The Highest Bounty

Chapter 169 The Battle Begins

A golden-haired young man sat on a leather chair. His legs rested at the side of the table while he tapped his right index finger on the table. “Two members who are Rank 10 Gene Body, while the ranks of the others are unknown… Gu Ding and Liliath’s combat effectiveness seem pretty average judging from the most recent video of them. Even if they had improved over this short time, it would be impossible for them to be powerful enough to go up against a Rank 10 Gene Body powerhouse. There’s another crew member of theirs who is a robot. He hasn’t gone into battle before, but it’s obvious from his size that he is not a combat robot. We don’t need to worry about him

No one else spoke in the room. They were aware of how much their boss loved talking to himself. It would be catastrophic for anyone to interrupt him at this time.

“Is Grato okay in the emergency center?” Yarrow asked nonchalantly. He was the captain of the Marauders. He might be more than forty-years-old, but he still looked like he was around twenty.

“His sternum is completely fractured, and his internal organs have suffered severe shock. The doctor said that he would have been a goner if he had arrived any later to the hospital. He has just pulled through a critical period and is now in deep sleep. We don’t know when he’ll awake,” the man who had answered the question was a burly man named Benji. He had a very deep voice.

“Boss, we should take our revenge, even if it’s not for Grato. All the other pirate crews are watching us. We’ll be looked down on if we do nothing. Besides, we just lost to that jerk, Kohld Blood, a few days ago and he took our ship doctor. We need a victory and Gu Ding’s crew is the perfect target…”

Yarrow was a little vexed over Benji’s words.

He was a Rank 11 Gene Body, and he had two crew members who were Rank 10 Gene Bodies. In the eyes of his crew members, Gu Ding’s crew was like a meal served up to them on a nice plate. The thing that was holding him back, was that fight with Kohld Blood. It had left a hidden wound him that lowered his power back to when he had just become Rank 11 Gene Body. This wound that had caused his ability to be affected could have been quietly taken care of by the ship doctor. Yarrow had always been too proud to show weakness in front of his crew members, excluding the ship doctor. However, the doctor was no longer with them and Yarrow chose to quietly deal with the wound on his own.

He was a cautious man and was not willing to jump into battle with anyone before he was completely healed. Besides that, the high bounty on Gu Ding’s crew had convinced him that the crew’s capability was not as he had seen in the video, especially when they had just taken in a new crew member who was a Peak Rank 10 Gene Body powerhouse. This alone had him thinking that perhaps there was more than meets the eye when it came to Gu Ding’s crew. These were the reasons that were stopping him from challenging this unknown opponent before he was completely healed. However, Benji’s words were not wrong. The fact that Kohld Blood had beaten them and snatched their ship doctor was a great humiliation. To add salt to the wound, a member of his crew had just been beaten half to death by Gu Ding’s crew. If Yarrow chose to back down, it would take him a long time before he could raise his head proudly in front of the other pirate crews. There was no way he could back off from this now. He needed to fight Gu Ding’s crew as soon as possible in order to salvage the reputation of his crew.

After a short struggle within his head, he finally slammed his hands on the table and decided. “We’ll go into battle with Gu Ding’s crew! Get prepared, everyone.”

Just as Yarrow made his decision, Robert had just finished refining Gu Ding’s combat armor from Dark Iron Grade to Bronze Grade. The enhancement that used to only double his power would now raise it by five times. Gu Ding injected the new combat armor into his body. Even though it had been upgraded, there was no need for the combat armor to refamiliarize itself with its owner.

Gu Ding could feel himself become stronger after going through armor transformation.

Right then, Liliath and Elsa were done with their full day of shopping. Gu Ding had no idea what they bought besides an extravagant looking watch on Elsa’s hand.

Biggie started getting busy in the kitchen when it was near dinner time.

Gu Ding returned to the topmost area of the cabin and continued cultivating his Sun Sutra before it got dark. He had spent nearly the whole day absorbing light energy on the first day they had arrived on Kerma. The primary power in his body had gotten quite strong.

A large group of people were marching toward Gu Ding’s Golden Eagle before dark.

The person at the front looked to be a golden-haired young boy of about twenty. He had a slightly slim build with long, slender legs. He had a clean-cut look, but his eyes were soulless, it made anyone looking at them want to avoid his gaze.

A loud voice shouted towards the huge Golden Eagle, “Every one of Gu Ding’s crew, get out here! We’re the Marauders! We hereby declare that the Marauders officially challenge Gu Ding’s crew to a battle!”

Gu Ding leaped off the top of the cabin in one move. He looked at the crowd of people with a befuddled expression. “Marauders? Is that the pirate crew whose ship doctor was snatched by Kohld Blood’s crew?”

Yarrow and all his crew standing behind him immediately became upset when they heard what Gu Ding had said. Even though they looked angry on the outside, their emotions were now leaning toward agitation instead.

Most of the spectators thought Gu Ding’s sarcasm had hit the right spot when they heard him.

“You should be going after Kohld Blood’s The Punishers for a fight. Why are you coming to us instead?” Besides being busy with his combat armor, Gu Ding had spent the whole day at the top of the spaceship training. He had no idea what had happened.

“Your crew member had nearly beaten our member, Grato, to death. He’s still lying unconscious in the emergency room. Please don’t claim you’re unaware of this when you’re the captain of your crew. Liliath and the others should have been back on the spaceship half an hour ago, right?” The man’s voice boomed as he shouted at Gu Ding.

The Golden Eagles hatch opened at that moment and Liliath’s voice could be heard, “I allowed Elsa to beat him up. However, why didn’t you tell him the reason we beat him up, old man with the loud voice?”

Liliath turned purposefully toward Yarrow, who was obviously the captain of the crew. “Your crew tried to cut off two underage little girls, me and Elsa, in an attempt to kidnap us and use us as a ransom for the Golden Eagle. Why didn’t you shout out your underhanded tactics? As for that bald old man, he wasn’t as powerful as we were. He deserved to get beaten up. Besides, I called him an ambulance and fed him a cell repair agent. I think we were more than civil about it.”

“It doesn’t matter what happened. As the captain of this crew, it’s my responsibility to seek justice for my crew member when you’ve beaten up Grato so badly. As for what Grato had done wrong, it should be up to our crew to judge and sentence accordingly, it’s not your place as an outsider to do so. Since you’ve already made your move, it’s pointless to continue with this incessant babbling. Prepare to bear the consequences,” There was not much emotion in Yarrow’s voice.

“Are you sure you want to battle it out?” Gu Ding looked at Yarrow calmly.

Yarrow was slightly bewildered by this. He did not see any fear nor emotions in Gu Ding’s eyes. In fact, he felt that Gu Ding seemed to be excited about something. He felt a sudden wave of dread wash over but chose to ignore the gut warning as he gave a definite answer, “I’m sure!”

The people behind Yarrow suddenly made their move as they started brandishing their weapons and swarmed toward Gu Ding’s crew.

On Gu Ding’s side, Liliath calmly put on her metal hat and started hypnotizing Biggie. Robert released more than twenty combat robots at one go, leaving two to guard Liliath while the rest joined the fight.

These combat robots’ basic combat effectiveness was equivalent to a Rank 8 Gene Body and they were programmed to have the first 8 levels of the Ultimate Arts. They were even capable of going up against Rank 9 Gene Body powerhouses. When they entered the fight, it was akin to releasing wolves into flocks of sheep. It did not take long before painful howling and terrified screams could be heard.

Biggie was intercepted by a burly man called Benji. Benji was also a Rank 10 Gene Body powerhouse. He was close to 2.5 meters in height and was very muscular. Obviously, as compared to a normal person, this physique would attract a lot of attention. However, when facing Biggie, he looked one size smaller. Benji seemed to be extremely annoyed about Biggie being larger than he was. He was used to looking down on others with his head tilted down, but now he was forced to look up at his opponent. Elsa was intercepted by a girl named Annie; whose physique was almost on par with Benji. However, she did not have muscles, rather, she was fleshy and had an obese body. Her height was close to two meters and she looked like a thick wall. It was not an exaggeration to say her arms were thicker than both of Elsa’s legs combined.

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The most ridiculous thing about her was her choice of outfit in a fight like this. She was wearing a long, pink dress made of thin fabric. Every time a light breeze swept past, her skirt would lift and she would immediately attempt to press her dress down shyly. In fact, everyone could see that she was wearing a pair of white panties through her thin pink dress with or without the wind blowing it up. It was a strongly-flavored ‘view’ not fit for normal admiration.

Yarrow was surprised to see that Gu Ding did not take part in the fight. He had thought the first thing Gu Ding would do, was to try his best to avoid fighting with Yarrow. From the looks of it, Gu Ding had done the complete opposite. Gu Ding stood rooted to the spot, eyes as calm as still water. He looked toward Yarrow without any sign of emotion.

Yarrow immediately went into alert mode amidst his astonishment. Gu Ding’s reaction was abnormal and disconcerting. This was not how a weakling would react to a powerhouse. His eyes narrowed as he started to analyze Gu Ding in an attempt to figure him out but failed to come up with anything.

“You shouldn’t have chosen to go into battle…” Gu Ding suddenly said.

“And you shouldn’t choose to fight when your wound hasn’t fully healed yet…”