Bullets continued to rattle nonstop.
Brass casings fell like rain, clattering onto the decks of the three speedboats.
On the President's pale blue shield, ripples spread out in dense, concentric circles.
Like raindrops hitting the surface of a lake.
Not even a clear sound could be heard.
Qin Yu had only smoked half of his cigarette.
Squinting through the thin haze of smoke, he watched the "pirates" on the other side, their faces flushed with excitement.
They were still shouting.
Still laughing wildly.
As if the steel giant ship before them was already meat on their chopping block.
"So noisy."
Qin Yu flicked the ash from his cigarette, his tone as calm as if he were commenting on the weather.
"Ruo Bing."
"Here."
Li Ruobing's finger hovered over the red launch button, her eyes gleaming with a bloodthirsty excitement.
"Using the Kiss of Death on those broken boats would be a waste."
Qin Yu shook his head.
That gun was still in its cooldown period. Even if it could be used in conventional mode, a single shell would cost more than those three worthless boats.
Not worth it.
"Release it."
"S-Class Skyhawk Guard, launch!"
Click.
A seam split open in the armor plating atop the President.
A streak of silver light shot into the sky in an instant!
It was impossible to make out what it was.
Only an ear-piercing shriek of tearing air could be heard.
Whoosh—!!
The silver light traced a strange arc across the blood-red sky.
Then it hovered directly above the three speedboats.
Only then did the pirates, who were still frantically pulling their triggers, realize what was happening.
"What is that?"
A one-eyed leader looked up, still clutching a scorching-hot AK.
Under the sunlight.
Its entire body was silver-white, with a streamlined fuselage showing no signs of welding.
Its eyes were two crimson crystals, flashing wildly.
On the rack beneath its belly, twelve micro-missiles, each only as thick as a finger, were neatly arranged.
And beneath its wings.
Two pitch-black gun barrels had already begun to spin rapidly.
Zzzz—
That was the sound of the motor warming up.
"Not good! It's a drone!"
One-Eye's face paled as he roared at the top of his lungs.
"Shoot it down! Now!"
Unfortunately.
It was too late.
Qin Yu leaned back in his chair, watching the first-person footage transmitted on the screen before him.
It was in thermal imaging mode.
The people on the three boats below appeared as orange-red blobs on the screen.
"Lock on."
Qin Yu softly uttered two words.
"Clear."
Hum—!!!
In the sky, the silver Skyhawk shuddered violently.
The twin Gauss machine guns beneath its wings spat out two streams of fire almost invisible to the naked eye!
There was no gunfire.
Because the bullets traveled far faster than the speed of sound.
Only a dense, teeth-grinding sound of tearing!
Rip—!!
The seven or eight people on the first speedboat didn't even have time to scream.
Their bodies burst apart like tofu thrown into a meat grinder.
Instantly shattered!
The terrifying kinetic energy of the Gauss machine guns tore through human bodies and the steel plates of the boat alike!
Blood.
Shredded flesh.
The sea surface was instantly stained red, mixed with the exploded gasoline barrels.
"Third Brother!!"
One-Eye's eyes nearly burst from their sockets.
He hadn't even had time to turn his gun around.
The silver eagle in the sky had already executed an exceptionally beautiful cobra maneuver.
It dove down.
Its speed was like a bolt of lightning.
"What kind of insane speed is this!"
"The radar can't lock onto it at all!"
The driver on the second boat was so frightened that his hands trembled, causing the speedboat to spin around on the sea surface.
"Trying to run?"
Qin Yu looked at the screen and sneered.
"Skyhawk, laser cutting."
A blinding blue light suddenly lit up from the belly of the silver eagle.
"Zzz—!!"
A blue beam, as thin as a strand of hair, swept straight across the second speedboat.
It was like cutting butter with a hot knife.
Without any resistance.
That steel speedboat, which had been turning sharply, along with the five people inside,
was split cleanly in half.
The cut surface was as smooth as a mirror, even emitting faint wisps of smoke.
That was the smell of flesh and metal instantly carbonized by high heat.
"Gurgle, gurgle..."
The two halves of the boat quickly sank, leaving only a few bubbling whirlpools on the sea surface.
In less than ten seconds.
Three speedboats, two were gone.
Only One-Eye's boat remained, floating alone on the sea.
Silence.
Deathly silence.
One-Eye, who had been so arrogant just moments before, now felt his legs trembling uncontrollably.
The gun in his hand had long since fallen to the deck.
As he looked up at the silver reaper still circling overhead, a warm sensation spread in his trousers.
He had pissed himself.
He was truly scared out of his wits.
This wasn't a battle at all.
This was slaughter.
A dimensional strike.
"Don't... don't kill me!"
One-Eye fell to his knees on the deck with a thud, desperately kowtowing toward the sky.
"I'm the captain of the third squadron of the Frenzied Shark Fleet!"
"Don't kill me! We can talk!"
"We want supplies... no, no! We'll give you all the supplies!"
"Please..."
Qin Yu looked at the man on the screen, groveling like a dog.
His face showed no expression.
"Li Ruobing."
"Hmm?"
"Does this kind of trash even deserve to negotiate with me?"
Qin Yu pointed to the "Micro Tracking Missile" icon in the upper right corner of the screen.
"I don't like listening to dogs bark."
"Send him on his way."
The corner of Li Ruobing's mouth lifted as her slender finger pressed the enter key firmly.
"Received."
"Whoosh, whoosh—"
From the belly of the Skyhawk, two missiles the size of a finger detached from their racks.
Trailing two white plumes of smoke, they accurately drilled into the fuel tank of One-Eye's boat.
"Boom—!!!"
A massive orange-red fireball erupted into the air above the sea.
The shockwave from the explosion even scattered some of the blood mist surrounding the President.
There were no screams.
Because in that instant, the intense heat had vaporized everything.
[Ding!]
[Eliminated members of the "Frenzied Shark Fleet" *24!]
[Plunder Value obtained: 2400 points!]
[Supply Crate (Silver Grade) obtained *3!]
The system's notification sounded in his ear.
The Skyhawk Guard circled once in the air, confirming there were no survivors, then retracted its weapons and silently landed back on the deck of the President.
The entire process.
Took less than a minute.
Qin Yu extinguished his cigarette butt in the ashtray.
"Too weak."
He shook his head with a sense of boredom.
"Is this the current version 2.0?"
"Can trash like this even serve as vanguards?"
Yao Xue stood nearby, pushing up her glasses as she looked at the three red dots that had vanished from the radar screen with a complicated expression.
"It's not that they were too weak."
"It's that our equipment is overpowered."
"S-Class Skyhawk Guard, built-in Nuclear Fusion Battery, unlimited endurance, Gauss weapons."
"Even in the previous era of civilization, something like this would have been a strategic-level superweapon."
"Using it to take out those modified speedboats really is like using a cannon to kill a mosquito."
Qin Yu didn't comment.
He turned to look at Li Ruobing, who had been staring blankly at her tablet.
"What's wrong?"
"Ruo Bing, why do you look so pale?"
Li Ruobing raised her head, her eyes carrying a strange intensity.
She handed the tablet to Qin Yu.
"Yu-ge, take a look at this."
"This is the new ranking list after the global server merge."
Qin Yu took the tablet and scrolled with his finger.
[Global Combat Power Rankings]
[First Place: Odin (Nordic Region)]
[Second Place: Solomon (Middle East Region)]
[Third Place: Qi Chun (Huaxia Region)]
[Fourth Place: Black Widow (Americas Region)]
...
Qin Yu kept scrolling.
Top ten.
He wasn't there.
Top fifty.
He wasn't there.
He scrolled all the way to the hundredth place.
Still not there.
"What about me?"
Qin Yu raised an eyebrow.
"Gone?"
"Here."
Li Ruobing pointed to the very bottom of the list, to a gray, extremely inconspicuous corner.
[Rank N: Qin Yu (Status: Missing/Presumed Dead)]
[Affiliation: None]
[Owned Vehicle: Raft (Data Not Updated)]
[Comprehensive Rating: F-Class (Removed from Rankings)]
"Huh?"
Qin Yu looked at the "Presumed Dead" tag and couldn't help but laugh.
"F-Class?"
"I take a nap for a month and suddenly I'm a dead man?"
"It's not just the rankings."
Li Ruobing opened the World Channel next to it, her expression growing even stranger.
"Look here."
[World Channel (Global Synchronization)]
"What was that explosion at those coordinates just now? That was a big commotion."
"Probably the Frenzied Shark Fleet fishing with explosives again. Those bastards have been relying on their numbers to rob everyone lately."
"Don't even mention it. They stole three barrels of fuel from me yesterday. I'm so pissed!"
"No choice. The world's changed now. Either join a major guild or wait to die."
"Sigh… If only that Qin Yu from before was still around. I heard he single-handedly beat the entire region into submission back in the day."
"Qin Yu? Which Qin Yu?"
"Are you new here? You don't even know that?"
"Pfft, what old news. That Qin Yu's long gone cold!"
"Yeah, I heard that too. A month ago, during that S-Class Abyss outbreak, his crappy boat got swallowed up. Not even a scrap was left."
"Now, the real badass is the current third-ranked, Boss Qi Chun! You know about the Floating Fortress? The one that can fly!"
"Right, right! I saw it too! Boss Qi Chun's fortress was recruiting people just yesterday!"
"That Qin Yu was nothing, just a flash in the pan."
"Don't bring up dead people, it's bad luck."
"The world now belongs to Odin, Qi Chun, and the others!"
Message after message scrolled by.
Between the lines.
There was a chilling sense of how quickly people move on.
One month.
Just one month.
This world had forgotten him completely.
The name that once struck fear into everyone's hearts had now become the "bad luck" dead man in their mouths.
"Heh."
Qin Yu looked at the still-scrolling messages.
Especially that line, "What the hell is Qin Yu anyway?"
He wasn't angry.
Instead, he found it even more interesting.
"Yu-ge."
Yao Qian puffed up her cheeks and leaned in, her face flushed red.
"How can they say that!"
"You're the one who saved everyone!"
"If you hadn't driven away that giant eyeball, they'd have been fish food long ago!"
"These ungrateful wretches!"
"I'm going to give them a piece of my mind right now!"
As she spoke, Yao Qian reached for the tablet to send a message.
"Don't."
Qin Yu reached out and pressed his hand against Yao Qian's head, pushing her back onto the sofa.
"What's the rush?"
"They have mouths of their own. Let them talk."
Qin Yu stood up and walked over to the massive floor-to-ceiling window.
He gazed out at the shattered world beyond.
At that eerie crimson moon.
His reflection shimmered on the glass, his eyes gleaming with the light of a hunter spotting its prey.
"Maybe it's better if they forget."
"The dead are the safest."
"The dead act without restraint."
He turned around and looked at the women in the cabin.
"Since they think I'm dead."
"Let them keep thinking that."
"Ruo Bing."
"Here."
"Block our ship's information."
"Activate 'Ghost Mode'."
"From today on, there is no 'President' on these seas."
"Only a..."
Qin Yu paused, a cruel smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"Corpse Collection Ship."
"A new ranking list?"
"Sounds like there might be some juicy rewards."
Qin Yu stroked his chin, a flicker of greed flashing in his eyes.
His "Kiss of Death" was still in a semi-crippled state, desperately in need of high-grade metals and cores for repairs.
Well, well.
Looks like a materials warehouse just delivered itself to my doorstep.
"Wife, check the ammunition inventory."
"Xiao Ya, prepare the medical kit."
"Since these people are so popular right now."
"Let's go..."
"Ride the wave."
"And while we're at it, teach these newly-minted big shots..."
"What we call..."
"Rules."