215: The Only Ace and the Dance of Death

A holographic projection abruptly unfolded within the shuttle's cramped cabin, its glaring red light casting Chen Feng's pale face in flickering shadows.

On the screen was a middle-aged man wearing the uniform of a senior Black Water Conglomerate Commander. He sat in a wide leather captain's chair, swirling a glass of crimson liquor, with densely packed starship Fire Control Radar lock interfaces behind him. That condescending arrogance was as if he were looking at a fly trapped in a glass bottle.

"I am Commander Orlov of the Blackwater Third Fleet."

The man's voice, processed through audio filters, carried a metallic distortion. "Shuttle ahead, your engine signature is exposed. While I admire your escape from that hellhole, your luck ends here."

He took a sip of his drink, his gaze not fixed on the camera but idly scanning a stain on his fingernail.

"Hand over that miner, number 734, and that 'experimental subject'. I might consider leaving the others intact, letting you drift in space as quiet debris. You have ten seconds to decide."

"Ten."

"Nine."

The comm channel was dead silent. Only the overloaded hum of the shuttle's engines remained, like the panting of a dying beast.

Eve's fingers hovered over the control panel, her silver eyes flooded with frantic data streams as she calculated the escape probability. The result was zero.

Reno gritted his teeth. The recently scrapped mechanical arm was still sparking, but his remaining right hand was already gripping the control stick tightly, a desperate, cornered ferocity burning in his single eye.

Chen Feng sat in the co-pilot's seat, his body gently undulating with the shuttle's vibrations. He wasn't looking at the man counting down. Instead, he pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his trench coat pocket and meticulously wiped the dust from his fingers.

It was from when he had grabbed the youth in the ruins earlier.

"Five."

"Four."

Orlov set down his glass, a cruel smirk curling at the corner of his mouth as his finger rested on the "Salvo" button.

"It seems you've chosen pain."

*Zzzzt—*

Chen Feng suddenly raised his hand and activated two-way communication.

In the holographic projection, Orlov was momentarily stunned, seemingly not expecting these "rats" to dare look him in the eye.

"Want them?"

Chen Feng casually tossed the soiled handkerchief at his feet, leaned forward, and fixed his pitch-black eyes on Orlov through the holographic screen as if staring at a specimen.

"Come and get them yourself."

*Click.*

The communication cut off.

Chen Feng sharply turned his head, his previously calm voice instantly becoming razor-sharp.

"Eve, allocate all shield energy to the forward sector! Reno, dock the shuttle into the 'vengeance's' main control interface! Now!"

"vengeance" was the armed merchant ship they had stationed on the outskirts of the asteroid belt for extraction, and it was currently Hanhai Trade's only heavy firepower unit.

"Yes, Boss!"

Reno roared. The shuttle executed a physics-defying sharp-angle turn, like a suicide torpedo, plowing through the Blackwater fleet's first wave of probing fire and slamming into the ventral hangar of the "vengeance," which had just dropped its stealth cloak.

*BOOM—!!!*

Almost simultaneously, the Blackwater fleet's main cannon Salvo arrived.

Hundreds of ghostly blue high-energy particle beams tore through the darkness, illuminating the starfield as bright as day.

"Shields overloaded! Generator temperature critical!" Eve's voice remained calm, but her hands had become a blur of silver. Every command she typed adjusted the shield frequency at the microsecond level, causing the particle beams capable of vaporizing warships to glance off the shield surface.

The "vengeance" rocked like a solitary leaf in a storm, its shields flickering erratically, its armor plates groaning with an unnerving screech.

"Damn it! Is this the firepower of a regular military?"

Reno had already rushed onto the "vengeance's" bridge, roughly plugging his neural interface into the main console. A massive holographic star map unfolded before him, the red dots representing the enemy so numerous they could trigger trypophobia.

"Boss! Fire Control Radar is suppressed! Can't get a lock! Their electronic jamming is too strong!"

The numerical disparity was too great.

This wasn't a battle; it was a slaughter.

Chen Feng strode onto the bridge, the silent youth following behind him.

"Who told you to use radar lock?"

Chen Feng walked to the fire control station and roughly pulled the crewman in charge aside. He turned and looked at the youth, who was curiously examining the surrounding instruments.

"Chimera."

Chen Feng's voice wasn't loud, but it cut clearly through the cacophony of alarms.

The youth turned his head, his now clear eyes looking at Chen Feng.

"Remember that feeling?" Chen Feng pointed at the torrent of fire outside the window. "Those points of light are all people who want to capture you, drag you back, and turn you into spare parts again."

The youth tilted his head.

Deep within his pupils, the warm memory of "childhood" still flowed, but now, another instinct was awakened. It was the sole purpose etched into his genes, the reason for his creation—destruction.

"I don't like them," the youth spoke, his voice childish yet carrying a heart-chilling coldness.

"Then make them disappear."

Chen Feng grabbed a thick neural connection cable and held it out to the youth.

The youth didn't hesitate. He extended his semi-mechanical arm, an interface on his palm splitting open and locking onto the cable with a sharp *click*.

*Hum—*

The bridge lights suddenly dimmed for a moment before erupting into an unprecedented, blinding brightness.

A torrent of data so immense it made Reno feel suffocated surged through the cable and into the "vengeance's" fire control hub.

The screens, previously filled with red alarm pop-ups, instantly cleared.

Replacing them was a starkly simple green reticle.

"This is..." Reno's single eye widened. He felt the control stick in his hand change.

No longer heavy mechanical linkages, no longer delayed electronic signals.

He felt this three-hundred-meter-long armed merchant ship become an extension of his own body. He could "feel" every engine burst, "see" the trajectory of every incoming shell, even "predict" the enemy's next formation shift.

That feeling was like a mortal donning the armor of a god.

"Reno, don't just stand there."

Chen Feng stood on the command platform, hands braced on the console, his fingertips tapping the alloy surface at a dizzyingly fast rhythm.

"Let's dance."

"ROAR—!!!"

Reno let out a fanatical roar, his mechanical eye spinning wildly.

"Hold on tight, you bastards!"

In space, the "vengeance's" previously cumbersome hull suddenly executed an impossible cobra maneuver.

It moved like a slippery fish, weaving through the dense curtain of particle beams. Each potentially lethal beam only grazed its armor plates, leaving scorched marks but never piercing the core.

Then, the "vengeance's" counterattack began.

No widespread, scattergun barrage.

Only precise shots.

*Boom! Boom! Boom!*

The three high-energy railguns on the bow began vibrating at a frequency unattainable by human nerves.

Each shell fired was accompanied by a micro-adjustment of the ship's hull.

In the distance, within the Blackwater fleet's formation.

A Frigate captain was still mocking the other side's death throes. The next second, his smile froze on his face.

A tungsten alloy projectile, traveling at sub-light speed, precisely drilled into the energy node of the Frigate's shield generator—the only gap in its shield refresh cycle, lasting a mere 0.03 seconds.

"Boom!"

The Frigate exploded mid-space, transforming into a dazzling fireball.

But this was only the beginning.

The second, the third, the fourth... 'vengeance' danced a dance of death in the void of space. It was no longer a warship, but a Grim Reaper wielding a scalpel. Every flash of its main cannon meant the precise detonation of an enemy vessel's energy core.

Not a single shot missed.

True god-level micro-management.

On the Blackwater flagship, Orlov's wine glass slipped from his hand, shattering on the floor, the crimson liquid staining his expensive military boots.

"This... this is impossible..."

He clutched the edge of the command console, his knuckles white from the strain. Watching the enemy ship on the screen, maneuvering through the barrage as if it were a walk in the park, he felt a chill shoot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

"A merchant ship? Are you joking! Those are maneuvers even a Federation ace pilot couldn't pull off!"

"Commander! The Third Squadron is completely annihilated! The Fifth Squadron is requesting retreat! Their fire control system is too bizarre, they... they seem to be able to predict our projectile trajectories!" The adjutant's panicked voice echoed through the bridge.

Orlov stared at the ever-enlarging green blip on the screen, his psychological defenses utterly collapsing.

The opponent had only one ship.

But he felt like he was facing an entire Phantom Fleet.

"Retreat... no! Disperse! All units, scatter!" Orlov roared hysterically. "That's a monster! It's not human!"

However, the order came too late.

Inside the bridge of the 'vengeance'.

Reno was drenched in sweat, but he felt no fatigue. His brain was in a state of unprecedented excitement, dopamine flooding his system.

He could feel Chimera's presence. The young man's consciousness was like a vast ocean, enveloping his tactical movements, correcting his every mistake, transforming his rough handling into the most perfect art of slaughter.

"Awesome! This is fucking awesome!"

Reno laughed maniacally and slammed the throttle forward. "Boss! The energy core is fully charged! Want to give the leader a big one?"

Chen Feng looked at the screen showing the now-chaotic Blackwater fleet and stopped tapping his finger on the console.

He turned his head and glanced at the young man beside him.

Chimera was still standing quietly, but the arm connected to the cable was trembling slightly. Beneath his pale skin, his veins had turned an eerie dark red. He was operating beyond his limits.

"End this quickly," Chen Feng ordered coldly.

"Roger!"

Reno pulled the trigger.

The main cannon of the 'vengeance' gathered a blinding white light.

Not ordinary high-energy particles, but a special frequency energy beam that Eve had just loaded, mixed with the radiation signature of 'undead crystal'.

"Zzzz—BOOM!"

A thick beam of light pierced through the starry void, ignoring the flagship's heavy composite armor and multiple shield layers, directly piercing through the bridge where Orlov was located.

The explosion's fire consumed everything.

The Blackwater fleet's command system instantly collapsed.

The remaining dozen or so warships, like a pack of wild dogs that had lost their alpha, lost all their previous arrogance, scrambling to turn their ships around and activate their jump engines to flee.

"Don't pursue."

Chen Feng watched the remnants disappearing into the light of their jumps and said calmly, "We wanted to make a statement, not exterminate them. And..."

He glanced at Chimera beside him.

The young man's body swayed, the clarity in his eyes rapidly fading. The connecting cable automatically detached. He collapsed limply.

Chen Feng, quick as lightning, caught him.

The young man's breathing was faint, his entire body burning hot, as if he had just been pulled from a high fever.

"Severe energy depletion, but he's fine," Eve quickly scanned the boy's physical data and sighed in relief. "He's just asleep. His brain still needs to adapt to this level of high-intensity computation."

Chen Feng picked up the young man, placed him on a nearby rest chair, and draped his own trench coat over him.

"Well done."

Chen Feng murmured the words, unsure if he was praising Reno or the slumbering 'weapon'.

Only then did the crew on the bridge snap out of their shock from the battle. They looked out the window at the countless drifting ship debris, then at their young, composed boss, their eyes filled with awe.

One against a hundred.

Completely annihilating the Blackwater interception fleet.

This wasn't a battle at all; it was a declaration. A declaration that the behemoth, Hanhai Trade, had officially bared its fangs.

"Clean up the battlefield."

Chen Feng straightened his shirt collar, returning to the image of the shrewd businessman. "There's plenty of good stuff in the Blackwater wreckage, especially the intact engines and fire control chips. Eve, make an inventory. I want to sell this junk for a good price."

"Yes, boss." Eve's lips curved into a slight smile as her fingers danced across the keyboard once more.

From the corner, K, who had remained silent, slowly approached.

His protective suit was tattered and torn. His face, wrapped in bandages, betrayed no expression, but he clutched the chip Eve had given him tightly in his hand.

"The deal is done," K's voice was hoarse, laced with deep exhaustion. "You saved me, and I got what I wanted."

Chen Feng turned and looked at this mysterious 'scavenger'.

"You're leaving?"

"I don't belong here," K shook his head, his gaze sweeping over the sleeping boy. "Besides, there are too many monsters around you. Staying with you, a small fry like me would be ground to dust sooner or later."

He walked to the airlock door and stopped.

"As a parting gift, here's some free intel."

K didn't turn around, just pulled out a crumpled ball of paper from his chest and tossed it casually over his shoulder.

Chen Feng raised his hand and caught it.

"That old bastard Augustus isn't invulnerable," K's voice grew faint as the airlock door opened. "He has a bastard daughter, hidden in a convent in 'Eden'. That's his only weakness, the reason he's been hoarding wealth like a madman."

"Don't die, Chen Feng. Next time we meet, I hope it's at your funeral. That way, I can legitimately come to collect the body."

The airlock door closed.

An inconspicuous small lifeboat ejected from the stern of the 'vengeance' and disappeared into the vast sea of stars.

Chen Feng unfolded the ball of paper.

On it was only a set of coordinates and a name: Lilith.

"A bastard daughter, huh..."

Chen Feng looked at the name, his fingers once again beginning to tap lightly on the armrest.

This wasn't just a weakness.

This was a card. A trump card powerful enough to make that arrogant Alliance director kneel and beg at the negotiating table in the future.

"Boss, battlefield cleanup complete. The cargo hold is full," Reno's excited voice interrupted Chen Feng's thoughts. "We hit the jackpot with this haul!"

Chen Feng pocketed the paper ball and turned his gaze towards the deep starry void.

That was the direction of Free Port, the starting point of the commercial empire they were about to build.

"Return to base."

Chen Feng turned around, the hem of his trench coat cutting a sharp arc in the air.

"Go tell Su Li to prepare the champagne. We're having a victory celebration."