Super Mothership
“Do you feel unwilling? Regret not taking me hostage?” Nie Yun said with a smile, having seen right through what Gold Tooth was thinking.
“Hmph! Winners take all—there’s nothing for me to say!” Gold Tooth’s words were filled with resentment; he had clearly been hit right where it hurt.
At the same time, he casually swept a glance toward the three mithril knights behind Nie Yun, then keenly noticed the changes in them.
In fact, to conserve “online time,” the three leaders had already logged off after completing their mission. The knights were now merely being controlled by the AI’s automatic programs, and compared to before, their flexibility and initiative were clearly diminished.
“If I told you that all your tricks pose absolutely no threat to me, that even blowing up the ship wouldn’t hurt me in the slightest—would you believe it?”
I don’t believe it! Gold Tooth wanted to blurt out.
But looking at Nie Yun’s relaxed smile and the three mithril knights behind him, the words simply wouldn’t come out.
The oppressive pressure brought by absolute strength forced him to seriously consider the truth of Nie Yun’s words.
But if that were true… just how terrifying must the power he was hiding be?
“So… relax your leg muscles. Even though I’m only two meters away from you, if you lunge at me, the only outcome will be you turning into a pile of minced meat. Even without the three men behind me, that result wouldn’t change in the slightest. Do you… believe me?” Nie Yun stared at him with a half-smile.
“Uh…” Gold Tooth’s expression stiffened as a wave of sheer panic surged up inside him.
Every single movement of his—nothing escaped the other man’s eyes!
The instincts honed in the dark world told him that this time, the man in front of him wasn’t bluffing.
“You… you must be joking.” Slumping his shoulders, relaxing his entire body, and putting on a harmless posture, Gold Tooth forced an ugly smile onto his face and unconsciously switched to honorifics.
Facing the seemingly submissive Gold Tooth, Nie Yun smiled faintly. The next moment, without any warning, he raised a finger and slowly poked it toward Gold Tooth’s brow. An eerie silver light shimmered on the tip of his finger.
Gold Tooth was startled, thinking Nie Yun was about to kill him, and immediately tried to resist—only to discover that he couldn’t move at all.
As if he’d been hit by a paralysis spell, no matter how hard he struggled, his body was pinned down by an enormous force. All he could do was watch helplessly as Nie Yun’s finger drew closer.
The next instant, a sharp pain shot through his brow, and only then did Gold Tooth regain control of his body.
Staring at Nie Yun as he slowly withdrew his finger, Gold Tooth’s eyes were filled with terror. “Y-you… what did you do to me?”
Damn it! I completely misjudged him!
This guy was no gentle little lamb—he was clearly a tyrannosaur wearing sheep’s skin!
That bizarre immobilization ability had to be psychic power. This man was actually a psychic-type powerhouse. Even with his strength as a Silver-ranked warrior, he’d been completely suppressed. The opponent’s mental power had absolutely reached master level!
He finally believed it. If he had really chosen to gamble and make a move just now… he would truly be dead.
Within the power system of the Wolf Empire, psychic-type ability users were extremely rare. Their combat power might not be the most overwhelming, but they were certainly the most bizarre, possessing effects somewhat akin to “magic.”
Especially high-level, master-ranked psychic experts—their methods of attack were unfathomable, and they were terrifying existences that even Gold-ranked warriors were unwilling to provoke.
“What did I do? Hmm… you can call it the high-tech version of the Three Corpse Brain Pill.” Nie Yun’s smile turned downright sinister.
“The Three Corpse Brain Pill?!” Gold Tooth’s face grew even paler. Just hearing the name, it clearly wasn’t anything good.
“It’s an ultra-micro mechanical virus. Normally, it lies dormant in your neural center. But once it receives an activation command… hehe! Trust me, you don’t want to know the details. The scene would be far too beautiful…”
Nie Yun deliberately left plenty of room for Gold Tooth’s imagination.
These vicious pirates were hardly saints—saying they killed without batting an eye wouldn’t be an exaggeration. Nie Yun had never expected that simply exuding dominance would make the other side obedient. To deal with villains, one had to be even more vicious than they were.
Gold Tooth shuddered.
Throughout their series of confrontations, in terms of strategy, methods, and strength, he’d been utterly crushed on every front. Now that his life was firmly in the other man’s grasp, the last remnants of his unwillingness and scheming were snuffed out in an instant.
“Who are you, exactly? And what do you want? I’m just the leader of a small pirate crew—it shouldn’t warrant such careful attention from the force backing you, should it?” Gold Tooth asked bitterly.
Since the other side had gone to such lengths to control him, they clearly didn’t simply want his life. They must have designs on him—or rather, on his pirate crew.
After carefully observing Gold Tooth’s expression and confirming that he had essentially given up resistance, Nie Yun finally nodded in satisfaction. An obedient native pirate would be extremely useful for the upcoming task of opening up the map; otherwise, Nie Yun wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to comprehensively teach him a lesson.
After all, even the trio of bosses couldn’t maintain long-term activity here. He needed a “puppet” who was familiar with the local environment.
“Who am I? You’re quite lucky. Many people have asked me that before—but most of them… already have grass several meters tall growing over their graves.”
(Arthas: “…”)
Gold Tooth: “……”
Are even normal opening questions this dangerous?
“Since you’ve asked so sincerely, I might as well tell you. You can call me the ‘Ghost Captain’—the man determined to become the Pirate King!”
Gold Tooth: “……”
“That means, starting today, your Gold Tooth Pirate Crew has been absorbed into my ‘Ghost Pirate Crew.’ Any objections?” After indulging himself for a moment, Nie Yun finally got to the point.
“N-no objections.” Gold Tooth replied with a forced smile.
This wasn’t a bonus question—it was a single-choice question. Choose wrong, and you’d be handing over your life.
“Very good. Now, I need you to keep your men in line. Organize everyone to rob when it’s time to rob, burn when it’s time to burn. Aside from changing to a more tasteful organization name, everything stays the same. You… understand?”
“Understood! Captain!” Gold Tooth quickly corrected his stance, and there was even a trace of delight in his eyes.
“Everything stays the same” meant that he was still in charge here?
There were no trusted subordinates inserted, no supervisors assigned? This greatly reduced Gold Tooth’s resistance to being taken over.
In the pirate world, where the law of the jungle reigned supreme, status and strength were everything. Having one more boss above his head wasn’t really a big deal to Gold Tooth.
What truly stirred hope in his heart was the mysterious and powerful force backing Nie Yun.
Just look at the Black Sail Pirate Crew of the Seven Giants—whether a pirate group had support from a major power or not led to two completely different modes of survival.
Those pirate crews ranked near the top all had more or less deep connections with major external powers. Some were even thugs and privateer fleets cultivated outright by those powers.
After all, relying solely on plunder—where would one get enough advanced weapons and equipment?
“Could it be that my little pirate crew has been noticed by some big patron?”
Suppressing the whirl of thoughts in his mind, Gold Tooth obediently began executing Nie Yun’s first order. The unrest in the base quickly subsided, and various rescue and repair operations got underway.
When the pirates in the base learned that they’d been taken over, after the initial shock, they quickly accepted their new identity.
In the chaotic Shattered Star Sector, internal strife was no less dangerous than external threats. Mergers and takeovers happened every single day, and pirates here were long accustomed to the смена власти.
If you could defeat the former leader, then you were stronger than the former leader. Following the strong was the way low-level pirates survived.
Even those minor pirate leaders who harbored doubts didn’t dare to make trouble after hearing that everything would remain unchanged.
Leaving the still-somewhat-chaotic pirate crew outside, Nie Yun had already begun plundering the data stored in the AI brain using the highest level of authority he had just obtained.
Large amounts of basic information on the Wolf Empire and materials related to the surrounding Shattered Star Sector flowed into Nie Yun’s database like a torrent…
“Hmm… I could pass some of this basic intel to Gemini. Even without me, Beckman would probably get his hands on it sooner or later. Might as well trade it for some reputation points—no loss there.” Nie Yun chuckled as he stroked his chin.
While the massive data download continued, he turned his attention to a robot standing nearby—the very “Destroyer” that Gold Tooth had previously treated as his trump card.
It was now completely shut down. Observing it up close, Nie Yun could clearly sense how extraordinary it was.
Its blades, thin as cicada wings, shimmered with an entrancing glow under the lights. The smooth, mirror-like shell of unknown metal showed not a single weld seam or connecting joint—an entirely integrated piece of high-tech craftsmanship.
“A technological product of the Mechanical Race…” Nie Yun circled around it.
He was quite curious about why they had suddenly abandoned their original attack orders—especially since it involved another rather unusual intelligent race…
At Nie Yun’s command, one of the mithril knights behind him stepped forward, opened its arms, and embraced the machine like a lover.
On the Destroyer’s body, visible silver began to spread…
TL Note- Take over?
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