450 – Red Skull Pirates

TL : GoldenLung

Nana said, “Shrek Academy doesn’t lack teachers. Also, Mingdu is very close to here.”

Dong Qianqiu said, “That’s great. Our previous summoning method is no longer working. I don’t even know how to contact you. Long distance communication is too expensive. We’re all on Douluo Planet now, we can call you whenever something happens.”

Dong Qianqiu was on Lan Xuanyu’s side, so Lan Xuanyu naturally couldn’t contact Nana through summoning. It was much more convenient now that they were on the same planet.

Nana had a faint smile on her face as she looked at Lan Xuanyu and Dong Qianqiu. With these two disciples around, she felt genuinely happy and blessed to be able to see them so often.

There were no memories of the past, only simple ones.

Although the holidays were beautiful, they passed by very quickly. When school reopened, Lan Xuanyu sent his parents away with tears in his eyes. Lan Xiao told him that he would be going on another exploration mission and following the exploration fleet. It would probably be another half a year. When Lan Xuanyu’s first school year was over, he asked him to go home and visit Nan Cheng.

Nan Cheng wanted to leave some federal coins for Lan Xuanyu, but Lan Xuanyu didn’t want them. The emblems he had earned by himself were enough for his own cultivation resources.

After a tearful farewell bidding with his parents, school reopened, and the other classmates were back. Nana also went to the Imperial Sun Moon Soul Master Academy, and she was still accompanied by An Peijiu.

During the new term, the learning schedule would still be very tight. This term, the first-years would truly begin learning mecha piloting, Duo Mecha Master’s knowledge, Battle Armor crafting, and so on, laying the foundation for crafting their Battle Armor in their second year.

This term was destined to be busier than the previous term, especially on the Battle Armors aspect, which would definitely take up the majority of the students’ time and energy. Second-years had to have a One-Word Battle Armor, and this was a rigid rule; otherwise, they would be eliminated. Although there was still a year and a half left, who dared to slack at this time?

After Nana left, Lan Xuanyu immediately began his forging work. He had so many rare metal ores and just refining these ores into rare metal required a lot of time and he had to forge further. He felt that he might not be able to complete all of these by the end of the second semester. But he was happy that he no longer had to worry about a lack of rare metals. These six types of rare metal covered almost all of the different grades of metals and were enough for him to practice.

Just as Shrek’s new term was flourishing, the Federation’s public opinion gradually calmed down.

The Silver Dragon Spear being stolen had undoubtedly dealt a huge blow to Shrek Academy’s reputation. This place that was hailed as a sacred ground for soul masters was actually robbed by someone else. How humiliating was this? Many media outlets in the outside world emitted doubts about Shrek.

‘Does Shrek, the number one academy on the continent, not live up to its name? Or does Shrek Academy’s mysterious Sea God Pavilion have not enough powerful experts?’

…

In the vast space.

A fleet of pitch-black warships flew quietly. They were completely black and only the flames from their tails and the lights on the warships could reveal their existence.

There were a total of 16 warships that formed this fleet. These warships had a unique appearance and looked like giant lizards, filled with a ferocious aura.

The size of this fleet wasn’t small. The flagship was a War God-class battleship that was over 2,000 meters long. Generally speaking, the length of a battleship was between 1,500 meters and 2,500 meters. Its size was somewhat average.

Other than this battleship, there were eight other Meteor-class assault spaceships, four Meteor-class reconnaissance spaceships, two Taotie-class transportation ships, and a supply ship.

This was already a very complete small space fleet.

The sides of the 16 warships had the same design, which was a blood-red skull.

That’s right, this was not a regular fleet of the Douluo Federation but a powerful space pirate fleet.

There were quite a number of space pirates, but there weren’t many of them of this scale. The Red Skull Pirates were definitely ranked in the top three among all the space pirates. Their battleships were also very unique and had their own style.

The bases of these pirate groups were usually located in Sin City or small planets that were extremely well hidden. At their level, they even had the ability to build their own battleships. They had truly formed their own system.

The battleship of the Red Skull Pirates was known as the Dark Lizard, and its biggest feature was its speed. It could move freely in space and escape a thousand miles away if it missed its first attack.

The Red Skull pirates were naturally notorious as well. Their main target was those spaceships carrying out interstellar transit, and they had even attempted to ambush some of the Federation’s Resource Planets. They had caused quite a bit of damage to the Douluo Federation.

The Federation had once sent out a space fleet to encircle and annihilate them. However, mobilizing a large space fleet required a lot of resources, and it was like shooting a cannon at a mosquito. Whenever the Red Skull pirates encountered such a situation, they would flee at the fastest speed possible. It was truly hard to find in the vast space.

But if it was a small-sized full-fledged fleet, they might not be able to defeat them. This gave the Federation headaches.

The space pirates, including the Red Skull Pirates, had long become one of the Federation’s biggest problems. There would be huge losses every year, but interstellar transport could not continuously have space fleets to protect them. This was impossible.

The Federation was currently in the midst of a project, which was the large-scale deployment of a space-class reconnaissance satellite. They hoped to use this sort of early reconnaissance method to ensure the safety of the transport route.

But construction was never as fast as destruction. Many space pirates worked together to destroy these surveillance satellites. Until now, there were only a few routes that could ensure safety. They were mainly targeted at Resource Planets.

Space pirates had their own rules too. They only plundered merchant ships and would not attack passenger spaceships under normal circumstances. The situation that Lan Xuanyu and his team encountered previously was extremely unique.

Furthermore, after a robbery, the pirate crew would release the hostages. Of course, there were also those who refused to release anyone. The Red Skull Pirates were one of the representatives of this evil kind of pirate crew. The reason for their refusal was very simple and troublesome.

Hence, they had always been the public enemy of the Federation. It was only because their spaceships were advanced and did not take any risks that the Federation couldn’t do anything to them.

At this moment, in the flagship of the Red Skull Pirates, in the main control room of the Dark Lizard King, a bearded man dressed in a dark red military uniform with three shiny stars on his shoulders was flipping through the cosmic news in boredom.

His beard was also red, and there was a huge piece of metal on his forehead that covered almost a third of his skull.

“Boss, we’re still seven hours away from the target,” a spacecraft navigator reported.

“Idiot. How many times have I told you to call me ‘General’? Boss, calling me ‘Boss’ sounds as if we didn’t have any culture,” Big Beard shouted angrily.

“Yes, General Red Beard.” The navigator quickly changed his words.

The red-goateed man snorted. “If you call me wrongly again, I’ll hang you outside and turn you into a mummy.”

The red bearded man was the captain of the Red Skull Pirates and was infamous. He was ranked in the top 100 of the Federation’s bounty list.

Although he was ferocious, he was very cautious and almost never left his own fleet. Even if he left, he would disguise himself. He had dominated the space pirate world for many years and had been living well. He had started from a single Meteor-class assault spaceship to the present 16 warships. He also had a powerful warship at the War God-class level, which showed his ability and strength.

This time, their target was a newly developed Resource Planet. To the space pirates, these Resource Planets were the most attractive. After a Resource Planet was mined, the resources would be transported to one of the Federation’s administrative planets periodically, and before that, they would store resources on the Resource Planet. And to the space pirates, these resources were naturally extremely important supplies. They could exchange them in Sin City for whatever they wanted.