Chapter 203 Live Broadcast Across the Universe: A Responsible Statement Regarding the Theft of the Sun

"Remnants of the Great Xia Expeditionary Force?"

Lin Yuan stared at the glaring red text on the screen, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the armrest.

The communication channel was deathly silent; even A Ji, usually the most boisterous, didn't dare to breathe loudly. The weight of those few words was too heavy—heavy enough to crush the nerves of every Earthling present.

"Boss, should we reply?" Alita's voice was somewhat low. "The signal source has been cut off, but I've locked onto the approximate transmission sector. It's... very far from here, on the other side of the Orion Arm."

"Reply, my ass."

Lin Yuan snorted coldly, swiping away the line of code. His eyes regained their habitual, slightly ruffian-like clarity. "They want us to stay silent, and you want to hold a megaphone and shout 'I'm here'? That's just asking for death."

He stood up and stretched, his joints popping like firecrackers.

"Keep this matter to yourselves; no one is allowed to leak it. The priority right now is dealing with these tag-alongs." Lin Yuan walked to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the row of figures bound and kneeling on the vacuum deck outside. "Besides, we just got a new territory. If we don't set off a few firecrackers to make some noise, how will anyone know this place belongs to the Lin family from now on?"

A Ji immediately perked up, thumping his chest loudly. "Boss, how do you want to handle them? Steam them or boil them? I'll go preheat the reactor right now!"

"Tacky."

Lin Yuan shot him a look of disdain, straightened his slightly damaged coat, and adjusted his hair in the reflective glass.

"We are civilized people, a proper interstellar demolition squad... oh wait, the Earth Defense Force. We need to follow procedure; we need to be open and transparent."

He snapped his fingers, a playful curve forming at the corner of his mouth.

"Alita, connect to the full-band communicator we just snatched from the Mechanical Papacy. Send out a live broadcast link to the entire universe. Title it..."

Lin Yuan paused, thinking of a name explosive enough to give every major interstellar civilization a brain hemorrhage.

"《A Statement of Responsibility Regarding the Blazing Sun Star System Sun Theft Case》."

Half an hour later.

For the many civilizations on the edge of the galaxy, this day was absolutely one where their worldviews collapsed.

All screens that had been playing interstellar news, entertainment programs, or even certain black market transaction lists suddenly flickered without warning.

Immediately after, the broadcast was forcibly cut.

Replacing it was a scene that was incredibly shocking, even terrifying.

The background was a massive star, burning with raging golden flames. The terrifying heat seemed to rush out through the screen; the distorted light gave the entire image an unreal, dreamlike quality.

In front of this star hovered a massive metal platform.

Two rows of people were kneeling on the platform.

The row on the left wore tattered mechanical red robes—they were the cardinals of the Mechanical Papacy, who made countless low-level civilizations tremble in fear; the row on the right, with faces full of fat and bodies covered in prosthetic limbs, were the rampant interstellar pirate leaders.

At this moment, these big shots who usually threw their weight around were shrinking their necks like quails, trembling like chaff.

In the center of the screen, a smiling face that made people want to punch it leaned close to the camera.

"Hey, hey, hey? Can you hear me? Hello, folks."

Lin Yuan waved at the camera, his tone as relaxed as if he were doing a food livestream. "Thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to watch my broadcast. I am the Commander-in-Chief of the Earth Defense Force, and also the current... um, security administrator of this star sector, Lin Yuan."

Countless interstellar bigwigs watching the broadcast nearly spat out a mouthful of blood.

Security administrator?

You call that a security administrator?

Lin Yuan ignored the potential abuse in the barrage comments. He stepped back, revealing the massive sun behind him, and reached out to pat it as if he were showing off a cabbage grown in his own backyard.

"First, I want to clarify a small misunderstanding that just occurred."

"Recently, there have been rumors that someone stole the sun of the Blazing Sun Star system." Lin Yuan pointed righteously at the star behind him. "Pure slander! How can you call this stealing? This is called... resource recycling and reuse."

"As you can all see, this sun was in a bad mood earlier and almost exploded. In order to maintain universal peace and protect the environment, I had to bring it back to our Earth to conduct some... um, re-education."

The audience of the entire universe was silent.

The hell with re-education!

You pack up a star and drag it away, and you call it for peace?

"Of course, in this process, there are always some blind little bugs that come to cause trouble."

Lin Yuan's tone suddenly turned cold.

The atmosphere that was just playful vanished instantly, replaced by a murderous aura that made people's spines chill.

He turned around and walked to the row of kneeling prisoners.

The red-robed cardinal who had been shouting the loudest before was now kowtowing with snot and tears streaming down his face: "Spare my life! Spare me! We are willing to submit! We are willing to offer all our wealth to you!"

"Wealth?"

Lin Yuan looked down at him condescendingly, reached out and grabbed his mechanical limb, lifting him up like a dead chicken.

"I gave you a chance earlier. I said that I might not be a good person, but I keep my word."

"I said I would send you to meet 'Jealousy', and I will definitely send you."

Lin Yuan carried the struggling cardinal, walking step by step toward the edge of the platform. There was no guardrail, and below was the surface of the violently burning sun, just inches away.

"No! No! That is blasphemy! You will be punished!" The cardinal let out a pig-like shriek.

"Blasphemy?"

Lin Yuan laughed, revealing his stark white teeth.

"I just ate your god earlier; the taste was just so-so, a bit stuck in my teeth."

Having said that, he released his hand.

"Off you go."

Without any hesitation, without any dragging of feet.

Under the pull of gravity, the red-robed cardinal fell toward the churning corona like an insignificant speck of dust.

The audience of the entire universe watched helplessly as the figure, which symbolized the majesty of the Mechanical Papacy, gradually turned red and charred during the fall. In the end, without even a scream, he turned into a wisp of smoke and melted completely into the golden sea of fire.

He didn't even stir up a ripple.

"Next." Lin Yuan clapped his hands, as if he had just thrown away a bag of trash.

A Ji and several heavily armed Earth soldiers stepped forward. Without wasting words, they grabbed one each and threw the remaining pirate leaders and Mechanical Papacy loyalists down like dumplings into a pot.

"Don't crowd, don't crowd, there's enough for everyone."

"This counts as adding some fuel to the new sun—all natural and pollution-free."

In the live broadcast, there were only continuous screams and the "hiss" sound of human bodies falling into the star.

This was not a trial at all.

This was an execution.

It was a naked threat aimed at those in the entire universe who coveted them.

A few minutes later, the platform was clean. Only Lin Yuan stood there, his back to the star that had devoured dozens of lives, letting the heat waves blow his coat hem.

He turned around to face the camera again.

This time, he didn't smile.

In those black eyes, it was as if two unsheathed blades were hidden.

He raised a middle finger at the entire universe and said slowly:

"Earth is back."

"From today on, whether it's the Mechanical Papacy or any other Tom, Dick, or Harry, whoever dares to extend their claws toward Earth, or toward any ruins of Great Xia..."

Lin Yuan pointed to the sun behind him.

"I will go to their home and pack up their sun, too."

"Do not say you were not warned."

Hiss—!

The live broadcast signal stopped abruptly.

At the same time.

Earth, Underground City.

Countless survivors gathered in front of the large square screen, after experiencing a brief silence, erupted into cheers that could blow off the dome.

Men threw their hats into the sky, women covered their mouths and wept with joy, and the light reignited in the cloudy eyes of the elderly.

How many years has it been?

Since the Great Cataclysm began, since Earth was forced to wander, they had been like a pack of stray dogs, hunted by alien civilizations, mocked, and treated as slaves and miners.

They were used to bowing their heads; they were used to enduring.

But today, that man standing in front of the sun, in the most brutal and overbearing way, reattached the backbone of the Earthlings!

"Awesome! That is so damn awesome!"

A retired veteran with one leg missing, while chugging low-quality alcohol, roared at the screen, "This is our boss! Even if we are to be bandits, we must be the biggest bandits in the universe!"

"Long live! Long live the boss!"

On the system panel, data was scrolling frantically.

【Ding! Detected that the host has completed the "Universal Deterrence" achievement!】

【Earth civilization cohesion increased to 100%!】

【Obtained Reputation Points: 5,000,000!】

【Current Reputation Level: Interstellar Bully (Beginner).】

【Mall new items unlocked!】

【Unlocked Blueprint: stellar-class Fortress Main Cannon (Codename: Truth).】

【Evaluation: Your notoriety is known by all; your brutality stops children from crying at night. Although the methods are a bit rough, this is indeed the fastest way to make money.】

Lin Yuan looked at the string of zeros, in a great mood.

He turned off the broadcast equipment and turned to look at Alita beside him.

"How is it? How was the effect?"

"Very good, Boss." Alita's virtual face had an excited flush. "During the broadcast just now, on the interstellar routes within three hundred light-years, there were originally seven reconnaissance fleets approaching; now they have all turned around and run. One of them ran so fast it burned out its engines."

"That's right."

Lin Yuan took out the core component he had dismantled from the ring fortress—the fist-sized "Gravity Lens" control hub, which emitted a dim blue light.

He tossed it in his hand, a hint of cunning flashing in his eyes.

At the end of the broadcast just now, he deliberately gave this item a close-up.

This wasn't showing off.

This was bait.

"There is the logic of being a thief for a thousand days, but no logic of guarding against a thief for a thousand days." Lin Yuan looked at the deep starry sky, as if speaking across space to some invisible existence. "Since the signal of 'Great Xia' has appeared, let's turn passive into active."

"Alita, turn up the signal fluctuation frequency of this thing, loud enough for the entire arm to detect."

"I want to go fishing."

At the same time.

Thousands of light-years away from here, deep in a certain dark domain.

Inside a black spherical warship as huge as a Death Star.

Around a huge circular conference table sat several figures. They were shrouded in shadow, their faces unclear; only a few pairs of scarlet electronic eyes flickered in the darkness.

The live broadcast screen of Lin Yuan just now was frozen at the last moment—on the blue crystal in that man's hand.

"That is... Relic No. 3."

A hoarse voice broke the silence; it was some kind of non-human language synthesized by machines.

"Unexpectedly, that monkey from a low-level civilization could actually wield stellar-class power and even got the key."

"That 'Jealousy' is really trash; he couldn't even handle a civilization that just left the novice village."

Another voice sounded, with a hint of greed. "However, this is also good. Since the key has appeared, that plan can be restarted."

A large hand covered in an exoskeleton reached out and tapped the table twice.

"That Earthling named Lin Yuan is very arrogant."

"Then let him be arrogant. Notify the 'Hunter' squad; no need to rush to destroy Earth. Watch that person and wait for him to activate the key."

The figure in the shadow stood up slowly, the scarlet electronic eyes staring fixedly at Lin Yuan's face on the screen.

"Only when the pig is fattened is it good for slaughter."

"As for that so-called Great Xia... hmph, just a bunch of lonely ghosts."

"Execute the order."

"Yes."

Darkness enveloped everything again; only Lin Yuan's untamed face on the screen remained, quietly watching this deep space full of crises.