This is really not mechanical ascension

```

"What is this…"

Whoosh!

The sound of wind breaking roared as three more mechanical arms attacked from both sides. The surroundings were too dim, causing Ma Wu not to notice Li Ming's mechanical arms behind him at first.

Thud!

His arm was directly penetrated by a drill, emitting a piercing scream. The other two mechanical arms locked one of his legs with their cross pincers, and then Li Ming powered up from behind, leaping up like a spider, dragging Ma Wu along with him.

The process was fluid, some people at the corner of the alley stopped in their tracks, looked into the alley with puzzled expressions, but could see nothing due to the darkness. They were soon distracted by a woman soliciting customers.

On the rooftop, Ma Wu, who had been confident of victory during the day, now lay on the ground like a dead dog, his chest heaving drastically, covered in a pool of blood.

Only half of his two arms remained, the intense pain turned his face pale, but the metal saw blade spinning and buzzing close at hand stopped him from making any sound.

He had stronger endurance than Wang Bo, and barely managed to speak, "Who are you, Wild Dog Gang? Or Blood Rose? We haven't trespassed each other's territory for a long time, do you really want to start a war?"

These two names represented two other underworld forces in Silver Grey City, constantly at odds with the Fierce Tiger Gang.

Li Ming rifled through his intelligent terminal and personal belongings, finding nine hundred Star Coins in the wallet, along with a metal short blade.

[Gore Short Dagger: An unexceptional dagger, forged from steel.

Control Conditions: 2 points of metal energy.

Control Effect: Close combat - Beginner

Control Ability--Puncture: A rapid strike, adding 20% speed.]

This close combat ability seemed interesting to Li Ming as he glanced at it.

Ma Wu couldn't even get a chance to use it since Li Ming struck too fast.

"How many people know about Li Changhai's incident?" Li Ming asked.

"You…" hearing this question, Ma Wu's pupils suddenly constricted, staring blankly at the bandaged man. Coupled with that slightly familiar voice, an incredible thought surfaced in his mind.

"Is it you!?" He couldn't think of anyone else who would know about this other than Li Ming.

However, the terrifying strength of his opponent, and those mechanical arms that couldn't be integrated into one's body without sophisticated mechanical augmentation technology, was beyond belief.

"Damn Wang Bo, got yourself killed because of you!" he cursed in his mind. Could this be the guy Wang Bo bullied into dropping out of school?

The decisiveness and ruthlessness of the attack even he felt was unmatched.

"I am asking you a question." Li Ming squatted down, placing his foot on Ma Wu's wound, "If you dare make a sound, I'll slice off your flesh piece by piece, each no thicker than one millimeter."

Ma Wu's temple throbbed, veins popping, teeth clamped down hard, "Quite a few people know, let me go, I can help you cover it up."

"Quite a few people know?" Li Ming's eyes narrowed, "Who are they? What are their last names, their first names, where do they live, what are their identities? Make it clear."

Ma Wu's expression solidified; Li Ming's foot pressed down harder, the pain nearly preventing him from thinking.

Li Ming pressed on, "Since quite a few people know, does the money I gave you have to be shared? How is it divided? What's the share for each person? How much should you get?"

"Who made this plan? Where? At what time?"

Ma Wu's pupils were filled with blood vessels, mouth opening and closing, yet unable to speak.

"It seems, indeed, not many people know." Li Ming eased his foot off, Ma Wu gasped for air, looking at Li Ming as if he were a demon, fear in his heart reaching its peak.

Hardly anyone knew; he himself found out by chance. But if he told the truth, he would inevitably be silenced.

```

However, the difficulty of dealing with Li Ming was beyond his imagination. Under the intense pain, it was nearly impossible for him to concoct a perfect logical loop.

"Let, let me go..." he pleaded, as he saw Li Ming lift his foot again, his eyes almost shrouded in despair.

"Do you want to die in extreme pain, or with just a blink of an eye?" Li Ming asked leisurely, "How did Li Changhai die?"

Quickly, Li Ming cleaned out Ma Wu, decisively slit his throat, and smashed his head in the same manner.

"It really wasn't them?" Li Ming frowned, confirming from Ma Wu that the Fierce Tiger Gang knew nothing about Li Changhai's death, simply thinking he had been killed by a car accident.

But Li Ming knew this couldn't possibly be true. The only answer was that the secrets Li Changhai carried with him led to his death.

The reason Ma Wu knew about this was solely because a relative of the intermediary Li Changhai had dealt with blabbed about the incident after having too much to drink the other day.

The other party didn't care at all, while Ma Wu took it to heart.

"They wouldn't wipe out all traces, would they?" Li Ming worried, but then shook his head. If they had wanted to act, they would have done so already, unless he touched something he shouldn't have and they found out about it.

Setting that matter aside for now, there were still over ten thousand Star Coins in Ma Wu's cyber network, and it was definitely impossible to transfer that money openly and aboveboard.

However, Li Ming had just learned of another method—Black Hole Network.

That was the dark side of the interstellar network, where many illegal transactions took place. Due to its special nature, it wasn't afraid of scrutiny; one could register simply by knowing the web address, with no need for real-name authentication.

Once the webpage was closed, all traces would vanish without a trace.

Over the years, the credibility of the Black Hole Network was as solid as the interstellar network.

Opening Ma Wu's intelligent terminal and entering a series of web addresses, he was quickly redirected to a webpage filled with a bloody atmosphere. Following the prompts, he soon registered an account.

He transferred Ma Wu's money into his own Black Hole Network account first, then moved it to his own Li Ming account in less than two seconds.

However, while transferring money in was easy, transferring it out was difficult. The monitoring authorities could easily trace the money back to its source; laundering money from the Black Hole Network required a fee of 40 percent.

Additionally, the cost of items sold in the Black Hole Network was far higher than market price, even for non-contraband items, not to mention the illegal ones.

He briefly browsed the goods—there were far too many, encompassing various weapons, addictive substances, gene seeds, and even interstellar species for sale.

It also supported posting bounties, but Li Ming couldn't access the bounty section for now, as bounty hunters required a referral for registration.

"There's quite a lot of metal materials, I'll research them later..."

Interestingly, he found some conversation messages in Ma Wu's Black Hole Network account that seemed quite intriguing...

"Pickup... human trafficking... delivery..." Li Ming's eyes flashed as he noted down the relevant information.

He also didn't overlook the two thousand from Wang Bo, sweeping through and ensuring that no obvious traces were left behind.

"It's time to head back."

The night fell with deadly precision, his mission completed.

Li Ming followed the same path back home, arriving before dawn, and the clothes he wore today were all thrown into the high-temperature furnace and turned to ashes.

Li Changhai often rolled up parts manually, so naturally, he had such equipment.

After using various abilities and traveling a long distance for an extended period, he felt dizzy in the eyes. Plugging in the security chip, he lay down in bed in a daze.

He was awakened early in the morning, as dawn broke, by the voice of Xiao Huang.

"Master, Yang Boming is knocking on the door."

"Old Yang is back?" Li Ming rubbed his temples and, seeing Old Yang's anxious face on the screen, got up to open the door.