57: This is not a negotiation

"You iron turtle up ahead! Stop for me!"

A sharp, ear-piercing screech of electronic feedback tore through the stillness of the river surface.

Several armed barges, cobbled together from sand-carrying ships, emerged like a pack of piranhas that had caught the scent of blood.

They roared out from the shadows of the ruins along both banks.

Rusty anti-aircraft machine guns and homemade incendiary launchers were mounted on their bows.

Several thugs, bare-chested and covered in burn scars, were waving iron chains and shrieking with excitement.

Located in the middle was the flagship—

Which was actually just a tugboat fitted with a loader bucket.

A leader wearing a gas mask was holding a megaphone, roaring with spittle flying everywhere:

"Don't you know the rules? This is Furnace Gang territory!

If you want to cross this river, leave five hundred liters of fuel, plus your women and antibiotics!

Otherwise, we'll scuttle your piece-of-junk ship and feed you to the fish!"

The audio quality of the megaphone was abysmal, mixing with the noisy engine sounds around it to sound like a pack of male ducks in heat screaming.

Inside the cockpit of the black iron, however, there was dead silence.

Jiang Ran stood before the porthole, looking down coldly at the group of death-defying clowns below.

Separated by thick bulletproof glass, the commotion outside seemed like a ridiculous pantomime.

"Boss, the fire control radar has locked onto that tugboat. Should I send them on their way with one shot?"

The First Mate's finger was already hovering over the launch button, a hint of impatience in his eyes.

"A waste of ammunition."

Jiang Ran spat out those four words flatly, not even bothering to spare a glance at the leader who was frantically shouting.

In his eyes, this so-called "Furnace Gang" didn't even count as an enemy.

They were merely mold growing on this industrial wasteland; aside from being disgusting, they posed no threat whatsoever.

If it weren't for the old man hanging from the blast furnace, he wouldn't have even bothered to stop the ship; he would have just run them over.

"Maintain silence, ignore these mad dogs."

Jiang Ran reached out to take off his military cap, tossed it casually onto the control console, and turned toward the hatch: "Open the hatch, I'm going out."

"You're going personally?"

Su Qingyu was somewhat surprised. "For a small scene like this, can't we just let zero control a mechanical puppet?"

"A mechanical puppet doesn't know how to catch a stubborn bird."

Jiang Ran unbuttoned his collar as he walked, his eyes as calm as if he were saying he was going downstairs to buy a pack of cigarettes.

"Besides, these people are too noisy. I need to go make them shut up."

In the communication channel behind him, the leader's cursing continued.

It had even escalated to attacking the aesthetic appearance of the black iron.

But what he didn't know was that in the belly of that steel behemoth, a hatch leading to hell was silently sliding open.

Inside the equipment bay, a Mechanical Arm was making precise hydraulic sounds.

As the final piece of chest armor plate locked into place with a 'click,' Jiang Ran stretched his neck.

He was now encased in a pitch-black "Tyrant" class individual exoskeleton.

This thing was originally designed for heavy-duty operations in high-pressure deep-sea environments.

Later, he had added attitude adjustment nozzles and a high-power isotope battery, turning it into a human-shaped tank.

"Target altitude 120 meters, wind speed 14 m/s, correction complete."

zero's data stream was projected directly onto his retina.

Jiang Ran walked to the edge of the deck.

The armed tugboat below was still circling, and the leader's cursing buzzed like a fly.

Jiang Ran didn't even look. He bent his knees slightly, and the four sets of vector nozzles on his back instantly erupted with blinding blue-white exhaust flames.

"BOOM—!!!"

It wasn't the dull roar of a diesel engine, but the shriek of a high-energy particle stream tearing through the air.

Under the astonished gazes of the thugs below,

The black figure on the deck vanished instantly, replaced by a bolt of black lightning surging upward.

The massive reactionary force shook the standing water on the deck into a ring of white mist.

Like a heavy shell fired from a gun, Jiang Ran completely ignored gravity and forcibly smashed through the smoke and haze filling the sky.

Tracing a straight ballistic trajectory, he dove straight for the towering No. 1 Blast Furnace.

"What is that... Fuck! It's a mecha!!"

On the ground, the leader who was holding a flamethrower suddenly looked up, the eyes behind his gas mask instantly widening to their limit.

He had originally thought this was just some suicidal foreign cargo ship, at most armed with some light weapons.

But he never imagined in his wildest dreams—

That the opponent wouldn't even bother to say a word and would instead throw out this kind of heavy weapon of mass destruction that only existed in the legends of old era special forces.

The black shadow's speed in the air was terrifyingly fast; it wasn't so much flying as it was a falling meteorite.

Wrapped in the cold high-altitude wind and the coal ash of the industrial zone,

The steel monster, carrying a suffocating sense of pressure, slammed hard toward the top of the blast furnace.

The wind at the top of the blast furnace was strong, carrying a pungent smell of sulfur.

Old Chen felt as if his throat had been sanded down; it burned with pain.

His hand, which was holding a stainless steel bowl, was so sore he could barely lift it anymore.

But he stubbornly tapped out the final segment of Morse code that meant "idiot."

"These grandsons... not even one of them talks back. How boring."

He muttered, preparing to change positions to take a breather.

The rust-stained cantilever above his head suddenly let out an overburdened groan.

Immediately after, a dull, massive explosion erupted right over his head.

"THOOM—!!!"

The entire maintenance platform shook violently, and a large amount of rust and dust fell in showers, blinding Old Chen's eyes.

The iron cage suspended in mid-air was like a leaf in a gale, swaying and colliding wildly, making the tooth-aching sound of twisting metal.

"What? Did that One-Eyed Dragon finally decide to blow up this piece-of-junk furnace?"

Old Chen coughed as he struggled to open his eyes and look up through the gaps in the cage.

In the next second, his pupils suddenly shrank to the size of pinheads.

The sunlight was blocked.

A massive black silhouette crouched on the narrow maintenance platform.

As it slowly stood up, hydraulic rods emitted a low hum; it was a heavy powered armor at least three meters tall.

White smoke was still rising from its pitch-black matte shell due to high-speed atmospheric friction.

A single red electronic eye on the faceplate looked down at him coldly.

In the hands of that steel behemoth,

Was a thermal combat blade that was still vibrating at high frequency; the air was distorted here due to the high temperature.

This wasn't something the bandits below, who fought each other with steel pipes, could ever have.

This was the most elite killing machine of the old era, a grim reaper designed specifically for harvesting lives.

"Ha... haha..."

Old Chen froze for a few seconds before suddenly letting out a dry laugh.

He simply threw the stainless steel bowl he had been tapping all morning through the gaps in the railing, listening as it plunged into the abyss.

"Fine, looks like those idiots finally figured it out. They actually spent a fortune to hire a professional to send me on my way."

He leaned against the cage wall.

He struggled to tidy his bird's-nest-like hair, trying to make himself look like a chief engineer rather than a beggar.

Facing a killing machine of this level, resistance was redundant.

Old Chen closed his eyes and craned his neck.

He raised a grease-stained middle finger toward the cold mecha and yelled with the last of his strength:

"Do it, you hunk of scrap metal!

If I even flinch, I'm your son!"

The expected sharp pain did not come.

Old Chen only felt a wave of scorching air hit his face, followed by a tooth-aching "shing" sound—

It was the sound of a high-frequency thermal blade slicing through low-carbon steel, as smooth as a hot knife through butter.

There was no nonsense, and no sense of ceremony.

The black mecha simply gave a casual wave of its hand, and the anchor chain holding the iron cage, which was as thick as a wrist, snapped into two pieces.

"Holy shit—!!"

Losing its tension, the iron cage instantly plummeted downward under the force of gravity.

The intense feeling of weightlessness made Old Chen's heart leap into his throat.

That defiant curse of facing death head-on turned into a high-pitched shriek.

However, the fall lasted for less than half a second.

"CLANG!"

A massive sound.

The iron cage jerked to a sudden halt in mid-air; the massive inertia almost sent Old Chen's internal organs flying out.

He slammed hard against the cage wall like a sack of flour.

He opened his eyes, trembling with shock.

Through the grid floor beneath his feet, he saw the ground a hundred meters below and the group of thugs who looked like ants.

And above him, the black mecha was holding the reinforcement ribs at the top of the iron cage with one hand.

That massive mechanical palm was like someone carrying a birdcage, steadily suspending the multi-ton iron cage in mid-air.

This wasn't an execution at all.

This was a kidnapping.

"Shut up, old man."

A cold male voice, processed through electronic synthesis and devoid of any emotional fluctuation, came from the external speaker.

It sounded as if he were dealing with a piece of cargo that had just been recovered:

"Your heart rate is too high. It would be a hassle for me if you died of a sudden heart attack halfway through."

Jiang Ran operated the mecha to lift the iron cage in front of the faceplate.

The red electronic eye scanned the disheveled figure inside the cage from top to bottom.

After confirming that his limbs were intact and his brain was (probably) still functioning, he nodded with satisfaction.

"It seems the parts are still complete."

That look didn't seem like he was looking at a person at all.

It was as if he were looking at a barely usable second-hand carburetor he'd just dug out of a trash heap.

Old Chen's mouth hung open; he couldn't regain his senses for a long time.

He had imagined countless ways to die in this cage, but he never imagined he would be carried away like takeout by a mecha.

"You... who the hell are you?!"

"Your new boss."

Jiang Ran replied flatly, then the vector nozzles on his back suddenly spat out a burst of blue flames.

"Sit tight."

Before Old Chen could process the weight of that warning, the thruster engines on the back erupted with a roar.

The massive reactionary force pushed the black mecha into the air.

The high-temperature plasma tail flame from the vector nozzles was like a giant lightsaber, instantly sweeping across the platform at the top of the blast furnace.

Several Furnace Gang thugs who had just climbed the maintenance ladder and were trying to launch a sneak attack didn't even have time to scream.

They were blown away directly by this terrifying heat wave, screaming as they fell into the thick smoke below like kites with broken strings.

"Fire! Shoot him down!! That's my man!!!"

On the ground, the leader of the Furnace Gang roared in exasperation.

In an instant, dense gunfire rang throughout the entire factory area.

Countless bullets trailed red light, pouring toward the black shadow in the sky like a rainstorm.

Someone even shouldered a homemade rocket launcher, firing it with a long trail of white smoke.

"Clang, clang, clang—"

Bullets struck the composite armor of the "Tyrant" exoskeleton, splashing a series of harmless sparks.

It was just like raindrops hitting a tin roof.

Aside from the noise, it was completely meaningless.

As for that rocket, Jiang Ran easily dodged it with a simple sidestep maneuver.

It slammed into the blast furnace's chimney, exploding in a useless fireball.

This level of firepower wasn't even enough to give the mecha an itch.

Carrying the iron cage, Jiang Ran traced an elegant yet domineering arc in the air, hovering two hundred meters above the ground.

He looked down at the group of angry, hopping thugs who were like ants and connected to the public channel they had used to extort him earlier.

At this moment, the channel was filled with the leader's hysterical cursing.

"So noisy."

Jiang Ran's cold voice cut into the channel, instantly drowning out all other noise.

"I'm taking the person.

As for the ammunition you just wasted to welcome me, and those few men who were blown away..."

The mecha's faceplate flashed with red light, his tone carrying a hint of chilling mockery:

"Pay the bill yourselves."

With that, the thrusters erupted at full power.

The black mecha turned into a reverse-traveling meteor.

Carrying that birdcage still fluttering in the wind, it headed straight for the black iron anchored in the middle of the river.

Leaving behind only the messy ruins and a group of impotently raging onlookers.

This wasn't a battle at all.

This was merely a case of "violent shoplifting" while passing by.