The Orderkeeper dragged its damaged starboard side through the void in silence. Several strands of dark-red energy that had not been completely cleared from the stern clung to it like parasites, continuously draining shield power and emitting faint mental interference. Xuan had no choice but to devote part of his processing power to continuously flushing them with an energy stream mixed from Purification Pool water, barely managing to contain their spread.
The impact of the first ambush had not faded with distance. The "safe route" Ash had provided could no longer be trusted. No one knew how many similar traps lay ahead.
But they had to continue along the route. As far as they knew, it was the only path out of this star region known as the Ash Drift Zone and back to relatively familiar territory. Straying from the route and becoming lost in this unfamiliar, dangerous boundless void would be equally disastrous.
"Correct our course. Avoid every celestial shadow zone and gravitational anomaly marked on the star map as a possible ambush point," Neji ordered. "Increase active detection power to the upper safety threshold. Stay alert for any unnatural energy convergence."
Xuan complied. Their route became even more winding, skirting many seemingly harmless asteroid belts and nebula edges. The journey would take longer, but safety came first.
They continued onward with doubled vigilance.
Several days later, the Orderkeeper reached the second relay point marked on the star map—a sparse field of comet-belt debris made of ice crystals and dust. There were no large celestial bodies here, only countless fragments of icy dust drifting slowly through space, reflecting a faint, cold glow beneath the light of distant stars. According to the star map, the energy background in this region was abnormally "clean," with virtually no naturally occurring spatial disturbances,