Decapitation!

A rumble accompanied the shock wave, kicking up a thick cloud of dust across the empty floor.

The culprit, the figure who had suddenly appeared at the stairwell entrance, stood in a standard firing stance with a Laser Gun in his arms. Staring at the billowing dust ahead, he kept squeezing the trigger.

A string of purple bolts formed a straight line.

The dust weakened the Laser Gun's power.

Ocher ripples of light kept appearing in the dust.

A shadow as imposing as a high wall suddenly appeared ahead, then leaped violently through the dust!

Yang Ming somersaulted forward, passing above the shadow as it rushed beneath him. He landed in a kneeling firing stance and rapidly squeezed the trigger!

The shadow was Gimo.

Gimo, whose entire body was encased in an Energy Shield, had taken the Shock Grenade's blast head-on without a scratch!

Gimo clenched his fists. Two long Ion Blades extended from the armor on the backs of his hands as he glared furiously at Yang Ming, who had ambushed him and shot several of his men.

"You damned swine!"

Gimo roared:

"You can't break through my shield! I'm going to kill you! I'll twist your head off and hang it from the flag on my ship!"

Yang Ming rose unhurriedly, his Laser Gun continuing to spit purple bolts.

"Cat got your tongue? Weren't you such a big talker?"

Gimo charged straight at Yang Ming, bellowing all the while.

The boosters on his back flared again. He skimmed just above the ground, his raised Ion Blades crossing like a pair of swords as he brought them down toward Yang Ming's head!

Yang Ming kept retreating, gathering power in his legs. He moved backward almost as fast as Gimo surged forward.

Gimo's Ion Blades struck empty air again and again.

As Yang Ming retreated, he left several nearly perfect semicircles in the floor. He moved like an elegant bullfighter in an arena, the string of bolts from his gun like reins guiding a bull.

He kept two meters between himself and Gimo.

Gimo still hadn't realized how serious the situation was, and he had no intention of picking up the Laser Gun.

He had already judged the power of the Laser Gun in Yang Ming's hands.

Gimo would use his favorite method to give the swine who had humiliated him a bloody decapitation!

Click, click-click.

The Laser Gun in Yang Ming's hands ran out of charge in its magazine.

A savage grin spread across Gimo's lips. "Your time's up! You bastard!"

Yang Ming gave a faint sneer.

This walking pile of high-end warrior gear was a real money pit!

Had Gimo spent all the money meant for upgrading his pirate ship's systems on his personal equipment instead?

Gimo charged again with a roar.

Yang Ming ducked and leaped, easily dodging Gimo's Ion Blades. He braced the bottom of his pack with his right hand, and four Shock Grenades flew out of its opening. He caught them securely with both hands.

Gimo instinctively moved to shield himself.

But Yang Ming swiftly threw the grenades into the four corners of the room.

Amid the rumbling, shock waves surged back and forth, making the entire floor tremble.

Gimo sneered. "You think you can blow up the floor and take us both with you? Dream on! I could jump from hundreds of meters up and still survive!"

Yang Ming reached into his coat with his right hand and pulled out a worn black hilt.

"A Lightsaber?" Gimo shook the large Ion Blade in his hand, a hint of wild excitement entering his eyes.

"Look around," Yang Ming reminded him.

Gimo glanced around.

Dust.

The shock waves from the grenades had kicked up all the sand and dust that had accumulated on the abandoned floor.

"No one will ever know how you died, Gimo."

Yang Ming spoke calmly.

Vmmm—

A blood-red light shone across Yang Ming's face.

Did this ridiculous Lightsaber think it could challenge his top-of-the-line armor?

Gimo's nostrils flared. Four streams of ions jetted from his back like outspread wings of light!

His muscular body, encased in Exoskeleton Armor, charged again!

He was the strongest in the Black Dragon Group.

And now he was going to crush the young man in front of him, flatten him, and send him down to keep that old bastard Kolev company!

The Ion Blades raised above Gimo's head blazed brighter. His furious roar was nothing short of an animal's bellow.

Yang Ming held his Lightsaber level and took half a step forward. For an instant, the dust swirling around them seemed to hang motionless.

Gimo's savage expression suddenly froze. His pupils contracted sharply.

He saw deep footprints in the concrete where Yang Ming had stepped.

W-what kind of explosive strength was this?

Gimo could no longer change the course of his downward strike. All he could do was watch as the young warrior moved with impossible speed and came straight at him!

The blood-red Lightsaber traced a figure-eight!

Yang Ming practically slammed into Gimo's arms!

The crimson blade cut through the energy barrier before it could fully form, then sliced through the gap beneath Gimo's arm, where his Exoskeleton Armor didn't cover him.

Yang Ming's shoulder slammed into him!

The Energy Shield flickered violently!

Yang Ming didn't retreat a single step. Cracks spread across the floor beneath his feet.

Gimo's massive body flew backward. Even after he crashed to the ground, he slid more than ten meters.

His arms trembled uncontrollably. Blood spurted from beneath his arms, his waist was visibly misaligned, and his legs had stopped responding.

"Ah! Aah—"

Gimo's agonized screams rang through the communications network and reached three-fifths of the pirates.

"Monster!" Gimo roared. "You monster! Ah! My arms!"

A figure suddenly appeared before Gimo.

Yang Ming stood over his head, Lightsaber in hand.

"I've got a full-body shield that activates automatically! You can't kill me!" Gimo cried shakily. "Spare me, and I'll give you Kolev's treasures. You want money, right? It's all yours..."

Yang Ming knelt on one knee and slowly brought his hand beside Gimo's ear, shutting off Gimo's Earpiece.

"Captain Gimo, do you know what a warrior's passive full-body shield is most afraid of?"

Yang Ming murmured softly. His voice reached Gimo's ears and Kolev's as well.

"A passive shield detects metal, sharp objects, high-energy rays, and kinetic weapons. It's actually distributed across your entire body. It just allocates and deploys energy the instant someone pulls a trigger.

"But it doesn't react to gentle physical contact."

Yang Ming pressed his left thumb against the nail of his middle finger and slowly brought it toward Gimo's forehead.

Gimo trembled all over. But all he could do now was tremble, twitch, stare, and listen to the other man's voice, whispering like a demon:

"It won't stop one of your friends from flicking your forehead as a joke."

Yang Ming's finger suddenly snapped down.

Thump!

Gimo's eyes bulged. A semicircular dent appeared in the middle of his forehead, and his skull gave a faint crack. Black blood seeped from his nostrils and ears.

The hum of the Exoskeleton Armor gradually faded. Its wearer had lost all signs of life.

A Laser Pistol appeared in Yang Ming's hand, its muzzle aimed at Gimo's forehead.

Pew! Pew-pew!

Three thumb-sized holes appeared in Gimo's forehead, wisps of white smoke curling out of them.

"Your men are so weak, Kolev."

Yang Ming joked with a laugh. "He couldn't even take one flick to the forehead."

Kolev didn't feel like responding to the young man just then. He only sat there, staring blankly.

Yang Ming glanced regretfully at the expensive Exoskeleton Armor.

He wasted no time. He ducked into the dust and disappeared from sight, swiftly heading toward the Stealth Boat.

"Kolev, how do you feel?" Yang Ming asked.

"Relieved," Kolev replied. "And a little regretful."

Yang Ming kept an eye on his surroundings. After leaping through a window, he had already met up with the hoverboard.

He reminded him, "You should let them know Gimo's dead. Don't let them sink your ship."

"Ugh," Kolev sighed. "Suddenly, I don't want Milili to be a pirate anymore."

Yang Ming laughed. "Right? Why be pirates at all? You and your daughter could start a freight company that specializes in luring pirates. You could even spread a little positive energy across the universe."

"Oh, I could actually consider that... Hanton!"

Kolev's voice suddenly turned urgent:

"Hurry back! Lina's ship has finished its jump and is charging toward Orhaifu! My probe shows they're traveling at full speed! Damn it, they're a full ten minutes earlier than we expected! I'm coming to get you!"

"Kolev, use remote control and make that thing run out."

"That'll leave evidence!"

"You have to listen to me now, Kolev. Meet me at the fourth building ahead! Hurry! If Lina scares your pirate ships away, our plan is ruined!"

Yang Ming's voice grew more urgent.

He had to rely on the firepower of these pirate ships to make his fake death and escape convincing.

This was the most important part of the entire plan for him!

Yang Ming looked up. In the thin atmosphere, the pirate ships were still bombarding each other's Energy Shields, and one of them was already on the verge of collapse.

Yang Ming crouched almost halfway down on the hoverboard, pushed it to its highest setting, and sped along the edge of the battlefield.

"Hanton! A landing craft spotted you, Hanton! They're locking on to you!"

"Get the news out that Gimo was killed! Say someone hired mercenaries! Stir up some chaos first!"

Yang Ming had barely finished speaking.

Vmmm! Vmmm!

Two arm-thick bolts skimmed past his back and blasted apart the broken wall beside him.

Yang Ming immediately turned and raised his arm. The Laser Gun, now fitted with a fresh charge magazine, aimed at the sky.

He held his breath. A crystalline structure seemed to form in his pupils, and his gaze nearly aligned with the Laser Gun's red targeting line.

He locked onto the twelve-meter landing craft.

Yang Ming pulled the trigger!

But the thin protective membrane around the landing craft barely rippled.

Vmmm!

A half-meter-wide violet-red beam descended from the sky and struck the landing craft dead on!

The landing craft's shield was breached within microseconds. The twelve-meter vessel exploded violently in midair, and the shock wave kicked up a column of dust dozens of meters high.

"Run!" Kolev shouted. "I'm controlling their ground cannons. Damn it, this is definitely going to leave evidence of tampering!"

"Beautiful!"

Yang Ming shouted. With his mouth full of dust, he barely managed to steady the hoverboard and raced along the ground toward the building Kolev had marked.

At the same time, the trunk of the Stealth Boat opened. A figure rolled out and, concealed by the dust, charged toward the building ahead.

It looked like another Yang Ming, dressed the same way and wearing the same single-soldier tactical gear.

"Fuck! I've only got two hands! Two!"

Kolev swore in a panic.

Yang Ming held his breath. The decoy robot had entered his field of view. Less than ten seconds after it rushed into the abandoned building, Yang Ming rode his hoverboard in low and slipped inside.

The entire ground floor of the building had long since been cleared out. Yang Ming and the decoy robot met in the lobby. He immediately dumped his Laser Gun, Goggles, Earpiece, Tactical Pack, and hoverboard beside the decoy. Under Kolev's control, the decoy grabbed the pile of gear and ran to a corner, while Yang Ming continued sprinting forward.

After only a couple of steps, Yang Ming turned and rushed back. He opened the medicine bottle wrapped in several layers of aluminum foil and poured the capsule-shaped gene stabilizers into the Tactical Pack. Only then did he turn and run toward the Stealth Boat.

Those were the pills Lina had given him.

He turned his outer layer inside out, tousled the hair flattened by his helmet, and headed straight for the city's edge through the building's shadow.

Yang Ming glanced back.

The pirate ships in the sky had noticed the approaching Dawn-class Battleship, and the frequency of their exchanges of fire was rapidly decreasing. They were signaling the ground forces to retreat, while their cannons began bombarding the area below to cover their pirates' withdrawal.

Ahead, the Stealth Boat floated slowly, its cockpit hatch gradually opening. Its color-shifting paint, which reflected the color of the sand, was almost impossible to distinguish.

Yang Ming darted inside and grabbed the helmet Kolev was holding, pulling it over his head.

He shut down the decoy's synchronization.

He activated the decoy's remote-control holographic perception.

"Number Two! Go back the way you came! Head for the clouds!" Yang Ming urged. "Take off slowly. Don't kick up too much dust!"

"Don't rush, Hanton," Kolev said, breathing heavily as he tapped rapidly on the Projection screen before him. "There's time. Plenty of time. Get that thing moving!"

"Put its gear on first!" Yang Ming growled. "It's hard for that thing to ride the hoverboard!"

The Stealth Boat rose steadily into the air and quietly retreated toward the desert, using the horizon to hide itself.

Inside the Stealth Boat, Yang Ming's arms and legs kept twitching, his posture awkward.

The other 'Yang Ming,' fully geared and no different from the 'Yang Ming' of a moment ago, rode the hoverboard out of the building where he'd been hiding and sped along the edge of the battlefield.

Seven or eight images appeared on the Projection screen before Kolev. The spores he had sent out were carrying out their final mission.

He had taken control of five pirate ships!

The main cannon of Gimo's flagship slowly lowered. On the ship's fire-control screen, the 'Yang Ming' riding the hoverboard was locked on.

The fire-control operator in front of the screen looked utterly puzzled.

Inside the Stealth Boat, Kolev patted Yang Ming on the shoulder and held a microphone up to his mouth.

Using a somewhat low-pitched, processed voice, Yang Ming shouted into the microphone:

"Revenge for the Gimo Group leader!"

The voice belonged to a captain in the Gimo Group who had already been killed in battle.

Kolev switched off the microphone and pressed the virtual button in front of him, murmuring, "Main cannon, fire."

Bzz—

The Stealth Boat's screen flickered slightly.

A brilliant pale beam crashed down from the sky, piercing the billowing dust and instantly enveloping the "Yang Ming on a skateboard," pinning him to the ground and melting him away in seconds!

Inside the Stealth Boat, Yang Ming tore off his helmet and gasped for breath, as if he'd personally experienced the power of a 300-meter-class starship's main cannon.

Maximum-power output from a 300-meter-class pirate ship's main cannon.

Waves of sand surged across the ground. The impact zone kept sinking, and lava fissures like veins appeared across the surface.

The shot lasted a full twelve seconds.

"He's vaporized. Absolutely vaporized," Kolev murmured. "The Alliance ship must have caught that on camera. We did it, Hanton... Hahaha! We did it!"

"Don't celebrate just yet." Yang Ming looked up at the sky.

From this angle, he could just make out five pirate ships in the sky above, trying to split off to the left and right.

A battleship with a curved hull had appeared in the sky and was descending toward low orbit.

The Guer Alliance's Dawn-class light battleship.

Yang Ming muttered, "We haven't escaped yet."