"Hunt."
The word echoed in the main control room.
Old K and Monkey exchanged a glance, seeing madness reflected in each other's eyes.
In this Wasteland universe where even surviving was a struggle, their boss actually intended to take down those who made the rules!
"Boom—!"
The ship's tail flames erupted violently, transforming into a black dagger that completely tore through the spatial barrier ahead.
An intense sense of weightlessness instantly assaulted them.
The holographic star map in the main control room flashed frantically, coordinate data refreshing like a waterfall.
"Bang!"
A deafening, muffled roar.
The ship forcibly squeezed out of the spatial turbulence and crashed heavily into a completely new star sector.
Before anyone could catch their breath.
"Woo—!!"
The highest-level red collision alarm exploded directly within the main control room!
Blinding red lights flashed wildly, making it impossible to keep one's eyes open.
"What's happening?!" Old K scrambled toward the control console.
Su Tian gripped the control stick tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force.
"Boss! We've arrived!"
Su Tian's voice carried an unmistakable trace of fear.
"The second jump node... the Shattered Star Chaos Region!"
Qin Yu strode to the massive viewport, his icy gaze sweeping across the outside.
Beyond the viewport, there were no stars, no deep space.
Only rocks.
Dense, endless, chaotic rocks!
Ranging from fist-sized to as large as an entire city!
These were not ordinary meteoroids, but continental fragments left behind after countless planets had exploded!
Even more terrifying, the laws of physics here had completely collapsed.
These massive rocks were entirely free from gravitational constraints, colliding with each other in the vacuum at an extremely bizarre and violent speed!
"Rumble—"
Ahead in the vacuum, two mountain-sized boulders slammed together ferociously.
No sound transmitted into the ship, but the violent shockwave instantly sent thousands of surrounding fragments flying.
The fragments, like shotgun pellets, came raining down on the ship in a dense barrage!
"Hard to port! Full power to the shields!" Qin Yu roared.
Su Tian yanked the control stick down.
The massive Black Rhino-class Transport Ship executed a perilous drift in the vacuum.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang—!"
Countless fragments smashed against the ship's Energy Shield, erupting in bursts of blinding blue light.
[Warning! Shield Energy down to 70%!]
[Warning! Shield Energy down to 55%!]
Old K watched the shield bar plummeting frantically, his scalp tingling.
"Boss! It's impossible to fly here! Collisions everywhere!"
"Our ship is too big! We're a sitting duck here!"
No sooner had he spoken.
A dark red rock the size of a football field, carrying terrifying kinetic energy, shot directly toward the ship's flank from a blind spot.
Too fast to dodge!
"Boss!" Su Tian screamed.
Qin Yu didn't even blink.
He reached back and grasped the [Kiss of Death] embedded in the main control console.
"Main cannon, fire."
"Hum—!"
The dark golden cannon barrel beneath the ship's hull instantly charged.
A pitch-black Annihilation Beam shot from its barrel, striking the exact center of the dark red rock!
"Crack!"
There was no process of explosion or fragmentation.
The moment that massive rock touched the light beam, it was instantly crushed into nothingness by the force of Spatial Collapse!
Not even a speck of debris remained.
The crisis was averted, but the atmosphere in the main control room grew oppressively tense.
The holographic Radar was densely covered with red collision warnings.
From all directions—above, below, left, right—deadly boulders hurtled at high speed.
There was simply no navigable path.
"Su Tian, scan for an exit," Qin Yu exhaled a smoke ring.
Su Tian's hands became a blur as she frantically typed on the keyboard.
"No good! The interference is too strong! The gravitational field here is fragmented—Radar can't penetrate this sea of rocks!"
"To find the next jump point, we have to go deep into the heart of this chaotic asteroid field!"
Monkey gulped, his legs trembling uncontrollably.
"Boss... maybe we should turn back and find another route? Not even a fly could get through this place!"
Qin Yu turned his head, casting a cold glance at Monkey.
"Turn back?"
"That word doesn't exist in my dictionary."
Qin Yu pushed Su Tian aside and took hold of the main thrust lever himself.
"Ship-wide broadcast."
Old K immediately pressed the communication button.
Qin Yu's voice, sharp as shards of ice, echoed in the ears of the thousands of scavengers in the lower decks.
"Everyone, grab onto something and hold on tight."
"If you let go and die from the fall, I won't bother burying you."
As he finished speaking, a flash of violent red light flickered in Qin Yu's eyes.
He didn't slow down.
Instead, he shoved the main thrust lever all the way forward!
"BOOM—!!"
The Thrusters at the ship's rear erupted with a dazzling, ghostly blue flame.
The massive vessel didn't evade; instead, like a raging bull, it charged headlong into the densest stream of asteroids!
"He's insane, insane, insane!" Old K clung to his seat, squeezing his eyes shut in terror.
Qin Yu clenched a cigar between his teeth, piloting the ship with one hand while his other gripped the trigger of the Fire control system.
"Port side, thirty degrees—fire!"
A streak of black light flashed, instantly annihilating the approaching boulder on the left.
"Roll starboard, secondary cannon sweep!"
The ship brushed past within an extremely narrow gap between rocks, the plasma beams from the secondary cannons slicing several fragments in half.
Qin Yu's reaction speed had surpassed human limits.
Enhanced by the System and combined with his own extreme combat instincts, he carved a path through what seemed like absolute certain death.
The ship danced on the edge of a blade.
With each near-miss, the armor emitted a grating, teeth-chattering screech.
Ten minutes.
A full ten minutes of high-speed maneuvering.
Even Su Tian, the ship mechanic, was left stunned.
This wasn't piloting—it was gambling with death!
Just as the ship was about to burst into the central region of the chaotic asteroid field,
Qin Yu's eyes suddenly darkened.
"Something's wrong."
He yanked back on the thrust lever, forcing the ship to hover abruptly behind a stationary, massive continental plate.
"Boss, what is it?" Su Tian asked in alarm.
Qin Yu stared intently at the edge of the Radar screen, where several faint light dots flickered briefly.
In this chaotic field of violently colliding rocks,
those light dots were moving against the trajectory of the asteroids!
"Rocks don't turn on their own."
Qin Yu sneered, drawing the Kiss of Death from the control console.
"We've got scum on our tail."
No sooner had he spoken than—
"BANG BANG BANG BANG—!!"
A series of violent tremors suddenly shook the ship's external armor.
Su Tian immediately pulled up the external surveillance feed.
The moment they saw the image clearly, everyone gasped in shock.
From the shadows of the surrounding asteroids, over a dozen leech-like, dark silver small spacecraft suddenly emerged!
They moved at incredible speed, completely ignoring the gravitational storms of the debris field.
Twelve thick titanium alloy grappling cables had already firmly embedded themselves into the armor of the Black Rhino-class Transport Ship!
[Warning! Hull forcibly locked!]
[Encountering high-frequency electromagnetic interference, main Engine shut down!]
"It's the Deep Space Hounds!"
Su Tian saw the white dog head emblem on the hulls of those ships, her face instantly turning deathly pale.
"We're finished… Boss, they're private bounty hunters sent by The Administrator!"
"How did they catch up so fast!"
The communication channel in the main control room was suddenly and violently hacked.
A cold, electronic synthesized sound of a man's voice rang out.
"Escape vessel number 7749."
"You have been locked on by Lord Bai Ze."
"Cease resistance and hand over that weapon with the Rule Fluctuations."
"The Administrator is merciful. He may allow you to keep your corpses intact."
Old K's hands gripping the Gauss Rifle were slick with sweat.
"Boss… we're pinned! The ship can't move!"
Qin Yu stood before the viewport, watching the dozen or so Hound ships clinging to his vessel like parasites.
He wasn't angry.
Instead, the corner of his mouth curled into a ferocious grin.
"Keep my corpse intact?"
Qin Yu raised his hand and pressed the communicator.
"Go back and tell that turtle named Bai Ze."
"His dogs… I'm slaughtering them all today."
The other end of the communicator fell into a brief, dead silence, followed by a contemptuous snort.
"Overestimating yourself. Cut open their hull and drag them out."
"Zzzzt—"
All twelve Hound ships simultaneously activated their high-energy cutting beams, preparing to carve Qin Yu's ship into pieces.
"Old K." Qin Yu turned around.
"Yes!"
"Open the outer airlock."
Old K's eyes widened. "Boss! It's all flying rocks out there! Opening the airlock will depressurize and suck us all out!"
"I told you to open it." Qin Yu's voice held no warmth whatsoever.
"Yes, sir!" Gritting his teeth, Old K slammed his palm on the door release button.
"Hiss—"
The airlock door rumbled open.
A violent torrent of space instantly surged in.
Qin Yu picked up the pitch-black heavy sniper rifle and strode directly into the airlock.
"Boss! You're not even wearing a spacesuit!" Su Tian shouted anxiously.
Qin Yu didn't look back.
A faint, ghostly blue Light Barrier surged from within him, clinging tightly to the surface of his skin.
This was the absolute barrier granted to him by the [Kiss of Death] after it devoured the World Heart.
Vacuum? Low pressure?
In the face of rules, it was all bullshit.
Qin Yu strode out of the airlock, his magnetic boots clanging firmly as they adhered to the deck plating on the ship's hull.
He looked up.
High-energy cutting beams shone with blinding light from all directions.
The pilots of the twelve Hound ships, seeing Qin Yu walking alone onto the deck through their screens,
were all stunned.
"Is this kid insane? Facing the vacuum with his bare body?"
The Hound squad leader sneered. "Cut him to pieces."
Three high-energy beams instantly swiveled their muzzles, aiming directly at Qin Yu!
Qin Yu stood in place, not even bothering to dodge.
He raised the [Kiss of Death] with one hand, directly locking onto a violently tumbling asteroid the size of a skyscraper ahead.
That asteroid was passing overhead at a speed of several kilometers per second.
"Gravity Magazine."
Qin Yu's eyes blazed with crimson light.
"Tenfold Gravity."
"Bang!"
A dark blue flame spat from the muzzle.
The bullet ignored the interception of energy beams, striking with pinpoint accuracy on the skyscraper-sized meteor.
"Hum—!"
A terrifying tenfold gravity field erupted instantly!
The trajectory of the massive meteor, originally hurtling forward at high speed, was forcibly yanked aside.
Like a falling meteor, it plummeted downward with apocalyptic kinetic energy, crashing straight down!
And below it—were precisely the twelve Deep Space Hound warships stubbornly tailing Qin Yu's vessel!
"Commander! A high-energy object is falling from above!"
Desperate screams erupted inside the Hound ships.
"Cut the cables! Evade! Evade!"
"It's too late!"
Standing on the deck, Qin Yu watched the enormous shadow pressing down from above and curled the corner of his mouth.
"Trying to leave now?"
"Too late."
Qin Yu fired another shot backward, straight into the void beneath his feet.
"Zero-Gravity Field, activate!"
Centered on Qin Yu's ship, gravity within a hundred-meter radius was instantly nullified.
The twelve Hound ships, having just cut their cables and prepared to ignite their engines to escape—
Their thrusters blasted into empty space!
In the absolute zero-gravity field, they were like turtles frozen in ice, spinning helplessly in place.
"Boom—!!"
The next second.
The colossal meteor, enhanced with tenfold gravity, descended like a ten-thousand-ton hammer, smashing squarely into the center of the twelve Hound ships!
There was no explosion.
Only the hair-raising sound of metal being crushed.
Twelve private warships forged from top-grade alloys, along with the bounty hunters inside—
Under the Strangulation of two extreme physical forces, were instantly flattened into thin metal pancakes!
Blood and engine oil burst into the vacuum, freezing instantly into icy shards.
[Ding! Annihilated Deep Space Hound squad!]
[Plunder Value +12,000!]
[Starburst Points +20,000!]
Qin Yu didn't spare a glance at the scrap metal.
He swung his gun barrel toward the densest part of the Chaos Stone Sea ahead and fired three shots.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Three Annihilation Shells, imbued with Spatial Collapse, detonated in the heart of the Chaos Stone Sea, tearing open three absolute vacuum black holes.
The frenzied stream of colliding meteors was forcibly ripped apart, creating a vacuum passage leading outward!
At the far end of the passage, the faint blue glow of the next jump node was just visible.
Qin Yu holstered his gun and turned back toward the airlock.
Inside the control room, Old K, Monkey, and Su Tian were utterly stunned.
They watched Qin Yu push the door open and enter, gazing at him as if he were a god of destruction.
Using others to do his killing.
In this domain of collapsed rules, the Chaos Stone Sea, Qin Yu had not only survived—he had turned it into his own stage!
Qin Yu tossed the gun onto the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
"Su Tian."
"Huh? Yes! I'm here, boss!" Su Tian snapped back to attention, standing ramrod straight.
Qin Yu pointed toward the passage blasted open outside the viewport.
"Ignite the engines."
"We're heading to the next location."
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