164: A sky-high price for a life? My rules are the only rules!

“Yes.”

Lin Mo’s answer was a single word.

“Heh heh...”

A dry, grating laugh, like two rusted iron plates rubbing together, emerged from Old Ghost’s throat.

He took another sip of the blue liquor.

“Your ship is very big, isn’t it?”

“Very big, very strong,” Yama’s electronic voice was calm and unperturbed.

“But it also looks very clumsy.”

Old Ghost extended a finger, as thin and gnarled as a bone, and pointed towards the purple planet outside the tavern’s porthole, a planet radiating endless terror.

“See those ‘wind shears’?”

“See those ‘thunderstorms’?”

“That beautiful behemoth of yours, if it dares to approach the atmosphere, it’ll be torn into a pile of scrap metal even smaller than this drink in my hand in less than three minutes.”

He retracted his finger and stared at Lin Mo with his intact single eye, which gleamed with the cunning of an old fox and absolute confidence.

“What I’m selling isn’t a map.”

“What I’m selling is lives.”

“Name your price.”

There was no emotion in Lin Mo’s voice, as if he were commanding a machine.

Old Ghost slowly extended three withered fingers.

“Three crates.”

“Energy blocks of the highest purity.”

“Or, rare alloys of equivalent value that can be used to repair A-class warp engines.”

Hiss—!

This price made all the Scavengers who were eavesdropping with pricked ears gasp in unison!

Greedy and bloodthirsty light instantly erupted in everyone’s eyes!

This was no longer just a lion opening its mouth wide!

This was practically trying to swallow a giant star beast whole!

This was a colossal fortune, enough to make all the Scavenger in Safe Harbor unite and wage a bloody war!

Inside the ‘Thunder Dragon’s’ cockpit, Gu Zhixia’s brows were already tightly furrowed.

The frequency of the electric sparks on the silver-blue surface of the mech quickened slightly.

This old man was using his own life to test their bottom line.

However, Lin Mo’s answer surprised everyone.

“Alright.”

He answered swiftly and decisively.

As calmly as if he were saying, “Get me a glass of water.”

Without the slightest hesitation.

Without the slightest bargaining.

The entire tavern was deadly silent.

“...Deal?”

Even Old Ghost’s single eye uncharacteristically flashed with a hint of profound surprise.

He had expected the other party to be furious, to threaten him with force, and he had even prepared for such a response.

He hadn't expected the other party to agree so readily.

This made him re-evaluate the power behind these two mechs.

Those who could so easily produce such a fortune could never be ordinary individuals.

“However.”

Just as Old Ghost thought this enormous deal was settled, Lin Mo’s cold, emotionless voice rang out again.

“I have one condition.”

“What condition?”

The red light in Old Ghost’s mechanical eye flickered a little faster.

“The transaction will take place after we safely return.”

Lin Mo’s voice, amplified by Yama’s speaker, came out like a statement of an established fact, leaving no room for negotiation.

These words instantly made the atmosphere in the entire tavern incredibly strange.

Paying first and receiving goods later was an unbreakable iron rule in all the grey areas of the universe.

The condition Lin Mo proposed was undoubtedly challenging the survival rules of all the desperadoes in Safe Harbor.

Old Ghost’s wrinkled face showed a clear change in expression for the first time.

He slightly narrowed his intact eye, and a sharp, knife-like light of scrutiny emanated from his cloudy eyeball.

“Heh heh... Young man, are you joking?”

His voice sounded like it was squeezed out of a rusted pipe.

“In this ‘Safe Harbor,’ no one has ever dared to... ask for credit from Old Ghost.”

The Scavengers who had been holding their breath and eavesdropping now showed gloating, sinister smiles on their faces.

This arrogant newcomer had completely enraged ‘Old Ghost,’ the local big shot.

Inside the ‘Thunder Dragon’s’ cockpit, Gu Zhixia’s fingertips were already lightly resting on the weapon system’s activation button.

On the mech’s surface, silver-blue electric arcs began to hum with a low ‘zzzt’ sound, like a leopard poised to strike.

“I’m not discussing it with you.”

Lin Mo’s voice remained calm.

But this time, his words carried an undeniable, steel-cold will.

‘Yama,’ the pitch-black demon god, slowly raised one of its hands.

There was no earth-shattering energy convergence.

No dazzling light and shadow effects.

It simply spread its five fingers, and then, aimed at a bar counter next to it, which was made of a solid block of high-strength alloy and was half a meter thick, and made a virtual grip.

Ohm—

A faint, almost imperceptible hum, originating from the laws of space itself.

That incredibly sturdy alloy bar counter, in an instant, was like an aluminum can gripped by an invisible giant hand.

In a manner that defied all laws of physics, eerie to the extreme, it silently twisted and collapsed inward!

Finally, it transformed into a dense, metallic iron sphere less than half a meter in diameter!

The entire process occurred without even the slightest sound.

Dead silence.

Inside the tavern, there was a complete, soul-freezing dead silence.

Everyone’s eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets!

They stared fixedly at the metal sphere suspended in mid-air, their expressions instantly changing from gloating to an extreme, bone-deep fear.

This was no longer within the realm of power.

This was... a miracle!

It was a power of a higher dimension, incomprehensible to these ants struggling at the bottom of the universe!

Old Ghost’s hand, holding the wine glass, finally trembled slightly, uncontrollably.

The eerie blue liquid in the glass rippled with fine waves.

His red-flashing mechanical eye was now flickering frantically at an overloaded frequency, ultimately only returning a series of [ERROR] and [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

“You...”

Only one word squeezed out of his hoarse throat.

“I want your navigation chart.”

Lin Mo’s voice echoed through the tavern like a final judgment.

“I also want your life.”

“But your life won’t be taken by me; rather, you yourself will keep it safe and sound until the moment we return for the transaction.”

“This is a win-win: you get wealth beyond your imagination, and we get the information we need.”

“Or...”

‘Yama’s’ dark golden pupils slowly turned towards Old Ghost, its gaze as if looking at a dead object.

“...You die now.”

“And I will personally retrieve your navigation chart from your corpse and your broken ship.”