168: Chapter 172 This piece of meat is a gift for you all.

This wasn't a siege at all; it was a public execution ground constructed with sheer firepower.

The atmosphere above the battle axe heavy cruiser, once murky and filled with sickly green spores, had been forcibly illuminated by the high-intensity white light of tens of thousands of super-warship main guns warming up, making it look like a supernova core's polar day.

"Target 409X, your coordinates have been pinned down by a spatial lock anchor."

The synthesized announcement over the joint public frequency of the Four Great Star Sectors carried an incomprehensible sense of mechanical divinity, drowning out the extremely faint heartbeat of the entire planet.

"Hand over the First Clear Crystal and disable the heavy Cruiser's propulsion system. This is the only clemency for you, a thieving rat, to buy back the countdown of your life after such a treacherous act."

They didn't fire immediately.

This wasn't out of mercy, but because they feared a concentrated volley from the main guns would vaporize that extremely fragile high-dimensional neural crystal Li Cang had stolen, along with the black ship. They were waiting for Li Cang to kneel and offer it up out of fear.

On the holographic radar inside the cockpit, apart from the deep gray garbled code indicating spatial locking, not a single green dot for a warp jump appeared.

A dead end.

Li Cang didn't look at those glamorous warships hovering in the high sky like descending gods.

He turned the console lighting to its brightest and stared with intense focus at the center of the station.

Its surface was still covered with the brains of that guardian monster and some nauseating, stringy mucus.

It was that perfect First Clear-grade [Lesser Overmind Neural Crystal], radiating unparalleled power of laws.

If this thing were brought back to the Forge World, within just one or two cycles, it could allow that batch of Astartes Recruits to complete a form of genetic ascension-based mass mobilization that even the system would find hard to estimate.

This was a genuine First Drop from the red zone of the great map. Absolutely priceless.

But Li Cang glanced at the fleet above, looking down on him and demanding his surrender.

He didn't sigh or hesitate over the loss of the treasure.

He suddenly raised a massive adamantine cast-iron wrench he'd scavenged from some engine, its tip still stained with oily sludge.

Under the gaze of the Astartes—something they hadn't expected—transmitted through the helmet comms.

With all his strength, he slammed it down, striking the surface of that flawless high-dimensional crystal.

Crack.

A crisp sound of shattering.

This god-tier item, capable of inciting a free-for-all at any high-end auction.

Was struck by his utterly thuggish physical blow, which directly knocked off a massive chunk—one-third of its size—sending fragments flying everywhere.

"You want me to hand it over?" Li Cang toyed with the fragments with his insulated gloved fingers.

"I'll give the biggest piece to your floor mats for breakfast."

He took that broken crystal fragment, which made up a third of the original volume and was frantically leaking intense radiation, and stuffed it directly into the high-speed purification hydraulic tube of the civilization forge.

Regardless of its original divine functions, Li Cang simply pressed the crudest button: "Extract Ultimate Biological Stimulant."

Ten seconds later, a giant injection gun filled with a dark reddish-purple solution—one that could turn titanium alloy black—was delivered by the conveyor belt.

"Number Fourteen, take this down."

Li Cang ignored the voice outside counting down to its end.

"The 3.5-kilometer shaft you guys just dug is still there. Its main spinal cord was removed, but the neural interface layer still has some warmth."

"Shove this entire tube of poison into its thickest blood vessel!"

In the underground cavern.

Fourteenth Recruit had just kicked aside the blood-soaked, smashed bones of the guardian. Without question, he walked directly to the massive fleshy pit where Number One had just violently torn out the crystal, and which was now oozing a pathetic trickle of blood.

With the high-frequency power claw of his single arm, he gripped the injection gun, which was as thick as a thigh.

He aimed at the pale-white aorta still twitching feebly at the bottom of the fleshy pit.

Under the command of utterly crude and violent strength, he forced the entire barrel and needle inside and pushed the hydraulic plunger to the limit.

The low-frequency chemical reaction from the injection was silent at first.

Silence for about three seconds.

In the bridge of the largest capital ship in the sky, the flagship of the [Holy Radiant Star Cluster] responsible for overseeing the field.

That Red-robed Archbishop, who had just been 'poisoned' by a black-market deal thirty thousand light-years away, finally exhausted his already meager patience.

"No response. Then destroy the outer shell directly."

He waved his hand, about to give the order for a heavy bombardment regardless of the crystal's safety.

But his hand, adorned with three ornate rings, froze in mid-air.

In his panoramic command window, that continental ruin—the one they had been treading upon and which appeared dark brown—

Moved.

It wasn't a slight geological shift.

Accompanied by a terrifying, shrill roar that physically and mentally tore at the eardrums of all living beings, this fleshy continental block, at least several thousand kilometers in diameter, which had been in a near-death dormant state after its overmind was removed—

Was hit by that adrenaline shot mixed with its own highest neural fragments and Warhammer toxins, on top of the marrow-deep pain of having its crystal stolen.

It went completely and uncontrollably berserk.

Its hardened fleshy shell burst layer by layer in less than half a second.

From the strata several kilometers deep.

Thousands upon thousands of dark red fleshy tentacles, thick enough to coil around and crush a heavy escort ship, their surfaces covered in corrosive acid and bone spurs—

Like thousands of barbed fingers reaching out from hell, driven by a predatory and vengeful will that did not distinguish between friend and foe, they lunged directly at the super-coalition defense net hovering closest above!

"Evade! Break formation! The low-level radar didn't detect any energy accumulation precursor! It's not firing, it's eating us alive!"

The coalition's communication channels were instantly flooded with countless panicked tactical alarms.

There was no time for these high-quality warships to charge their shields. Under the overclocked overexertion caused by Li Cang's tube of lethal poison, the tentacles moved so fast they became red blurs.

A Lightfeather Heavy Destroyer leading the charge didn't even have time to fire its reverse thrusters.

Three fleshy tentacles, kilometers long, lashed out and coiled around its bridge and forward keel. The acid instantly dissolved their proud composite armor, and amidst the screams of hundreds of high-elven crew members—

This warship, costing over a hundred million, was crushed flat like a fragile tin can by the fleshy continent below, then dragged down into a massive, jagged, tooth-filled rift in the ground!

The coalition of tens of thousands of ships, once in perfect formation,

Were thrown into chaos by this dirty, unconventional "release the hounds" style subterranean explosion that defied all standard wargame logic.

They turned into a chaotic mess, a boiling pot of ships fleeing the low-altitude hunting zone. All radar blockade nets collapsed amidst the wild dance of tentacles.

Amidst the blinding fireballs of exploding luxury battleships being struck and dragged down, Li Cang had no intention of staying to watch the show.

In the gap opposite the wildest dance of the thirty thousand tentacles.

The high-pitched, ear-piercing sound of the battle axe heavy cruiser activating [machine spirit overload], its chassis Servitors nearly melting from the heat, was completely masked by the chaos.

Its biological camouflage shamelessly adjusted to a dark red, matching the surrounding fleshy disaster.

Like a slippery loach with a full belly, it quietly slipped through a hole in the collapsing blockade.

"You guys can take your time gnawing on this scrap of meat. I'm taking the crystal."

Li Cang leaned back against his chair at the console, the remaining half of the shattered core between his fingers, as he coldly issued a holographic stealth command.

The warship broke free from the gravity well and successfully connected to the safe warp point for Mining Planet No. 3.

But in the final moment as his hand touched the warp lever.

The center of the holographic panel was suddenly forcibly interrupted by a high-privilege private interface that bypassed all public channels of the great map.

[System has detected extremely obvious malicious residue left by you on the great map.]

[The Supreme Archon of the Eternal Star Crown Federation, 'The Chess Player', has applied for and anchored one-way planar pursuit privileges!]

[The opponent is not accompanying the army; the opponent is directly accessing the battlefield of laws.]

Li Cang's hand on the lever paused. This true hidden schemer of the great map hadn't bothered with the mess on the front lines; he had come straight to inspect the room of this retreating thief's ship.