. Suddenly, a familiar breath sounded behind him. Lin Ye whirled around, the dagger’s tip aimed straight at A Kai’s throat—but those eyes were already obscured by the parasite’s ink-black neural network. Clenching his teeth, he activated the hidden mechanism on the hilt, and ultra-fine pulse needles shot out from the blade’s perforations, precisely piercing the parasite’s neural nodes. In an instant, A Kai’s body went limp. Lin Ye sheathed the dagger, only to hear an alien signal coming through the wreck’s comm device—one whose frequency perfectly matched the pulse frequency of the dagger 🔊.