Chapter 150 Trying to outdo me in wealth?

Inside the Number One Heaven-class VIP room, the air circulation system was making an overwhelmed humming sound.

Even with the filtration power turned to the maximum, that stench—like rotten fish soaked in formalin for three years and then thrown into a microwave—still snaked through the gaps in the one-way glass, or even directly through the molecular gaps, drilling into Lin Yuan's nostrils.

"gaia, help me check what that thing next door is."

Lin Yuan propped his legs on a coffee table made from the hide of some endangered giant beast, swirling the bubbling cola in his hand, his eyes cold as if looking at a fly on a dinner table. "This smell is too pungent. It doesn't seem like a proper creature; it's more like a Void Ascaris that just crawled out of a septic tank."

"Performing deep spectral analysis... Warning, receiving high-dimensional information shielding."

gaia's voice echoed in his mind, carrying a rare hint of gravity. "The opponent is not a physical creature, but a pure energy aggregate wrapped in 'divine matter.' Based on spectral comparison, it belongs to the same origin as the archbishop you killed earlier, but..."

"But what?"

"But this guy is purer and more dangerous. If the archbishop was a fanatic believer, then this one next door is a 'vessel' directly parasitized by the Void itself." gaia paused, giving an estimate. "According to Earth's current combat standards, if you don't deploy the titan mecha, your win rate is less than thirty percent."

Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow, the smile on his lips growing even wider.

"A vessel, huh... So it's just a high-level wage slave." He even had the leisure to toss a piece of popcorn into his mouth. "Since it's a wage slave, it should have quite a bit of money in its pocket."

Just then, the auction house below suddenly fell into a dead silence.

The aliens, who had been arguing until their faces were red over snatching up contraband drugs, were now all like chickens whose necks had been choked, staring in unison at the center of the auction stage.

There, there were no glittering treasures, nor were there any scantily clad models.

There was only a silver-gray metal box that looked unremarkable, even somewhat rusty.

It hovered silently in the center of the gravity field, about the size of a shoebox, its surface covered in irregular scratches. Under the lights, it didn't reflect, but instead, like a black hole, greedily devoured the surrounding light.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of today's grand finale auction items."

The auctioneer was a four-armed Naga Old Man. He didn't even dare to touch the box with his hands, only pointing at it from a distance, his voice filled with an extremely complex sense of awe. "This thing was discovered in the debris field after a supernova explosion."

"That explosion destroyed a star system, and even left behind radiation scars on the spatial level that lasted for three centuries."

The Naga Old Man took a deep breath, spreading all four of his hands. "Yet this box is completely unscathed."

The crowd below instantly erupted.

"Are you bragging? A supernova explosion can deform even a neutron star!"

"Exactly, this broken iron box doesn't look as sturdy as my dentures!"

Facing the skepticism, the Naga Old Man didn't waste words, simply waving his hand to signal. A burly security guard walked up carrying a heavy-duty laser cutter and unleashed a barrage on the box.

The blinding blue light illuminated the entire venue. The high-energy laser beam, capable of instantly cutting through battleship armor, struck the box but didn't even leave a white mark. Furthermore, the box didn't even heat up by a single degree, remaining that heart-palpitating cold.

The entire venue fell silent instantly.

Those who knew their stuff could see that this wasn't a matter of hardness, but of rules. The material on the surface of this box was simply not within the physical rules of this dimension.

Sitting in the VIP room, the moment Lin Yuan saw that box, his pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks.

He was too familiar with this material.

The packaging film on the incomplete "two-way foil" he had once traded his life for was exactly this stuff.

A titan-class space stabilizer.

It was specifically used to contain those causality weapons that, if not sealed properly, could wring the universe like a dishcloth if even a little leaked out.

"Good heavens, it's actually here." Lin Yuan sat up straight and tossed the cola cup in his hand aside. "gaia, take stock of my assets. I want this thing."

"Starting price: thirty million credit points!"

The Naga Old Man announced a number that made 99% of those present despair. "Each increment must be no less than one million!"

"Thirty-one million!"

"Thirty-five million!"

"Forty million!"

The bidding was sparse; after all, this price could already buy a small mercenary fleet. For a box that couldn't be opened and whose contents were unknown (or might even contain nothing but air), the gamble was too high.

Soon, the price stopped at forty-five million, and no one spoke again.

The Naga Old Man raised his hammer, preparing to count down.

"Fifty million."

A harsh, monotonous voice, like sandpaper rubbing against glass, suddenly came from the Number Two Heaven-class VIP room.

The voice wasn't loud, but it carried a chilling mental penetrative force, causing many of the weaker aliens downstairs to bleed from their nostrils on the spot and clutch their heads in pain.

Lin Yuan narrowed his eyes.

The stinking neighbor next door had made a move.

"Fifty-one million." Lin Yuan pressed the bidder, his voice languid, as if he had just woken up.

"Sixty million." The neighbor replied in a second.

"Sixty-one million." Lin Yuan continued to follow, neither more nor less, just adding one million—the main goal was to be disgusting.

"Seventy million." The voice from the other side carried a hint of obvious irritability, and the surrounding air temperature dropped by several degrees.

The hammer in the Naga Old Man's hand was shaking. Seventy million credit points—this was already way too much of a premium! Were these two big shots in the Heaven-class VIP rooms crazy?

"Seventy-one million." Lin Yuan maintained that half-dead tone.

Boom!

A materialized black mist surged suddenly from the gap of the number two VIP room, instantly condensing into a ferocious single eye above the auction house, staring fixedly at the number one VIP room where Lin Yuan was.

That terrifying pressure caused the lights in the entire venue to flicker wildly, and countless electronic devices emitted sizzling, screeching sounds.

"Young man."

The harsh voice exploded directly in Lin Yuan's mind, no longer hiding anything, but making a naked threat. "This thing doesn't belong to you. Some things, if you take them, will cost you your lifespan."

Mental intimidation?

Lin Yuan laughed. This was the thing he feared the least.

"Cost me my lifespan?"

Lin Yuan didn't even use mental power to resist; instead, he directly turned on the VIP room's loudspeaker, letting his voice echo throughout the entire auction house.

"I'm twenty-three this year, and a fortune teller said I'd live to ninety-nine. As for you, listening to that sound, you've got a lot of phlegm stuck in your throat, right? If you're sick, get treated; don't go around infecting the air here."

After speaking, he pressed the button again.

"Eighty million."

The whole place was in an uproar. This was no longer bidding; this was slapping faces with money!

The black mist in the number two VIP room churned violently for a while, clearly angered. But the entity seemed to have some reservations and didn't attack directly, instead coldly announcing a number:

"One hundred million."

This was a killing blow.

One hundred million credit points was enough to buy a resource-rich mining planet. In the Sin Starport, the number of people who could reach this amount in cash flow could be counted on one hand.

Lin Yuan checked the balance of over eighty million in his account. Not enough money.

"gaia, those source mineral ores we just snatched from the Three-Eyed Race, how much would they be worth if calculated at the black market emergency sale price?"

"About fifty million, Boss. But there's no time to liquidate them now."

"Who said anything about liquidating?" Lin Yuan stood up and straightened his collar, his aura as a gang leader instantly fully unleashed. "In a place like this, hard currency has never been those strings of virtual numbers."

He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and yanked open the blackout curtain of the one-way glass, exposing himself to everyone's view.

Then, in full view of everyone, he pulled out a piece of flesh from his system space that was slowly wriggling and emitting a dark red glow.

That was the biological core of a "Divine Punishment"-class battleship, the pinnacle of the Three-Eyed Race's technological crystallization. As long as it was given some nutrient solution, this thing could grow into a battleship by itself.

"No cash left."

Lin Yuan held up the disgusting piece of flesh, like a market auntie showing off a piece of prime pork belly. "Using this as collateral, can it count as fifty million?"

The Naga Old Man's four eyes lit up simultaneously.

"Yes! Of course it counts!" The old man was so excited he almost jumped off the stage. "This is a living battleship core! Something of this quality is a hot commodity even in the Inner Ring Galaxy! I'll value it at sixty million for you!"

"That'll do."

Lin Yuan casually tossed the priceless piece of flesh onto the coffee table and then gave the middle finger to the VIP room next door.

"One hundred and sixty million."

"Keep up, why aren't you keeping up? Aren't you rich?"

There was dead silence in the number two VIP room.

The black mist was churning and roaring, as if it wanted to break through the glass and kill him at any moment. But in the Sin Starport, the rules of the auction house were absolute. Unless it wanted to face the concentrated fire of the entire starport's defense system, even a Void creature had to hold it in.

"Good... very good."

After a long while, a sound squeezed out from between teeth came from next door. "I'll remember you."

The black mist instantly dissipated, and the lights in the number two VIP room went out. That guy had left.

"Don't just remember me, leave some contact information? If that doesn't work, leave your outfit; I think the fabric is quite oil-absorbent, just right for wiping engines." Lin Yuan was still relentlessly twisting the knife.

The auction hammer fell heavily.

"Sold! Congratulations to the honored guest in the Number One Heaven-class VIP room!"

Lin Yuan sat back down on the sofa with a thud and breathed a long sigh of relief. Although he was tough on the outside, a layer of cold sweat had broken out on his back. In that last exchange, if the other party had really decided to throw caution to the wind and attack directly, he might not have been able to protect the box in this cramped space.

Soon, there was a knock on the VIP room door.

The Naga Old Man personally walked in holding the silver box, the smile on his face as fawning as a blooming chrysanthemum.

"Distinguished guest, your auction item. Also, in view of your consumption amount, the chamber of commerce has decided to gift you a 'Deep Space Route Map.' From now on, whenever you come to us to stock up, you'll get a twenty percent discount!"

Lin Yuan ignored the map; his gaze was locked tightly onto the box.

The moment his fingers touched the metal surface, that familiar, cold sensation from the Titan Civilization made the Antimatter Core inside him tremble.

【Ding! Key mission item detected: titan Dimensional Lockdown Box.】

【Attempting to decode via biological magnetic field... Decoding successful.】

The chaotic scratches on the surface of the box suddenly lit up, like swimming light snakes, quickly combining into a complex geometric pattern.

"Click."

With a soft sound, the seamless box popped open a crack.

A hair-raising aura leaked out from the crack. It wasn't energy; it was the concept of "dimensional reduction." The light in the VIP room became extremely flat in that instant, and even the Naga Old Man's three-dimensional face almost turned into a drawing.

Lin Yuan was quick-eyed and fast-handed, slamming the box shut with a snap.

"It really is this thing." He patted his chest with lingering fear. "If my hand had slipped just now, we would all have turned into two-dimensional paper cutouts."

The Naga Old Man's face turned green with fright; although he didn't know what had just happened, he instinctively felt that he had brushed past death.

"G-guest, if there are no other instructions, I will take my leave?"

"Get lost." Lin Yuan waved his hand.

After the old man scrambled away, Lin Yuan put the box into his system space, his expression sinking instantly.

"gaia, has that neighbor from just now left?"

"Not far." gaia's voice was filled with killing intent. "Radar shows he stopped on the outskirts of the port. That guy is piloting a stealth special-ops ship, and... he's calling for backup."

"Calling for backup?"

Lin Yuan stood up and stretched his neck, his joints cracking with a series of pops.

"Perfect, I also want to test this newly acquired titan box to see if it's handy for bashing people."

He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the starport's night view filled with neon and sin, the purple light in his eyes slowly turning into scarlet.

"Since he doesn't want to leave, then he shouldn't leave."

"Just right, my dragon sparrow is still missing a navigator, and I think his skull shape is quite suitable."

"Notify the Reaper, engine preheat."

"Let's go see that neighbor off."