In less than ten minutes, a bloody path was forcibly torn through the once densely packed sea of insects.
Green insect blood froze into ice crystals in the vacuum.
Hundreds of mangled insect corpses floated around the ship, their once indestructible shells now resembling scrap metal.
Qin Yu holstered his gun and patted the still-hot barrel.
"Old K!"
Qin Yu pressed the communicator and issued a cold order.
"Take the men out and dig out all the Crystal Cores from the brains of those Lord-class Insects!"
"Don't miss a single one!"
"Yes, boss!"
Old K's voice cracked with excitement as he led three hundred scavengers charging out of the airlock like starving wolves.
These Crystal Cores from the mutated insectoids were filled with high-purity spatial energy!
In less than five minutes, hundreds of glowing green Crystal Cores were piled on the floor of the main control room.
Qin Yu walked over and stepped on the largest one.
[Ding! High-energy Insectoid Crystal Cores detected!]
[Can be converted into Jump Engine fuel for the ship, or used for Devouring Evolution by 'Netherworld: Death's Kiss'.]
"Feed them all to the ship."
Qin Yu gave the order without hesitation.
What he lacked most right now wasn't firepower, but the ability to traverse these Space fragments.
Su Tian immediately ran over, clutching dozens of Crystal Cores and stuffing them into the energy conversion slot on the main control console.
"Hummm—!"
The dark night-black armor on the ship's underside instantly lit up with a layer of ghostly green flowing light.
[Ding! Energy reserves overflowing!]
[Jump Engine cooldown reset complete!]
Su Tian's hands moved so fast they left afterimages on the control console as she forcefully pushed down the main throttle.
"Boss! The spatial rift at the Storm Cape node is open!"
"Charge through."
Qin Yu sat back in the captain's chair, biting down on an unlit cigar.
"Boom—!"
The Black Rhino-class Transport Ship's exhaust flames tripled in size, like a black dagger stabbing directly into that distorted spatial rift.
The surrounding scenery instantly stretched into countless bizarre, multicolored bands of light.
They had successfully escaped the first Rule Fragment Zone.
...
Meanwhile.
Millions of kilometers away, above the garbage planet-77 that Qin Yu had just left.
The originally dark red atmosphere suddenly froze.
Along with the churning toxic fog below the atmosphere, the ruins, and even the howling wind—everything fell into absolute stillness at this moment.
It was as if someone had pressed the pause button for this entire Space.
Then, with a crisp "Riiip" sound.
The sky was forcibly torn open by a pair of invisible giant hands, creating a pitch-black crack tens of thousands of kilometers long!
There was no roar of warships, no engine exhaust flames.
A massive, pure white structure shaped like a floating pyramid squeezed its way out of the crack.
This wasn't a ship.
This was a mobile absolute fortress.
In the top-floor hall of the fortress.
A man in a pure white suit, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, was swirling the crimson wine in his goblet.
His name was Bai Ze.
[Wasteland Era · One of the Regional Administrators (Code: 04)]
Beneath his feet was a completely transparent reinforced glass floor.
Through the floor, he could clearly overlook the entire lifeless garbage planet.
"Administrator, sir."
A featureless liquid metal figure knelt on one knee behind Bai Ze.
"Garbage Planet-77 has been scanned."
"All armed forces and management personnel stationed on the planet by the company have zero life signs."
"The planet's material reserves have been emptied, and the underground reactor has been illegally extracted."
Bai Ze's hand, holding the wine glass, paused slightly.
He adjusted the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, a gentle yet cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"All dead?"
"Even that fat overseer sent by headquarters is dead?"
The liquid metal figure lowered its head. "Yes. Traces of extremely violent physical destruction have been detected."
Bai Ze walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the dilapidated planet below.
"Who did it?"
"Unknown weapon residual wavelengths detected."
"Wavelength rating... exceeds the System's detection limit."
"Preliminary assessment: the weapon possesses 'Rule Modification' characteristics."
Upon hearing the words "Rule Modification,"
a terrifying gleam suddenly erupted in Bai Ze's eyes!
Crack!
The wine glass in his hand was crushed, red wine trickling down his pale fingers.
"A Rule Weapon?"
Bai Ze's voice finally carried a fluctuation, tinged with a hint of unconcealable greed.
"The underlying rules of this Wasteland were long ago dismantled and reconstructed by the five of us together."
"That bug was also erased by me. Could there still be remnants?"
He abruptly turned around, staring intently at the liquid metal figure.
"Extract the residual coordinates! Find out exactly what kind of rat is tampering with our cheese!"
Bzzzt—
The holographic projection in the center of the hall instantly lit up.
The image displayed was none other than the afterimages of Qin Yu crushing the pirate fortress with a single shot and slaughtering the insectoids at Storm Cape!
Bai Ze stared fixedly at the man in the image holding the black heavy sniper rifle.
"You're still alive?"
Bai Ze snorted coldly, his gaze as if looking at a lowly insect.
"Holding a weapon that doesn't belong to him, and he truly thinks he can defy the heavens."
"Since the regional barrier has already been broken by us, there can only be one voice in this sea."
Bai Ze raised his hand, taking out an irregular crystal that emitted a blinding white light.
He pressed the crystal onto the control console before him.
"Activate Administrator No. 04's authority."
The System's cold prompt echoed within the fortress.
[Authority confirmed.]
[Lord Bai Ze, please issue your command.]
Bai Ze lowered his head, taking another look at Garbage Planet-77 beneath his feet.
"This planet is tainted."
"I do not wish to see any trace left by that rat."
"Execute... 'Coordinate Erasure'."
Bai Ze's tone was casual, as if brushing dust off his clothes.
[Command received.]
[Initiating 'Spatial Collapse' procedure.]
At the base of the pure white fortress, a blinding white point of light suddenly ignited.
The light point instantly expanded, transforming into a ring of annihilating light that directly enveloped the entire planet!
There was no earth-shattering explosion.
No sound was emitted.
The moment the light ring swept past, the garbage planet tens of thousands of kilometers in diameter, along with its surrounding asteroid belt and toxic atmospheric layers...
was as if erased by a giant eraser, forcibly wiped from the canvas of this universe!
One second.
The planet, which originally contained billions of tons of mass, was utterly reduced to nothingness.
Not even a speck of debris remained.
Only an absolute vacuum, a zone of dead silence, was left behind.
After finishing all this, Bai Ze took out a white glove and wiped the wine stains from his hands.
"Issue my Regional Administrator kill order."
"Notify the 'Deep Space Hounds'."
Bai Ze's eyes were icy cold, enunciating each word slowly.
"Find that black ship."
"Bring that Blue Star native, and the weapon in his hands, back to me completely intact."
"I want to personally skin him alive."
...
At the same time.
Inside the Black Rhino-class Transport Ship that had just passed through the spatial rift.
Qin Yu was resting with his eyes closed in the captain's chair.
"Woo——!!"
Without any warning, the highest-level red alarm in the main control room blared out!
The holographic screen was instantly flooded with garbled "ERROR" codes.
Su Tian jolted up from the co-pilot's seat, staring in horror at the radar screen.
"Boss!"
Su Tian's voice trembled, distorted with fear, as she pointed at the coordinates on the screen that originally represented the junk planet.
"It's gone!"
"What's gone?" Qin Yu's eyes snapped open, and he strode over to the control console.
"The junk planet-77 we just left... its coordinates have completely vanished!"
Su Tian's hands flew frantically over the keyboard, her face deathly pale.
"It wasn't destroyed, there was no explosion!"
"It was... forcibly erased from the physical level, even from the memory of this space itself!"
Qin Yu's pupils contracted sharply.
Not even the damn physical laws of this apocalypse could do something like that.
Right at that moment, the long-dormant System in Qin Yu's mind suddenly erupted with a piercing synthetic voice.
[Warning! Warning!]
[Detection of "World Rules" undergoing forced interference!]
[Detection of "World Heart" energy resonance!]
[Super Intervenor present in current region — Regional Administrator!]
Qin Yu gritted his teeth, coldly questioning in his mind: "Regional Administrator? What's their background?"
[Ding! Information unlocking...]
[The current Regional Merger of the Wasteland Era was forcibly achieved by five unknown lifeforms using cheat methods, shattering the regional barriers.]
[System judgment: Host has currently been locked onto by a Regional Administrator! Danger Level: Extremely Lethal!]
The main control room fell deathly silent.
Old K and Monkey had just rushed in, catching Su Tian's report about the planet being erased.
The two of them collapsed directly onto the floor.
"Erase a planet? Without even a speck of dust left?" Old K's lips trembled uncontrollably.
"Boss... what kind of monster have we actually provoked?"
They were just a bunch of scavengers surviving in the garbage heaps, people who couldn't even dream of reaching the company executives.
And now, out pops a god-like being who can wipe out planets like erasing pencil marks!
Qin Yu didn't speak.
He stood before the massive viewport, gazing out at the chaotic starfield.
"Scared?"
Qin Yu suddenly turned his head, looking at Old K and Monkey sprawled on the floor.
Old K swallowed hard, forcing himself to stand up.
"Boss... I'm not afraid of dying! But this thing that can wipe us out without a trace with just a wave of its hand..."
"We can't win against that!"
Qin Yu grinned, suddenly starting to laugh.
The laughter grew louder and louder, carrying a wild, untamable madness.
"Can't win?"
Qin Yu yanked out the [Kiss of Death] embedded in the control console.
The gun's muzzle slammed heavily onto the metal floor, sending a shower of sparks flying.
"These bastards changed the rules using cheats and think they're gods now?"
Qin Yu's eyes gleamed like those of a bloodthirsty lone wolf.
"Cheating? I am the biggest cheat of them all!"
He stared intently at the void zone erased on the holographic screen.
"Administrators."
"You took my territory, changed my game rules, and now you want to erase me?"
Qin Yu turned around and kicked Old K in the butt.
"Stand up straight!"
Old K jolted all over, immediately straightening his back.
"Boss!"
"Spread my word."
Qin Yu's cold gaze swept over everyone in the control room.
"Tell the thousands of brothers below."
"From today on, we are not fleeing refugees, nor are we scavenging insects."
Qin Yu raised his hand, pointing deep into the star map.
"We are going hunting."
"Those five lofty administrators are our prey."