Wanderer Space Station

Through the porthole, Wanderer Space Station looked like a steel monstrosity welded together from countless warship wrecks, lying silently at the edge of a dim nebula.

There were none of Earth's neat, uniform buildings here. Massive alloy rings and thick energy conduits had been crudely pieced together. Blinding neon signs flashed along the outer perimeter, while holographic projections cast bizarre advertisements into the vacuum. All kinds of alien spacecraft—some as battered as trash cans, others outrageously designed—took off and landed around the pads like swarms of bees.

At the main console, Bulma's fingers danced across the control panel.

Under her control, the Water Drop Ship moved like a nimble fish, dodging two erratically drifting junk freighters before smoothly gliding toward the landing pad in Zone C of the station.

Air jets roared as the landing gear locked firmly onto the metal deck.

The ship's seamless, streamlined exterior drew more than a few greedy stares the moment it appeared. In this cosmic black market, there was no shortage of people with an eye for valuables.

The heavy alloy hatch slid open.

A strange smell, mixed with heavy engine oil and cheap spices, rushed in through the airlock.

Bulma wore a space jacket bearing the Capsule Corporation logo, its fitted cut outlining her figure perfectly. The moment she poked her head out, the smell made her cough.

"Cough, cough... Was this place's air filtration system designed with someone's feet? It smells worse than rush-hour exhaust in West City!" Bulma fanned the air before her nose and naturally looped her arm through Son Goku's.

Son Goku wore a sharp black casual martial arts outfit and looked around with interest. "It's a black market. It's rough, sure, but it's got plenty of life to it."

The moment they stepped off the landing pad, three aliens with green barbs growing from their bodies and ragged combat uniforms blocked their path, shoulders squared.

The leader was a thug missing half an eyebrow. He tossed a high-energy beam dagger in his hand, his gaze scraping back and forth between the ship and the pair.

"New here? Nice ship. Looks like high-end custom work." The thug leader bared his yellow teeth and blew out a mouthful of thick smoke.

"But it seems you don't know the rules. The Zone C landing pads are my turf. If you want to park safely, pay twenty thousand star coins in security fees. Otherwise, if your ship happens to lose an engine or something, you'll be drifting through space waiting to die."

Before Son Goku could respond to the blatant extortion, Bulma was already laughing in anger.

"Collecting protection money from us?" With one hand on her hip, Bulma snapped back without restraint. "Are you blind? Pick any screw off this ship and sell all three of you as a bundle, and you still couldn't afford it! Security fee? You should be grateful I'm not charging you an admission fee!"

"Bitch, you're asking to die!"

Having been publicly berated, the thug leader flew into a rage from humiliation. He lunged forward, and the dagger in his hand burst forth with a pale-blue laser blade. With a scorched hiss through the air, it stabbed straight for Son Goku's chest. "I'll start with your pretty boy!"

Son Goku did not even blink. He merely raised his right hand casually.

Smack!

With a dull, soft sound, the thug leader's vision blurred. The wrist holding his knife had already been clamped tightly in a sharply jointed hand.

The dagger, capable of cutting through warship armor, stopped less than half an inch from Son Goku's chest and could not advance another step. The thug leader's face flushed red as he pushed down with all his strength, but that hand was like a steel pillar welded into the universe, completely unmoving.

Son Goku looked at him and curled his five fingers inward.

Crack!

The piercing sound of bones shattering rang out alongside a miserable scream. The thug's wrist was instantly crushed into a grotesque angle, and the laser dagger clattered onto the deck.

"You sure can scream. Looks like you've done this line of work plenty of times." Son Goku released him, letting him fall to his knees while clutching his broken wrist, his tone mild.

"Still collecting that security fee?"

"N-No! We won't collect it! We were blind fools! Please spare us, sir!"

The thug leader's features twisted in pain. How could he not realize that he had kicked an iron plate? Enduring the agony, he shakily stepped aside, kicked the legs of his two stunned underlings, and fled into the crowd in a panicked scramble.

"At least they know what's good for them!" Bulma snorted and pulled Son Goku into the main street.

The wide metal corridor buzzed with noise. Blue creatures with long antennae, scaled reptilian species, and merchants of every kind moved along the roadside. The stalls were cluttered with broken laser guns, alien specimens, and wrecked spacecraft engines.

Bulma had no interest in such junk, but she stopped before a stall piled high with mechanical parts.

"Boss, how much for this chunk of superconductive raw ore?" Bulma picked up a piece of metal with a dark silver sheen and weighed it in her hand. Natural superconductive ore had excellent energy conductivity, making it perfect for optimizing the gravity room's circuits.

The stall owner was an elderly alien with three eyes. Seeing Bulma's refined clothing, he immediately plastered on a smile. "Miss, you really know your stuff! This is natural ore mined from deep within the Celestial Dragon Nebula. You probably won't find a second piece on the station. You two look friendly, so I'll give you a flat price—fifty thousand star coins!"

"Fifty thousand?" Bulma laughed lightly and scraped her fingertip across the metal's surface.

"Boss, at least be reasonable when you're trying to rip someone off! The oxidation layer is this thick, and the internal elements have decayed badly. The purity is barely over fifty percent, at most. I'd still have to refine it after taking it back, and the solvents alone might cost more than this rock."

Bulma tossed the metal back onto the stall, pulled out a ten-thousand-star-coin token, and flipped it on her fingertip.

"Ten thousand. I'll take this pile of scrap home for consumable materials. Sell it and take the money; don't sell it, and forget it. There are two more shops up ahead. I'll go look around."

With that, she made as if to leave with her arm around Son Goku's.

The three-eyed old man was clearly stunned by her professional analysis. Seeing such a major customer about to walk away, he grabbed the star coin. "Hey! Don't go! Ten thousand it is—consider it making a friend!"

Watching Bulma happily store the ore in a capsule, Son Goku could not help but chuckle. Even tens of thousands of light-years from home, this girl absolutely refused to take even the slightest loss.

Yet, at the instant he turned around—

Son Goku's gaze swept toward the shadows at the street corner. Several burly mercenaries had been watching them like hyenas for quite some time.

"Boss, two fat little rookies."

The one-eyed mercenary licked his lips and lowered his voice. "Look at that chick—she threw out ten thousand star coins like pocket change. That ship they parked in Zone C has a hull shiny enough to use as a mirror, but it doesn't even have basic point-defense cannons. Pure sightseeing configuration. And they don't have an escort ship with them, either."

The four-armed mercenary leader spat out a wad of phlegm and sneered. "They don't even know to keep their wealth hidden, and they walk through a black market without a shred of caution. A fat sheep delivered right to our door—we can't waste that."

"But, Boss..." One of the lackeys hesitated. "Back at the landing pad, that guy crushed Nick's hand bones with one hand. He should be an expert. Won't he be difficult to handle?"

"Scared of shit!" The four-armed mercenary patted the pulse gun at his waist, a cruel glint flashing in his eyes.

"No matter how strong that pretty boy's grip is, he's still a greenhouse flower that's never seen blood. No matter how hard his bones are, can they be harder than this? Come on, follow them!"

Several burly men sneered and reached for their weapons, hanging behind the pair like hyenas that had caught the scent of blood.

"There's a fork up ahead." Son Goku kept walking, his tone calm. "Pick a navigation robot and find the bar's location. I'll deal with the tails behind us."

"Hurry up. Don't keep my sister waiting too long." Bulma rolled her eyes. She had clearly noticed the tails as well and headed for the navigation terminal on her own.

Seeing Son Goku deliberately split off and head down a secluded corridor, the mercenaries were overjoyed. The four-armed mercenary gestured, and the others quickened their pace, preparing to surround him in the dead end.

However, before they had even taken a third step—

Son Goku stopped and slowly turned around. His gaze passed over the crowd and settled precisely on the four-armed mercenary's face.

The four-armed mercenary froze to the floor, gagging dryly as his bloodshot eyes bulged with terror.

The instant their eyes met, an indescribable shudder shattered his psychological defenses. Like an insect in the mud looking up to find a colossal beast seated above the clouds, staring down at it.

Not just him—the mercenary underlings behind him looked like ducks being strangled, cold sweat pouring down their faces as their legs went weak.

"Go... run..."

The four-armed mercenary went deathly pale. He and his men crashed through the crowd in a panic, scrambling and crawling into an underground alley as though lingering for even one more second would mean being erased.

Son Goku withdrew his gaze without the slightest ripple in his heart.

"Bulma, did you find your sister?" Son Goku strolled back to Bulma's side.

"Yeah, I found her. Interstellar Wreckage Bar, District B. Tights is waiting for us there." Bulma pulled up a holographic map.