The shuttle's engine was still humming in his ears, but Ye Mo could no longer hear it. All his attention was focused on the persistent burning sensation between his brows, as if someone was stirring a red-hot wire in his brain. The data stream from the tactical lens was refreshing wildly, the red curve jumping like it was dancing, the frequency soaring from 1.2 to 2.8, the fluctuations becoming more and more rapid and regular—not a natural oscillation, but a man-made rhythm.
" Emma Frost, are you still holding on?" he whispered in the mental link.
"Yes." Her voice came through a thin layer of water, faint but clear, " The Mental Network is maintaining a level three scan, covering a radius of three hundred kilometers. That energy... something's wrong. It paused three times, each time with an interval of exactly four seconds, as if waiting for some signal."
"It's not waiting for a signal." Ye Mo narrowed his eyes, his fingers rapidly sliding across the terminal on his wrist. "It's avoiding detection bands. Someone is moving the gem using anti-detection mode; the movements are very practiced, but the breathing rhythm has given them away."
He severed external communications, maintaining only a single-line connection with Emma Frost, and then activated the perception module of the 20th layer of the " Gene Spiral Tower." The entire universe seemed to fall silent instantly, even the vibrations of the shuttle disappeared. The high-sensitivity Scanning Wave spread out silently, penetrating the layers of spatial curvature remnants, like an extremely fine net, slowly filtering through every inch of void in the star field.
Three seconds later, he detected an anomaly in the asteroid belt debris field at the edge of Piscis Austrinus.
It wasn't a pure burst of energy, but rather a series of extremely weak bioelectrical signals superimposed on the violent fluctuations of the Power Stone. Heartbeat, nerve conduction, muscle contraction—the traces of a living being. Moreover, this person was deliberately suppressing their metabolic rate, disguising it as the heat radiation of a meteorite fragment.
"Found it," Ye Mo said softly. "It wasn't drifting, it was being moved. Someone's stealing it."
"Can you pinpoint the location?" Emma Frost asked.
"Within thirty meters." He glanced at the floating rocks outside the porthole. "I need to go down and check it out. Give me three seconds of mental cover; don't let that guy realize he's being watched."
"I'll give you five seconds." After she finished speaking, her Mental Network suddenly expanded for a moment, then contracted back to its original position. In that instant, Ye Mo's Scanning Wave seemed to be covered by an invisible membrane, completely detached from external perception.
Without another word, he opened the side door of the shuttle. In zero gravity, his body glided lightly out of the cabin. The miniature thrusters built into his work pants ignited automatically, propelling him slowly along the shadow of a giant meteorite. His black hooded sweatshirt billowed in the vacuum, like a silent flag.
The thruster covered a distance of thirty meters in just seven seconds.
He pressed himself against the back of the last piece of broken rock, his tactical lenses magnifying his vision. Fifty meters ahead, a figure clad in silver-gray armor hovered in the open area, a pair of folding propulsion wings unfolding behind him. In his hand, he held a portable gravity anchoring device, the end of which was connected to a violently distorted space—within which the Power Stone lay, like a imprisoned blue star, constantly struggling to break free of its restraints.
Star-Lord's movements were steady yet hurried. He adjusted the device parameters while glancing around from time to time, clearly aware that he was doing something shady.
Ye Mo held his breath and slowly moved to the edge of the meteorite. When the distance was reduced to thirty meters, he suddenly noticed a slight pause on the left shoulder of the enemy's armor—it was the air valve adjusting the oxygen concentration, the rhythm similar to that of a human, but slightly faster. A hybrid, with a low percentage of Earth genes, but enough to be identified as intelligent life.
"As expected, it's a person," he muttered to himself, "And one who doesn't want to leave their name."
The problem now is how to interrupt him without triggering a runaway energy attack from the gem. Charging in head-on is definitely out of the question; this guy is clearly an expert, his reaction speed won't be slow. Strong light interference? Smoke bombs? Neither is realistic; there's no air diffusion medium in space.
He suddenly remembered that when he tested the Wall Phasing Technique last week, he had left several low-frequency Quake beacons in this area. At the time, it was to calibrate the coordinates of the landing point of the space penetration, but he forgot to remove them afterwards. Now, they had become an unexpected bonus.
Ye Mo quietly activated the hidden commands on his wrist terminal and entered a short code. Three seconds later, a small meteorite ten meters below the target suddenly emitted a faint vibration, the frequency of which resonated perfectly with the surrounding natural background noise.
Star-Lord whirled around, causing the beam of the gravity anchoring device to shift by half a degree instantly. In that split second of distraction, Ye Mo made his move.
With the thrusters at full power, his body shot out of the shadows like an arrow. He shut off the power when he was about twenty meters away, relying on inertia to glide, and for the last five meters, he simply let go and floated over, spreading his arms out to firmly block Star-Lord and the gem.
"Put it down." His voice wasn't loud, but it boomed clearly over the helmet's internal communication channel. "This isn't something you can handle."
Star-Lord froze, his hand still on the gravity anchoring device, his eyes fixed on the black-clad man who had suddenly appeared through his mask. For a full two seconds, no one spoke, only the soft buzzing of the equipment echoed between them.
"Huh?" He finally spoke, his tone tinged with disbelief. "Dude, which planet did you hitch a ride on? This isn't a tourist attraction."
Ye Mo didn't move or remove his helmet. A line of small text popped up in the corner of the tactical lens: Target's heart rate is 117 per minute, adrenaline level is rising by 43%, no weapon drawing action, but his right hand is still hovering near the control panel.
"Who I am is unimportant." He floated forward half a meter, just inside the safety distance line. "What's important is whether you know you're playing with fire? If this thing explodes, you won't even be left with ashes."
"Oh, thanks for the reminder, firefighter." Star-Lord smirked, revealing that nonchalant grin, but his eyes remained sharp. "But I advise you not to meddle. I've transported this thing eight light-years without a single problem."
"Eight light-years?" Ye Mo sneered. "Then who cleaned up your mess when you crashed into the gravity well in the Kreita Galaxy the day before yesterday? Don't tell me it was routine maintenance."
Star-Lord's pupils contracted slightly.
"You were following me?"
"I just followed the traces of energy here." Ye Mo raised his left hand, palm facing the gem. "It's so bright, like someone waving a flashlight around in the forest at night; it's impossible not to notice it."
"Listen, I don't care who sent you." Star-Lord slowly withdrew his right hand, but didn't release the device. "This is an emergency relocation mission, concerning the safety of the entire sector. If you dare to interfere, the consequences will be more than you can bear."
"I've heard the same lines countless times." Ye Mo took another step forward, bringing the two to within five meters. "Every time someone says that, they either end up blowing themselves up or setting someone else's planet on fire. So I have a suggestion—"
Before he could finish speaking, Emma Frost's mental perception suddenly fluctuated.
[The target's heart is racing; there is no pretense of malice, but a strong intention to escape is evident.]
Ye Mo's eyes narrowed, and he immediately changed his words: "Don't move."
Star-Lord's finger had already touched the emergency disengagement button on the side of the device.
"I said don't move!" Ye Mo suddenly raised his hand, palm facing forward, and shouted in a low voice, "Detonate the third rock fragment on the left!"
Before the words were even finished, the previously still meteorite exploded with a deafening roar, the shockwave propelling them both in opposite directions. The gravity anchoring device instantly lost its balance, blue light flashed violently, and the gem's energy field began to pulsate unstablely.
Star-Lord cursed and frantically tried to stabilize the equipment. Ye Mo used the recoil to quickly change direction and approach again, this time reaching out to grab the device's handle.
"Are you crazy?!" Star-Lord roared. "If this thing goes out of control, we're both doomed!"
"Then we'll all perish together." Ye Mo gritted his teeth. "Anyway, you shouldn't have touched it."
The two briefly grappled in weightlessness, their gloves rubbing against the metal casing, neither willing to let go. The brilliance of the gemstone grew increasingly dazzling, and the surrounding rocks began to float uncontrollably, as if being slowly squeezed by an invisible hand.
In the distance, the B-7 shuttle hovered silently in the darkness. Emma Frost leaned against the control panel, her fingertips lightly touching her temples, maintaining the last vestige of her mental connection. She watched the two intertwined figures on the monitor screen, her lips moved slightly, but no sound came out.
Star-Lord finally stopped struggling, panting as he looked at the guy who had appeared out of nowhere.
"Who exactly are you?" he asked.
Ye Mo didn't answer. He just stared at the restless energy and said in a low voice, "The problem now isn't who I am—it's how you're going to clean up this mess."
The gemstone's pulsation frequency suddenly increased, and blue light surged like a tide, enveloping the three of them in an eerie light and shadow.