Saladin's gaze lingered for a moment on the almost unrecognizable puddle of filth, then shifted to several larger, dark fragments of the ancient, sinister sword beside it.
The fragments had jagged edges, and the strange symbols etched into them had dimmed, as though they had lost their vitality along with their wielder's death.
The guards had scanned them with detectors. There were no abnormal energy readings and no traces of psychic energy. They seemed to be nothing more than unusually hard xenos metal.
Yet Saladin's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
Something was wrong.
An exceedingly faint, elusive sense of unease brushed his keen perception, like a barely perceptible breeze blowing the wrong way amid the desert's shimmering heat.
It was neither a threat nor a warning. It felt more like a slight "misalignment" in his understanding.
As though that swift, clean execution—the enemy and its weapon, seemingly destroyed beyond recovery—had left something behind on a level he did not yet understand.
He tried to trace the source of that strange sensation, but had no idea where to begin.
There was no logic to support it, no evidence to confirm it, only a vague, instinctive feeling.
Perhaps it had been too long since he had personally taken part in frontline boarding combat, and facing such bizarre xenos constructs and a Command Center had left him overly tense?
He forcibly suppressed the doubt, attributing it to the excessive scrutiny of battlefield details that warriors often experienced after intense combat.
The war was not over. He could not let baseless speculation cloud his judgment.
"I leave the remaining cleanup, data extraction, and transfer of control over the Warship to you, Takidin." Saladin turned and addressed the guard commander standing at attention beside him, his voice regaining its usual composure.
"Search every corner thoroughly. Do