214: Ragnarok and the Star Hunt

Red alarm lights rampaged through the collapsing hall like crazed beasts.

"Boom—"

A fragment of the alloy dome weighing several tons smashed down less than three meters from Chen Feng, the dust it kicked up instantly vaporized by the high temperature. The floor beneath his feet groaned, a tearing sound of metal structures reaching their fatigue limit.

Five minutes.

This was the last mercy the fortress offered them, and the countdown to hell.

Amidst the swirling flames and dust, the youth who had just slaughtered an entire elite squad was as quiet as a sculpture.

The dark red tentacles on his body stopped their frantic dancing, and his semi-mechanized prosthetic parts no longer flashed with the piercing red light of slaughter; instead, they flowed with a steady, breath-like pale blue aura. Those eyes, once filled with void and tyranny, were now staring fixedly at Chen Feng through his messy hair.

There was no killing intent.

Only a confusion like that of a newborn cub, and a hint of cautious dependence.

That "pure childhood memory" was like a key that unlocked his soul, which had been locked tight by pain, but it also left him like a lost child, unable to find his way in this collapsing world.

Chen Feng brushed the dust off his trench coat, ignored the precarious beam overhead, and extended his right hand toward the youth.

"Since you're awake, don't just stand there like an idiot."

Chen Feng's voice cut through the noisy alarms, steady and clear. "Come with me. Leave this place that treats you like a spare part."

The youth tilted his head, his gaze falling on Chen Feng's weaponless palm. His logic processor was frantically analyzing the meaning of this gesture, but it was a command that did not exist in his tactical database.

"Why?"

The youth opened his mouth, his vocal cords dry and raspy from long-term disuse. This was the first word he had spoken since birth.

"Because here, you are merely a weapon codenamed 'Chimera,' a failure of the Titan Project."

Chen Feng's hand remained suspended in mid-air, his gaze never wavering. "Come with me, and I will give you a real name and a purpose for living. Not for slaughter, but for yourself."

For myself?

The confusion in the youth's eyes flickered. The warm sensation from that memory seemed to revive in his palm.

He hesitated, slowly raising his semi-mechanical arm. Cold metal fingers touched Chen Feng's warm palm.

He gripped it.

[Ding!]

[Interstellar Exchange System · Transaction Settlement]

[Trading Target: Vessel of God (Chimera)]

[Price Paid: Pure Childhood Memory (Stock -1)]

[Gain: Chimera's Loyalty (Initial/Contract Locked)]

[Extra Reward: Titan Project Core Bioengineering Data (Full Version)]

[Evaluation: This is a world-shaking deal. You used a cheap memory to buy a god. Profiteer—this is the highest praise for you.]

A massive stream of information instantly flooded into Chen Feng's mind, top-tier technology on how to perfectly integrate biological instinct with mechanical logic. A faint, almost imperceptible curve formed at the corner of Chen Feng's mouth.

This time, a massive profit.

"Go!"

Chen Feng suddenly pulled the youth's hand and turned to rush toward the exit. "Reno, lead the way! Eve, that data interface is on the evacuation route. You have ten seconds!"

"Copy that! Boss!"

Reno spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva. Although his chest armor was dented and the mechanical arm he took pride in was covered in cracks, this stubborn mule still charged at the front, smashing through obstacles like a bulldozer.

"Cough, cough... Truly insane..." K clutched his chest, stumbling behind, but his bloodshot eyes flickered with greedy light. "You can even abduct a monster like this... Chen Feng, you're practically a devil."

The group sprinted through the collapsing passage.

The surrounding walls were peeling off rapidly, revealing writhing biological tissue inside. This fortress was dying, its "corpse" convulsing, attempting to crush all the parasites within it to death.

"The main gate is just ahead! Beyond that is the hangar!"

Reno roared, his mechanical eye shooting out a beam of light that illuminated the darkness ahead.

However, in the next second, he braked hard, his combat boots scraping a trail of sparks on the floor.

A dead end.

The originally spacious main gate passage was now completely sealed by a massive Dragon-Severing Stone. It was a load-bearing wall above the reactor, over a hundred meters thick, cast from high-strength Depleted Uranium Alloy.

"Cough... cough cough..."

A harsh laugh came from a corner.

A Blackwater Mercenary, whose lower body had been crushed, leaned against a broken wall, clutching a detonator. His face was covered in blood, but his smile was incredibly sinister.

"Run... keep running..." The mercenary laughed wildly while coughing blood. "This is... a cutoff mechanism specifically designed... to prevent test subjects from escaping... Cough... No one can open it... except with the Commander's fingerprints..."

"You all... will be buried with me..."

Reno's eye twitched. He roared and charged forward, his intact right hand grabbing the mercenary's collar and slamming him hard against the wall.

"What's the password! Speak!"

"Hehe... no password..." The mercenary rolled his eyes, his head tilted, and he breathed his last, a mocking smile frozen on his face.

"Damn it!"

Reno threw the corpse aside and turned to the giant stone.

"Vrrr—"

His cracked mechanical arm overloaded again, dark red energy gathering at the elbow.

"Open up for me!!!"

"Boom!"

He threw a punch.

The entire passage vibrated, and rubble fell.

But this punch, strong enough to pierce tank armor, only left a shallow dent on the hundred-meter-thick Depleted Uranium Alloy. Instead, Reno's mechanical arm let out a sharp "crack," and several hydraulic tubes burst, spraying scalding oil.

"It's no use... I can't break it..." Reno panted, looking at the shallow dent, despair appearing in his eyes for the first time. "This thing is too hard... unless we have a ship-mounted main cannon..."

"Countdown: 02:00."

The cold electronic voice sounded like a death knell.

Grom tried to ram it with his body, and Eve tried to find a control panel, but it was all in vain. This was a purely physical blockade with no room for clever tricks.

"Are we going to die here..." K slumped onto the ground, pulled out a crumpled cigarette from his pocket, and tried to light it with trembling hands. "Damn it... I'm so unwilling..."

Chen Feng said nothing.

He just turned sideways and looked at the youth who had been quietly following him.

"This is your first mission."

Chen Feng pointed at the giant stone blocking their path to survival and said calmly, "Get it out of the way."

The youth looked up, first at the giant stone, then at Chen Feng.

He didn't ask how, nor did he ask if it was possible.

Since that person had given him a name and a reason to live, then whatever stood in that person's way had to disappear.

This was his understanding of the "contract."

The youth stepped forward, passing the anxious Reno, and stood before the hundred-meter-thick alloy barrier.

He took a slow breath.

"Riiip—"

A skin-crawling sound of tearing flesh rang out.

The skin on the youth's back suddenly split, and countless dark red biological tissues proliferated and intertwined frantically. In the blink of an eye, four thick bone spikes protruded from his back, entangling and merging in the air, finally transforming into a sinister biological cannon muzzle over a meter in diameter.

Deep inside the muzzle, a dark red energy vortex began to spin wildly.

The surrounding air was instantly sucked dry, and the temperature rose sharply.

Reno's eyes widened, and he instinctively took a few steps back. That energy fluctuation... it was as if a star had been stuffed into a human body.

"Vrrr—"

There was no deafening explosion.

Only a low hum, as if space itself was being pierced.

A beam of dark red light erupted from the muzzle.

It wasn't fire, nor was it a laser. It was a pure high-energy particle stream, mixed with some kind of biological acidic field capable of disintegrating material structures.

The Depleted Uranium Alloy stone that had left Reno helpless was like butter on a hot iron before this light beam.

No fragments flew; there was no violent impact.

It simply... melted.

The hundred-meter-thick obstacle was directly vaporized within a mere three seconds, turning into clouds of glowing metal vapor that dissipated into the air.

A perfectly round passage, two meters in diameter, appeared before them. The edges of the cut were as smooth as a mirror, still radiating dark red residual heat.

Gulp.

The cigarette in K's hand fell to the ground.

Reno's mouth hung open. He looked at his own still-smoking mechanical arm, then at the youth who was slowly retracting the cannon on his back, and felt his throat go dry.

This was... a god?

"Let's go."

Chen Feng acted as if he had long expected this; he didn't even twitch an eyebrow as he was the first to step through the scalding passage.

At the end of the passage was a small emergency hangar.

A black shuttle sat there quietly, the evacuation vehicle Eve had locked onto earlier.

"Eve!" Chen Feng ordered as he ran.

"Understood!"

Eve moved like lightning, instantly reaching a data terminal beside the hangar. Her hands became a blur, her ten fingers seemingly turning into ten data cables as they plugged directly into the ports.

"Downloading Titan Lab's low-level data... Cracking shuttle fire control system..."

The progress bar on the screen jumped frantically.

"Countdown: 00:45."

"Done!" Eve pulled out her fingers, took a black memory chip from her pocket, and tossed it back to K.

"Catch! This is the part promised to you!"

K scrambled to catch the chip, his bandage-covered face showing a look of wild joy. He hadn't expected that at this life-or-death moment, these people would still remember the deal.

"Thanks! Machine girl!" K stuffed the chip into the deepest part of his protective suit; it was something more important than his life.

"On the ship!"

The group filed into the shuttle.

Reno was the last to jump through the hatch, dragging the still-dazed Grom inside.

"Boom—"

The shuttle's engines spewed blue tail flames, forcing a takeoff without any preheating. The massive G-force pinned everyone firmly against their seats.

Like a sharp sword, the shuttle smashed through the hangar's outer containment shield and plunged into the vastness of space.

The moment they broke free of the fortress's gravitational pull.

"Countdown: 00:00."

Chen Feng looked back through the porthole.

The giant steel fortress suspended in the asteroid belt suddenly imploded slightly.

Immediately following that.

A ball of white light, so bright it was impossible to look at directly, blossomed in space.

A silent explosion.

Then came a violent energy shockwave, mixed with countless steel fragments, sweeping in all directions like a tsunami.

The massive mushroom cloud rolled and expanded in the vacuum, swallowing all the asteroids within several kilometers. It was the final roar of tens of thousands of souls and the end of the old era's evils.

The shuttle vibrated violently, and alarms blared.

"Shield energy at 15%! Tail fin damaged!" Eve gripped the control stick tightly, her long silver hair flying in the zero-gravity environment. "Hold on! The shockwave is coming!"

The intense turbulence lasted for a full minute.

When everything finally calmed down, everyone felt a sense of exhaustion.

"We... we survived..."

Reno slumped in his seat, panting heavily, his single eye filled with the relief of a survivor. He turned his head to look at the youth sitting in the corner.

The youth was leaning against the porthole, watching the distant, still-expanding firelight. The scene of destruction was reflected in his eyes, but his face remained expressionless, as if it all had nothing to do with him.

"Boss, this kid... what exactly is he?" Reno asked in a low voice.

"He's not a 'thing'."

Chen Feng unbuckled his seatbelt, stood up, and straightened his slightly messy trench coat. "He is the future ace of our Hanhai Trade."

He walked over to the youth and also looked out the window.

"Do you like these fireworks?" Chen Feng asked.

The youth turned his head, looked at Chen Feng, hesitated for a moment, and then nodded.

"In the future, you'll see even bigger ones," Chen Feng said flatly.

However, in this brief moment of tranquility.

"Beep— Beep— Beep—"

The radar on the console suddenly emitted a rapid and sharp alarm.

Eve's face instantly turned pale.

"Boss... look at the radar."

Chen Feng turned and looked at the screen.

On the edge of the previously empty radar interface, a red dot suddenly appeared.

Then two, three, ten... In the blink of an eye, dense red dots covered one side of the screen like a swarm of locusts.

It was a fleet.

A full-strength fleet of a scale so massive it was suffocating.

On the side of every warship was a large, dripping black skull emblem.

Black Water Conglomerate.

Main Fleet.

"Is this what you meant by 'wolves in front and tigers behind'?" K looked at the screen, his voice trembling. "This isn't a tiger... this is a pack of dinosaurs!"

A harsh static sound suddenly came through the communication channel, followed by a chillingly cold voice inside the shuttle.

"This is the Black Water Conglomerate's Third Expeditionary Fleet. Shuttle ahead, shut down your engines and disarm immediately."

"Hand over the 'cargo,' and we will leave your corpses intact."

"Otherwise, become space junk."

As the voice faded, in the distant starry sky, hundreds of dark, ship-mounted main cannons began to charge, their eerie blue light like the eyes of the grim reaper, locking onto the ant-like shuttle.

Reno gripped his broken mechanical arm, Grom let out a low growl, and Eve's fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Everyone's eyes converged on Chen Feng.

A desperate situation.

A true dead end.

Chen Feng looked at the fleet that blotted out the stars, his expression showing not a hint of panic. He maintained his habitual gesture of lightly tapping his fingers on the table, as if calculating the profit and loss of a business deal.

"The god has been bought."

Chen Feng turned his head to look at the youth who was staring at him, a mad and cold smile curling his lips.

"Now, it's time to inspect the goods."

He reached out and pointed at the arrogant fleet.

"Chimera."

"That is your hunting ground."

"Go, eat them."