Bang.
Qin Yu gripped the ruined [Netherworld: Death's Kiss] with one hand, its muzzle steadily aimed at the head of the man in the middle.
Even though the barrel was cracked, even though he barely had the strength left to pull the trigger.
The killing intent radiating from him still pressed down on the three men like a tangible weight.
"Big brother! Don't shoot! We mean no harm!"
The slightly older man in the middle trembled all over in fright, hurriedly raising both hands.
The two younger men beside him even more directly dropped to their knees on the metal plating with a thud.
"We're just scavengers! We really don't want to harm you!"
Qin Yu narrowed his eyes, coldly sizing up the three men.
Sallow and emaciated, with sunken eye sockets.
The exoskeleton armor they wore was not only worn and tattered but also covered in rust, with tattered cloth strips tied around the joints.
In the eyes of these three men, there was only pure fear and a desperate longing for survival.
No killing intent.
Qin Yu's taut nerves relaxed a fraction, but the muzzle still didn't waver.
"Where is this?"
Qin Yu's voice was hoarse, grating like sandpaper.
The leading man swallowed hard, answering cautiously.
"This... this is the Exile Star Sector, Garbage Planet-77."
"We all call it Scrap Iron Star."
The man's name was Old K, the leader of a small scavenging team in this junkyard.
He glanced at Qin Yu's tactical coat, torn to shreds, then at the terrifying-looking sniper cannon in Qin Yu's hand, a flicker of awe passing through his eyes.
"Big brother, you... you're a big shot who fell from the Inner Sector, aren't you?"
Old K mustered his courage and took a step forward, untying a grimy metal canteen from his waist.
"You've lost a lot of blood. Have some water."
Old K offered the canteen with both hands.
"We filtered this water three times. It's not poisoned."
Qin Yu stared at Old K for two seconds.
He didn't stand on ceremony, snatching the canteen, flicking open the cap with his thumb, and tilting his head back to drink.
Gulp, gulp.
The water carried a strong taste of machine oil and rust.
Extremely foul.
But for Qin Yu right now, this was life-saving sustenance.
After half the canteen was gone, Qin Yu's parched throat finally felt a bit better.
He tossed the canteen back to Old K, the sniper cannon in his hand also lowering.
"Thanks."
Qin Yu leaned against a massive piece of wreckage from a warship, breathing heavily.
"Tell me about this Scrap Iron Star, and that so-called Inner Sector."
Old K caught the canteen as if granted a reprieve.
He quickly pulled his two companions to sit down about three meters away from Qin Yu.
"Big brother, this Scrap Iron Star is just a dumping ground for the big shots up there."
Old K pointed at the dark red sky and the two crescent moons overhead.
"Those advanced civilizations in the Inner Sector, the 'Corporations' and the 'Administrators'."
"All their discarded warships, failed bio-experiments... they just dump it all here as trash."
Old K sighed, patting his own rusted mechanical leg.
"People like us, our ancestors for generations have lived here, surviving by scavenging the scrap metal they leave behind to trade for nutrient paste."
"This planet has oxygen?" Qin Yu asked coldly.
"Yes, but it's toxic." A young man called Monkey chimed in from the side.
"The big shots built a giant waste gas conversion tower at the planet's core, barely enough to let people breathe."
Qin Yu understood.
He looked up at the dark red sky, a cruel, cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
What bullshit five overseers.
These high-and-mighty bastards really treated him like trash, tossing him into the universe's garbage bin!
"How do we leave this place?" Qin Yu stared at Old K.
Old K was taken aback for a moment, then shook his head with a bitter smile.
"You can't leave, boss."
"The entire planet is locked down by orbital defense towers. Only the 'Company's' garbage transport ships can come and go."
Old K pointed at a faintly visible massive black structure in the distance.
"That's the only recycling station, guarded by the Company's overseers."
"Anyone who tries to force their way in won't even leave ashes behind."
Qin Yu followed Old K's pointing finger.
His gaze was as sharp as a blade's edge.
"A recycling station, huh."
Qin Yu murmured softly to himself.
Just then, a powerful, ghostly blue light suddenly erupted from the deep, bone-exposing wound on his right arm!
"Hiss—"
Qin Yu sucked in a sharp breath, clutching his arm tightly.
The code of the [World Heart] had finally, at this moment, completely fused with his blood and bone marrow!
"Boss! Are you okay?!" Old K and the other two stumbled back in fright.
"Get the hell away!"
Qin Yu gritted his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead.
He could feel an unimaginably vast energy coursing wildly through his body.
Remolding his muscles, repairing his nerves.
Immediately after.
That familiar, icy mechanical voice exploded deep within Qin Yu's mind!
[Ding!]
[World Heart Underlying Code fusion complete!]
[Host detected to have left the "Wasteland Seas" beginner zone!]
[Legacy "Daily Lottery System" uninstalled.]
[What kind of crappy raft survival is this? It doesn't match the host's current status.]
Hearing this long-lost, somewhat mocking system notification,
Qin Yu endured the intense pain and grinned.
"You finally decided to show up, you bastard."
The system's voice sounded again, this time with less mechanical tone and a hint of savage, murderous intent.
[System upgrade successful!]
[Current version: 3.0·Interstellar Plunderer!]
[New rules are now in effect. Please remember, host:]
[1. Surviving? Not enough. You must make the entire universe fear you.]
[2. Resource Points? They're all yours. See something you want? Go take it. Can't take it? Then destroy it.]
[3. Plunder Value mechanism fully upgraded to "Starburst Points." Killing higher-dimensional beings, destroying interstellar warships, raiding the overseers' lairs—all can earn Starburst Points.]
[4. Starburst Points can be directly exchanged for SSS-grade star-war Blueprints, rule-grade weapons beyond the current dimension, and... the spatial coordinates to find your wives.]
Qin Yu's eyes snapped open.
A ghostly blue light flashed in his pupils.
"You can find their coordinates?" Qin Yu roared inwardly.
[Obviously. System products are always top quality.]
[As long as the host eliminates enough enemies, turning this universe upside down is just a matter of time.]
Qin Yu clenched his fist.
The veins on the back of his hand bulged like coiling dragons.
"Good."
"I fucking love this kind of simple, brutal gameplay."
Qin Yu took a deep breath.
The injuries within his body had mostly healed under the repair of the [World Heart].
He glanced at the System's operation interface.
The previously simple prize wheel had now transformed into a dark golden interstellar vortex.
[Ding!]
[Detected that the host is currently in the "Exile Star Sector," penniless and destitute.]
[As compensation for server merger and version update benefits,]
[The host is specially rewarded with: One Unlimited Supreme Draw opportunity!]
[Draw immediately?]
"Draw!" Qin Yu responded without hesitation.
The dark golden interstellar vortex spun wildly across his retina.
The blinding light almost pierced through his mind.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, host! Critical hit triggered on drop rate!]
[Item obtained: Nano-Mechanical Swarm (Spark Source·Pseudo-Rule Grade)]
[Item description: A cluster of living metal with infinite proliferation capabilities.]
[Trait 1: Assimilation. Can devour all inorganic metals, converting them into nano-machines controlled by the host.]
[Trait 2: Reconstruction. Can instantly repair or modify any technological construct according to the host's will.]
[Friendly reminder: On this garbage planet littered with scrap metal, this thing is a game-changer.]
Qin Yu extended his right hand.
In his palm, a pure black cubic metal block, no larger than a walnut, materialized out of thin air.
Dense, blood-red data streams flowed across the surface of the metal block.
This was the Nano Spark.
Old K and the other two hid in the distance, staring dumbfounded at the black block in Qin Yu's hand.
"B-big brother, what kind of treasure is that?" Monkey asked, swallowing hard.
Qin Yu ignored him.
He directly placed the [Kiss of Death] flat on the ground.
This once-fearsome sniper cannon now had a broken barrel, a completely ruined energy core, and was nothing more than a useless scrap metal rod.
Qin Yu casually placed the black Nano Spark onto the gun's body.
"Eat."
Qin Yu coldly uttered two words.
Clickety-clack—
A grating sound of metal chewing instantly erupted!
The black cube melted as if it were liquid.
It rapidly transformed into countless black nano-bugs, invisible to the naked eye, and surged madly into the cracks of the [Kiss of Death]!
Even more terrifyingly.
Centered around the sniper cannon, within a radius of over ten meters—wreckage of warships, discarded steel plates, even the premium scrap metal Old K and the others usually collected—
all began to decompose at a visible rate!
Transforming into streams of black metallic torrents, they continuously converged into the gun's body!
"Oh my heavens!"
Old K was so frightened he fell onto his backside, scrambling backward in a panic.
"It's alive! The metal is eating metal!"
In just ten seconds.
The black light dissipated.
A brand-new interstellar heavy sniper cannon, with a design ten times more menacing and domineering than before, lay quietly at Qin Yu's feet.
The gun body was a deep midnight black, with the barrel lengthened and thickened.
Where the original energy core had been, a nano-reactor flickering with a crimson glow now stood in its place.
[Weapon reconstruction complete.]
[Current form: Nether·Death's Kiss (Star-War Annihilation Form)]
[Firepower doubled. Armor penetration rate increased to 300%.]
[New trait added: Nano-Corrosive Round. Upon hitting a target, nano-bugs will directly decompose the enemy's armor and skeletal structure.]
Qin Yu bent down.
Grasping the gun body with one hand, he forcefully lifted this weapon of destruction, weighing over a hundred pounds.
Click.
The sound of a bullet being chambered—crisp, lethal.
Qin Yu held the brand-new Sniper Cannon, his eyes reigniting with that untamable, lawless arrogance.
"The power is back."
He twisted his neck, producing a series of crackling pops from his joints.
Turning, he strode over to Old K and the other two.
Looking down at the three scavengers trembling before him.
"Boss! Don't kill us! We didn't see anything!"
Old K knelt on the ground, kowtowing so hard his head thumped against the earth.
Qin Yu grabbed Old K by the collar, lifting him into the air with one arm.
Old K was scared out of his wits.
But Qin Yu simply stared into his eyes, his tone eerily calm.
"You gave me a sip of water earlier."
Qin Yu released his grip, and Old K thudded to the ground.
"I won't kill you."
Qin Yu slung the Sniper Cannon over his shoulder, his gaze sweeping past the mountains of trash toward the distant black recycling station.
"Lead the way."
Old K froze, coughing twice while clutching his throat.
"Lead... lead where?"
"To the recycling station." Qin Yu grinned, revealing a row of stark white teeth.
"Didn't you say the overseers there have nutrient paste and transport ships?"
"Boss, you can't!" Monkey shouted in a panic.
"That's an armed outpost of the 'Company'! They have over a hundred combat Mecha and high-voltage electric fences!"
"With just us few, we'd be walking to our deaths!"
"Walking to our deaths?"
Qin Yu sneered.
He raised the Sniper Cannon in his hand and, without even looking, pulled the trigger toward a derelict warship wreck hundreds of meters away.
"BOOM—!!"
The deafening blast tore through the dead silence of the trash planet's air!
A bullet laced with a crimson nano-storm instantly pierced through the warship wreck, which loomed like a small mountain.
The next moment.
The warship's hardened special steel armor, like rotten wood weathered for a thousand years, was devoured madly by nano-worms, reduced to a pile of black dust in an instant!
A gust of wind blew, and not even a speck remained.
Old K, Monkey, and Big Bear—
They were all dumbstruck.
Their jaws hung open, eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.
A metal mountain over a hundred meters tall—gone with a single shot?!
Qin Yu blew away the white smoke curling from the barrel.
He kicked Old K's mechanical leg.
"Enough talk."
"I've hated being thrown away like trash my whole life."
Qin Yu looked up, the dark red sky reflected in his pupils like a sea of blood.
"Yao Xue, Ruo Bing, Xiaoqian..."
He silently recited these names in his heart.
"Wait for me."
"Soon, I'll tear through this starry sky and bring you all home."
Qin Yu lowered his head, his gaze turning utterly cold.
He nudged Old K's back with the rifle butt.
"Get up."
Qin Yu's voice echoed across the junkyard, carrying an undeniable pressure of death.
"Lead the way."