Chapter 168 Since you don't want to be dignified, then I'll make sure you are.

"Warning! Energy threshold has exceeded the critical point, the core is about to detonate, countdown: 59, 58..."

The piercing red light illuminated the entire engine room like a disco. That deep blue Antimatter Crystal was like a drunkard who had too much to drink, with veins bulging on its surface, ready to blow everything within hundreds of kilometers into an atomic state at any moment.

Lin Yuan pressed his hands firmly against the crystal's surface, the Void Runes on his palms spinning so fast they were practically smoking. The veins on his forehead throbbed, and dark golden patterns spread from his arms all the way to his neck—a sign that his body's endurance had reached its limit.

"Choke it down for me!"

Lin Yuan let out a low growl, like a beggar who hadn't eaten for three days snatching the last half of a meat bun. Under the pressure of his willpower, the system's originally sluggish progress bar was forced to race forward.

Zzzzt—!

The violent energy was like a venomous snake grabbed by its seven-inch mark, twisting unwillingly, but ultimately forced apart by that greedy black hole and turned into a pure warm current that poured into Lin Yuan's long-parched meridians.

Just as the red light on the core was suppressed, a tooth-aching sound of tearing metal suddenly came from the armor plate overhead.

Boom!

It wasn't the core exploding; someone was firing outside.

And this shot was extremely accurate, shearing off a corner of the fortress. The violent shock nearly threw Lin Yuan into the reactor.

"What's going on? Did Earth miss?" Lin Yuan stabilized himself and wiped away some nosebleed. Before he could ask, gaia's urgent voice exploded in his head.

"Boss! It wasn't Old Chen who fired! It's those three silver 'Urban Enforcers'!"

A holographic projection popped up instantly.

In the image, the three Orion Patrol Ships that had been hovering in the distance with the posture of enforcers had now torn off all their disguises. Their main cannons were no longer just charging for deterrence but were firing with everything they had. Deep blue Antimatter Beams covered the entire airspace like a rainstorm, indiscriminately.

They weren't just hitting Earth; they were blowing up the Black Shark Fortress as well.

"Holy shit! These bastards are even firing on their own people?" Lin Yuan looked at the cannon fire filling the screen and laughed out of sheer anger. "That kid Zeta is still tucked in my pocket. Do they not care about that bullshit captain's life anymore?"

At this moment, on the other side of the fortress ruins.

The Black Shark King, who had just reattached his severed arm and was preparing to flee with his confidants, nearly had his eyes pop out. He watched helplessly as the flagship representing 'Order' leveled his private vault with a single shot.

Countless gold bars and rare ores scattered into space like flowers from heaven, only to be vaporized by high-energy rays immediately after.

"Zeta's Adjutant! I am Black Shark! Have you gone mad? The Captain is still inside!" Black Shark King roared into the communicator, his half-mechanical face twisting into a pile of scrap metal from fear and anger. "That's my money! That's the tribute I've saved up for you for a hundred years!"

A cold burst of static came through the communicator, followed by a mechanical male voice.

"According to 'Clearance Regulation No. 74', when an enforcement target poses an uncontrollable risk and important evidence may be leaked due to force majeure... perform a Highest-Level Purification."

"Black Shark, your mouth is too loose. And Zeta, as a noble, to be captured by a group of primitives like a chicken is a disgrace to the Dynasty."

"To maintain the Order Bureau's face, please sacrifice yourselves for the sake of glory."

Click.

The communication was cut. Immediately after, all the side-hull missile silos of those three warships opened, and thousands of 'Swarm' missiles with tracking warheads whistled out, packed so densely they seemed to completely fill this patch of void.

They were going to eliminate all witnesses, turning both the people and the fortress into ash together.

"Face? For glory?"

Black Shark King stood frozen on the spot, watching the sky full of death-dealing meteors as the communicator slipped from his hand. He had been a bandit his whole life, never expecting that he would eventually be stabbed in the back by the 'protection umbrella' he had spent so much money to maintain.

"These guys in uniform... are even more corrupt than me..."

...

In the engine room, Lin Yuan listened to the communication recording intercepted by gaia, a cruel curve curling at the corner of his mouth.

"What a fine 'for the sake of glory'."

Lin Yuan cracked his neck with a series of pops. Although he had just forcibly suppressed the core's self-destruction, that violent Void Energy was still rampaging through his body, and he was looking for a place to vent it.

"Since they don't want to be decent, I'll give them a hand." Lin Yuan kicked aside the debris blocking his path and, dragging that large iron rod, strode toward the control room.

"gaia, how many doors in this fortress are still locked?"

"Reporting, Boss, there are still twelve A-grade alloy gates leading to the main control hub. Normal hacking would take thirty minutes..."

"Hack my ass." Lin Yuan walked up to the first blast door, which was half a meter thick, and pressed his palm against it.

[Ding! C-grade alloy scrap detected, determined to be ownerless.]

[Recycling successful.]

With a hum, the gate that was strong enough to withstand the shock of a nuclear blast vanished into thin air, without even a screw left behind. Lin Yuan stepped through without any obstruction, as if he were using a wall-hack.

"In Daxia, this is called a 'scavenger' passing through—not a single blade of grass is left behind."

Lin Yuan dismantled everything as he went. Everywhere he passed, let alone doors, even half of the hundred-meter-long metal corridors were recycled by him, leaving only the bare framework.

In just three minutes, he literally forged a straight line through the maze-like fortress with his feet, standing directly at the main gate of the control hub.

There were no pirates guarding the place because the guards had just been crushed to death by beams falling from the ceiling.

Lin Yuan walked into the hub, which was filled with scattered documents and servers that were still sparking. He kicked aside a corpse on the floor and walked straight to the massive mainframe.

"gaia, time to work." Lin Yuan pressed his hand onto the mainframe interface. "Expose everything they've got."

"You got it! Boss, this firewall is like paper... holy crap!"

gaia's voice suddenly jumped up an octave, as if she had discovered something incredible. "Boss, look at this! These bastards aren't just collecting protection fees; they're also the biggest human traffickers in this sector!"

On the holographic screen, an encrypted ledger was forcibly cracked and unfolded.

It was packed with records of every dirty transaction: on such-and-such a date, three million natives of a certain planet were sold to a Mining Planet; on such-and-such a date, they assisted pirates in raiding a merchant fleet for a thirty-seventy split of the profits...

And at the very bottom of the ledger, there was even a draft titled 'Earth Cleansing Plan', which was clearly stamped with Zeta's family seal.

"Good, very good."

Lin Yuan looked at that ledger, the killing intent in his eyes almost solidifying. He dragged the still-unconscious Zeta out of the system space like a dead dog and slapped him awake with two strikes.

"Wake up, Young Master, it's time to be on camera."

Zeta opened his eyes groggily and was about to scream when Lin Yuan grabbed his chin and pointed him at the wide-area communication camera that gaia had already taken over.

"gaia, broadcast this video, along with that ledger, on a loop across all public channels in the Orion Arm."

Lin Yuan had his trademark honest smile on his face, but his eyes were colder than the vacuum outside.

"The title will be—'Shocking! A Certain Noble Young Master and His Unspeakable Dirty Deals'."

...

The next second.

Whether it was the patrol ships firing on the perimeter, the passing merchant ships hiding in the shadows to observe, or even some relay stations light-years away—all screens were forcibly cut at the same time.

In the image, Captain Zeta, who was usually high and mighty, now had a bruised face and a mouth full of blood, being held up like a small chicken.

"Hello everyone, I'm Lin Yuan from Earth."

Lin Yuan's large face squeezed into the frame, holding the electronic ledger that hadn't been destroyed yet. "Today we aren't selling anything; we're here to tell everyone how this so-called civilized Order Bureau collects protection fees while selling us like pigs and dogs."

As the pages of the ledger were flipped one by one, the originally silent public channel instantly exploded.

Countless angry messages flooded the screen like snowflakes.

"That's my missing brother! They said he died in an accident, but he was actually sold to a Mining Planet?!"

"Lackeys of the Moran Dynasty! I knew none of these people were any good!"

"Is this real? Even the officials are in the business of piracy?"

Meanwhile, inside the command room of the patrol flagship.

The adjutant who had been cold-faced while ordering the silencing saw the overwhelming insults on the screen and the ledger being watched by the whole world, and his face instantly turned pale.

"Quick! Cut the signal! What's happening? Why can that primitive hack into our encrypted frequency?!"

"Sir, we can't cut it! The other party is using an unknown god-level algorithm, it's like... like the underlying logic of the legendary Cult of the Machine!" The technician's hands were shaking.

"It's over..." The adjutant slumped into his chair. Once this matter got out, to appease the public's wrath, the higher-ups would absolutely treat him as a scapegoat.

Just then, the radar operator suddenly screamed.

"Sir! The fire control system of the Black Shark Fortress has been forcibly restarted! All batteries... all batteries are aiming at us!"

In the image, the fortress ruins that had been riddled with holes suddenly lit up with a piercing red light, as if experiencing a final burst of life.

Thousands of electromagnetic cannons and laser arrays that originally belonged to the pirates, and even several heavy particle cannons stripped from warships, turned their muzzles in unison.

They were no longer pointed at Earth, but were locked onto those three silver 'traitors'.

"Since you won't let us live, then let's just hurt each other."

Lin Yuan's annoying voice came through the speakers. "It is impolite not to return a favor. gaia, give them a blast!"

Boom boom boom—!

Although the fortress was falling apart, it was still a massive object hundreds of kilometers in diameter. This round of point-blank fire, though lacking in accuracy, made up for it in sheer volume.

Dense energy beams instantly submerged the three patrol ships. Although they couldn't penetrate their antimatter shields, they blasted the beautiful silver coating into charred black patches, and the shield generators flashed red as they overloaded.

"Now! Old Chen!"

Lin Yuan's roar pierced through the chaotic battlefield.

Earth, which had been waiting for the right moment on the perimeter with its gas pedal floored, finally moved.

"All hands! Prepare for impact!"

Chen Weiguo stood on the command platform, his eyes bloodshot. The frustration he had suppressed for so long erupted at this moment.

"We don't have laser cannons or shields. But we have billions of tons of rock! Ram them!"

The massive blue planet trailed a long red tail of fire like an angry bowling ball, braving the patrol fleet's fire as it charged into the chaotic battle with a posture of absolute determination.

It didn't go for the agile warships but slammed its side into them, using its massive gravitational field and the thrust of tens of thousands of engines to force a large chunk of the Black Shark Fortress's debris into the patrol fleet's formation.

Bang!

It was a collision on a celestial scale.

A patrol ship that couldn't dodge in time was struck directly on its side by that tens-of-kilometers-long metal fragment. The expensive antimatter shield shattered after holding for 0.5 seconds, followed by the tragic sound of twisting metal.

"Boarding action! All engineering mechs that can still move, charge!"

On Earth's surface, countless crude single-person shuttles, modified mining ships, and even warriors crossing the void with their bare bodies in exoskeletons pounced on the damaged warship like a swarm of crazed army ants, howling as they went.

"If it's made of iron, it's ours!"

"Grab the engines! Grab the batteries! Don't even leave them a toilet seat!"

This scene was no longer an interstellar war; it was clearly an interstellar-scale 'zero-dollar shopping spree'.

...

Inside the fortress hub.

Black Shark King huddled in a corner, clutching a broken wrench, watching the surveillance footage while trembling all over.

Outside, everything had turned into a mess.

The officials wanted to eliminate witnesses, the people of Earth were fighting for their lives, and his subordinates were either dead or fleeing.

He suddenly realized that he, the once-powerful overlord of the Oort Cloud, didn't even qualify as a supporting character now.

"It's over... it's all over..." Black Shark King muttered to himself.

"It's not over yet."

Lin Yuan's voice suddenly sounded above him.

Black Shark King looked up sharply, meeting a pair of eyes flashing with dark golden light.

Lin Yuan stood at the control console, his hand pressing the massive red self-destruct button—but he wasn't going to detonate it. Instead, he was performing some terrifying operation on the entire fortress through the system interface.

"Black Shark, your fortress may be an illegal structure, but the materials are quite solid."

Lin Yuan grinned, revealing a row of white teeth. That smile looked particularly chilling under the red alarm lights.

"Since you can't hold it, I'll take it for you."

[Ding! void engine cooling complete.]

[Enable 'Mandatory Dismantling and Recycling' mode?]

"Yes."

Lin Yuan pressed the confirmation button without hesitation.

In an instant, a ripple that made all living beings feel their souls tremble swept through the entire fortress, centered on Lin Yuan.

The originally hard alloy walls began to soften like candle wax, and the batteries that were still spitting fire suddenly stopped operating, their surfaces covered in countless fine streams of data light.

"What... what is this?" Black Shark King watched in horror as his own mechanical arm began to decompose into tiny particles, flying toward Lin Yuan.

"This is—"

Lin Yuan opened his arms, and the Void Black Hole behind him instantly expanded to a hundred meters, like a giant mouth devouring heaven and earth.

"The most efficient form of environmental protection."