Chapter 167 Don't move, or your head will be gone.

Lin Yuan's words "Recycle everything" were still floating in the air, and the cruel grin on Black Shark King's face hadn't even had time to fade when the flickering emergency lights overhead suddenly let out a shriek and exploded completely.

Sizzle—

It wasn't just the bulbs shattering; the entire energy circuit of the fortress was wailing.

"Shield generator offline! Backup power cut! Damn it, our fire control system is locked!"

Before the technician's shrill roar could subside, the purple-red light curtain outside the window, which should have been deflected by the shields, slammed into them without any obstruction.

The scene was like a heavy fist smashing ruthlessly against an eggshell.

There was no fancy energy neutralization reaction, only the purest discharge of kinetic energy. Academician Wang, that old man, was quite wicked; he had mixed a large amount of heavy metal waste into the plasma stream. This wasn't firing a cannon; it was clearly pouring molten iron into someone's home.

Rumble!

The entire fortress jolted violently, as if tossed high into the sky by an invisible giant hand.

The throne made of skulls in the hall collapsed instantly, and Black Shark King stumbled, nearly falling to his knees. The pirates who had been laughing just moments ago were now rolling around like gourds, their worthless wine bottles shattering into pieces.

"How is this possible?! That was an Antimatter Shield! Even if it was a low-tier one, it shouldn't be pierced by such a crude cannon!" Zeta leaned awkwardly against a pillar, his crisp silver uniform stained by the falling dust.

"Crude cannon?"

Lin Yuan's voice echoed eerily in his ear, sounding less like a conversation and more like a funeral oration.

"That was the life savings our old man spent his whole life accumulating. It breaks my heart too."

Zeta spun around, only to find that Lin Yuan, who had been standing a few meters away, had disappeared at some unknown moment.

The next second, a dull gunshot erupted in the hall.

Bang!

The adjutant who had been following Black Shark King around and had just tried to search Lin Yuan had his head burst open like a rotten watermelon. Red and white matter splattered all over Black Shark King's face.

Lin Yuan was twirling the High-Energy Blaster that had been at Black Shark King's waist just a moment ago, the muzzle still emitting blue smoke.

"I told you the insulation on this gun was bad. It's hot."

Lin Yuan curled his lip and tossed the gun onto the ground, his figure blurring again.

Black Shark King only felt a blur before his eyes and instinctively raised his mechanical arm to block, but he caught nothing but air.

On the other side, Zeta felt a chill on his neck.

A blade with no physical form, composed entirely of dark gold energy, was pressed tightly against his carotid artery. The sharp sensation gave the high-level civilization patrol officer instant goosebumps.

"Don't move."

Lin Yuan leaned in behind Zeta, whispering like an old friend of many years, "Your neck is quite thin. If my hand shakes and your head comes off, don't blame me."

"You... what do you want?!"

Zeta's pale face instantly turned the color of pig liver, and his legs trembled like withered branches in the wind. "I am a Level 3 Patrol Officer of the Moran Dynasty! Kill me, and your entire galaxy will be buried with me! The Order Bureau's fleet is right outside; don't you dare touch a single hair on my head!"

"Try me."

Lin Yuan applied a bit of force with his wrist, and the dark gold blade sliced through the expensive protective suit, a trickle of blood flowing down Zeta's pale neck.

"Ah—! No! Don't kill me!"

Zeta, who had just been full of talk about "civilization gaps" and "low-level reptiles," was now screaming more pitifully than a slaughtered pig.

"I... I have money! I have credit points! How much do you want? One hundred million? Two hundred million? I'll give it all to you! Just tell your people to stop firing!"

Lin Yuan rolled his eyes.

These so-called interstellar nobles, once stripped of their high-tech outer layer, were more cowardly at heart than the local thugs on Earth.

"It would have been better if you'd cooperated sooner." Lin Yuan held Zeta hostage, his gaze piercing through the chaotic crowd to stare directly at Black Shark King, who was picking himself up off the floor. "Hey, you half-man, half-ghost, tell your people to stop firing. Otherwise, your backer is going to die here today."

Black Shark King wiped the blood and filth from his face.

His still-functioning electronic eye spun frantically, focusing on Zeta, who was being used as a shield by Lin Yuan.

Stop firing?

If he stopped firing now, would there be any way out for a pirate leader like him who wanted to raise Earthlings like pigs once this death god recovered or those Earth lunatics outside broke in?

Furthermore, Zeta had seen him at his most pathetic.

Given the nature of these nobles, they would definitely exterminate the Black Shark Pirates later to cover up the scandal.

Black Shark King's gaze instantly became sinister.

"Captain Zeta, for the sake of maintaining interstellar order, the Dynasty will surely award you a posthumous medal for your sacrifice."

Zeta's pupils shrank. "Black Shark! You dare?!"

"This is a lawless land. If someone dies, who will know who killed them?" Black Shark King grinned and raised his arm. The mechanical arm clicked and whirred, instantly transforming into a row of dark Gatling gun barrels.

"Everyone, listen up! Indiscriminate fire! Turn that Earth native and the hostage into meat paste together!"

"You're crazy!" Zeta's scream broke into a high pitch.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—!

The ear-piercing tongues of flame instantly swallowed the center of the hall.

Those weren't ordinary bullets; they were all High-explosive armor-piercing rounds. The dense barrage was like a wall, pressing in from all angles.

Lin Yuan cursed under his breath, "Dammit, these pirates really have no bottom line."

He hadn't expected Black Shark King to have any sense of honor anyway.

The moment the first bullet was fired, Lin Yuan didn't hesitate. He grabbed Zeta by the back of the collar and shoved his entire body in front of him.

"I'll borrow your body for a bit. Since you're a noble, your skin should be quite thick, right?"

"No—!"

Thud thud thud thud!

The sound of bullets entering flesh was muffled and dense.

The priceless protective suit on Zeta did indeed have some merit. Although it was struck with flying sparks and caused his whole body to shake as if electrocuted, it actually managed to withstand the first wave of fire without being pierced.

But that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

"Ahhh! My bones! My ribs are broken! Black Shark, I'll kill your whole family!" Zeta wailed while spitting blood.

"Stop shouting, it's loud."

Lin Yuan hid behind this expensive human shield, his feet moving in strange steps as he charged forward against the hail of bullets.

Although the void engine was still cooling down and he couldn't teleport frequently, his legs, which had been enhanced by the system, were nothing to sneeze at.

"Damn it! Shoot the legs! Shoot the legs!" Black Shark King watched the death god approaching at high speed behind the "hostage shield," his voice cracking with panic.

However, it was too late.

With Zeta's cover, Lin Yuan had already rushed to within ten meters of Black Shark King.

"You were pointing a gun at me with this hand just now, right?"

Lin Yuan suddenly threw the half-dead Zeta aside.

Hum—

Though that wisp of dark gold void power was faint, it condensed into a fine needle at his fingertip.

Go!

A golden light flashed and vanished.

Black Shark King, who was frantically pulling the trigger, suddenly froze.

The golden needle had precisely entered the connecting bearing of his mechanical arm, the most delicate part of his entire body.

Sizzle sizzle sizzle!

A burst of electrical sparks flashed, and Black Shark King's proud Gatling arm actually went limp like a noodle, followed by a violent internal explosion.

Boom!

The entire arm was blown off.

"Ah—!" Black Shark King clutched the stump where oil and blood were gushing out, retreating with a scream. "Stop him! Quick, stop him! Activate the internal defense system!"

The pirates who weren't dead yet struggled to get up and fire more shots.

Lin Yuan glanced at Zeta, who was lying on the ground like a dead dog, and then at the still-smoking automatic turrets.

"No time to play house with you all."

He stepped quickly to Zeta's side and stomped on the noble's chest.

"I originally wanted to trade you for some ransom, but since you're worthless, I'll just have to make use of you as waste."

Zeta, his mouth full of blood, looked at Lin Yuan in terror: "You... what are you going to do?"

"Helping you move."

With a wave of Lin Yuan's hand, a pitch-black spatial rift tore open out of thin air.

That was his system inventory, filled with all sorts of scrap metal recovered from the battlefield. The environment inside was so foul it was comparable to a septic tank.

"Go in and stay for a while. Don't die; I'll still need to use your face to scan the access control later."

Lin Yuan grabbed Zeta like a piece of trash and threw him into the rift.

Having done all this, he didn't stay. He turned toward the alloy wall behind him, which was still flashing with red alarms, and slammed into it.

[Void Walk: Wall Phasing]!

Although this move was extremely taxing on his mental power and felt as painful as ramming his head into a wall, it was the shortest path to the core area.

Bang!

Lin Yuan's entire being was like a ghost, directly sinking into the hard alloy wall.

Black Shark King stared at the undamaged wall, completely dumbfounded.

"Mon... monster..." He trembled as he tried to crawl toward the escape passage.

Just then, the entire fortress shook violently once more.

Earth's second wave of strikes had arrived.

...

Passing through the thick armor plating, Lin Yuan stumbled into a long, narrow corridor filled with pipelines.

"Cough, cough... that really hurts."

Lin Yuan rubbed his forehead, feeling like his brain was rattling. The price of forcibly using void abilities was mental exhaustion; now he was seeing double.

But the sight before him made his discomfort vanish instantly.

This was a massive spherical hall, with countless thick energy pipes converging in the center, connected to a slowly rotating deep blue crystal.

The crystal was as large as a house, emitting an intoxicating energy fluctuation.

This was the heart of Black Shark Fortress and the largest "fuel tank" in this part of the Oort Cloud.

[Ding! Detected high-concentration compressed antimatter energy source.]

[Triggered S-rank Salvage Mission: Dismantle the Illegal Building Core.]

[Mission Objective: Recover the Core Power Furnace before the fortress completely disintegrates.]

[Mission Rewards: Unlock ‘Titan Arsenal: Level 2 Energy Depot’, receive one ‘Civilization Advancement Card (Incomplete)’.]

Hearing the system's prompt, Lin Yuan's eyes, which had been somewhat tired, instantly lit up like two-hundred-watt bulbs.

"Level 2 Energy Depot?"

Lin Yuan swallowed hard, his grin spreading from ear to ear.

"Zeta was right. This isn't just an illegal building; it's clearly a gift package of experience points for me!"

He dragged the iron rod that had manifested again at some point and wobbled toward the massive crystal.

"Come on, baby, hand over your home's meter box."

"Earth's heating is about to be cut off; I'm doing this for the great cause of the people's livelihood."

However, just as his hand was about to touch the core control console, the blue crystal suddenly turned blood red.

A cold electronic voice echoed through the hall:

"Warning: Core self-destruct sequence initiated."

"Countdown: 60 seconds."

The smile on Lin Yuan's face froze.

"Dammit, Black Shark, you dirty schemer, you can't afford to lose, can you?!"

He could feel a world-ending energy fluctuation frantically building up inside that crystal, like a supernova about to explode.

Run?

Too late.

If this place exploded, never mind him, even the Earth parked outside would be knocked over.

Lin Yuan took a deep breath, his gaze instantly becoming incredibly fierce.

"Self-destruct?"

"Once you've entered my territory, you don't get to decide who this energy belongs to."

He abruptly raised both hands, and dark gold void runes burned fiercely in his palms, even beginning to drain his life force.

"System, crank the power to the max!"

"Even if it's a bomb, I'm going to pull your fuse today and swallow all the explosives while I'm at it!"