Chapter 165 The Hierarchy of Civilizations

The blue sphere, weighing billions of tons, carved a heart-stopping arc less than five hundred kilometers from the fortress, triggering gravitational tides that made the entire metal framework of the Black Shark Fortress groan under the strain.

Gold foil from the ceiling of the hall fluttered down, as if it were raining cheap gold.

"Steady! Everyone, hold it steady for me!"

The Black Shark King gripped his skull throne, the pistons on the mechanical half of his head twitching frantically, venting puffs of acrid, burnt-smelling smoke. He stared fixedly at the holographic screen, watching the blue planet that was now within arm's reach, his palms slick with cold sweat.

Just a moment ago, he truly thought these lunatics were going to drag him down to the grave with them.

Zeta, on the other hand, remained calm; he didn't even let the handkerchief in his hand tremble. He simply brushed the dust off his shoulders with an expression of disgust and cast a sidelong glance at Lin Yuan.

"Is this the level of control your civilization possesses? Even a simple orbital maneuver can be turned into a suicide attack."

Zeta shook his head, his tone filled with the pity of a superior looking down on a native.

"Primitive civilizations' understanding of gravity is still stuck at the stage of throwing stones. Mr. Lin, your actions just now, according to the 'Interstellar Navigation Safety Law,' would be enough to sentence your sphere to a complete shutdown."

Lin Yuan rubbed his ears; the violent vibration just now had indeed left his head buzzing.

"Sorry about that, Captain." Lin Yuan put on a thick-skinned smile and chuckled. "The pilot's hand slipped earlier, and he mistook the brake for the accelerator. You know how it is—on a backwater planet like ours, the propulsion systems aren't exactly top-notch."

"It doesn't matter if they aren't top-notch; I can help you become a bit more 'top-notch'."

Zeta drew a half-meter-long silver rod from his waist, twirled it in his hand, and casually pressed a button.

Hum—!

A translucent, pale blue ripple spread from the tip of the rod, and Lin Yuan felt the floor beneath his feet sink slightly.

Immediately after, the tens of thousands of kilometers of wreckage that the Black Shark King viewed as a "toll station roadblock" seemed to be nudged by an invisible giant hand, neatly parting to both sides. Those meteorites and derelict hulls, which had been stuck fast, were suddenly as docile as obedient pet dogs.

"This is a 'Gravity Scepter,' standard equipment for a Level 2.0 civilization."

Zeta toyed with the silver rod, his eyes filled with a sickly fanaticism.

"With just a flick of my finger, the fragile crust of your Earth would burst open like a peeled orange. This is called a technological barrier, understand? Even if given a hundred thousand years, you wouldn't even be able to touch the edge of this rod."

"Indeed, indeed. This treasure looks like it's worth quite a lot of points." Lin Yuan stared at the Gravity Scepter, his Adam's apple bobbing involuntarily—an instinctive reaction to seeing top-tier scrap.

He was already calculating in his mind whether, if he recycled this thing, he might unlock some kind of "Gravity Master" achievement.

"Besides the blueprints and fuel, I also need to install something for you."

Zeta walked back in front of Lin Yuan, his pale face almost pressing against the tip of Lin Yuan's nose, a pungent smell of chemicals rushing toward him.

"A 'Civilization Lock.' A miniature gravity bomb installed deep within your Earth's core, which will also simultaneously block all frequency bands you use to send signals to the outside world."

"From now on, every piece of ore and every gram of hydrogen and oxygen produced by Earth must first go through our approval process."

"You don't need technology, and you don't need interstellar travel. You only need to be like pigs in a pen, obediently breeding on that sphere and providing a steady stream of labor for the Empire, understand?"

Before Lin Yuan could speak, Chen Weiguo's roar, suppressed to the extreme, came through the earpiece.

"Lin Yuan! F*** their ancestors! These animals are trying to raise us like pigs!"

Lin Yuan calmly turned down the volume of his earpiece, his simple, honest smile not fading in the slightest.

"Understood, understood. If we're to be pigs, we have to be well-fed ones. Officer, about that transfer... I need to return to the shuttle to prepare; extracting that bio-chip is quite a hassle."

Zeta waved his hand contemptuously, as if shooing away a fly.

"Take him down. Black Shark, keep a close eye on your guest. If he loses even a single hair, I'll hold you responsible."

...

Although the Black Shark King was greedy, he was quite efficient. He didn't take Lin Yuan back to that opulent hall, but instead casually shoved him into the "Resource Allocation Pending Zone" in the middle level of the fortress.

To put it bluntly, it was just a high-end version of a prisoner-of-war camp.

There was no decoration here, only cold alloy walls and a lingering smell of mold. Hundreds of massive transparent containers were lined up like cans, filled with all sorts of alien creatures.

Some looked like a blob of sticky green paste, while others were simply a pile of metal tentacles floating in liquid.

Lin Yuan was placed in a room at the very end. There was a one-way transparent floor-to-ceiling window here, through which he could directly see the busy harvesting zone outside.

"Boss, are we starting to move house now?"

gaia's voice rang out in Lin Yuan's mind, while simultaneously marking the energy signature of that Gravity Scepter in his holographic vision.

"No rush. The water runs deep in this place; we need to probe a bit more."

Lin Yuan walked to the window, and before he could even sit down, he heard a rustling sound coming from behind the hollow metal mesh next door.

"Don't waste your effort, Earthling. The moment they get their hands on the blueprints, it will be the countdown to your sphere turning into fireworks."

The speaker was a scrawny fellow.

He was wrapped in a grease-stained mechanical protective suit, his face mostly covered by a tattered respirator, revealing only a pair of grey, lifeless eyes. There was not a shred of vitality in those eyes; they were dead and dull.

"New here? Just call me A Ji." The man sighed, leaning against the metal mesh, still fiddling with a broken sensor in his hands.

"Which galaxy are you from? Judging by your appearance, you must have been a leader in the past, right?" Lin Yuan leaned over and casually handed him an unopened box of compressed biscuits.

A Ji froze for a moment, looking at the box printed with Daxia characters, and took it with a trembling, withered hand.

"Level 1.5 civilization, a street vendor on the edge of the Cybertron Nebula. We used to have two stars there; they were as beautiful as a painting."

A Ji took a fierce bite of the biscuit and said indistinctly.

"Then Black Shark came. First, he said he wanted to collect protection money, then the patrol team arrived, claiming we were illegally expanding our solar sails. We paid the money, handed over the technology, and in the end... those animals thought our transport efficiency was too slow, so they used our home planet as a target range and blew it up."

Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow: "The patrol team didn't do anything?"

"Do anything? Hahaha!" A Ji laughed until tears almost came out, his voice sounding like a pair of bellows. "Black Shark robs, and the patrol team fences the goods. This entire Oort Cloud is just one giant shady shop."

"See that largest incinerator over there? Every day, thousands of 'unqualified' laborers are thrown in to become fuel for the fortress. In their eyes, we aren't people; we are talking batteries, walking scrap metal."

A Ji turned his head and stared fixedly at Lin Yuan, a hint of pity appearing in his eyes.

"Take my advice: later, if they ask you to hand over the blueprints, just detonate your sphere. Give yourself a quick end; it's better than being here, watching your own kind being sliced open blade by blade, their blood drained for genetic experiments."

Lin Yuan didn't speak.

He turned his head and looked deep into the detention area.

There, he saw hundreds upon hundreds of hollow-eyed figures. They were herded like livestock onto cargo ships, the electronic shackles on their necks flashing with blue light from time to time.

Once, they might have been the pride of some civilization, scientists, warriors, poets.

But now, they were just a string of numbers in the "Resource Allocation Pending Zone."

Lin Yuan put away all his cynicism, and the fire of the void that had been suppressed in his chest seemed to show signs of rekindling.

"A Ji, thanks for the biscuits."

Lin Yuan stood up and brushed the dust off his pants.

"However, I have a habit. Not only do I not like suicide, but I particularly like to recycle those who want to kill me into trash."

...

"Boss, I've figured it out."

gaia's voice became exceptionally crisp.

"Through the two beacons you left earlier, I have hacked into their energy core. This Black Shark Fortress is actually just an empty shell; its power source relies entirely on those three patrol ships. If those three high-pressure pipelines are cut, the entire fortress will turn into a giant ice cellar within three seconds."

"In addition, the shield modules of those three patrol ships are at the bottom. If we want to dismantle them, we have to do it from the inside."

Lin Yuan stretched his wrists, his eyes falling on the tightly closed electronic door.

"Then don't keep them waiting. Go tell those pirates that the money is ready and tell their boss to get out here and take the goods."

Two minutes later, Lin Yuan was brought back to the skull hall.

The Black Shark King was picking meat out of his teeth with a toothpick, while Zeta was impatiently toying with his Gravity Scepter.

"Mr. Lin, good efficiency. It seems you really care about the lives of those crawlers." Zeta didn't even lift his head. "Hand over the chip."

Lin Yuan didn't move; instead, he found a chair facing the holographic star map and sat down brazenly.

He even lit an electronic cigarette he had swiped from a pirate's pocket earlier and blew a blue smoke ring.

"The chip is here, and the technology is too. However, before I hand it over, I want to show you two a show."

Lin Yuan pointed to the blue dot representing Earth on the star map, his tone becoming exceptionally calm.

"You've been talking about wanting energy, haven't you? As it happens, my sphere just learned a new skill."

"In Daxia, this is called—'overdraft consumption'."

The Black Shark King frowned and looked sharply at the monitor.

He saw that Earth, which had originally shut down its engines and was docked, suddenly had its ten thousand plus planetary engines erupt with a bewitching purple-red light without any warning.

That wasn't a normal plasma jet, but a high-frequency vibration that made one's hair stand on end, causing even the surrounding space to ripple with visible folds.

Alarm sirens instantly rang throughout the entire hall.

"What's going on? Is it charging up?!" The Black Shark King exclaimed. "Is it going to ram into us?"

"No."

Lin Yuan stubbed out the cigarette, a smile on his face that would chill anyone to the bone.

"I'm here to bring you fuel. With such a big fire, it must be very satisfying to dismantle, right?"

As his words fell, on the monitor screen, the largest engine nozzle at Earth's South Pole suddenly ejected a beam of gravitational light that connected heaven and earth, aimed—directly at the core entrance of the Black Shark Fortress!

"Lunatic! He's drawn out the Earth's core energy!"

The Gravity Scepter in Zeta's hand flared brightly, and he was just about to order fire.

But at that moment, right in front of them, Lin Yuan slowly raised his right hand.

In his palm, that dark golden void rune was beating frantically like a greedy heart.

"Sorry, I forgot to mention something just now."

"I'm not selling this order anymore. I'm robbing you."