The Past

Time passed quickly.

The observation from Forward Base was once again accurate.

The Clear Window Period arrived right on schedule.

No orders were needed. The moment the Clear Window Period began, both Wang Dong's Mine Overlord Type 2 and Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I fired up their engines.

Piloting their ships with practiced skill, they resolutely crossed the turbulence layer and entered the mining zone.

Inside the cockpit of the Mine Overlord Type 2, magnetic restraints held Wang Dong firmly in his seat before the control panel.

Before entering the mining zone, Wang Dong had shut down the ship's artificial gravity system and diverted the power saved to the eight directional adjustment thrusters along the sides of the Mine Overlord Type 2.

He gripped the eight-way control stick in front of him and pushed the engines to one-third power.

Wang Dong felt genuine delight.

The feeling of piloting a ship himself was always so fulfilling.

The only regret was that the vessel beneath him wasn't the warship from his previous life, but merely a Mine Overlord Type 2 near-space mining spaceship.

A near-space mining spaceship was only a little better than a space shuttle.

Compared with deep-space mining spaceships, which had formal-grade armor and could even hold their own against ordinary armed ships, near-space mining spaceships were truly bottom of the barrel.

Compared with the Tomahawk Destroyer Wang Dong had piloted in his previous life, the Mine Overlord Type 2 was sorely lacking in every respect: thrust, acceleration, and maneuverability, including control over its flight attitude during turns.

But it did have its strengths.

Since the Mine Overlord Type 2 didn't need to account for combat-related factors like warship defenses, its hull was equipped with eight directional adjustment thrusters—twice as many as the four on a typical warship.

Even among near-space mining spaceships, which placed greater emphasis on adjusting flight attitude, the Mine Overlord Type 2's advantage in this regard was considerable.

Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I, for example, had only six directional adjustment thrusters.

And as Wang Dong spent more time piloting the Mine Overlord Type 2, he quickly recovered various memories of operating this model of mining ship.

With ease, the Mine Overlord Type 2 pulled away from Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I at a visibly rapid pace, taking the lead in their contest.

Wang Dong made the most of the advantage provided by the eight directional adjustment thrusters.

In the complex airspace of the Asteroid Belt, Wang Dong's Mine Overlord Type 2 used its eight directional adjustment thrusters to maneuver nimbly, making all sorts of minute course corrections in tight spaces.

It roamed through the Asteroid Belt Mining Zone without reducing the main engine's thrust, maintaining a higher speed all the while.

Old Shi gritted his teeth and stayed close behind Wang Dong.

When it came to piloting skills, Old Shi, with nearly twenty years of experience, was quite good by the standards of the mining crews.

Usually, he lost his contests with Wang Dong, but the gap between them was always slight.

There had never been a qualitative difference.

But this time was different.

Up ahead, Wang Dong's Mine Overlord Type 2 seemed more nimble than usual.

Some of his finer controls looked insignificant at first glance, only the slightest bit smoother.

But when dozens or hundreds of such details added up, the difference became clear.

Normally, in this area on the outskirts of the mining zone, Old Shi's skill would have been enough to keep right on Wang Dong's heels.

But in reality, less than ten minutes after they entered the mining zone, Wang Dong's Mine Overlord Type 2 had taken a decisive lead, leaving Old Shi struggling to catch up.

And Wang Dong was nowhere near his limit.

He even had time to sort through the memories in his mind.

"How did I handle this last time? I think I got fed up, so I just went all out and took him down by cutting off his escape."

Wang Dong frowned as he thought for a moment, recalling exactly what he had done before his rebirth.

The Near-Space Overlord Generation I Old Shi had chosen today hadn't been properly maintained. Its number three directional adjustment thruster, located beneath the side of the hull, was in poor condition.

The scan function of the Auxiliary System, which was always present in Wang Dong's field of vision, had detected this long ago.

On the scan display, the component appeared yellow instead of green, the color indicating that it was in perfect condition.

It was a sign that something was wrong.

Once they entered the mining zone, Wang Dong took the lead and kept a firm grip on the pace, making repeated sudden turns in his chosen flight path.

Throughout the entire process, he deliberately kept pushing the vulnerable directional adjustment thruster on Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I.

After just half an hour, the excessive strain caused the already faulty directional adjustment thruster to overload and fail.

Under normal circumstances, the overload and failure of a single directional adjustment thruster wouldn't have had particularly serious consequences.

The remaining five thrusters could compensate for it.

At worst, adjustments to the ship's flight attitude would become sluggish.

But where were they?

The Asteroid Belt Mining Zone!

And under Wang Dong's lead, they had already ventured deep inside.

The airspace was extremely complex and unpredictable. Even with every system working perfectly, it demanded caution and complete concentration. There was no room for a sudden malfunction like this.

The moment the directional adjustment thruster on Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I overloaded and failed, throwing the ship's flight attitude out of control, it slammed into the side of an asteroid it should have passed without touching.

The impact wasn't serious; it was only a glancing blow that damaged a few armor plates.

But the chain reaction that followed was far worse.

That first collision was merely the trigger. It caused the Near-Space Overlord Generation I to lose all stability in its flight attitude.

In normal outer space, the ship could slowly regain control.

But in the Asteroid Belt Mining Zone, this was a fatal mistake.

The moment Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I lost control of its flight attitude, it was swept into a turbulent current.

Amid the complex gravitational forces, it repeatedly collided with small celestial bodies around it, until it finally crashed into an asteroid over a kilometer in diameter and was destroyed.

Old Shi was experienced. The moment of impact, he activated the escape pod's separation procedure and was lucky enough to avoid sharing the Near-Space Overlord Generation I's fate.

Wang Dong had had a chance to help him.

And he had indeed tried.

Although Old Shi annoyed him, Wang Dong wasn't heartless enough to stand by and let him die.

An accident like this was trouble enough for Old Shi to deal with. It had also let Wang Dong vent his pent-up anger.

Unfortunately, Old Shi's escape pod didn't stay lucky until the end.

More than one space rock was flung out of the turbulent current at high speed amid the chaos caused by the Near-Space Overlord Generation I, hurtling straight into Old Shi's escape pod.

The pod was destroyed, and Old Shi died on the spot.

Wang Dong could only let the wreckage of Old Shi's escape pod drift away into the Asteroid Belt.

That was the funeral of a space miner.

It had originally been a rather ingenious scheme to get rid of a problem, and it had worked perfectly.

It wasn't as though Wang Dong had caused Old Shi's death.

The Black Box aboard Wang Dong's ship and the one aboard Old Shi's ship could both prove that.