Maintaining this half-squatting, half-lying posture for a full ten days, every muscle in his body ached, and his heart felt all the more stifled and oppressed.

If someone with claustrophobia were thrown into this environment, never mind ten days, they probably couldn't hold out for even a minute.

Ding Canghai counted as a man of iron will; back when he worked as an assassin, he had squatted alone at ambush points in the wild for days on end, but now even he felt an emptiness and panic gnawing at him inside.

His right hand was bent against his chest, fingers pinching an energy biscuit and sending it into his mouth, chewing down hard a few times.

His mouth was bone dry; the energy biscuit soaked up what little saliva he had, making it almost impossible to swallow.

He had to open his mouth and let the alloy hose beside him, used for delivering drinking water, reach his lips, then lightly suck twice, and immediately spit the hose back out, not daring to drink more.

Ten days had already passed; the food supplies carried within the Armor were still relatively ample, but the drinking water was gradually running low.

Very few people would roam alone on space meteoroids wearing only a Mecha; the internal supply tanks in the Armor were never designed to be that large, and there was no internal life-support recycling system.

With his field survival experience, Ding Canghai had been saving his urine, which was now vacuum-sealed and stored in the cargo compartment.

If he still couldn't obtain the intel in another two days, Ding Canghai feared he would truly have to "produce and consume on his own."

He sighed, glanced again at the message last relayed by the radio, which was now pitch-black.

Aside from the Military Command Center base station that had cut off all external communications at the very beginning and whose fate was still unknown, all Reconnaissance Ships of the Third Reconnaissance Army had already "gone dark," which meant that this massive Reconnaissance Army of four million people had been completely wiped out.

Yet Ding Canghai still didn't know what the enemy actually was.

He didn't dare stick his head out to see what was happening, nor did he dare establish communications with the Military Command Center base station or Xiao Wang's C1915 ground base station.

The lone bit of good fortune in all this misfortune was that Ding Canghai himself was still alive so far, which showed that his deep Lurking had achieved its purpose.

By the same logic, Ding Canghai speculated that Xiao Wang's planetary surface base station and Xiao Wu's Screw Rock Excavator had very likely not been discovered either, and the Military Command Center base station might also still be intact.

But he had no way to verify this, and he didn't dare rashly attempt to establish communications with anyone.

All he could do was guard that faint possibility with restless unease and wait here in solitude.

But people waver sometimes, because the situation of the Military Command Center base station, Xiao Wu, and Xiao Wang had already become like Schrödinger's cat—he had absolutely no idea.

At times, Ding Canghai would also think: it's already been ten days since the enemy passed through; the survey intel that his other comrades had traded their lives for had already been filtered, and indeed there were some pieces of information that were particularly important—many of the space meteoroids possessed properties such as strong magnetism and high radiation, and some meteoroids even contained special primeval Source elements inside that could be used to amplify the killing power of Energy Cannons.

Although he didn't know how Ren Zhong would use this intel, his professional intuition as an intelligence officer told Ding Canghai that this information was definitely important.

He thought to himself in secret.

Could it be that the Military Command Center had still been discovered?

Could Xiao Wu, who went to C1915's Star Core, have encountered a geological disaster? Could he already have been swallowed by the scorching heat of nuclear fusion?

Could Xiao Wang's base station have still been discovered?

Could they all already be dead?

Should I send the intel back now? Otherwise, if I suddenly get found, and by then I can't even send out the intel I already have in hand, wouldn't that mean everyone died for nothing? The brothers wouldn't forgive me even in death, right?

Carrying these tangled, indescribably complex thoughts, Ding Canghai made a decision in his heart.

Wait two more hours; if Xiao Wu still hasn't sent in the intel, I won't wait any longer.

I can't let all their efforts go to waste just for the intel from this one place, C1915.

One hour, forty-six minutes, and thirty-three seconds later, Ding Canghai finally heard a sound like music from heaven; his eyes suddenly bulged like brass bells.

"Army Chief Ding, this is Xiao Wu. By the time you hear this message, I will have been dead for three hours. I've already gathered enough parameters; there really is a nuclear fusion reaction here. But the temperature here is too high, and the electromagnetic interference and information-flow interference are too strong. I can only use all remaining backup energy to maintain the force field shield of the black box, then let the black box float upward automatically along the Star Mantle Liquid Flow to a certain height before it can send out the signal."

This was a piece of intel transmitted with information flow as its carrier.

Attached to that voice recording was a data packet that wasn't particularly large, containing the complete internal material composition of C1915, its mass distribution, reaction temperatures, and so on.

Ding Canghai was so excited he almost jumped up, his head nearly slamming into the top of the Armor.

Just then, he received new information, this time from the Military Command Center.

The carrier of the message was an omnidirectional, full-spectrum broadcast of electromagnetic waves, not information flow, and it took the form of voice.

This message came from a communications operator still remaining at the Military Command Center.

"Somebody save us! The information-flow communications devices have failed! We can't reach anyone! What the hell is this interference method! Ah!"

With a scream, the operator's shout was abruptly cut off.

Ding Canghai's heart gave a heavy thump.

He gleaned four pieces of information.

The enemy's attack came very quickly. It was highly likely that powerful small combat units had been patrolling this entire region all along, and the instant they read Xiao Wu's information, they activated some kind of powerful information-flow interference method, then immediately pounced on the Military Command Center base station, arriving at once and seeing through the base station's camouflage Armor.

The enemy's control zone had already advanced far to the rear of C1915. After identifying Xiao Wu's intel, the enemy's information-flow interference area had likely spread out in an instant across the entire region and extended all the way to the rear. Any information flow sent out by the Military Command Center base station would be cut off and could not reach Fleet Headquarters. The reason the other Reconnaissance Ships had previously vanished without a sound should also be that they were first enveloped by the enemy combat units' interference methods, then suddenly attacked and taken out in an instant, so quickly that none of their electromagnetic equipment could respond in time.

The Military Command Center base station had been unable to send the intel out using high-power electromagnetic waves in time, because large electromagnetic transmitters needed time to start up; they could only use a small walkie-talkie device to send out, at the first possible moment, a scream that appeared to be a desperate plea for rescue on the surface, but was in fact the sharing of intel.

The communications operator had used non-directional electromagnetic waves; on his side, he was only transmitting, while over here they were only receiving, so he would not necessarily be discovered—their dual-safeguard strategy had worked.

Ding Canghai clenched his teeth hard and turned his head to look at the medium-sized radio beside him. It all depended on you now.

The communications operator's non-directional electromagnetic broadcast signal wasn't strong enough and would be completely swallowed by cosmic background radiation; Source Star Fleet Headquarters would be unable to detect it and would not receive this crucial intel.

But I, Old Ding, still have a medium-sized radio here!

The four million brothers and sisters of my Third Reconnaissance Army will definitely not have died in vain!