Translator: AnubisTL
The Capturer hung up the phone expressionlessly and stood at the edge of the rooftop, facing the night wind created by the shockwaves. The howling wind roared in his ears.
The night air carried a hint of dampness.
It was raining.
A fine drizzle, mixed with the night wind, brushed his cheeks like a maiden's downy touch, allowing him to savor this moment of tranquility.
Yes, tranquility.
Amidst the blaring alarms, desperate cries for help, and the cacophony of chaos, there was an underlying stillness.
His pupils flickered with an eerie green light as he gazed at the scene unfolding nearby, standing motionless and silent.
Ash City was ruined.
Completely ruined.
Though many buildings remained intact, they were now useless. Three consecutive days of relentless terrorist attacks—from the Jiang Cheng Company to Hu Biao, then Albatross and the Li Clan Merchant Guild—had devastated the city.
Even if the attacks stopped now, no one would stay. Nearly the entire population would flee, having lost faith in the federation's ability to protect them.
Ash City would become a desolate ghost town.
He had made extensive preparations, yet the Jiang Cheng Company had still not appeared.
The C-12 Stellar Plasma Cannon detonated unimpeded within Ash City, plunging nearly a third of the city into molten lava. This weapon used planetary core material as its raw material.
Buildings crumbled like breadcrumbs falling onto molten strawberry cheesecake, devoured and melted by the lava in a process both slow and swift.
Unlike the blaring alarms and desperate cries echoing elsewhere in Ash City, this area was eerily silent.
No alarms sounded, no cries were heard, creating a stark contrast with the rest of the city—like a hospital corridor where some faces were deathly still while others wailed in anguish.
Human emotions varied wildly, but the dead felt nothing.
Meanwhile, the C-11 Poria Neutron Cannon pierced through multiple buildings, causing countless casualties.
These were unconventional weapons, rarely used even in small-scale wars, largely due to their exorbitant cost.
When two Smuggling Factions clashed, firepower became their preferred greeting. No other Chaotic Faction pursued such overwhelming firepower with such fervor.
Of course, a major reason for this was that most Chaotic Factions lacked the financial resources of Smuggling Factions. The profits from monopolizing a star were enough to make anyone envious.
And overwhelming firepower served as the Smuggling Factions' moat.
The business itself was remarkably simple, requiring no specialized technology. All it took was a few mining ships and bribing the right people on the star to get started. The barrier to entry was absurdly low.
In any industry, when the barrier to entry is too low and the potential profits are high, it inevitably leads to cutthroat competition. To suppress this destructive rivalry, some established players raise the barriers to entry.
Take Game Companies, for example. To raise the barrier to entry, some Game Companies in the federation would pay illustrators exorbitant sums for original artwork—far exceeding what the artists would normally earn.
The rationale was simple: by inflating the market rate for original artwork across the industry, these large companies could absorb the extra cost without feeling the pinch. But for smaller Game Companies trying to break into the market, these inflated fees could bankrupt them outright.
This is the essence of a moat. Leaders in various industries build moats to maintain their dominance while raising entry barriers, preventing newcomers from joining until the moat reaches a certain height, at which point they establish a monopoly.
The moat for the smuggling industry is brutally simple: want in? Fine, first cough up billions of star coins to buy heavy firearms, then come and trade fire with us. Survive, and you're in.
This is a deformed development, deeply rooted in the industry's low barriers to entry, lack of technical expertise, and early days of savage competition. Passed down through generations, it has evolved into this state: anyone who can survive in the smuggling business has no fear of death.
Those who feared death died long ago.
The original battlegrounds of the two factions had been reduced to rubble.
A fine, misty rain fell on the ruins, further reducing visibility.
Just then—
A hand, melted by lava to the point where its pale bones were visible, emerged from the molten rock. It gripped a nearby piece of debris with a desperate strength.
A man struggled to climb out of the magma.
Nearly half of his body had been melted by the magma. His once-friendly face was now half-melted, his scorched and shrunken eyeballs receding far above their sockets, giving him a terrifyingly grotesque appearance.
He looked like a dark knight risen from hell.
Patches of pale bone occasionally peeked through his charred flesh.
The man who stood up was Li Shangyin.
Li Shangyin swayed precariously in the air, gasping for breath as he glared in Jin Yishan's direction. After carefully observing for a moment and seeing no one else rising, he burst into a triumphant, maniacal laughter.
"Jin Yishan!!!"
"Get your ass up and talk to me!"
"Is that all you've got? You're nothing but trash! I'm taking your planet and your women!"
"What's the point of buying garbage like the C-12 Stellar Plasma Cannon?"
After venting his rage, he glanced at his wrist device, panting, and ordered, "Find Jin Yishan's C-12 Stellar Plasma Cannon and confiscate it. Then regroup with the others and prepare to retreat."
"This operation made quite a stir. It might be difficult to clean up the mess. Let's get out of here early."
"Head to Mu Zi Star, which we've taken from Jin Yishan. Rest for a day, then smooth things over with those dogs on Mu Zi Star. After that, prepare to take full control. From today onward, the Li Clan Merchant Guild has smuggling rights to two planets!"
"Brothers, a grand reward for all of you!"
"One million star coins each!"
"Some of you, go find any traces of Jin Yishan's death."
After ending the call, he felt a sharp pain coursing through his body. His lips twitched involuntarily as he struggled to pull a vial of powerful painkiller from his pocket and inject it into himself.
It was sheer luck he had a few decent survival items; otherwise, he wouldn't even be standing here now.
But dwelling on that was pointless.
He was the victor.
The victor should savor this moment of triumph. He lifted his head, gazed steadily into the distance, and spread his arms wide, his expression satisfied as he felt the cool rain patter against his face. In this line of work, surviving to the end meant victory.
The group of subordinates who had followed him were all dead. Even with his several defensive items, he had nearly perished under that onslaught. His men, lacking such protection, stood no chance.
But it didn't matter.
It was just a minor loss.
Finding new manpower wouldn't be difficult. As long as the price was right, plenty of people would sell their lives for him, their loyalty bought and paid for.
On Residential Stars, where they were as numerous as hairs on a cow, human life was the cheapest commodity.
Yet, at that very moment—
His body suddenly stiffened, his breath catching in his throat. He saw three men approaching him through the light rain. Someone was trying to take advantage of his weakened state to end him. In this situation, he couldn't believe these men were here to congratulate him on defeating the Albatross.
But he was severely injured, merely standing was an effort, and he had exhausted most of his defensive items. He was at his weakest, leaving him with little ability to fight back.
And the man leading the group...
He wore a crisp, clean white shirt tucked neatly into dark suit pants, giving him a sharp, upright appearance. Yet, almost imperceptible crimson stains, like brushstrokes on an oil painting, were imprinted on the fabric.
Leaning on an emerald-green cane and wearing a brown, hard-brimmed felt hat, he walked slowly through the rain-filled puddles toward Li Shangyin. With each step, a patch of crimson roses bloomed behind him, rapidly unfurling to greet the rain before withering just as quickly into ash that seeped into the ground.
And that calm, composed face.
Li Shangyin knew this man.
Upon seeing the gentlemanly figure, Li Shangyin froze in place, his earlier excitement plummeting into despair. He didn't even realize he had been holding his breath for an extended period.
"Gentleman."
The man before him was the Gentleman, a code name secretly given to him by industry insiders. His full name was Jiang Cheng, the head of the Jiang Cheng Company.
If Li Shangyin's Li Clan Merchant Guild pursued firepower with extreme intensity, this man pursued it with near-fanatical fervor.
He was a madman.
Li Shangyin would never bomb a city without profit—it was a losing venture with no one to cover the costs. But this man would. He would bomb a city even without any gain, simply because a journalist had reported something incorrectly and made him unhappy.
Chen Jiang, his expression calm, leaned on his cane and stepped through the rain-soaked ground until he stood a short distance from Li Shangyin. He gazed through the downpour at the heavily injured man before him.
After a moment's pause, he chuckled softly.
"Are all smugglers like you?"
"Mr. Jiang Cheng," Li Shangyin said, forcing himself to endure the pain. He wiped the rain-streaked blood from his face and dropped heavily to his knees in the downpour, looking up through blurred vision at the man before him. He spoke each word with deliberate clarity.
"I am Li Shangyin, head of the Li Clan Merchant Guild."
"We have no quarrel. Spare my life. Let me live."
"Consider this a debt I owe you. I will find a way to repay you. And I can transfer three hundred million star coins to you right now as a first-meeting gift for a senior like yourself."
"Three hundred million?" Chen Jiang shook his head, smiling. "That's quite a sum to offer so casually. Three hundred million star coins."
"Is smuggling really that profitable?"
(End of the Chapter)