The rusted hull of the starship creaked and fizzed in the dark matter stream🪐. Kael pressed the chalk-white blade against the vent latch—this was the "Void Soul Devourer: Bone-Patterned Piercing Siege Special Blade - Exclusive Melee Enemy-Slaying Dagger of Deep Space Marines", official designation M-72, a standard-issue forging crafted from high-strength 3D-printed materials blended with exoskeleton powder of annihilated void zerg. The intentionally retained hollowed grooves were designed not only to reduce weight, but also to release neurotoxins from the zerg exoskeleton during piercing🔨. Three days prior, the 17th Deep Space Marine Corps had gone missing during a raid on "Gliese-δ", a void zerg hatching star. Only Kael, a communications specialist reassigned to a forward recon mission at the last minute, had escaped the carnage📡. When he piloted his scout craft back to the starship wreckage, he found all his comrades' chests hollowed out, their organs and tactical chips vanished without a trace. This dagger had been caught on the zipper of the marine commander's tactical backpack, with faint green fluorescent traces of zerg bodily fluid lingering in the hollowed grooves on the blade, still flickering faintly even under the interference of the dark matter stream💚. Kael pried open the vent latch with the dagger's tip, the harsh screech of metal on metal echoing through the empty starship corridor. Faint gnawing sounds immediately emanated from inside the vent, like a creature chewing through alloy plating. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the non-slip ridges on the hilt—he had no idea what lurked within, but the faint tremor rippling through the blade convinced him there was an eerie connection between the dagger and the zerg that had devoured his comrades, as if bound by an invisible thread🔗. As his pupils adjusted to the dim light inside the vent, he saw at the far end, a mass of writhing semi-transparent tentacles coiled around the marine corps' tactical data terminal, and the tip of the dagger was uncontrollably inching forward, emitting a faint hum only he could hear. Kael suddenly recalled the commander's final encrypted transmission: "They're searching for... the coordinates in the blade..." He stumbled back in shock, only to find the hilt had fused to his palm, the fluorescence in the hollowed grooves suddenly flaring to blinding brightness. The gnawing sounds from the vent, ceased abruptly...🔊