Chapter 415: The Slowest Member!
Translator: ryuxenji
Editor: H2dH2mr
“Ah!” The spectating students suddenly cried out in surprise, because behind Qiao Ting, three more mecha had appeared — Lingtian No.3, Lingtian No.6, and Lingtian No.7. It was Wu Jiong, Xie Yi, and Lin Zhong-qing! After receiving Ling Lan’s orders, they had gathered together and then raced desperately towards Qiao Ting’s coordinates to carry out the tactic they had agreed upon from the start. They would use tactic number two, that is, the one they had named the ‘Swarm Tactic’ to pull Qiao Ting off his high horse.
As they were rather far away from Qiao Ting’s location, even though they had engaged all the engines on their mecha to fly at high speed, they were still the third batch to arrive.
At this time, following the departure of Zhao Jun, Luo Lang, and Li Yingjie, the Lingtian battle team only had six people left on the field.
Meanwhile, in another direction, a mecha was running speedily over the ground. When he saw on his screen that all his remaining teammates on the field had already arrived at the spot Boss Lan had pointed out, he was very frustrated. “F*ck, they’ve all arrived! I’m actually the last one!”
He was Lingtian No.2, Qi Long. Originally, his position was actually even closer than Lin Zhong-qing’s group to Qiao Ting’s coordinates. However, as a lover of close-combat, in order to increase the close-combat abilities of his mecha, Qi Long had asked Chang Xinyuan to modify some local aspects of his mecha, sacrificing a portion of the mecha’s speed. For this reason, he had ended up lagging behind to be the one and only member yet to arrive.
“There’s still 3 kilometres from here to my destination. Based on my mecha’s speed, I should arrive there three minutes later.” Once again checking against the new coordinates Boss had sent, Qi Long found that he would soon arrive. His tense expression eased and he wiped the sweat from his forehead, continuing to pilot his mecha forwards.
However, he had not gone far when the A.I. of his mecha sounded a warning, alerting him of the presence of an unidentified flying object 3 kilometres away on his radar. Looking towards that unidentified flying object, Qi Long could not stop himself from cursing his luck. Apparently, that mecha had been diagonally to the rear of his position. If he had just been a tad bit faster, he might have crossed paths with the other without either of them being the wiser.
Qi Long’s gut feeling was that this was certain to be a Leiting mecha. When he zoomed in to check, it was just as he expected. That mecha had also noticed Qi Long, and just as if he had been pumped up with stimulants, the opponent accelerated to charge in Qi Long’s direction. As things were, Qi Long could no longer avoid the other even if he had wanted to. Qi Long could not help but swear silently, “F*ck, I’m just so bloody unlucky!”
Qi Long was not afraid that he could not match the Leiting member; he just really wanted to rush over to Qiao Ting’s area as soon as possible so his team could lay siege on Qiao Ting with as much firepower as possible, thus carrying out his boss’s second plan to the best of their abilities. As such, he did not want to waste time fighting with other Leiting members. However, since he could not avoid it now, although Qi Long was rather disgruntled, he still drew his weapon and made proper preparations for battle.
Frankly, there was a reason why that opponent mecha had become so excited at the sight of Qi Long. He had actually met Wu Jiong, Lin Zhong-qing, and Xie Yi’s three-man mecha column first, but as clever as he was, he knew that he was absolutely no match for three opponents, so he had turned without hesitation to flee. Honestly, when he had made that decision, he had not really believed that he would be able to escape the opponents’ group attack. However, unexpectedly, the opponents acted like they had not noticed him, showing no signs of pursuing him to kill him. Instead, they merely continued flying rapidly in the direction they had initially been headed towards.
Even as the Leiting mecha rejoiced at his luck, he could not help but be a little curious, wondering what exactly those three Lingtian mecha were up to. Just as he was debating whether or not to follow them in secret, he actually discovered another mecha coming from another direction. This mecha was also a Lingtian mecha, and the direction it was heading in was the same as the three mecha before it.
He may not dare to confront three mecha, but one mecha alone, and just an advanced mecha like his as well? The Leiting member believed that he was sure to win. He thought to himself that he may perhaps be able to find the answer he sought from this lonesome Lingtian mecha.
Very soon, the two mecha were facing each other. Unlike the other, Qi Long did not have a beam gun in one hand and a beam saber in the other. Instead, he only carried a giant sword made of steel. Due to the weapon’s great size and weight, Qi Long’s mecha seemed incredibly clumsy and slow, and its speed naturally would be no match for the Leiting mecha’s.
Qi Long did not mind the decreased speed of his mecha. A worshipper of Boss Lan, he had also learned to love fighting with steel-made giant cold weapons. Thus, in the Lingtian Battle Clan, he was the only one who, like Ling Lan, chose to use cold weapons in battle. And just like Ling Lan, he also wielded these cold weapons with great proficiency.
Seeing that the Lingtian participant was using a giant cold weapon which slowed his entire mecha down significantly, the Leiting member could not help but view the other with contempt.
Although giant cold weapons had greater destructive power than heat-based weapons, their heavy weight and massive size prevented mecha from attacking at high speeds. If both combatants were slow-moving close-combat mecha, perhaps these weapons might have some astounding effect, but against speed-type mecha, they were pretty much useless because they would be easily dodged by the opponent.
And this Leiting member just so happened to be piloting a speed-type mecha. Speed being one of his primary strengths, a slow and clumsy close-combat mecha would never be able to hit him. This was why he looked down on Qi Long, but at the same time, he was delighted at bumping into a mecha weak against his own. The victory of this encounter was sure to be his.
Now more confident, the Leiting member charged forwards with his beam saber and beam gun. As soon as Qi Long entered the attack range of his beam gun, he pulled the trigger without any hesitation, sending a cascade of beam energy at the opponent. Since the opponent lacked speed, these barrage of beam shots should be able to hit the other. Once the other’s beam shield ran out of power, he would be able to clinch the victory of this fight even before the other could get close.
After a round of frenzied shooting, it was unclear whether the opponent was just too lucky or if his shooting had been off the mark, but the Leiting member found to his great surprise that none of his long-range attacks had caused any damage to the opponent …
“F*ck, why are my hands so stiff today?” The Leiting member was rather annoyed. Still, he did not think much of it, merely figuring that his hands had not warmed up yet and so had lost their normal accuracy. He saw that his beam gun was not doing any good, plus the two of them were about to enter close-combat range anyway, so he put the beam gun back to its original place. Then, he focused on driving his mecha forwards at Qi Long with his beam saber in hand.
“Heh, perfect.” Qi Long was just growing frustrated at his mecha’s lack of speed, worried that the opponent would keep up the long-range attacks and choose to keep his distance. If that had happened, he would have been stuck in a stalemate with the other, and this match would become a battle of endurance to see whose power would run out first. And this was something that Qi Long absolutely did not want to see happen.
Qi Long was tangled up in worry inside, but when he found that the opponent was not doing as he had expected but rather taking the initiative to attack instead, he was overjoyed. As soon as the opponent was within close-combat range, Qi Long believed that he would definitely be able to finish off the other within a matter of seconds.
The speed of the Leiting member’s incoming beam saber was very fast — the light and quick sword allowed the opponent to stab out several times in just one second. The spectators could only see Lingtian’s mecha being surrounded by the light of the beam saber in an instant …
No one believed that this clumsy Lingtian mecha could completely evade so many beam saber attacks — everyone felt that he would at least be hit several times. Even the attacking Leiting member believed so in his heart. Whenever his beam saber struck the opponent, the power of the opponent’s beam shield would be drained, and as soon as the power of the opponent’s beam shield ran out, the very next second would the opponent’s last.
However, the subsequent scenario went beyond everyone’s expectations. The weighty giant steel sword which everyone originally believed would slow the Lingtian mecha down actually produced a streak of layered images within the span of a second. And then, the violent sounds of collisions rang out …
These sounds made alarms ring in the Leiting member’s mind. They were not the sounds of a beam shield’s power being drained, but was the sound of something solid hitting another solid object. He was just about to pull back to see what was going on when … the giant blade which had been shrouded by afterimages suddenly disappeared from his sight completely!
An unprecedented sense of danger sparked in the Leiting member’s mind. Frightened, he piloted his mecha to move back swiftly, but it was too late. He only saw a cold light flash across his eyes, and immediately after, he felt his mecha being struck by a tremendous force. The tremendous force threw his mecha out of his control, and it began to fall backwards. Besides that, the tremendous blow had also created large vibrations which were so strong that his shock-dampening devices inside his cockpit were all ineffective. He felt a sharp pain in his chest and a mouthful of blood shot out of his mouth …
Before he could recover from the pain, another forceful blow struck his mecha again. This time, the blow struck his cockpit directly. The horrifying blow dealt great damage to the already weakened cockpit whose defence was at its lowest point. The operator inside felt as if a mountain had crashed on top of him; his vision turned black. By the time he was conscious again, he found that he was already back at the login point of the virtual world. He quickly browsed through the notifications he had received from the mainframe and found that the mainframe had declared him dead and kicked him out of Mecha World around 10 seconds ago. Now, he could only wait for the death penalty period to pass before he could apply for a new trainee mecha and start anew.
“The opponent’s physique is absolutely at the level of a monster,” commented the Leiting member with a rueful smile. Although it looked like they were each operating their respective mecha to fight, in truth, the actions executed by the mecha would be fed back to the operators themselves. For the opponent to be able to pull off such terrifying attacks with that giant cold weapon and bear the feedback force generated by it, his physical constitution must definitely be extremely aberrant …
Having finished off his opponent, Qi Long happily slung the giant steel sword back on his mecha’s back. Then, without delay, he continued to use his damnable speed to rush as fast as he could to his destination. From start to end, this fight had still wasted three minutes of his time 1 . If only he had not bumped into the other, he would have already arrived at his destination …
Even though Qiao Ting had obtained victory here, he was not very happy. He was very afraid that by the time he got there, the fighting would already be over. Regardless of whether Qiao Ting had been finished off by his teammates or if his teammates had been wiped out by Qiao Ting instead, either outcome would make him very unhappy.