171: Chapter 175: Entering a door without knocking will result in being turned into an urn.

This unknown, Roaming Mercenary Group, aggressively pushing in from the periphery of the mist three hundred light-years away, clearly hadn't taken the system announcement's warning about the "total annihilation of a regular fleet" seriously.

According to their intelligence assessment,

to be able to take down an elite fleet like that, the civilization in this dead star system must have surely exhausted all its trump cards and ammunition. Striking now was the perfect time to scavenge and feast.

On the holographic radar, over a hundred signal sources flashing with a piercing yellow light completely ignored the black Anti-Air Spikes pointing toward the sky like sea urchins.

Li Cang sat in the cockpit, his right hand tapping the defense system's master control panel with extreme steadiness.

Click.

The already riddled defense grid on the periphery of Mining Planet No. 3 didn't emit any counter-attacking arcs; instead, as if the power had been cut, it opened a 500-kilometer-long green landing window for the group.

"Decoy radar deactivated. Anti-Air Spikes entering physical silent sleep."

He watched the mercenary landing ships as they charged through the atmosphere like hyenas scenting blood.

"The warships are already in such bad shape; using anti-air cannons against aerial mobile units is just burning money."

Li Cang coldly switched his view to the surveillance probes on the equatorial surface.

"Let them down. Only once they've delivered themselves to the ground can I sign for the package."

Accompanied by the arrogant roar of plasma engine reverse thrust,

five heavy hovering transport ships, packed with elite landing forces, kicked up clouds of slightly acidic dust as they landed steadily in an area less than ten kilometers from the main volcanic base.

The hatches swung wide.

Over a thousand fully armed mercenaries filed out. Equipped with lightweight light-energy shields, they surrounded more than thirty low-chassis Magneto-Optical Hover Tanks armed with high-frequency cutters and micro-cannons.

The mercenary Commander jumped off his individual assault vehicle, his tactical eyepiece scanning the area in disbelief.

There were no towering bunkers, no complex laser security grids.

The ground before them looked as if it had been clawed by a pack of frenzied prehistoric beasts, riddled with bottomless, hideous, and wide trenches devoid of any technological aesthetic.

"I told you these thieving rats were spent! All they can do is dig holes and hide like turtles!" the Commander sneered, shouting into his comms. "Assault team, drive the vehicles over and scout them out! Whoever digs up the treasure keeps it!"

No sooner had he finished speaking,

the parched rock slab beneath his feet, harder than pig iron, suddenly vibrated violently and dully.

It wasn't the sound of a landmine exploding.

It was the heavy sound of some terrifying mechanical hydraulic device, capable of shifting entire tectonic plates, violently releasing physical locks deep underground!

At a trench intersection less than a hundred meters from the hover tanks, a large section of camouflaged, hard surface rock was thrust upward and shattered by an irresistible brute force.

Flying boulders, accompanied by dark red engine oil steam, shot dozens of meters into the air.

In the mercenary Commander's tactical eyepiece, the previously empty data circle instantly flashed a [Black-Red Skull: Extreme Danger] alarm, indicating critical pressure.

Amidst the swirling toxic dust and flying stones,

a massive, pitch-black steel monster, comparable to a small hill, slammed down steadily right in front of the mercenaries' formation, propelled by the terrifying thrust of an underground elevator platform.

It was a mutated mech, devoid of any streamlining and as blocky as a mobile iron coffin.

On the meter-thick adamantine armor plate on its chest, a Warhammer insignia representing sacred inviolability was haphazardly smeared in dark red liquid. From its coarse rivets and various exposed thick conduits, a nauseating, lethal green toxic miasma spewed out due to the forced activation.

That was a high-dimensional mutation caused by the integration of First-Clear Crystal powder.

This was what Li Cang, without a shred of mercy, had stuffed the limbless veteran Number Fourteen into—the [Starfall Mutated Version: Toxic Holy Dreadnought].

It didn't need to knock; its very appearance was an act of ultimate intimidation.

Before the autocannons on the hover tanks could even turn their barrels,

the dreadnought mech's left side featured a welded, exaggeratedly thick Eleven-Barrel Smoothbore Assault Rotary Cannon.

It moved.

There were no redundant actions like locking on or aiming.

Without any preheating, thousands of large-caliber Depleted Uranium Armor-Piercing Shells poured out from the glowing red rotating barrels like an upstream metal waterfall.

The deafening physical blasts completely drowned out all opposing commands in less than a second.

At this range, heavy cannon fire didn't need a crosshair.

The moment the seven or eight high-mobility hover tanks in the lead were hit by this metal storm, their light-energy shields, capable of resisting high-frequency lasers, were smashed like tissue paper by the solid projectiles.

Those arrogant mercenaries hiding behind the vehicles,

without even letting out a scream, were torn apart along with their vehicles into a spray of scrap metal and blood mist.

"Fire! Fire! He only has one!" the Commander shrieked amidst the shockwaves of recoil that were strong enough to knock a person over.

All the micro-Lances and plasma cutting rays were desperately poured onto this giant black iron coffin.

Sizzle! The high temperatures left charred white marks on the thick adamantine armor.

But it didn't retreat a single step. Not only did it not retreat...

Number Fourteen's demonic will—trapped in solution and only able to release its maddening machine spirit through slaughter—drove the heavily armored behemoth to ignore the insignificant counter-attacks.

Like a rampaging elephant, it strode forward with its heavy, powerful biotic-field iron legs.

Boom! Boom! With every step it took, the ground shook, leaving behind a deep pit burning with miserable green toxic flames.

It charged straight into the chaotic core of the mercenary infantry!

Before this colossus, all attempts to dodge were futile.

It raised its right side's highly irregular heavy armor-piercing alloy fist-claw, which was even oozing lethal viral slime from the gaps in its armor.

With extreme precision and unreasonable brutality, it grabbed the roof of the Commander's personal hover assault vehicle as it desperately retreated.

Hydraulics pushed with a sharp, creaking sound of crushing.

"No... No!"

Amidst the Commander's extremely desperate and shrill screams,

these iron claws, carrying the ultimate materialistic venting of the Warhammer,

like crushing a cheap soda can,

crushed the sturdy vehicle, along with the Commander inside who thought he could scavenge a victory, into a flat mess of iron and blood mixed with parts.

Then, like throwing away trash, it hurled the blood-soaked iron pancake into the bottomless trench nearby.

The entire field fell silent, save for the sharp hiss of the exhaust from the monster's thick conduits.

This landing ground, where not even a single intact corpse could be found,

on the radar console that Li Cang watched with extreme coldness, this didn't just represent the total annihilation of the enemy's marine corps.

It also meant that all the landing ships left behind by these "wealth-distributing boys" were automatically transferred to the bottom of his salvage and construction bay.

[Neutral invasive warzone landing cluster eliminated. Total annihilation confirmed.]

[Loot recovery in progress... High-level transport authorization drop detected.]

In the bottom right corner of the screen, amidst the dazzling flicker of resources,

an incomplete [Fragmented Map of Sub-Stargate Channel Physical Laying], its edges still glowing with red lockdown warning lights,

like a shocking reward bursting from the bellies of these hungry wolves, it slid quietly into Li Cang's field of vision.

"I've been shut in for so many days."

Li Cang looked at the blueprint, an experienced and calculating curve appearing on his pale face for the first time. "This time, I'm not just going to defend. I'm going out to have a 'heart-to-heart' with those big shots who think they're so clever."