Chapter 162 You want to leave without money? Leave Earth behind first!

On the communication screen, after a distorted burst of static, a face that extremely violated human aesthetics crowded the entire frame.

It was an outlier with gears and pistons embedded in half of its head. In place of the left eye was a constantly zooming infrared camera, each focus emitting a slight motor hum. The normal half of the face on the right was covered in dark brown patches, resembling burn marks from some corrosive liquid.

"The frequency of a primitive civilization?"

The guy calling himself the Black Shark King spoke with a voice as raspy as if it had been rubbed against sandpaper. He exhaled a puff of smoke with a metallic tang, which echoed through the speakers in the command room of the Heavenly Palace.

"Did I hear that right? A wandering civilization driving a dirt clod in flight actually dares to turn around and ask me for a toll?"

The background behind the Black Shark King was a cluttered hangar. Several burly men covered in exoskeletons were holding cutting torches, skillfully dismantling a scrapped small spaceship. An insignia of an unknown civilization was printed on the side of the ship, which was now being hacked into pieces like a pig in a slaughterhouse.

"Which mountain do you hail from? Do you understand the rules of this star sector?"

Lin Yuan leaned back in his command chair, carelessly playing with the casing of a scrapped Dimensional Reduction Grenade. Although the void engine was still cooling down, it didn't stop him from putting on the air of a debt collector at the door.

"Rules? In Great Xia, my word is the rule. You're blocking my sunlight, you know?"

Lin Yuan pointed to the pitch-black Earth behind him.

"This ball of mine is big, and the brake pads aren't working very well. If I can't stop and happen to smash your pile of scrap metal to pieces, where are you going to go cry then?"

Chen Weiguo broke out in a cold sweat as he listened. He whispered a reminder: "Regimental Commander Lin, the scale of the opponent's roadblock is not small. The radar alone scanned three thousand electromagnetic railguns, and that's not counting the gravity traps hidden in the debris piles."

Lin Yuan ignored him, his eyes still fixed on the Black Shark King on the screen.

The Black Shark King suddenly burst into a tooth-aching laugh.

"Interesting. I've been hanging around the Oort Cloud for three hundred years, and this is the first time I've seen such an arrogant prey."

His infrared eyeball spun rapidly, as if scanning Earth from the South Pole to the North Pole.

"Earth civilization? Stop pretending. A new slot just refreshed on the 'Red List' of the Orion Arm, saying a little place called Earth killed a Cardinal. Although I don't believe you crawlers have that kind of ability, this ball's power system is indeed worth some money."

The expression on the Black Shark King's face instantly became ferocious.

"Listen up, fugitives. I don't care how you stole titan technology, since you've entered my toll station, you have to play by the rules."

"The toll: First, hand over all the technical blueprints for that planetary engine of yours; second, 50% of the high-energy minerals inside Earth, including those cheap heavy fusion fuels of yours."

"Short me by even an ounce, and I'll tear this ball into parts and sell them as junk to the second-hand dealers at Sin Starport."

As his words fell, rows of red lights suddenly lit up on the metal Great Wall that spanned tens of thousands of kilometers ahead. That was the sign of fire control system locking.

Earth was like a cocoon wrapped in countless red threads.

"Lin Yuan, there's no time to dawdle with him."

Academician Wang rushed in, drenched in sweat, clutching a red alarm sheet in his hand.

"Fuel red line! To coordinate with your 'Stealth Mode' just now, we shut down the main reactor. Now, if we want to restart the engine for braking or perform a curvature test jump, the remaining fuel won't even last ten minutes."

"Worse yet, the biosphere's heating system has dropped to the critical point. If you don't find a way to get some fuel supplies, the people in the underground cities will freeze into icicles before the other side even fires."

The pressure suddenly intensified.

This wasn't a junkyard on Earth. This was deep space. Without material replenishment, this truly would be a cold grave.

Lin Yuan's eyelid twitched, and he immediately put on a smiling face in the communication.

"Big brother, look at what you're saying, it's so hurtful to our feelings. What titan technology? That's just a crude method left by our ancestors, rubbed out with stones. As for minerals... look at this ball of mine, it's so poor that not even grass grows on it, where would minerals come from?"

Lin Yuan rubbed his hands and chuckled.

"We're all scavengers just trying to make a living in the universe. To be honest, I'm short on fuel right now. Why don't you be kind and spare me some? When I strike it rich in the center of the galaxy later, I'll pay you back double?"

This display of weakness made even the Black Shark King freeze for a few seconds.

"No money? No technology?"

The Black Shark King snorted coldly, his thick fingers tapping a few times on the console.

A high-definition video suddenly popped up on the holographic screen. In the footage, Earth was clearly captured dragging tens of thousands of faint blue trails, smashing through the Moon's gravity like an angry bullet.

"A primitive civilization can build a planetary engine? Can control gravitational fluctuations so steadily?"

The greed in the Black Shark King's eyes was almost overflowing.

"Cut the crap. Don't think I don't know what you're thinking. An engine that can push a planet can be traded for half a galaxy's territory on the black market. Hand it over, and I'll give you a way to live."

Seeing that Lin Yuan still hadn't relented, the Black Shark King turned his head and pointed out the window.

"It seems you won't shed a tear until you see the coffin."

Several searchlights swiveled, illuminating a few shadows beside the fortress.

Those were three dilapidated spaceships, their exteriors looking like a semi-biological, semi-mechanical structure. The once-elegant curves were now full of holes, and the hatches were crudely welded shut.

On the porthole of one ship, a terrified face was pressed against the glass. It was some kind of creature with purple tentacles; they were helplessly pounding on the special glass, only able to watch as the pirate's mechanical arm reached into their power bay and dismantled the last spare battery.

"See those? Those are wandering nobles from Andromeda."

The Black Shark King spat disdainfully.

"They were just as tough as you at first, saying they'd rather die than surrender. And the result? Their mothership was dismantled and sold by me for scrap metal, the males were sent to mining stars as laborers, and the females... hah, they aren't even qualified to be slaves."

"I'll give you another sixty seconds to consider. Once the time is up, I'll take it as you refusing the deal."

"When that time comes, I'll start dismantling from those engine nozzles of yours."

The signal cut off.

The atmosphere in the command room was so oppressive it made it hard to breathe.

Chen Weiguo looked at Lin Yuan and found that this kid's eyes were darting around rapidly.

"Lin Yuan, you aren't really planning to give him the engine blueprints, are you? That's our roots!"

"Give them to him?"

Lin Yuan sneered, his expression that of a scavenger seeing top-tier goods.

"Old Chen, didn't you hear Academician Wang? We're short on fuel."

"That fortress of his has at least hundreds of thousands of tons of high-purity nuclear fuel. Plus those rare metal cables, and those few old-model engines that haven't been shut down yet..."

Lin Yuan swallowed hard.

"In my eyes, that's no toll station. That's a mobile super gas station!"

"But we're out of fuel! The void engine is also cooling down! What are we going to use to rob him?" Chen Weiguo was anxious.

"Who said I'm going to rob him?"

Lin Yuan patted the system panel in his arms.

"I'm going to recycle trash. Those things of his are so rusted; according to the Interstellar Trash Classification Law, I have the right to perform a forced decommissioning on them."

"Of course, before that, I have to get him to open the door a bit wider."

Just then, a burst of blinding light erupted on the radar screen.

Due to gravitational chaos, three giant warships arranged in a triangular formation suddenly jumped out of Subspace, wedged right between the Black Shark Fortress and Earth.

These warships were silver-white all over, with a golden longsword emblem painted on the broadside. Whether in terms of craftsmanship or firepower configuration, they were more than one level above those patched-together pirate ships.

"Warning! Unknown fleet detected! Energy level determined to be... Orion Arm Patrol!"

gaia's voice carried a hint of a quiver for the first time.

"This is the official regular army!"

Chen Weiguo's eyes lit up: "Official? Then can they mediate? We're a civilization after all, according to interstellar law..."

But before he could finish his sentence, he saw the increasingly smug face of the Black Shark King on the communication screen.

The Black Shark King was not flustered by the arrival of the patrol. On the contrary, he made an improper gesture toward those three silver warships through the public channel.

"Yo, isn't this the Third Commander of the Moran Dynasty? You're quite punctual today."

An arrogant voice came from the silver flagship.

"Black Shark, cut the crap. You know the rules. That blue planet, we want the core. The remaining slag and population are yours."

The Black Shark King chuckled and turned to look at Lin Yuan, his eyes full of mockery.

"Hear that? Wanderer."

"Originally I only wanted some toll money. But now, the big boss has taken a fancy to your base."

"In this area, the officials are the bandits, and the bandits are the officials."

"Are you going to stop the ball obediently yourself, or wait for the two of us to join forces and cut this ball of yours open?"

Lin Yuan stared at the three expensive-looking silver warships and fell silent for a few seconds.

Everyone was waiting for his decision.

Academician Wang's hand was on the self-destruct switch, and Chen Weiguo was already planning to lead men for a beachhead landing.

Lin Yuan, however, suddenly let out a long sigh of relief.

He ignored the Black Shark King's provocation and instead turned around, giving a strange command to gaia, who had been silent.

"gaia, help me check the external coating of those three silver ships."

"Why check that?" gaia was puzzled.

"See if it's pure titanium alloy. If it is, then that's great."

The corners of Lin Yuan's mouth slowly split open, revealing an extremely ill-intentioned smile.

"Originally I was worried about not having enough fuel. Now it's fine; not only is there oil, but even high-grade timber for renovation is being delivered to the door."

"Old Chen, Academician Wang, prepare the containers in the unloading area."

"This time, we're not wandering anymore."

"We're going to have a feast right here."

In this instant, the thousands of planetary engines that had already been extinguished erupted with blinding red light without any warning!

That wasn't braking; that was full-power overload propulsion!

The blue planet, weighing billions of tons, was like an out-of-control bull in heat, charging ruthlessly toward the gap between the pirate fortress and the patrol fleet!

"Crazy! This kid is absolutely crazy!" the Black Shark King roared in terror on the other side of the screen.

Lin Yuan, however, casually closed the communication, carrying an iron rod in his hand that he had dismantled from somewhere. It was the "physical recycling" tool he had found for himself before the void engine cooled down.

"Tell them."

"In Great Xia, this kind of behavior is called 'staging an accident for a payout'."

"As long as we collide, this whole nest of parts—I want them all!"