"You have one minute to decide: submit or perish."
The woman, who appeared to belong to the Machine Race, spoke coolly as she walked forward, her voice carrying an almost metallic resonance.
All the automated weapons slowly swiveled as she moved, like an honor guard, bringing every target that might pose a threat to her within their firing arcs.
That invisible pressure made all the pirates blocking her path slowly retreat in unison.
"What arrogance! She's just one person, and she thinks she can make our entire fleet surrender?" Lone Wolf ground his teeth.
"Use handheld infantry weapons! Deploy the heavy powered armor! Blast her to pieces! Let's see if that liquid metal can still heal after we reduce her to molecules!"
"B-Boss, she's taken control of all our fire-control systems and automated defenses.
Every ship's main cannons are now aimed at our allies and charging. If we attack, I'm afraid we'll all be finished a moment later!"
Lone Wolf: "..."
He had known things were bad, but he had never imagined they were this bad!
What Lone Wolf did not know was that the infamous Mechanical Grand Duke, whom even the Empire treated with considerable wariness, personally taking on a few armed merchant ships was like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
"You have ten seconds left!" At some point, that terrifying woman had arrived in front of Lone Wolf and singled out the pirates' leader.
Through the thick bulletproof glass, her icy gaze, which regarded all living beings as ants, made Lone Wolf keenly aware that he really might have only ten seconds left to live...
"I... I surrender."
Ten minutes later, the Dawn Grand Duke was sitting in what had been Lone Wolf's fleet command seat.
"Honored..."
"Shut up!"
"Yes!" Lone Wolf immediately stood at