A Cat in the Starry Sky

Seeing the enemy's hatch open, Gu Ding knew they had changed tactics. They wanted to capture him alive, so they naturally didn't dare to bombard the ship indiscriminately, fearing it would affect Fa Te. If Fa Te died, they certainly wouldn't get their reward, so having someone blow through the protective shield and then storm the ship was a better option.

Seeing the person walking out of the hatch, Gu Ding was somewhat surprised, "Huh, why is it a child?"

Gu Ding's communicator was still on, and the other ship could hear it clearly. The tall, thin man immediately retorted, "Our boss is just a bit short."

"This can't be considered short," Gu Ding retorted. "He's probably not even 1.4 meters tall."

"Nonsense, our boss is clearly 1.41 meters tall!" The tall, thin man argued, his eyes darting around, clearly not telling the truth. He figured the other party couldn't possibly have measured him, so it didn't matter what he said. The group behind him also looked away, looking visibly guilty.

"But I estimate he's only 1.388 meters tall." Gu Ding's result was actually measured by the Sea Emperor.

"So accurate!" A burly man behind the tall, thin man couldn't help but exclaim.

The tall, thin man gave the burly man a sharp rap on the head. "Tell me to tell the truth! You're punished by washing toilets and dishes for a month!"

"Hey, don't you think this is very unhygienic? You're cleaning the toilet and washing the dishes all at once." Gu Ding's voice came quickly.

Upon hearing Gu Ding's voice, the group of people behind the tall, thin man nodded frantically.

"What business is it of yours to manage our team's affairs?" the tall, thin man turned around and snapped, then turned back and whispered, "Then you don't need to wash the dishes, just clean the toilets for a month!"

"Do you think I can't hear you just because you're speaking softly?" Gu Ding's voice came again.

"Damn it, I've had enough! I'll blast them to smithereens!" The tall, thin man completely lost his temper.

"Vice Commander. But that chubby kid is on their ship..." someone behind him reminded him. "And the Commander has already gone out to deal with them."

The tall, thin man finally calmed down. "Hmph, with our captain's strength, the shield on your crappy spaceship can only withstand two attacks at most!"

Unbeknownst to him, Gu Ding and his crew's spaceship was actually a Titan Battleship from an ancient civilization. Even without activating its protective shield, it could withstand a full-force attack from Peak-rank God without being destroyed. The spaceship had three layers of protective shields, Gu Ding and his crew had only activated the weakest inner layer. This inner layer, when all three layers were activated, primarily served to absorb shocks. However, its activation was sufficient to withstand the firepower of the four- Night God, and as for Mid-rank God, it would be utterly ineffective.

Seeing the short man standing with his hands on his hips talking incessantly, Gu Ding couldn't help but remind him again, "Hey, did anyone tell your boss that there's no medium for sound to travel in space? We can't hear what he's saying."

The tall, thin man's expression changed. He saw that his boss, as expected, hadn't made a move yet, but was still standing with his hands on his hips, shouting at Gu Ding Team. He felt like he was going to vomit blood. He remembered telling his boss many times not to shout at people in a vacuum. Nobody could hear him, but the other guy never learned his lesson.

Gu Ding wasn't in a hurry. He waited patiently for a while, and seeing that the other party still showed no signs of making a move, he simply went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water.

As he passed through the living room, he saw Fa Te looking at him and then said, "Don't worry. They won't take you away. You are our guest."

Gu Ding knew that the Sea Emperor had witnessed Liliath's attempt to force Fa Te to acknowledge his identity and had relayed this information to him. Gu Ding didn't intend to say anything about it. After all, Fa Te had confessed himself, and while Liliath had used some methods, she had only exploited Fa Te's fear and hadn't resorted to anything as extreme as hypnosis.

Back in the cockpit, after finishing a glass of water, and with the shorter man still not making a move, Gu Ding started chatting with the other ship. "Why don't you notify your boss and just attack?"

"Our boss once lost a match because his communicator suddenly went off during Arena Battle. Since then, he's developed a habit of turning off his communicator before every fight. We just tried to contact him, but we couldn't. We can only wait for him to finish speaking, which, according to past practice, should take about twenty minutes," the tall, thin man explained.

"So this isn't the first time something like this has happened?" Gu Ding immediately picked up on this information. "It must be really tough for you guys following a boss like this."

Gu Ding's words resonated deeply with many people, and even the tall, thin man was moved to tears. He felt that after following his boss for so many years, even his own intelligence had been affected by his boss, showing a continuous downward trend over the years.

"By the way, you probably don't know that the Koch Family commissioned you, do you?" Gu Ding asked tentatively.

"The Koch Family? You mean the ruling family of the Firth Conglomerate, ranked fourth in the Universe Sea?!" The tall, thin man asked, somewhat surprised. In truth, he didn't know the client's identity, as the client had been wearing a black robe and an anti-detection mask. He suddenly realized things weren't as simple as he had initially thought. "Who exactly is that chubby kid?"

"I have no comment on that." Gu Ding didn't reveal Fa Te's identity, but continued to ask, "You don't even know who the client is, so you probably don't know who we are with that chubby guy, right?"

"We don't know, and we don't need to know." The tall, thin man didn't think a team that couldn't even afford a two-star War God could have any extraordinary status. "Back then, the black-robed client wearing a mask only told us that they had captured the chubby guy on your ship alive. If he wasn't alive, we wouldn't get the remaining 80% of the payment."

"Just as I suspected." This was exactly what Gu Ding had guessed.

After chatting for a while, the short man floating in the starry sky still did not launch an attack. Gu Ding simply asked the Sea Emperor to check the information of the other mercenary group.

Name: Copper Fist Mercenary Group

Rating: Three stars

Group Leader: Xiao Te (Nickname: Little Four)

Deputy Commander: Tuo Er

Number of people: 188

The strongest member of the team: Tuo Er (Cultivation level: Four-Star Mid-rank God)

Team average cultivation level: One-Star Mid-rank God

After reviewing the opposing team's information, Gu Ding was slightly surprised. One surprise was the team's average cultivation level, which was at the level of One-Star Mid-rank God. With 188 strong individuals comparable to Mid-rank God Combat Strength, it was no wonder that the opposing team's level could reach three stars. Moreover, the strongest member was not the short team leader, but the vice-leader.

At this moment, Xiao Te seemed to have finally grown tired of talking. Having received no response, he was somewhat annoyed. No longer wasting his breath, he put on a pair of Three-Star Divine Object gloves, gripped his right wrist with his left hand, and channeled a powerful divine energy into his right fist. After a long while, he released his left hand, and his right fist was completely covered in a layer of golden light. He swayed, and his right fist slammed forcefully into the Titan Warship's protective shield.

A slight ripple appeared on the protective shield, like a small stone being thrown into a calm lake, but it subsided in a moment, and the spaceship did not even vibrate.

Inside the spaceship, Liliath and the others were watching what was happening outside via video projection. When they saw Xiao Te throw a punch, Fa Te was initially a little nervous, but the fact that the spaceship didn't react after the punch hit him finally put him at ease.

Seeing that the punch had no effect, the tall, thin Tuo Er on the spaceship noticed something. He was slightly puzzled. Logically speaking, the shield of the One-Star War God should not be this strong. Xiao Te's attack should at least have cracked the shield, but Xiao Te's attack had almost no effect on the other ship.

Xiao Te, however, did not notice anything unusual. He was always thick-skinned. When the first punch had no effect, he immediately gathered a second punch and quickly threw it down again, but the second punch had the same effect.

Tuo Er's expression changed slightly. He guessed that Gu Ding's spaceship was likely disguised, and quickly asked, "Isn't your spaceship the One-Star War God? Is it just disguised like this?"

"We've never admitted that our spaceship is the One-Star War God; it's just that many people think so," Gu Ding grinned, only realizing this at this point.

"Yi Deng, Ba Ke Man, you two go and bring the captain back!" Tuo Er dared not leave the spaceship. He was the deputy captain and strategist of the team. If the other side made any moves while he was away, no one else would know what to do.

When the other party said this, they deliberately hung up the call, but Sea Emperor broadcast the video projected from the other party's spaceship. Gu Ding's voice came through the communicator to the living room, "Tagore, you've been eating so much lately, go out and digest a bit."

Tagore, who had been dozing on the coffee table, stretched and vanished from his spot. Before the Sea Emperor's hatch even opened, he was already in the starry sky, directly opposite Xiao Te, less than twenty meters away.

When Short saw a cat appear in the starry sky, Xiao Te was first stunned, then blinked twice. He still couldn't understand why a cat would appear in front of him.

Just then, his vision blurred, a yellow shadow flashed by, and then he felt a sharp pain in his waist. He looked down and saw that he had been cut in half at the waist. His divine energy was frantically repairing his injury, and in just a moment, it had consumed nearly a third of its power. He then realized that he had been hit by the cat and had almost died.

Just as Tagore was about to launch his second attack, two more figures blocked Xiao Te's path. (To be continued...)