Inside the fighter jet cockpit, the blue light from the holographic screen flowed across everyone's faces.
Chu Yao's fingertip hovered over the send button on the terminal, while Su Qing's unread messages and the notification from the black shadow flashed alternately on the screen.
The angry shouts of Xuan Mingzi as he slammed the door and left three days ago still echoed in her ears—"That star chart is a treasure passed down in my sect for three hundred years. You say it's an intruder's relic?" At that time, the old man's beard was trembling, and the star-fixing coin was slammed heavily on the table, making the teacup jump.
“Mr. Lin,” Chu Yao suddenly spoke, her voice drowning out the hum of the fighter jet engine.
Lin Yi paused as he adjusted the parameters of the spacetime rift. When he looked up, his gaze swept over the messages on her terminal, and his pupils contracted slightly.
Xuanmingzi's star chart was spinning at this moment, and the engravings of the Twenty-Eight Mansions cast shimmering starlight inside the cabin.
The old man's silver hair was lifted by the star power, but he was no longer as irritable as before. Instead, he looked somewhat bewildered. The tremor when the star chart resonated with Su Qing's bloodline just now was exactly the same as the resonance when he encountered the intruder's remains in the laboratory three days ago.
"Young friend." Xuanmingzi suddenly released his hand from the star chart, and the spinning sound of the bronze disc stopped abruptly.
As he turned around, the silver hair on the Dingxingqian fell down, obscuring half of his face. "Three days ago... I was reckless."
The air inside the cockpit suddenly froze.
Long Wu's hand, which was patting the wall of the Tyrannosaurus Mech, was suspended in mid-air, and a tune he was humming was stuck in his throat.
Lin Yi's fingertips were still on the control panel, the spacetime emblem burning on his chest, the heat drilling into his heart through his veins—he had been waiting for this apology for three days, even thinking about it while the fighter jet was being repaired, and repeatedly refining the wording when Chu Yao handed over the mediation plan, but he never expected it to come so suddenly.
"Senior." Lin Yi stood up, the chair rails making a soft sound.
He looked at the wrinkles around Xuan Mingzi's eyes and recalled the new wooden mark on the door frame when the old man slammed the door three days ago.
At that time, the old man's back was hunched over like a withered autumn leaf, showing no trace of the demeanor of a grandmaster of astronomy.
"Are you asking about the astrological chart?"
Xuanmingzi raised his hand, and the silver hair on the Dingxing Coin suddenly glowed faintly.
He gently placed the bronze coin on the workbench between the two of them. The dark patterns on the coin's surface shimmered with a purplish hue under the blue light. "Su Yatou's information says that this star chart is a tool used by the invaders to locate spacetime nodes." His Adam's apple bobbed. "My master said back then that this was a relic of an ancient star official. I've believed it my whole life and won't allow anyone else to question it."
“But just now, when the star chart resonated, I suddenly remembered my master’s last words.” Xuan Mingzi’s voice lowered, as if he were talking to himself. “He said, ‘The light of the star chart should not be confined to the sect.’ I was too attached to the bloodline inheritance and forgot… this chart should illuminate the path for more people.”
Lin Yi's fingers unconsciously caressed the spacetime emblem on his chest.
He recalled the first time he met Xuanmingzi, when the old man stood on the star-gazing platform, looking up and counting the stars, his eyes shining brighter than the stars themselves.
It turns out that all the stubbornness stemmed from the fear of losing the tradition; all the anger stemmed from the fear of misplaced faith.
"Senior." He extended his hand, palm up, "This game, we'll guide each other from now on."
Xuanmingzi looked up and saw the sincerity in the young man's eyes.
His hand hovered in mid-air, trembling for a moment—the last time someone said "together" to him was when his master took him to climb the observatory.
The old man's rough palm covered Lin Yi's hand, the calluses on his palm making the young man feel a slight itch: "Okay, together."
"Smack!"
Long Wu slapped their clasped hands hard, making the control panel shake.
He laughed heartily, his eyes glistening with tears: "It should have been like this a long time ago! The other day, Old Chu stayed up for three nights writing a mediation plan, and it pained me to see it—now it's all good, saving us the trouble of reading that ten-thousand-word document!"
Chu Yao chuckled softly behind the terminal, her fingertips rapidly tapping as she quietly dragged the seventeen-page "Team Conflict Mediation Strategy" into the recycle bin.
On the holographic screen, Xuanxiaowei's takeover application was flashing a green confirmation light, much like her light heartbeat at that moment.
"bite--"
Su Qing's communication request suddenly popped up and was projected in the center of the cabin.
The girl's hair was still stained with blue data particles, and her dark circles were obvious, but she smiled like a newly opened sunflower: "Everyone, I succeeded!" In the laboratory behind her, a translucent energy body floated, flowing with the eerie blue of the Mother Nest's core. "Having fused with the Mother Nest's spatial stability data, we can mass-produce cross-dimensional locators—" She tapped her fingertip, and the energy body split into countless light particles, "And this, the Anti-Entropy Blade."
A silver light blade suddenly solidified in front of Long Wu, and the hatch of the Tyrannosaurus Mech hissed out blue smoke—the light blade had actually pierced through the three-centimeter-thick alloy.
Long Wu's eyes widened, and he suddenly stood up, his forehead almost hitting the ceiling: "Little Qing! This thing is even more ruthless than my electromagnetic knife?"
“It can sever the intruder’s spatial anchor point.” Su Qing yawned, but couldn’t hide her excitement. “The data from the mother nest mentioned that their main anchor relies on entropy increase to maintain stability, and the anti-entropy blade is perfect for that.” Her gaze swept over Lin Yi. “Also, the opening time of your spacetime rift can be extended by ten minutes—I optimized the energy cycle model of the rift.”
Lin Yi felt the emblem on his chest burning even more intensely.
He looked at the dark circles under Su Qing's eyes and recalled the message she sent him three days ago: "Data fusion has a 57% probability of causing a collapse of consciousness." At that time, he almost rushed into the laboratory to drag her out, but Su Qing locked the door outside: "Brother Lin, this is what I can do for the final battle."
"Thank you for your hard work," he said, his voice softer than usual.
Su Qing's ears instantly turned red, and she hurriedly looked down at the terminal, saying, "No, it's not hard work! Oh, right, the shadowy figure sent another message!"
All eyes turned to Chu Yao's terminal.
The information box from the shadowy figure popped up. This time it wasn't a brief prompt, but a full-screen star map and troop deployment: [The intruder's main anchor is located at the core of the far side of the moon, and the defense network relies on seventy-two space nodes.]
Weakness: Every three hours, during energy fluctuations, there will be a 0.3-second resonance gap with Su Qing's bloodline.
Chu Yao swiped the screen rapidly, a torrent of data flowing before her eyes: "The blank period is enough to open the stargate and bypass the defense network." When she looked up, her eyes gleamed, "Combined with Su Qing's locator, we can precisely strike the main anchor core."
Xuan Mingzi's fingers traced across the star chart, and the light trails of the Twenty-Eight Mansions suddenly connected into a silver chain: "The positioning accuracy of the Star Gate Technique can be improved by 30%." He looked at Lin Yi, his stubbornness already transformed into a sharp glint, "Young friend, how confident are you in making your move now?"
Lin Yi gazed at the star map on the holographic screen, the heat of the spacetime emblem spreading from his veins to his fingertips.
He recalled the first group photo taken when the team was formed, the embarrassing moment when Long Wu crashed into a wall in his Tyrannosaurus Mech for the first time, the tactical report that Chu Yao stayed up all night to compile, and Su Qing's profile as she ate a cold sandwich and typed code in the lab.
“Seventy percent,” he said, his voice as steady as the fighter jet beneath his feet.
"Seventy percent?" Long Wu raised an eyebrow. "That's enough! Back in the day, when I led a special forces raid on the drug den, I was willing to go even with a 30% chance of success!"
"Sixty percent." Chu Yao suddenly corrected, pointing her finger at the invaders' troop deployment map, "But with Su Qing's anti-entropy blade and the intelligence from the shadowy figure, it can be raised to ninety percent."
Xuan Mingzi's star chart suddenly emitted a clear and melodious sound, and the light traces of all twenty-eight constellations lit up: "The Star Gate Technique is ready." He looked at Lin Yi, "It can be activated at any time."
Lin Yi's gaze swept over the crowd.
Long Wu patted the mecha, eager to try it out. Chu Yao's terminal spun in the air, leaving afterimages. Xuan Mingzi's star chart shimmered with starlight. In Su Qing's projection, the anti-entropy battle blade was humming.
“Wait for Su Qing’s locator to go into mass production,” he said. “Wait for Xuanxiao Guard to complete the final defensive deployment.” He pressed the red button on the control panel, and the fighter jet’s porthole slowly opened, letting in the cold wind from the far side of the moon, carrying the metallic stench. “The final battle… a few more hours won’t make a difference.”
Everyone fell silent.
They all knew that the invading army could arrive at any moment; they all knew that the energy fluctuations of the main anchor were intensifying; they all knew that the disturbed entity on the far side of the moon was now opening its dark purple eyes.
But at this moment, the temperature inside the cockpit is higher than ever.
That was the warmth of belief, the warmth of trust, the warmth of seventeen versions of the mediation plan, three days and three nights of data integration, and twenty years of astrological heritage finally converging.
Lin Yi stared at the countdown timer flashing on the holographic screen—seven hours until the stargate opens.
He took out his terminal, opened the team group chat, and typed a line of text:
See you at 8 PM tonight at the Moonlit Gate.
The moment the send button was pressed, message notification sounds began to ring out.
He looked at the constant stream of "Received," "No problem," and "Wait till I chop down those bastards" messages popping up in the group chat, and suddenly laughed.
Outside the fighter jet, in the shadows of the moon's far side, dark purple eyes narrowed.
It sensed that familiar yet strange power—the legacy of the ancient civilization it had destroyed, the hope that it thought had long since vanished, belonging to this planet.
Unbeknownst to it, at this very moment, 300,000 kilometers away on Earth, in a certain laboratory, Su Qing was installing the last anti-entropy war blade into a sealed chamber; in a certain mecha hangar, Long Wu was adding antimatter thrusters to the electromagnetic blades of the Tyrannosaurus Mecha; on a certain observatory, Xuan Mingzi was using the star-fixing coin to draw the final light trail on the star map; and in the cockpit of a certain fighter jet, a young man was touching the burning emblem on his chest, thinking to himself:
"It is our turn to light the way forward."
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