196: Chapter 200: I smashed your money jar, and used it to make guns for penniless people.

The border of the Eternal Star Crown Federation, [Glaze-Crystal Seventh Financial Star].

As a high-tier mineral distribution center and wealth storage site for hundreds of surrounding star systems, the surface of this planet was covered in vast, exquisite suspended crystal architectural complexes.

Even though the storm surrounding the bounty on 409X was causing a massive stir within the sector, the Elven nobles here were still elegantly raising their bid paddles in high-end auction houses, competing for a piece of ancient astral beast bone.

No one believed that the rat who had just been placed on the server-wide wanted list would dare to run to the Federation's foremost coin purse to cause trouble.

Furthermore, this star sector had just temporarily raised its three-layer magic barrier due to a radar malfunction.

However...

The planetary-scale barrier that Glaze-Crystal Star was so proud of—which emitted a soft blue light year-round—suddenly sounded as if it were being violently rubbed by coarse sandpaper, letting out a piercing, teeth-gritting screech of psionic friction.

A dense black shadow, massive enough to blot out the twin suns over the main city area, crushed the barrier and forced its way into the atmosphere without any warning or even triggering a warp alarm.

On the bow of the Exile Fortress, which resembled a giant rusted iron tombstone, hung alien slime that hadn't been cleaned off from the last battle.

Inside the command deck.

Li Cang chewed and swallowed a mouthful of hard-to-swallow compressed rations, his hands rapidly pulling up a dense grid of bombardment and airdrop coordinates on the holographic screen.

"The furnace at home is starving. These long-eared gentlemen have certainly stored up plenty of good materials for me."

He pressed his thumb firmly onto the red master launch valve.

"Number One. Take the brothers down. Don't knock, and don't take prisoners. I only want those glowing stones."

In the sky, a black rain fell from the belly of the fortress.

Three thousand heavy drop pods packed with tyrannical Astartes trailed thick smoke, showing no regard for the city's civilians or buildings. Like thousands of solid meteors, they smashed straight through the hemispherical dome of the Financial Star's heavily guarded core vault district.

The roar of the impact blended with the massive crash of collapsing crystal buildings.

The High-tier Federation Array Guards, clad in ornate armor and stationed at the vault's perimeter, had just managed to stabilize their formation after the shockwave.

The drop pod doors blew open.

What stepped out was not a civilized army carrying delicate energy rifles.

Instead, they were three thousand metal war-beasts, reeking of anti-magic paint, their heavy armor covered in cracks forced open by berserk musculature!

"Exterminate the monsters!" the Captain of the Guard screamed hoarsely, as hundreds of dazzling arcane Lances were fired simultaneously at the black formation in front.

But these Astartes neither dodged nor flinched.

Backed by the Great Crusade Forge Mother-Furnace that had just been ignited and was operating 24/7 right above their heads...

...they no longer needed to meticulously count the bullets in their magazines to survive as they had before.

Three thousand thick Bolters were leveled. There were no fancy tactical maneuvers, only the advance of absolute firepower.

They held down the triggers and didn't let go.

Da-da-da-da!

Tens of thousands of high-explosive armor-piercing rounds with depleted uranium cores—their tips crudely filled with temporary gunpowder—formed a visible rain of black and yellow tongues of fire.

Under such unreasonable, saturated impacts of solid metal, the arcane light shields shattered before they could even hold out for three seconds.

The elegant Federation Guards were mowed down like wheat, their severed limbs and broken bodies splattered across the expensive crystal walls in the violent explosions.

Stepping over the sticky fragments of blue blood, the [Starfall Heavy Executioner Knight]—thirty meters tall and draped in countless barbed iron chains—stepped heavily out of the shadows.

Its right arm raised a massive, roaring, double-toothed chainsword, aiming at the main steel vault door ahead, which was claimed to withstand nuclear blasts and was inscribed with hundreds of layers of high-tier Federation defense cipher runes.

It slashed down diagonally with a savage saw-cut!

Amidst a cutting sound piercing enough to rupture eardrums, the hundreds of layers of cipher runes short-circuited and failed before the pure violence; the ten-meter-thick blast door was forcibly gouged open with a massive ten-meter-wide crack.

Dazzling, golden, high-tier spiritual illusory light overflowed from the massive crack.

Before the large screen, Li Cang looked at the mountain of high-end energy mineral marrow—gathered from who knows how many low-tier civilizations—and a bloodthirsty greed flashed in his eyes.

He didn't send men inside to carry it by hand.

The Exile Fortress, hovering at low altitude, opened its entire bottom. Over a hundred powerful anti-gravity tractor beams, like the tentacles of a thief with eyes, reached crudely into the hole sawn into the door.

Regardless of type, and regardless of whether the energy blocks were encased in expensive storage boxes, everything—including the exquisite display stands and floor tiles in the vault—was swept up and sucked into that black-hole-like maw in the sky.

These tens of thousands of tons of hard currency, sought after across the entire Federation, had just entered the hold.

Li Cang didn't even let the system list them on the exchange for points.

With a wave of his hand, the mechanical conveyor belts on the console let out a piercing grinding sound.

This elegant wealth, enough to buy nearly half a star system, was pushed like dumped trash into the massive hopper of the [Great Crusade-class Convent Forge Mother-Furnace], which had just been completed and was frantically spewing dark red flames at the bottom of the fortress.

The Mother-Furnace let out a terrifying, thunderous crunching sound, as if it were grinding stars to pieces.

Under the crude yet domineering ultra-high temperature and pressure of the Warhammer, these high-tier psionic ores instantly stripped away all their so-called noble attributes. They were forcibly reduced in physical dimension and blended into the cheapest ratio of iron sand and gunpowder.

A few minutes later.

At the other end of the conveyor belt, crate after crate of freshly forged, still-scorching, and extremely rough-surfaced black heavy-caliber Bolter magazines—carrying incredibly strong secondary explosive psionic frequencies—were spat out like a stream. They were immediately resupplied through internal pipelines to the chambers of the Space Marines below, who were currently slaughtering everything in sight.

Using your money to make my bullets, then using them to smash your next city.

"With just this much stock, it can't even fill half the appetite of my Mother-Furnace."

Li Cang looked coldly at Glaze-Crystal Star, which had turned into a sea of fire and ruins, and pulled down the main navigation lever with extreme familiarity.

"Let's go. While these idiots are busy mending their net, we'll head to the next rich account's house to continue collecting protection fees."