Hearing this, Falin’s brow twitched. He pursed his lips and said, "...No, it’s nothing. Thank you for your concern..."
Lei Ting didn't press further. Reason told him there were definitely troublesome matters involved that he wasn't privy to.
With a heavy *clack*, the roar of gears and mechanical devices echoed through the vast hangar. The security turrets aimed at Falin from all directions retracted silently into the walls.
【*Crater 303* and *United Victory* have completed docking,】 Wangshu’s mechanical voice resonated throughout the hangar. 【Passageways are opening... Personnel involved in the 'Shipboard Personnel Transfer' mission, please begin moving in an orderly fashion.】
The heavy doors slid open. An opaque, fluorescent blue barrier flickered before everyone’s eyes.
Then, the barrier deactivated soundlessly. As the blue light dissipated into the air, a brilliant red glow spilled in through the high, wide corridor that had been temporarily extended for the connection.
Bathed in that red light stood a row of soldiers, two squads of esper mecha pilots, and several officers. They stood straight and rigid, every exposed or partially visible face etched with solemnity.
With a single glance, Lei Ting realized: the people from the First Legion’s flagship, the *United Victory*, had arrived.
...
From the direction of Earth, the Great Orion Nebula looked like a red bird soaring through the starry sky with its wings outspread.
For thousands of years, the people living in the Origin System had gazed at this patch of sky, looking toward the veils, the eagle heads, the divine eyes, and the roses in the deep reaches of space—and toward the Large Magellanic Cloud, which orbited the Milky Way on its own mechanism while being swallowed by it day by day.
Those dreamlike worlds, appearing so beautiful even in the distant stars, were composed of dust clouds where every tiny speck surpassed the scale of the Solar System. A minor shift was merely the vibration of a massive ionized hydrogen cloud exerting its world-ending power.
They emitted light that one could bathe in even from the depths of space...
But the temperature of that soaring red bird was enough to instantly vaporize any normal organism that dared to approach it.
And now, Lei Ting was near that red bird.
At a position over a thousand light-years from the Origin System—a place 21st-century humans never imagined a person from Earth would truly set foot—he looked out as he walked through the docking bridge. With a turn of his head, he could see the towering, magnificent wings of the distant nebula.
Looking the other way, stars flickered in the deep void, shimmering with various hues.
Had he come a few hundred years earlier, perhaps he could have seen the old radiance of the "Origin System" brought by distant light.
...No. Even now, it wasn't a problem.
Even today, from a distance of about two thousand light-years from Earth, one could still see the light of the "Origin System's Sun." Further away, one could see even more—light from antiquity, from the primordial era, from the Cretaceous period, from the very birth of the planet.
In this galactic interstellar society, there were always those who enjoyed gazing into the distance from some corner of the stars, pointing out a supernova and claiming they were seeing the glory of its birth, while calculating how many years it would take for the associated dust clouds to reach their current location. This was a primary source of income for some exploration streamers on the Star Net.
Lei Ting had watched them. Often, they would quickly look up data only to find records exchanged with extra-systemic civilizations stating that those stars had already been destroyed hundreds of thousands of years ago for one reason or another.
As he walked here now, the Great Orion Nebula seemed within arm's reach on one side, while the endless, distant deep space lay on the other. The place he came from was even further away than the distance between these two.
On both sides of the path, which stretched for nearly several hundred meters, stood vigilant guards. The gray-black structures and black flooring swallowed all light.
Lei Ting walked forward, the crowd trailing far behind him. No one spoke to him, and no one dared to catch up.
His classmates, who used to spar, converse, and huddle together in every rest area to chat, were now all hanging their heads, counting the anti-slip ridges on the floor. Not a single person looked up at Lei Ting... or rather, at the "Double S."
It was only today that they truly realized the distinction between this man and themselves.
It wasn't even a "gap." No one felt it was a "gap." Because the word "gap" only carries meaning when two things are judged on the same track.
From the moment that heavy, sharp, and unstoppable power radiated from Lei Ting, everyone understood—though he had only been awakened for less than two years, in terms of the mental dimension alone, it was hard for anyone to say if this young, gentle man could still be considered "human."
In the cold silence, the whistling air circulating between the two ships ruffled Lei Ting’s short black hair. The young man, with his deep and handsome features, walked alone toward the boundless, gargantuan vessel.
Countless auxiliary ships of various sizes hovered in formation on both sides of the passage. From the side facing away, the blue glow of engine exhaust drifted over. From the other side, the red light of the distant nebula filtered through the gaps between the massive ships after traveling across vast distances, finally passing through the glass windows of the corridor. Together with the blue light, it fell upon him, gilding his tall, powerful silhouette with a dazzling outline.
Falin, carrying the now-slumbering Lina, walked a few paces behind and to the side of Lei Ting.
After facing Lei Ting directly, Falin—who hadn't seemed particularly nervous at the time—now naturally adopted a posture of pure obedience, becoming just another member of the silent crowd.
Until Lei Ting suddenly stopped in the middle of the bridge.
Everyone stopped at the same time, looking nervously at... the edges of his boots.
Lei Ting: "..."
The black-haired youth sighed. He didn't turn around to put more pressure on them, but simply walked with light steps toward a nearby guard and said gently to the crowd behind him, "I have something to attend to, so I'll stay here for a moment. You all go on ahead."
Something to attend to? What could it be?
The crowd was startled, but no one dared to speak up. They all responded and quickened their pace, soon disappearing at the end of the corridor.
Lei Ting didn't watch them leave. Instead, standing beside the guard who stared straight ahead, he looked out at the stars. He looked at the massive fleet that filled the sky above, below, left, and right—of which he could only see the tip of the iceberg. He looked at the various types of ships he had previously only known through video footage and textbooks, and at the red light of the distant nebula.
As for why he was doing this...
—【Instruction received: Stand by at the connecting bridge.】
This was the instruction message Wangshu had just sent him.
So, he truly stopped his pace, even though he might suffer a fatal blow if the bridge were suddenly attacked or retracted.
A short while later, the guards quickly retreated into the *United Victory*. The sound of the whistling wind vanished.
Lei Ting was left here alone. However, even without releasing his mental perception, he could clearly sense every movement in all directions—a result of his natural affinity for sensing metal.
Though he still needed to extend his mental strength to specific locations to further manipulate his esper abilities—to move, reshape, or suppress the external reactions of metal—to him, the secrets within an interstellar fleet were no secrets at all, so long as their medium was a physical object.
Because in this era, nothing could exist without metal.
...Well, whether in the past or the future, nothing could exist without metal. It was just that as human civilization's technological level advanced, the application of metal had increased, was increasing, and would inevitably continue to increase.
Lei Ting stood by the window, his thoughts wandering.
After a long time, a breeze stirred again.
This time, only one person entered the area.
Lei Ting turned around.
What met his eyes was a figure roughly two hundred and forty centimeters tall.
It was a woman. A woman seven feet ten inches tall.
She had short-to-medium white hair that was sharp yet stylishly coiffed. The right side of her head was shaved clean, revealing a replaced pitch-black alloy skull inlaid with bright gold-plated lines and fixed with golden bolts.
Her tall, perfectly proportioned, solid, and powerful body was clad in a suit of matte black armor inlaid with gold trim and the insignia of the First Legion.
A side-cape of the same color and overlapping decorations resembling a liturgical stole draped down together. Upon the cloak and armor, golden studs shimmered under the brilliant light pouring in from the window.
A sense of formidable power brewed naturally as she moved. Although she appeared to be moving in heavy armor, her footsteps were silent, and her posture was light and agile.
An extremely powerful person. Lei Ting made an immediate judgment: at least for now, it was impossible for him to contend with her.
As he thought this, the woman walked up to him. She suddenly bent at the waist, leaning in to get a closer look at Lei Ting, who was only a bit over 1.8 meters tall.
Lei Ting’s pupils constricted. He instinctively wanted to back away, but he held his ground.
The faceplate, which featured a V-shaped visor, covered the upper half of her face, but her features were quite striking—her contours were resolute and could even be called handsome.
At this moment, behind the transparent visor—which had no functions activated and no mechanical auxiliary eyes deployed—a pair of light brown eyes met Lei Ting’s pitch-black ones.
A moment later, she straightened her back and extended a hand toward him. "Hello, Private Lei Ting. I am the Commander of the First Legion, Captain of the *United Victory*, Federation Admiral Valianna Belikov."
The hand she extended was positioned roughly level with Lei Ting’s face. And that hand was significantly larger than Lei Ting’s entire face.
Lei Ting: "..."
She really was a *great* general.
Unadorned, literal greatness.
"Hello, Commander Belikov." Lei Ting raised his hand to shake hers, addressing her by the foremost title she had given.
This response seemed to satisfy her.
"Just call me Valianna," she said with a smile, lowering her hand without trying to intimidate him. "You’re quite good. Better than the rumors, at least... I don't see any cruelty or arrogance in you. That’s truly rare."
...Rumors? Cruelty and arrogance?
Lei Ting narrowed his eyes but said nothing. These were people completely unrelated to him; let them say what they wanted. He couldn't control how others wagged their tongues.
Moreover, if the person speaking wasn't anyone important, verbal attacks were meaningless to him. Would a few words from others strip him of his power, his dignity, or his future?
As long as the first one remained, the latter two would never be so fragile.
Valianna also seemed disinclined to dwell on such unnecessary topics. She turned to look out the window where Lei Ting had been staring, toward the distant nebula, adopting a posture of 'let's get down to business.'
"Private Lei Ting," she asked, "do you fish?"
Lei Ting: "..."
Lei Ting: "...?"
***
