Chapter 417: Prioritizing Personal Interests!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
Very soon, Qiao Ting had returned to where Zhao Jun and the others had set him up at the beginning. He noticed that Li Lanfeng had pulled quite a distance away from the other two Lingtian members, and a cold smirk tugged at the corners of his lips.
The reason he had not pressed his advantage but chose to run instead was that he did not want to fall into the opponents’ encirclement again. He hoped to destroy the formation of these Lingtian mecha with his speed. It should be said that, based on the current situation, Qiao Ting had achieved his objective.
Qiao Ting’s attitude had changed from his restless ambition of before to caution. The Lingtian Mecha Clan still had five members — if he was tricked by the opponents again and fell into effective self-destruct range, even he would not be able to confirm whether he would be able to hold off the frenzied actions of five mecha with this battered ace mecha of his. Qiao Ting had instigated this challenge fight to obtain unmatched glory; he did not want to become a stepping stone to fame for the Lingtian Mecha Clan. He absolutely would not allow such an outcome to occur.
His previous mistakes had already caused him incredible grief, thus Qiao Ting absolutely would not permit himself to commit the same mistakes. Therefore, Qiao Ting had deliberately plotted to turn the situation around to his advantage.
When Qiao Ting saw that he had already destroyed Lingtian’s encirclement formation, he consciously slowed his mecha, creating the impression that his mecha was running low on power, and waited for Li Lanfeng to approach.
With regards to the three Lingtian mecha chasing him, the special-class operator Li Lanfeng was undoubtedly the biggest threat. He wanted to eliminate Li Lanfeng, then the remaining two Lingtian advanced mecha would be not much threat at all.
Qiao Ting waited for Li Lanfeng to catch up to him, but reality made him frown. It turned out that, even as he decreased his speed, the other was also decreasing his speed. Only then did Qiao Ting notice that Li Lanfeng was constantly maintaining the distance he needed to attack him from long range.
“He really is a wily and difficult character to deal with.” Qiao Ting was very annoyed. Li Lanfeng had always appeared in their circles as a cunning and scheming persona, which led many to overlook his mecha piloting skills. Qiao Ting was no exception, but after today’s fight, Qiao Ting could clearly feel that the other was even harder to handle than Zhao Jun. This was because the other knew very well how to protect himself — it was very hard to trick or bewilder him with tactics since he was so proficient in them himself. Like right now, Qiao Ting had intended to draw the other in, but Li Lanfeng had prudently noticed his plan at soonest notice …
Knowing that his plan had failed, Qiao Ting could only give up on his original objective. He compared the distance between Li Lanfeng and the two other opponents behind him, and an idea emerged in his mind.
Qiao Ting did not hesitate to once again display that super technique of stopping suddenly and then flying inversely. His mecha abruptly switched directions to leap at Li Lanfeng, the beam saber in his hands stabbing right for the other’s cockpit. The whole attack screamed ‘if you won’t come to me, then I’ll come to you’.
Although Qiao Ting’s actions were rather sudden, the always vigilant Li Lanfeng was long prepared for this. Seeing the opponent pounce at him, Li Lanfeng decisively revved all his mecha’s engines, forcibly sending his mecha shooting several metres up into the air, narrowly dodging Qiao Ting’s savage attack. At the same time, the beam gun in his hand once again unleashed countless beams at Qiao Ting passing by below him.
Li Lanfeng thought that Qiao Ting would definitely turn back to attack him after this attack of his missed, but the following scene surprised Li Lanfeng greatly. Qiao Ting’s mecha suddenly twisted so that all the beams Li Lanfeng had shot struck air, and then, the very next second, Qiao Ting was already 100 metres or so behind him.
“Irregular Flicker!” Li Lanfeng, who had fought with his rabbit before, naturally knew that this was a hallmark evasion technique of ace operators. Li Lanfeng had initially been prepared for his beam attacks to miss. What surprised Li Lanfeng was that Qiao Ting actually chose to bypass him completely to expressly target Xie Yi and Lin Zhong-qing …
“Not good! I fell for it!” Li Lanfeng immediately figured it out. The objective of Qiao Ting’s attack this time was actually not him but Xie Yi and Lin Zhong-qing behind him. If Qiao Ting killed Xie Yi and Lin Zhong-qing without any trouble right before him, Li Lanfeng would definitely feel unworthy of all the trust the rabbit had in him.
In fact, whether or not the team members’ self-destructs could deal heavy damage to Qiao Ting depended, to a large extent, on Li Lanfeng running interference by bombarding Qiao Ting with long-range attacks. When designing the tactic, Ling Lan knew very well how large the gap between the team members and Qiao Ting was — if there was no expert coordinating with them to run interference, there was almost no chance for the team members to get close to Qiao Ting and self-destruct by themselves.
As such, the heavy responsibility of running interference on Qiao Ting fell to the one most proficient at long-range attacks who had also already advanced to special-class operator, Li Lanfeng. This was also why Li Lanfeng had been so careful to maintain his distance from Qiao Ting all this while.
Li Lanfeng naturally did not want to disappoint Ling Lan. Without having to think about it, he instantly followed Qiao Ting, the beam gun in his hand shooting countless beams at the other, hoping to cause enough trouble to Qiao Ting that he would give up on his attack.
“Clack, clack, clack!” Right then, Li Lanfeng suddenly felt the beams die out from his gun’s muzzle. He realised that the energy block of the beam gun was almost empty.
One misfortune comes in the wake of another 1 — unbelievably frustrated, Li Lanfeng knew that every second counted in the fight right now. He decisively pressed down a button on his control panel, and then a block-shaped object suddenly sprang out from a random slot on the waist of Li Lanfeng’s mecha to fly into the air.
Quicker than words could say, his mecha’s hands, which should have been unwieldy, performed nimbly at this moment to tug forcefully at the back of his beam gun. A block-shaped object fell out from the area, and at the same time, the other block-shaped object just happened to fly up to the level of the mecha’s chest. With a smooth grab, the mecha’s left hand caught the block-shaped object, and then with a flutter of the mecha’s fingers, the block-shaped object was instantly plugged into the back section of the beam gun, replacing the previous block-shaped object.
This seemingly extremely complicated series of actions was actually completed within the blink of an eye. Equipped with a new energy storage unit, the beam gun once again lit up and sent countless beams flying wildly at Qiao Ting.
Perhaps he was in too much of a hurry, or perhaps Li Lanfeng was not at all concerned whether or not he would hit his teammates with friendly fire right now, for the overwhelming cascade of beams rained towards Qiao Ting’s, Xie Yi’s, and Lin Zhong-qing’s mecha without distinction at this moment. At the sight, the audience’s hearts were in their throats. They were shocked and bewildered — could it be that this special-class mecha was willing to sacrifice his teammates for the sake of the ultimate victory?
“As expected, Li Lanfeng is a selfish person who prioritizes personal interest over all else. In order to obtain victory, he doesn’t care at all whether his teammates would die for no reason …” The Regiment Commander of the Wuji Mecha Clan, Han Yu, was also watching this match. When he saw Li Lanfeng’s current ruthless attack method, a mocking smile appeared on his face as he spoke to Wei Ji sitting beside him.
“He is an excellent strategist. In his opinion, everyone participating in this fight is working towards the goal of the ultimate victory. As long as victory can be assured, he does not care how many are sacrificed in the process. I thought you had already known this a long time ago, which was why you have been so wary of him all this time.” Wei Ji raised an eyebrow at Han Yu’s words. From the very first year they had met Li Lanfeng, he had already gotten a vague sense of Li Lanfeng’s style of doing things. Even though it was a rather heartless style, this character trait was undoubtedly perfect for a schemer. That was why Wei Ji did not hate Li Lanfeng like Han Yu did, and even respected him a little for it.
“Yes. It’s precisely because I know what kind of person he is that I could not trust him with Wuji’s future. I’m truly afraid that he will sell out Wuji completely one day for his own ends.” Having said all this, Han Yu’s eyes turned cold and forbidding. He was extraordinarily vigilant when it came to Li Lanfeng; he just could not shake the feeling that this person was filled with a bellyful of calculations featuring Wuji.
“Let’s not talk about his character. It seems we have underestimated his mecha control skills. Who knew he was this strong? That series of actions is not something any ordinary special-class operator can do,” commented Wei Ji with a sigh.
That rapid action of switching out the energy block of his beam gun had seemed so simple, but it was actually not easy. Mecha were mecha, after all. Even if one could control mecha like one’s own limbs, when it came to this sort of detailed control, many mecha operators would not be able to do as Li Lanfeng had done. Fine control was an extreme test of an operator’s abilities. From his control over these fine details, it could be seen that Li Lanfeng’s control had truly reached a level where man and machine were united as one. Only that way could he have carried off those actions so naturally.
“He was delayed for close to two years on advanced mecha warrior level. Looks like it was because of this.” Han Yu now finally understood why Li Lanfeng had persisted on not advancing to special-class operator for so long.
“This kind of person who is very clear on his own goals … would he really serve a newly established mecha clan loyally and obey the orders of a second-year?” After several seconds of silent contemplation, Wei Ji suddenly asked Han Yu.
It wasn’t that they did not want Li Lanfeng in their clan, but after spending a full three years on him, they had still been unable to get Li Lanfeng to serve Wuji with undying loyalty. This was also why Han Yu had no choice but to use some methods to suppress Li Lanfeng’s reputation within the clan while simultaneously fostering a new strategist to diminish Li Lanfeng’s importance to Wuji.
“Of course it’s impossible. He must have some motive for joining the Lingtian Mecha Clan. It’s just that we can’t tell what it is right now,” replied Han Yu with conviction. “At present, the Lingtian Mecha Clan will be happy to have two extra special-class mecha operators in the clan, greatly increasing the strength of their mecha clan. But in future, there’ll be a time yet when they’ll be crying. Li Lanfeng, that fellow … Hmph!” Han Yu had always thought badly of Li Lanfeng; he did not believe that Li Lanfeng would truly join the Lingtian Mecha Clan out of sheer kindness.
In battle, Li Lanfeng did not know that his previous clan’s leader, Han Yu, was casting all sorts of malicious speculation on the reasons behind his joining the Lingtian Mecha Clan. However, even if Li Lanfeng knew of it, he would merely have laughed it off. The ties and emotions between him and the rabbit were absolutely not something someone like Han Yu could understand.
Li Lanfeng’s unexpected ruthless actions stunned the spectating cadets and threw Qiao Ting into a dilemma at the same time. If he continued to attack Xie Yi and Lin Zhong-qing, he would undoubtedly receive the full force of Li Lanfeng’s wild barrage of beam attacks alone. In that case, although he would be able to eliminate two of the opposing team’s members, he might also end up with a certain degree of damage to his own mecha. Was this really worth it? Qiao Ting involuntarily hesitated at this time.