Chapter 408: Reversal!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
At this time, Lingtian No.7 was just like a ferocious beast which had broken out of its cage. Facing the more experienced Leiting No.9, he showed no hint of fear. The speed of his mecha's sprint did not slow down at all due to the emergence of the enemy — those with keen eyesight could even tell that Lingtian No.7 had actually become faster and nimbler than before.
Meanwhile, after preparing his weapons, Leiting No.9 saw Lingtian No.7 charging at him fearlessly. This move clearly carried a whiff of taunting — this made Leiting No.9 rather angry, thinking that he was being looked down on.
So that he would not lose in terms of force of presence, Leiting No.9 did not hesitate to send his mecha sprinting towards Lingtian No.7 as well. Both combatants chose to speed towards each other — about 10 seconds later, they finally entered the effective range of their respective long-range attacks.
The hearts of the audience were raised in suspense, all of them wondering which side would react faster and be the first to open fire. "Leiting is attacking." Now, from the looks of it, Leiting No.9 had more experience in attacking while running, thus managing to beat Lingtian No.7 to the punch. He aimed the beam gun in his right hand at Lingtian No.7 and pulled the trigger.
A powerful beam of energy burst out from the muzzle to hurtle wildly at Lingtian No.7.
"Ah, watch out!" In the audience, in contrast to the composure of the seniors, the new students as well as those who were concerned for the Lingtian Mecha Clan could not help but cry out.
Right then, the attention of the entire audience, both juniors and seniors, was focused on Lingtian No.7. If Lingtian No.7 could not find a way to handle this shot properly, whether or not he was hit, he would still be forced into a passive position. Then, it could be expected that Leiting No.9 would inevitably be the final victor in this clash. On the mecha battlefield, being the first to gain the upper hand would basically determine the final ownership of victory, unless the power gap between the opponents was really too wide.
"Alright!" The entire audience burst out in wild applause and cheering.
This was because Lingtian No.7 had handled the attack beautifully, leaving everyone speechless with amazement. Lingtian No.7 did not panic and choose to use his beam gun to fire back in an attempt to neutralize the other's attack, nor did he let himself be forced into a passive defensive position by swerving to avoid the opponent's attack. He had calmly controlled his mecha to execute an evasion manoeuvre, allowing that beam to brush past him mere millimetres from the outer shell of his mecha. The beam struck the ground and sent up a spray of dust and dirt, instantly making his figure hazy.
Seeing the other's figure suddenly being partly concealed by the dust and dirt in the air, Leiting No.9 paused for a beat but did not give up on his offence. He predicted the possible angles the opponent might dodge to and frantically shot a cascade of beams from his gun.
"Bang bang bang!" Consecutive gunshots sent even more dust and dirt into the air, and Lingtian No.7's figure was now completely obscured. The Leiting mecha found that its attacks were ineffective and only then did he begin to feel that something was not right. He immediately retreated, thinking to pull some distance away. While he could not be sure of the opponent's position, pulling a sufficiently safe distance away was one of the best ways of protecting oneself.
Unfortunately, he had still reacted too late. He had just mobilized his mecha when a shadow abruptly appeared on his left. By the time he could see clearly, he found that that Lingtian Mecha No.7 had already come up beside him. There was a cold flash of light, and the opponent's beam saber came at him from a position he could not block, stabbing in at a strange angle ...
"What's going on? How could he have appeared before me in an instant?!" Although Leiting No.9 could not believe what he was seeing, he still operated his mecha calmly. He pushed his mecha's engines to maximum power, attempting to evade at top speed and dodge this unexpected attack from the opponent.
Those who are closely involved cannot see clearly 1 — Leiting No.9 had not been able to see Lingtian No.7's movements, obscured by dust as the other was, but the spectating cadets could choose to erase all visual obstacles and had seen Lingtian No.7's actions without any obstruction. Just as Leiting No.9 had been using his beam gun to attack, Lingtian No.7 had suddenly performed a movement that could not be explained by normal logic. The strange and unsettling footwork he executed allowed a certain distortion to appear in the area around Lingtian No.7, and in the very next second, he had already appeared at the opponent's side, creating an illusory sort of teleportation effect.
"This is the nature-defying technique that advanced mecha warriors are most unlikely to master — Erratic Flicker!" Everyone was shocked; some cadets who recognized this technique could not help but exclaim.
Compared to the miscellaneous footwork that advanced mecha warriors practised, such as Figure-8 Step, Z-shaped evasion, or whatever else, this Erratic Flicker was a top-class technique which advanced mecha warriors dreamed about. To carry off the Erratic Flicker, one needed to be completely proficient in all of the basic steps, perhaps even to the point where they had become instinct. But this was still not enough — Erratic Flicker also required extremely high comprehension and perceptiveness. Without this type of innate intuition, no matter how thoroughly one mastered those basic moves, they still would not be able to convert these into the Erratic Flicker.
The evolved version of the Erratic Flicker was the Irregular Flicker 2 , which was an important milestone to advance to ace operator status. Consequently, in the world of mecha operation, there is this one saying — if you have mastered the Erratic Flicker, you basically already have half a foot inside the realm of ace.
Unfortunately, a majority of advanced mecha warriors were often unable to master this nature-defying technique. There were even many mecha operators who had entered special-class operator level who would not dare to say for certain that they had mastered this top-class skill. This was also why the number of ace mecha masters were so few. To a large extent, many excellent seedlings were wiped out on this point.
This was also something that could not be helped. If one was unable to master the Irregular Flicker, even if they were allowed to move on and pilot ace mecha, once they arrived at the battlefield, an operator who could not execute an Irregular Flicker was pretty much just there to die. Therefore, in the world of mecha operation, there was no such thing as making do. The advancement of each level had stringent requirements — an operator must achieve the regulated stats, or else they would never be permitted to advance.
Tang Yu saw this move of Lingtian No.7's, and his eyes once again shone with an unnatural brightness. If the principal had not already agreed to his request to take on another student, at this moment, he was likely to cast aside his earlier reservations and abandon one of his initially determined students just so he could take in this Lingtian No.7.
No matter how gifted a prodigy of mecha piloting was, if they did not have formidable intuition, their future development would also be hindered in the end by the barriers of advancement. For this Lingtian No.7 to be able to come so far, he must have already entered Mecha World at thirteen to train in mecha controls. By all calculations, for him to have mastered the heaven-defying Erratic Flicker in these 4 years' time, it was clear to see that his intuition and comprehension skills were truly outstanding. And this aspect was even more precious than his talent in mecha piloting, which was yet another reason why Tang Yu was greatly moved.
"Clang!" Mecha and beam saber collided violently. Leiting No.9 felt his mecha judder violently, and the lights in his cockpit dimmed for a moment before being restored to normal again almost instantly.
Experienced as he was, he could immediately confirm that he had been hit. His evasion manoeuvres had not helped him to escape the opponent's strange and sneaky attack. What's fortunate was that he had activated his mecha's beam shield even as he had dodged. Under the protection of the beam shield, the opponent's saber had not caused much damage to his mecha.
However, this did not mean that he was out of danger. Even though he was piloting his mecha in a swift retreat, the opponent was on his tail like a shadow. The other's beam saber was still viciously pressed to his mecha's cockpit, drastically whittling away the power of his beam shield. As soon as his mecha's beam shield ran out of power, that beam saber would pierce through his cockpit without mercy. At that time, he would certainly face death and dismissal from the field.
"Warning! Mecha's power only enough to hold out for 10 seconds. 10, 9 ..." The A.I. began to report the time frame left for the remaining power the mecha had. Leiting No.9 did not dare to gamble that the opponent's saber would run out of power before his beam shield. He could only accelerate further to try and distance himself from the opponent's unrelenting beam saber, as only then could he salvage the situation.
Just one move had been enough to turn the tables in this fight. Leiting No.9 had seemed to have grasped the upper hand at the start, but anyone with a discerning eye could now see that the one who was in a passive and desperate state was him and not Lingtian No.7.
"Who would have guessed that Lingtian No.7's close-range offensive capabilities would be so strong?" At this point, the spectating cadets could not help but sigh in awe. This was because, judging from the external appearance of Lingtian No.7's mecha and the equipment he carried, he was more inclined towards long-range attacks. This was also why the spectating cadets had believed that this would be an intense long-range battle at the very beginning.
The spectating students naturally did not know that this was because this Lingtian No.7 had been following a close combat maniac of a boss all this while. The long-range attackers in the team such as Lin Zhong-qing and Han Jijyun, after over a year of ruthless torment under Ling Lan's hands, had all seen their close-combat skills improve tremendously. Their close-combat standards were not much weaker than those actual close-combat mecha operators — it could even be said that they were even better in terms of close-combat reflexes.
It couldn't be helped — up against their boss, Lin Zhong-qing and Han Jijyun had had no chance at all to execute any long-range attacks. Boss Lan's speed was just too fast — no matter how much distance they put between them and their boss, their boss would have caught up to them in the blink of an eye to attack from close range. In this kind of situation, they could only weave around their boss in close range. This was also one of the reasons why Lin Zhong-qing and the others who favoured long-range attacks would have such high close combat standards — after so much torment, it was impossible for their close-combat skills not to become strong.
Under this desperate situation, Leiting No.9's forehead was already dripping with sweat. He revved the engine of his mecha in a frenzy, pushing it to the extreme. Not just that, his two secondary engines also began to roar. The mecha's engines suddenly revved beyond capacity, causing the mecha's speed to go up a notch. Lingtian No.7 did not seem to have taken this into consideration, his reaction a beat too slow. Leiting No.9 successfully pulled a distance away, escaping the threat of Lingtian No.7's beam saber ...
Leiting No.9 saw that he had managed to pull away, but before he could breathe out a sigh of relief, his mecha's A.I. suddenly emitted a jarring alarm. "Warning, evade! Warning, evade ...!" Shocked, Leiting No.9 looked at the indication on his mecha's screen. His mecha had actually been locked onto by the opponent's long-range weapon. The fine hairs on his body stood up as his fingers danced madly in an attempt to evade this great crisis.