Ten thousand medical shuttles descended from Bullion Tower like a swarm of shining white doves.
They touched down along the cut edges of the thirty command dreadnoughts, their pressurized hatches hissing open. Two million doctors, alchemists, and nurses from the seventy-two sects swarmed into the dark engine bilges, carrying anti-gravity stretchers, medicine crates, and warm blankets.
Dr. Gu Qinghe led the primary triage team, his face grim with professional determination.
Beside him, Old Master Xuan expanded his Diamond-Gold Shell beneath the severed hulls. The colossal celestial turtle provided a rock-solid foundation in the void, ensuring the ships did not drift or tilt during the complex rescue operation.
Lin Mo walked through the soot-stained corridors of the lead engine deck, his eyes taking in the full horror of the scene.
Ten million human beings were chained across the fleet’s furnace chambers.
They were honest farmers, skilled blacksmiths, and righteous loose cultivators from outer star systems. Every single one had fallen victim to predatory loans engineered by Vault #6. When they defaulted on impossible interest payments, their bodies had been seized as physical collateral.
For centuries, they had been forced to burn their own living spinal marrow to fuel the fleet’s dark-matter engines.
