68 The Minotaur Must Die [Seeking Loyal Readers!]
It had to be said, although Qianqian Sparrow Song wasn’t much to look at, her professional skills were impressive—her live stream jokes came one after another. If he hadn’t seen her real face before, Lu Chen might have been tempted to tip her a spirit stone just for entertainment.
Beyond that, Qianqian Sparrow Song was a master at riding the waves of trending topics.
“Let me share a little secret with everyone: Our Electric Eel Adventure Group, the Dragon Seeker Group, and the up-and-coming Primordial Star Vault Group on the Dawn Route were the top three in the same flight exam at Seawalker Port. We’ve forged deep bonds of battle, and if all goes well, tomorrow we’ll see the Leonin arrive at Mistsea Star. Their captain may be weak, but he’s incredibly handsome!”
Handsome is fine, but why call me weak? Lu Chen was speechless.
Gloria, like a cat catching the scent of fish, edged closer, deliberately pinching Lu Chen’s handsome cheek with an earnest look. “Handsome is a subjective judgment; weak is an objective fact.”
Lu Chen snorted and gave her a casual shove, sending Gloria stumbling back.
“You tanky succubus, you’re blocking the stream!”
Gloria steadied herself, then her eyes widened in shock. Lu Chen’s hand had landed on her chest…
She cautiously lifted her collar and checked the bracelet hidden against her skin—thankfully, it was still there.
Relieved, she turned to tease Lu Chen. “How did that feel? Before I transformed into the Scorpion Woman, you’d never have dared touch me…”
Lu Chen replied irritably, “The cockpit’s so cramped and your chest so…large, it’s hard not to touch it. If I’m a pervert, you’d better keep your distance.”
Ellie shivered, pricking up her ears to listen in.
Gloria clapped her hands. “Glad you admit it! At your age, losing interest in normal women is a sickness—you need help.”
Lu Chen couldn’t even be bothered to argue. In his past life, he’d seen too many little fairies to be interested in ordinary human women anymore.
Still, Gloria really was…soft.
He glanced at the barrage of comments in the live stream. Most of the viewers were Skoll fans or civilians from the Empire or Federation longing for the adventurer’s life, spamming:
“Skoll is number one in the world!”
“Not as good as Skoll’s electric cannon!”
“The Electric Eel threw the exam!”
At least, it was helping shift the attention away from him.
Just then!
A black, horned ship, level forty, approached, looming over the Electric Eel.
A minotaur leaped down from the sky, landing on the Electric Eel’s fishing deck—
Right in the center of the live stream feed!
It was an armored exoskeleton shaped like a giant axe, tall and bare-chested, with a massive, entirely un-evolved bull’s head. Maybe it was incomplete evolution, maybe atavism, or perhaps just a minotaur mask…
Sensing the minotaur’s formidable level forty cultivation, Skoll, who was fishing at the prow, felt a chill run down his spine.
He kept his head down, pretending not to notice.
But the minotaur clearly came prepared, standing beside the female streamer and loudly declaring to the camera:
“If everything this woman says is true, the Primordial Star Vault team must be watching this stream.”
Lu Chen was taken aback—was he being called out like this?
The minotaur continued, “Captain Lu, you’ve been at sea for a month and racked up ten thousand adventure points. You must feel invincible, right? I’m Entila, captain of the Minotaur Adventure Group. I set out just a month before you, and I’ve already scored fifty thousand points! Sadly, I’m not as good at collecting medals, not as handsome, not as famous, not as appealing to women as you. Here’s my challenge: if you dare come to Mistsea Star, I’ll blow up your junk ship, snatch your two women, torment them before your eyes, and grind your bones to dust. It’s not personal—I just want the association’s evaluators to see what matters in this universe: looks or strength. My new adventure points depend on you!”
A torrent of taunts and threats left Gloria laughing as she leaned into Lu Chen.
“See? Your handsome face is asking for trouble. Shall we turn this minotaur into bait?”
Lu Chen’s eyelids drooped. He felt like he’d encountered a lunatic.
He began to search online for news about the Minotaur Adventure Group.
Surprisingly, the group had only earned three thousand points in their first month at sea, but in just over two months, they’d soared to fifty thousand! Yet, the reports didn’t mention any specific adventure events.
This left Lu Chen puzzled.
But one thing was clear: the Minotaur Group was not to be underestimated. They might not be driven by jealousy but instead were deliberately provoking him to come to Mistsea Star—or had an entirely opposite motive.
Suddenly, Lu Chen spotted another piece of news—
Just half a month ago, the Minotaur Group had encountered a reconnaissance ship from the Guernica Beastmaster Corps. The ship was likely there to assess the minotaurs’ strength, but a conflict broke out, and the Minotaur Group was utterly defeated. They later applied to join Guernica but were rejected…
Lu Chen didn’t know the full details, but it was certain this matter was tied to the Guernica Beastmasters.
And the Minotaur Group was the reason he’d received a risk warning.
Which meant, for now at least, that the Primordial Star Vault was likely no match for them.
“Since the minotaur isn’t biting on simple bait, we’d better try something else.” Lu Chen shrugged, unruffled.
As he searched the local star systems for new bait, he quietly tinkered with his fly-shaped drone.
He intended to turn this little device into a weapon that could cripple enemy flight-control systems.
The minotaur had to die.
Gloria scampered off to giggle with Ellie.
“See? Our captain’s riled up now…He’s so adorable when he’s serious!”
…
After finishing with the drone, Lu Chen took a shower and returned to the lounge table.
Ellie brought him red tea and reminded him, “Captain, there’s some commotion on Mistsea Star.”
Lu Chen picked up his cup and immediately opened the Helium Flash Web.
He found the Mistsea Star section and checked the trending live feeds.
There was a delay of several hours…
He clicked through several popular recorded clips.
He saw a streaming yacht—clearly for influencers—illegally entering the deep-sea zone, attempting to net a white-bearded whale.
The result?
A giant white-bearded whale swallowed the entire vessel!
The Anglers’ Alliance patrol ship, having received word, immediately pursued the whale, attempting to rescue the influencer by using mild electric shocks, pepper spray, and emetics and laxatives—but none of it worked.
In the end, to save the influencer quickly, they had no choice but to blast a laser straight through the whale’s skull, haul the giant up, cut it open on the spot, and finally rescue the trembling livestreamer from its belly.
Yet the influencer showed no gratitude for the emergency rescue; instead, she demanded ownership of the whale, claiming she’d used her own body as bait to catch it. If the Anglers’ Alliance refused, she threatened to expose them to her billion-strong followers, vowing that neither she nor her sisters, nor their husbands and relatives, would ever spend a cent on Mistsea Star again…
The patrol promptly tossed her back into the sea as whale bait.
The scene was utterly absurd.
Another master angler’s ship also met with misfortune.
This renowned imperial angler, equipped to the teeth, had “Amphibious—Never Returns Empty” emblazoned on his pro fishing vessel.
He seemed to have truly tracked the elusive Shadow Whale!
Ignoring the Anglers’ Alliance patrol’s warnings, the angler pressed into Mistsea Star’s inner fishing grounds, only to be swatted out of the atmosphere by a mysterious giant whale’s tail!
His ship shattered, the emergency pod was pierced by a white-bearded whale’s dorsal fin beyond the atmosphere, and the angler plunged into the Mistsea.
Yet, astonishingly, when his vessel was destroyed, none of the nearby ships’ radars detected any trace of a white whale.
Lu Chen’s heart skipped a beat.
“The Shadow Whale!”