209: The Rules of the Forbidden Zone and the Steel Hunting Ground

The wrench completed its final fold between the fingers, letting out a crisp, tooth-aching click of engagement.

The man disguised as a maintenance worker was now like a frozen sculpture. He even controlled his heart rate to prevent faint vibrations from transmitting to the gun's body and affecting the trajectory of that specialized kinetic round.

The crosshairs locked onto the back of the figure wearing a black trench coat.

No hesitation, no leaking killing intent, not even a rise or fall in breath.

"Click."

The firing pin struck.

The specialized warhead, accelerated by electromagnetism, tore through the air, leaving no trace on the retina. It wasn't designed to pierce armor but to release high-frequency shockwaves the moment it touched flesh, vibrating the target's heart into a pulp.

Chen Feng still stood there, seemingly unaware of the Reaper's scythe.

But at the instant the bullet was about to hit the center of his back, the shadow beneath his feet suddenly boiled, defying physical common sense.

That ink-black shadow instantly rose from the ground, materializing in less than a thousandth of a blink into a shield with dark matter ripples flowing on its surface—or rather, a person's back.

"Thud!"

A dull impact sound.

It was the sound of a metal warhead drilling into high-density mimetic muscle.

Ying's body jerked violently, her previously blurred edges instantly becoming clear, revealing the silhouette of a slender yet tough female body. A cloud of black mist exploded from her left shoulder, followed by the seeping of a dark red liquid—blood she simulated to maintain her human form.

The massive kinetic energy sent her crashing backward, but she held her ground firmly, ensuring Chen Feng wasn't affected in the slightest.

"Enemy attack!"

Reno's roar sounded almost simultaneously with the impact.

The newly attached black mechanical arm reacted with startling speed, sweeping out almost subconsciously with a shrill whistle of wind, smashing the guardrail in front of him out of shape as he propelled himself toward the lift like a cannonball.

The assassin's pupils constricted slightly.

If one strike fails, retreat a thousand miles. This was the rule of the trade, and even more so, the law of survival.

He didn't linger for a moment, his finger brushing over the controller at his waist. The air rippled like water as optical camouflage instantly covered his body, making him vanish into thin air against the chaotic shipyard background, leaving only a slightly swaying hoist rope.

"Get the hell out here!"

Reno landed heavily on the lift, the alloy floor denting under his weight. His red-glowing mechanical claw frantically tore at the surrounding air and equipment, crushing an expensive maintenance robot into scrap metal, but he caught nothing.

"Reno, come back."

Chen Feng's voice cut through the piercing alarm, unnervingly steady.

He didn't even look back in the direction the assassin had vanished, instead reaching out to support the swaying Ying. His fingertips touched the viscous liquid on her shoulder; it was cold.

"Boss! That bastard is still in the shipyard! Block the exits, I can drag him out and tear him to pieces!" Reno's single eye was bloodshot, and the veins on his temples throbbed like an enraged bull.

"There's no time."

Chen Feng glanced at the terminal on his wrist; the countdown displayed was nearing zero.

That was the window of opportunity provided by K.

"Since that assassin dared to act before takeoff, he prepared for both outcomes. Either kill me or delay us." Chen Feng handed Ying over to the arriving medics, his cold gaze sweeping across the area. "If we stop to hunt him down now, we'll miss the best timing to enter the 'Death Forbidden Zone.' By then, the Alliance Fleet outside will blow us and the ship to smithereens."

He strode toward the captain's seat, his cloak trailing a decisive arc behind him.

"All hands, hear my command."

"Set sail immediately."

"But Boss, that rat..."

"Let him come aboard." Chen Feng sat in the command chair, his fingers tapping lightly on the armrest with a crisp 'da, da' sound. "Since he wants to be on this ship so badly, let's grant his wish."

Amidst a deafening roar, the vengeance forcibly broke free from the shipyard's restraints.

The engine nozzles erupted with brilliant blue light pillars, pushing this massive steel beast toward the heavens. The intense g-force made the hull groan unsettlingly, but it didn't stop its determined acceleration.

As the altitude climbed, the gravity simulation system began to operate.

Chen Feng turned on the ship-wide broadcast.

His voice echoed through the speakers into every corner of the ship, including the dark ventilation ducts and the cargo-filled lower decks.

"I am Chen Feng."

"Whoever you are, whether you're a dog of the Black Water Conglomerate or a shadow of Augustus. Congratulations, you've successfully boarded."

Chen Feng watched the shrinking Ashen Earth Star on the screen, a cruel curve forming at the corner of his mouth.

"But this is also the last time you'll see land."

"Weld the hatches shut. Activate internal circulation mode."

He pressed the red confirmation button, his tone carrying a suffocating sense of pressure.

"Close the door and beat the dog."

...Deep in the sea of stars, at the edge of a star sector known as the "Death Forbidden Zone."

There was no brilliant galaxy here, only a chaotic, nauseating mess of mottled colors.

Space seemed to have been crumpled by an invisible giant hand, and starlight was stretched into distorted lines. The originally pitch-black vacuum background was now filled with purple-red auroras and dark green radiation clouds, like a moldy canvas.

The vengeance led the fleet as it plunged headlong into this eerie region.

Upon entering, all screens on the bridge simultaneously flickered with static.

"Radar failure! Long-range communication interrupted!"

"Navigation system error! The compass is spinning wildly!"

The panicked reports of the operators rose one after another. This wasn't just equipment failure; it was as if something invisible was rewriting the physical laws here.

"Ah—!!!"

A shrill scream suddenly exploded from the communication channel, making everyone freeze.

It was K.

The holographic projection popped up automatically, but the image was distorted beyond recognition. K was curled up in the shuttle's pilot seat, his hands clutching his throat tightly, nails digging deep into his flesh.

The bandages on him had come loose, revealing skin that was undergoing a terrifying transformation.

It wasn't rot, but "decomposition."

His left arm looked like a low-resolution image, constantly switching between solid form and pixels. Countless tiny squares peeled off him, floating in the air before re-aggregating, each reassembly accompanied by the crisp sound of dislocating bones.

"Law... turbulence..."

K's voice sounded like it was coming from a radio with a bad connection, heavy with electronic noise and echoes.

"This is... the graveyard... of Divine Corpses..." He raised his head in agony, his clouded eyes filled with fear. "The underlying code here... is chaotic... Don't use... conventional engines... you'll be... digitized..."

Chen Feng stared at K's wretched state, his brow furrowed.

This was the manifestation of Law Contamination. In this region, physical laws were no longer constant truths but a precarious building that could collapse at any moment.

"Eve!" Chen Feng shouted sharply.

"I'm on it!"

Eve's voice came from above, tinged with a hint of irritability.

She was currently connected to the central hub, her long silver hair floating weightlessly, the data streams in her eyes moving so fast they merged into a white light.

"The space curvature here is negative; conventional thrusters are doing useless work or even producing counter-forces!" Eve's fingers danced frantically in the air. "I'm rewriting the engine's output protocols to forcibly adapt to the law fluctuations here. Give me three minutes!"

Just then, the previously silent Ying suddenly spoke.

Her face was pale, her left shoulder wrapped in thick hemostatic bandages, but her right hand remained steady on the console. As a mimetic organism, she was more sensitive to unusual auras in the environment than radar.

"Boss, I've caught that rat's tail."

Ying pulled up a structural diagram of the ship's interior; a red dot was moving rapidly in the rear section of the ship.

"He's near the Power Chamber." Ying's voice carried a chill. "All surveillance cameras in that area went offline three seconds ago. He's moving in the blind spots, very fast."

Chen Feng's gaze instantly sharpened.

The Power Chamber.

In this Law Turbulence zone, the engines were the lifeblood of everyone on the ship. Once power was lost, the fleet would be like a ship that had lost its anchor, swept into a space-time storm, and finally decomposed into a pile of meaningless data gibberish like K.

"He wants to force us to a halt."

Chen Feng instantly saw through the assassin's intent.

The opponent knew very well that on this modified armed flagship, the success rate of a direct assassination was extremely low. But as long as the engines were destroyed, leaving the ship paralyzed in the turbulence, the environment here would kill everyone without him having to lift a finger.

This was a calm, professional, and extremely dangerous hunter.

"Reno!" Chen Feng looked at the burly man who was already itching for action.

"I'll go twist his head off." Reno grinned savagely as he turned, the hydraulic rods on his mechanical arm letting out a hungry roar.

"Wait."

Chen Feng called him back.

He looked at the flashing red dot on the screen, his finger lightly tracing the tabletop as if moving a piece on a chessboard.

"Don't rush in blindly. That's the Power Chamber; it's full of high-energy conduits. If they're damaged, we're finished too."

Chen Feng turned to look at Eve in the holographic projection.

"Eve, take over the ship's security system. Activate 'Internal Partition Mode'."

Eve was stunned for a moment, then realized Chen Feng's intent, an excited smile forming on her lips: "Understood. Let's turn him into a sardine in a can."

As the command was issued, a series of heavy metal impact sounds echoed through the ship's interior.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Anti-explosion isolation doors, half a meter thick, dropped without warning, cutting off all passages to the Power Chamber. The previously connected corridors instantly became independent, sealed compartments.

The red dot was trapped in the Maintenance Area outside the Power Chamber.

"You want to catch a turtle in a jar?" Reno raised an eyebrow. "But this won't hold him for long. An assassin of that level must have cutting equipment on him."

"I don't need to hold him."

Chen Feng looked at the screen, his eyes as cold as if he were looking at an insect struggling in a petri dish.

"I just need to restrict his range of movement so he has nowhere to run."

Before he could finish, a violent vibration suddenly came from beneath their feet.

"Boom—!!!"

The entire vengeance felt as if it had been slapped hard by a giant hand, tilting violently. The lights on the bridge instantly went out, and red emergency lights flashed frantically.

"Warning! Warning! Explosion in Power Chamber Zone C!"

"Energy transmission line number three interrupted! Shield generator power supply dropped to 40%!"

"External Law Turbulence is eroding the port side armor! Hull structure damage expected in ten minutes!"

The piercing alarms sounded like a death knell.

The assassin was even more decisive than Chen Feng had anticipated. The moment he found his retreat blocked, he didn't try to break out but instead directly detonated the explosives he carried, cutting off part of the energy lines.

He was gambling.

Gambling that Chen Feng wouldn't dare risk the lives of everyone on the ship to wait him out.

"Boss, the shields can't hold!" Ying looked at the rapidly falling values on the screen, a hint of anxiety appearing in her voice for the first time. "The space radiation outside is corroding the hull like strong acid. If we don't repair the lines and restart the shields, we'll all die."

Chen Feng gripped the armrest tightly to steady himself.

On the screen, the Power Chamber area had turned a glaring red.

That was the color of death.

The assassin was right there. He was waiting quietly amidst the ruins of the explosion and the leaking high-energy radiation.

He was waiting for the prey to come to him.

To survive, someone had to manually repair the lines. And to repair the lines, they would have to step over his corpse first.

This was an overt ploy.

An overt ploy using the lives of thousands on the ship as bargaining chips.

"Good move."

Chen Feng laughed out of sheer anger. He stood up, his gaze piercing through layers of decks as if staring directly at the assassin hiding in the dark.

"Since you want to play with your life so badly, I'll play with you to the end."

He looked at Reno.

Without any words, the hulking man already understood his boss's meaning.

Reno cracked his neck, making a series of crisp pops. He raised his massive black mechanical arm, watching the dark red glow flowing over it, a wild fire burning in his single eye.

It was a thirst for slaughter and an anticipation of the upcoming bloody feast.

"I'll go fix the lines."

Reno bared his teeth in a grin, showing a row of stark white teeth, his smile as menacing as a beast about to be released from its cage.

"And while I'm at it, I'll clean up the trash."

He turned and strode toward the hatch. With every step, his heavy mechanical leg made a dull thud on the deck, like a countdown to death.

"Eve, open the final door to the Power Chamber."

Chen Feng's voice rang out behind him, carrying an unquestionable decisiveness.

"Tell that bastard."

"The hunter has arrived."