Muon Burst

Beneath the gray sky.

The blue beam swept into a vast arc.

Like a blue scythe, it cleaved through the atmosphere and slashed toward the ground.

Before the muon beam struck, a wave of extreme heat arrived.

Ahead, the air pressure at ground level first surged, then vast quantities of air burned away in an instant, leaving a brief vacuum.

Lord Pig clearly saw the tentacles he had fired at Cheng Qi turn red-hot in an instant.

At last, a trace of terror appeared on his fat-laden face.

Then the metal tentacles began melting like wax. A fierce heat wave struck, reducing them to molten iron and blasting them straight back.

Sizzle!

Molten iron splashed across Lord Pig's face, and he squealed like a pig being slaughtered.

Immediately afterward, the muon beam's energy reached its peak, its entire length blazing with dazzling light.

As though a star had descended upon the surface, an immense radiance erupted, briefly whiting out everyone's vision.

Boom!

A deafening blast briefly robbed them of their hearing as well.

Violent currents of scorching air rampaged in every direction, plunging the world into darkness in an instant.

Cries of alarm and screams of agony rang out without end.

That hellish moment lasted a full thirty seconds.

Only when the blazing light died did the heat wave gradually recede.

A bead of sweat slid down his forehead.

One of Lord Pig's eyes moved. He looked at his chest, then at his mechanical spider legs.

"What was that just now?"

"Was it some kind of weapon?"

"That trash maggot actually had a weapon like that?!"

"And I'm still alive?!"

"Hahaha..."

Lord Pig smiled like a man who had narrowly escaped death, the fat on his face trembling. "Haha... his slash missed. I'm still alive!"

E Luo's face was now a mask of terror, his lips drained of color. "Lord Pig, your... your body...!"

"What about my body?!"

The corner of Lord Pig's eye twitched. His right eyeball turned left, and his pupil abruptly contracted.

No wonder he could only move one eye. Only half of his enormous body remained!

The other half had been completely vaporized in that instant. The wound had been seared shut at once, without so much as a drop of blood escaping.

The same was true of his mechanical spider legs. Only half remained, the metal at the severed ends glowing red like branding irons and giving off faint wisps of smoke.

"Urrgh...!!!"

On the remaining half of Lord Pig's face, his lone eye trembled violently, straining to turn farther left.

His gaze froze again, shock crashing over him like towering waves.

To his left lay a vast trench dozens of meters wide and hundreds of meters long.

Faint smoke rose from its depths amid a sizzling hiss. Vast quantities of trash had been vaporized, and molten iron flowed along its edges, radiating waves of heat.

The earth itself seemed to have suffered a god's wrath, leaving it with a hideous scar.

Lord Pig stood as though at the edge of an abyss, teetering, his remaining eye filled with shock.

The record for blinking after a human head had been severed was eleven times.

But true death came in the instant one recognized reality.

Lord Pig recognized reality. His vision turned black and white in an instant, and his life drained away like air from a punctured balloon. His remaining half swayed slightly. A faint breeze blew past, his body tipped, and he plunged into the abyss beside him.

Thump!

When Lord Pig's thick layers of fat touched the scorching molten iron at the bottom of the abyss, a flame shot up with a whoosh.

That insignificant flicker was just like his life: brief and worthless. It soon went out, leaving only a heap of black ash.

E Luo had survived. His pupils shrank to black pinpoints, and he swallowed audibly.

That incomprehensible attack had terrified him out of his wits and left his crotch wet.

Shaking like a leaf, he scrambled and crawled over to Cheng Qi.

"Boss, that sword strike of yours missed just now. It was fate! Heaven didn't want me dead!"

"Everything I did before was because that dead pig forced me!"

"From now on, you're my boss. I'll bring all the boys over to serve you!"

"I'll do whatever you tell me. If you tell me to go west, I'll never-"

Thump!

Cheng Qi activated the Extreme Warrior Armor. Tremendous power surged forth as he drove a fist into E Luo's chest.

E Luo flew back dozens of meters and slammed into a mountain of trash.

A sharp piece of metal scrap pierced his chest, leaving him hanging halfway up the slope.

Directly before E Luo lay the enormous trench stretching hundreds of meters.

His eyes stared wide as his life ebbed away.

Fuck.

Why was I so blind?

Finally, his feet gave a few feeble kicks, his head slumped, and he breathed his last!

Xiao Qiong stood behind Cheng Qi, stunned by the scene before her.

Her eyes widened, tears gathering in them as she stood in a daze. Her enemies were dead, but an even greater uncertainty swallowed her. The world was gray, and she had no idea where to go from here.

Cheng Qi turned and walked a few steps back, taking Xiao Qiong's cold little hand. "Don't be afraid."

The two figures, one tall and one small, stood atop the trash mountain with the vast, red-glowing trench behind them. An image surfaced in Cheng Qi's mind: he and his grandfather had once stood like this too, their silhouettes hazy.

Tears spilled from Xiao Qiong's eyes again, and she quietly nodded.

A faint sound came from behind them.

Cheng Qi looked back.

He saw more than a dozen of E Luo's underlings standing on the surrounding trash slopes, along with four or five Nanny Robots.

As Cheng Qi's gaze swept over them, they dropped to their knees, trembling.

They could not comprehend why that boy possessed such an earth-shattering weapon.

On this garbage-covered Earth, such a thing defied all reason. The instant they saw the aftermath of the strike, their entire worldview shattered with it.

"I'll give you a chance. Work for me."

Cheng Qi's voice was low, but on the utterly silent trash mountain, it reached everyone's ears clearly.

That strike had not missed. He had deliberately left these people a chance.

The dozen or so underlings froze for a moment, then reacted as though they had been pardoned!

They rose and ran toward Cheng Qi. "Boss Qi, from now on, you're our leader! If you tell us to go east, we wouldn't dare... wait!"

Several of them stopped dead, their faces turning deathly pale.

Is he trying to lure us over, then punch us away and leave us hanging on the trash mountain like E Luo?

"E Luo would stop at nothing."

"I already knew he was coercing you."

Cheng Qi's tone was calm. "Your families too."

"Yes..."

Fear showed in the underlings' eyes, and they hurriedly nodded. But his words had also touched a sore spot, bringing tears to their eyes.

Cheng Qi lifted his chin slightly. "From now on, I can pay you thirty percent of the original value of the trash you buy."

"Thirty percent?!"

"Do you really mean it?"

The scavenger underlings' eyes lit up. "Wait, did Boss Qi say... buy?!"

"That's right. Buy."

"I'm going to start a whole new business."

Cheng Qi's eyes gleamed. "I'll use Credit Points to buy trash from all scavengers. The criteria are simple: technological items of the same model. The more you have, the higher the price per item!"

"Same model... technological... items?"

The underlings paused briefly. "Are broken ones okay too?"

Cheng Qi nodded. "Yes."

Everyone began thinking it over.

Earth's garbage dumps were vast, with countless pieces of trash, but ninety-nine percent consisted of scrap metal broken into fragments or nondegradable plastic products.

Only one percent were objects that more or less retained their original form, and technological items were rarer still.

But the total amount was enormous!

And it didn't matter if they were broken!

The underlings' eyes blazed with excitement.

As long as they were willing to work hard, they could still find plenty. A thirty-percent cut was an extremely generous reward. They could live well from now on!

A skinny scavenger underling of about twenty swallowed.

He stepped forward, worked up his courage, and said, "Boss Qi, my name's Monkey. Um, if you trust us, could you give us some starting capital first? Don't worry, we're absolutely committed to following you!"

"Starting capital?"

Cheng Qi gave a cold smile. "I don't have any. You'll have to front it yourselves."

What?

Monkey shuddered.

Bosses these days were more ruthless than the last. Out of the tiger's den and straight into the wolf's lair!