Apocalypse Arrives: I Become a Powerhouse by Scavenging

After cleaning up the scene, the two of them split the spoils of war evenly.

Moira Lynch, meanwhile, used her spiritual power to locate the pirates’ hidden spaceship, which was not far from their location.

Upon inspection, Moira Lynch discovered the spaceship was loaded with valuables—piles of Ariel Crystal Stones and all sorts of priceless luxury items.

Obviously, compared to the previous group of pirates who hadn’t even had a chance to cause trouble, this group had arrived earlier. They had already gathered enough valuables and were preparing to flee.

If they hadn’t gotten greedy at the last second and brazenly abducted Kai York, they might have already left Ariel Planet and be living it up somewhere.

Such is life, full of unexpected twists.

"Where are we going next?"

Kai York had learned his lesson this time and didn’t act on his own again.

The two of them were sitting on the Black Wolf’s back.

Moira Lynch patted the Black Wolf’s furry back and gave it a command with her spiritual power. The next second, the Black Wolf took off, running swiftly in a certain direction.

「Meanwhile.」

A group of fully armed people appeared on Ariel Planet.

Whether by coincidence or not, their landing spot was the exact place where Moira Lynch and Kai York had first encountered the pirates.

One person from the group observed the surroundings before approaching the leader at the front. With a grave tone, he said, "Captain, there are faint traces of a battle here, but we estimate that over a hundred pirates were present."

A pirate crew of over a hundred isn’t large by pirate standards, but it’s definitely not small either.

Over a hundred people... even if they didn’t fight back and just let you kill them, it would probably take a few minutes of hacking.

But there were only faint traces of a battle here.

Moreover, they only saw bloodstains on the ground, but no bodies.

The leader, Blackmoon, crouched down to inspect the ground. After a moment, he said, "This area has been swept."

Although he didn’t know why the other party had done so, faint drag marks were still visible.

They cleaned up the battlefield but didn’t wipe away the bloodstains. The first thought that popped into Blackmoon’s head was, ’This is a rookie’s work.’

’But how could a rookie quickly take out a pirate crew of over a hundred?’

’Perhaps their side had a large number of people as well.’

’The team member just now said a hundred people, but he didn’t say all one hundred were pirates.’

Blackmoon, one of The Adventurer’s Guild’s S-rank adventurers, was here on orders from The Federation to investigate and eliminate the pirates on Ariel Planet.

The higher-ups’ orders were to rescue Ariel Planet from the pirates’ grasp with minimal losses, which was why they had dispatched a renowned S-rank adventurer like Blackmoon.

The mission was officially reconnaissance, but Blackmoon understood that The Federation wanted him to carry out a decapitation strike.

As long as he could eliminate the leader of the pirates who had come this time, the rest would fall into disarray and no longer be a threat.

However, decapitation strikes were never that easy to pull off.

Even for an S-rank adventurer like Blackmoon, completing this mission would require a comprehensive and meticulous plan.

Pulling himself back to the present, Blackmoon first observed the condition of the ground.

He figured that since the person hadn’t bothered to clean the bloodstains, they probably weren’t worried about being discovered. In that case, the place where they disposed of the bodies couldn’t be too far away.

With this in mind, he scanned the surroundings and soon spotted a patch of fresh earth, as if it had just been turned over by someone.

"You few, use your tools and dig down right here," Blackmoon commanded.

"Yes, sir!"

Because the ground had been recently dug up, the men had a very easy time of it.

A few shovelfuls later, the pirate corpses buried by Moira Lynch were exposed.

"Captain, they’re pirates."

Blackmoon’s expression didn’t change. He said, "Keep digging. Unearth all of them and see how many there are."

A dozen or so minutes later, the ground was fully excavated, and all the pirates in the pit were revealed.

"Captain, we’ve just counted. There are one hundred and eleven pirates in total. Based on facial recognition, we’ve confirmed they are a group active in The Kaelus Galaxy."

"The Kaelus Galaxy is adjacent to Ariel Planet. This group of pirates must have heard the news and came to get a piece of the pie," Blackmoon said.

The man nodded, then added, "Oh, and Captain, we also found that all their valuables seem to have been completely looted. We found nothing on them besides their Intelligent Brains, but those seem to be damaged. They’ve completely lost their ability to function."

Hearing his team member’s report, the corners of Blackmoon’s mouth slowly curved into a smirk. "It seems these pirates ran into a robber."

"Have Silas see if his talent can repair those Intelligent Brains."

"Can’t be done." The man shook his head. "We already had Silas take a look. The Intelligent Brains are too thoroughly damaged. The theory is that the pirates suffered a massive mental shock before they died, which directly caused partial nerve death and affected the Intelligent Brains themselves."

Hearing this, Blackmoon’s brows furrowed, and his expression grew serious. "A mental shock? On all of them?"

"Yes, all of them."

A mental shock capable of instantly affecting over a hundred people meant the attacker’s spiritual power must be incredibly strong. It was likely a spiritual-type talent.

"In addition, we detected the presence of Wind Element in the pirates’ wounds, as well as the claw marks of a beast, which we suspect to be a Battle Wolf."

"So we speculate that the assailant was either two people, or one person accompanied by a Battle Wolf."

Whichever it was, it pointed to one thing: the attacker was very powerful and extremely greedy.

After all, from what they had just seen, the person hadn’t even spared the teeth made of white Crystal Stone in the pirates’ mouths.

"I hope this person isn’t an enemy."

At that moment, the man spoke the thoughts of everyone present.

Setting aside the unknown attacker for a moment, just the Battle Wolf alone was not something they could afford to provoke.

If they encountered a Battle Wolf in the wild, their policy was to avoid it at all costs. If they truly had to fight a creature born for battle like that, only Blackmoon and a few A-rank adventurers would have a chance of survival. The rest could basically just close their eyes and wait for death.

Because it wasn’t a question of whether they could win, but whether they could escape.

"All right, bury them again," Blackmoon said. "Whether they’re friend or foe, what they’ve done so far is beneficial to us."

Blackmoon clearly wasn’t taking this matter to heart.

As an S-rank adventurer, he had seen his share of great storms and waves over the years.

Others saw the attacker’s power, but all he saw were flaws.

You can tell an author’s personality from their work.

And right now, these pirates were the work.