Sandora's opening words gave everyone a fright. Of all things, why bring up the Fallen Apostles now? But I quickly realized that Sandora's reasoning made sense. First, this route was brand-new. We had never sent ships into this region before, so the fragment could not have come from an Empire starship. Second, the metal fragment Little Crow had found in the void had clearly formed not long ago. Perhaps it had been part of an intact ship until recently; after the ship collapsed and its Order Field disintegrated, the fragment drifted into the void. Otherwise, there was no explanation for how a piece of matter like this could have endured so long in the void environment. Apart from Empire ships, only the Fallen Apostles remained as a possibility.
"Fleet on alert," Sandora immediately ordered. "Switch the Order Field to concealment mode and reduce jump speed to the silent threshold. Have the advance-warning formation deploy intelligence probes. Keep the probes farther from the main fleet."
The fleet commanders immediately responded and took action, while I stared at the metal fragment as if I could make out which "old friend" stood behind it. At the same time, I felt increasingly puzzled. "That shouldn't be possible... Lin Xue's prophecy shouldn't be wrong."
"Lin Xue only said we would not encounter enemies on this trip," Sandora had her own view. "She never said there would be no traces of Fallen Apostles in this area. Perhaps they really were active here before; we simply don't know whether they are still around. According to the prophecy, perhaps the most dangerous possibility is that the Empire Army and the Fallen Apostles merely pass each other by."
As she spoke, Sandora reached out and wiped the badly corroded metal plate. Her frown did not ease in the slightest.