The seven hundred Madakaros pirates stared at Lin Ming. They were a disorganized mob, their initial battle fury completely extinguished and replaced by a primal, chilling fear.
They were warriors. They understood fighting. They understood dying.
They did not understand this.
This single human was not fighting them. He was playing with them. He moved with an effortless grace, his strange elemental powers treating their weapons and tactics like a child's toys. The sheer, casual disrespect was more terrifying than any murderous rage.
The acting commander, a burly pirate with a scarred face, grit his teeth. "What are you waiting for, you cowards?! He's just one man! All of you, charge him! Overwhelm him with numbers!"
His words were meant to inspire courage. They did not. The pirates hesitated, looking at each other, none of them willing to be the first to charge towards the human who could melt bullets and wield water like a whip.
Lin Ming sighed dramatically. "Are you sure about that? It hasn't worked out very well for you so far."
He decided the lesson in humility was over. It was time for the final exam.
He clapped his hands together, a single, sharp sound that echoed across the glass plain.
"You wanted to see what happens when you overwhelm someone with numbers?" he said, his voice now cold. "Let me show you."
He reached out with his Spiritual Sense, not at the pirates, but at the hundreds of kinetic projectiles that had melted and fallen to the glass floor. The molten slag, still glowing with a dull red heat, began to tremble.
Then, it rose.
Hundreds, then thousands, of small, metallic blobs lifted into the air, swirling around Lin Ming like a swarm of angry, metal hornets. He was using the principles of Earth—control over minerals—to command the very ammunition they had fired at him.
The pirates stared, their three eyes wide with horror.
"What... what is he doing?" one of them stammered.
"He's... he's using our own bullets against us!" another shrieked in realization.
Lin Ming smiled, a cold, predatory smile. "Return to sender," he said softly.
With a flick of his wrist, the swarm of molten slag shot forward. It was not a wild spray. Each individual glob moved with purpose, guided by his will. They didn't aim for heads or chests. They aimed for weapons.
A storm of super-heated metal descended upon the pirate horde. A pirate's plasma axe was hit, its power cell shorting out with a fizz. Another's kinetic rifle was struck, the molten metal fusing its firing mechanism into a solid block. In the space of ten seconds, nearly every pirate in the seven-hundred-strong force found their advanced weaponry rendered into useless scrap metal.
They were now a mob armed with little more than harsh language and bad intentions.
The demoralization was absolute. The fight was over. One pirate, his prized rifle now a useless lump of melted metal, threw it to the ground in disgust, turned, and ran.
His action broke the dam. The retreat became a rout. The entire force turned and fled in a panicked, disorganized scramble back towards the safety of their ships.
Lin Ming did not pursue. He simply stood there, watching them run. The point was made.
On the ridge, Quynh Nhu lowered her rifle, a low whistle of appreciation escaping her lips. "Okay, that was just showing off. Remind me to never get on his bad side."
"His control over multiple elements simultaneously is... theoretically impossible," Mei murmured, her eyes glued to the readings on her datapad. "He is rewriting the laws of physics as he goes."
"The enemy forces are in full retreat," Minerva's voice reported calmly. "The western contingent, having found no 'Stone-Biters', are now utterly confused and are also falling back to the ships."
It was a total, comprehensive victory.
But it felt too easy.
"Minerva," Lin Ming's voice cut through the comms, his tone sharp and serious. "The ships. Why aren't they providing fire support? Why aren't they shooting at me?"
It was a good question. The Reaver-class ships had powerful kinetic cannons. They could have turned the entire area into a crater. Yet, they remained silent.
Minerva's drone whirred. "I am... unsure, Leader. Their command structure is in chaos. It's possible the ship commanders are waiting for orders that are not coming."
"No," Lin Ming said, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the three assault ships. "That's not it. They're pirates. They're scavengers. They're not disciplined. A true commander would have taken initiative. Something is wrong."
As if to answer him, the main cannon of the central Reaver ship began to move. It didn't aim down at the battlefield.
It aimed sideways, directly at the ship next to it.
"What...?" Quynh Nhu began.
BOOM!
A massive kinetic shell, a projectile the size of a car, was fired at point-blank range. It slammed into the second ship's cockpit, tearing through its thin armor like paper. The ship shuddered violently, its engines exploding in a brilliant, silent fireball in the thin desert air.
"They're shooting each other!" Pham Tuan yelled in disbelief.
"No," Mei corrected, her eyes wide as she looked at her datapad. "That's not right. The firing command... it didn't come from the ship's bridge."
"Minerva, what's happening?" Lin Ming demanded.
"I have been locked out," Minerva's voice replied, and for the first time ever, she sounded... surprised. "A superior hacking protocol has just seized control of all three ships' primary systems. It's not Madakaros. The coding language is... elegant. Flawless. It bypassed my firewalls as if they weren't there. I... I am outmatched."
The third ship's cannon swiveled and fired, crippling the remaining engines of the first ship. In the space of thirty seconds, the entire Wind-Chaser ground-assault fleet had been disabled. Not by Chimera, but by a ghost in their own machines.
Then, a new voice crackled over the open comms channel, broadcasting on all frequencies. It was a female voice, cool, amused, and filled with an almost lazy confidence. It spoke in perfect, unaccented Vietnamese.
"Amateurs," the voice said with a sigh. "They make all this noise, bring all these toys, and they don't even have decent cybersecurity. It's almost insulting."
A hatch opened on the top of the central, and now only partially functional, ship.
A figure emerged, silhouetted against the desert sun. It was a woman. She was wearing a sleek, black, form-fitting suit of advanced-looking armor, and a helmet that completely obscured her face.
She stood on top of the conquered ship, looking down at the chaos she had just created, like a queen surveying her new, broken kingdom.
Lin Ming stared at the figure. He didn't know who she was. He had never seen her before, not in this life, not in the last.
But he felt a sudden, inexplicable sense of dread.
The mysterious woman looked down, her helmeted gaze seeming to fix directly on him from over a kilometer away.
"Well, well," the voice on the comms said, filled with a cat-like curiosity. "An energy signature that can master four elements. A cute little team playing soldier. And a three-headed badger. Now that's something you don't see every day."
She laughed, a sound that was both melodic and deeply unsettling.
"This trip just got a lot more interesting."