Chapter 365: The Owner of the Giant Sword!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
With tacit understanding and rapport, the team members got into their positions. With Gao Jinyun as point, they formed a diamond array, the beam guns in their right hands raised in unplanned synchronicity. In Mecha World, every time they fought, they had always worked together this way. Habit became nature — in the real world, in this first real battle, all of them chose to fight using this formation they were most familiar with.
"Fire!" shouted Gao Jinyun, taking the lead in pulling the trigger of his beam gun.
Six beams were fired altogether at the enemy mecha — if this were Mecha World, up against the mecha in the game system, at least one or two of their beams would have hit their target. But right now, the opponent they were up against was an advanced mecha warrior with a wealth of battle experience. Facing off against this type of straightforward beam shots, the veteran enemy mecha operator could dodge all six shots easily.
The opponent executed some graceful Z-shaped footwork, evading five of the shots in an instant. The only one he could not dodge was the shot by Gao Jinyun, because Gao Jinyun had fired his shot based on predictive movement trajectory. This was considered one of the more advanced techniques of intermediate mecha operators — he had calculated the reactions the enemy might make and then fired at a position the enemy was likely to move into to evade. Thus, the enemy mecha did not manage to evade Gao Jinyun's shot.
After evading five of the shots, the enemy mecha found that one beam was bloody irritatingly shooting at the position he had evaded into. As dodging required some adjustments, it was impossible to dodge once more, so the enemy mecha instantly activated its beam shield to bear the brunt of Gao Jinyun's beam attack. After that, it leapt aggressively at them, prepared to finish off these small fries at close range.
Seeing their first attack dodged so easily by the enemy, some of the team members could not help but become flustered. Gao Jinyun yelled, "Continue shooting!"
This cry calmed the team members down instantly. They listened to their leader and pressed down forcefully on the firing button in their hands. Beams poured in a torrent from the muzzles of their guns, hurtling towards the enemy mecha ...
This round of frenzied attacks was effective, causing the enemy mecha to become wary and choose to dodge, stopping his frontal attack. He could see that although this group of intermediate mecha's behaviour seemed rather green, their teamwork and rapport were unusually good. This frustrated him, and in the end, he could only choose to dodge.
Gao Jinyun's team witnessed as the enemy mecha took several back leaps while evading, swiftly pulling away from them. In the blink of an eye, the enemy mecha had been swallowed by the night, disappearing without a trace.
Seeing this, Gao Jinyun lowered his beam gun in confusion. Based on the opponent's abilities, no matter how fiercely they attacked, they would have been merely delaying the inevitable. If the opponent had wanted to push forwards anyway, he would have been able to, although that would have damaged the other's mecha somewhat ...
Could it be that the enemy was afraid of his mecha being damaged without there being anywhere to conduct repairs? Thus, worried that this would then affect him in combat later on, he had chosen to retreat? Gao Jinyun felt that this was a likely possibility. After all, this was their home territory.
"Third Elder Brother, I can't believe we actually sent him running. So that's all there is to an advanced mecha ..." commented one of the clueless team members.
"How could that be? If he really wanted to finish us off, he would have been able to achieve it with just some minor price. The opponent decided to avoid the confrontation probably because he did not want to pay anything ..." rebuked Gao Jinyun. When he mentioned 'not wanting to pay any price', a flash of insight passed through his brain and his initial confusion was suddenly given an answer. He shouted anxiously, "Everyone turn on your radar! The enemy could still be here ..."
He had barely finished speaking when Gao Jinyun sensed a strong force rushing at them from his right side. His mecha was blaring an alarm as soon as it picked up the attack — even as Gao Jinyun yelled for his team members to run, he quickly operated his mecha to shove and kick aside two of his team members with a hand and a leg respectively.
A tremendous 'boom' rang out and the beam that had appeared so suddenly struck the activated beam shield of Gao Jinyun's mecha. Gao Jinyun saw his mecha's energy block exhaust half of its power to resist this attack and found himself both shocked and distressed.
It looked like the power of the advanced mecha's beam gun was significantly higher than theirs as intermediate mecha. If an intermediate mecha's beam gun struck another intermediate mecha's beam shield, it would at most take off 20% power from the energy block of the shielding mecha ... there was no way so much power would be drained by just one shot like this. Gao Jinyun knew that if he was hit once more, his mecha's power would bottom out. If that happened, he would only be able to helplessly await death.
Gao Jinyun had yet to get over his fright when the enemy attacked once more. However, this time, because the companions by his side had already dodged clear, Gao Jinyun no longer needed to just take the enemy's attack by force as before to protect them. Although Gao Jinyun was only an intermediate mecha warrior, his control skills were still very solid and the best in his team. He operated his mecha to execute a figure-8 dodge, and the beam shot by just like that ...
However, this was just an attack the opponent was using to fool Gao Jinyun — just as Gao Jinyun evaded the beam, he heard his team members cry out in horror in the team comms, "Leader, watch out!"
Some of the team members with faster reflexes were pulling on the triggers of their beam guns rapidly, shooting desperately at the skies above him, as if attempting to prevent something ...
Gao Jinyun felt a sense of alarm. Right then, he could finally feel the threat coming down on him from above his head. He rapidly turned his mecha's vision to look up and saw that the enemy who had vanished earlier was now right above his head, swinging a gleaming cold weapon down on him mercilessly.
If he had not moved from his current position, it would not have been impossible to avoid this attack, but his mecha was already in motion from trying to evade that second beam attack. Due to the problem of inertia forcing the completion of the motion, Gao Jinyun was unable to instantly stop his mecha to make an emergency change in direction and execute a new evasion manoeuvre. In other words, the present Gao Jinyun could only helplessly watch his mecha get cut down by the enemy.
Right at this critical moment, Gao Jinyun clenched his teeth and resolutely turned the defensive value of his beam shield up to its maximum. Even though beam shields had terrible defence against cold weapons, at this moment, Gao Jinyun could only gamble on this.
The cold weapon was about to strike Gao Jinyun's mecha when a loud 'clang' rang out. Gao Jinyun reflexively closed his eyes, waiting for the intense pain of severe injury to register with his body, but he soon found that he was feeling nothing at all.
With lightning speed, Gao Jinyun opened his eyes, only to see that the advanced mecha bearing down on him earlier was now already 10 or so metres away from him. Right then, the opponent had his head lifted slightly and was looking up at the air to the right of Gao Jinyun. The cold weapon in his hands that had almost slashed Gao Jinyun had been broken into two pieces. The break in the weapon was flat and even, as if having been sliced clean through by some overpoweringly sharp weapon 1 .
In the next second, Gao Jinyun found the answer. Twenty metres or so on his left side, a giant steel sword about ten metres tall and one metre wide was planted diagonally into the ground. It looked like the opponent's cold weapon had been sliced in half by the flying interception of this big sword. Seeing this, what else was there for Gao Jinyun to learn? He was sure that he had been saved by the owner of the giant steel sword ...
Not too far away from the giant steel sword, Gao Jinyun also saw his three team members reacting just like the enemy mecha, staring dumbly at the sky above him to his right ...
Realisation settled in and Gao Jinyun quickly turned his view to that spot in the air to his right and saw a mecha hovering there. At a glance, Gao Jinyun could recognise that this was definitely a Federation ace mecha. As a mecha operator whose ambition was to become an ace mecha master, Gao Jinyun was naturally familiar with all the various types of ace mecha available within the Federation. And how could he not recognise this he was so obsessed over?
In his joy and surprise, Gao Jinyun could not help but be a little puzzled as well. As part of the ace mecha troops, the strongest force on planet Newline, why weren't they protecting the students at the most critical area at the dormitory district? Why would this ace mecha be here at such a non-central fighting area?
"Ace operator! From the military? No, there is no military marking on your mecha, only the emblem of Huaxia's First Academy. If I'm not mistaken, you should be a cadet ..." That enemy advanced mecha operator suddenly turned on its voice speakers and began speaking to the ace mecha in the air. His Chinese sounded extremely awkward to the ear, his tone strange and stiff — it was clear to see that he was not a Huaxian.
The ace mecha in the air did not say anything to enlighten the enemy mecha; he only stared stonily at the other.
The enemy mecha did not care that the ace operator had not replied. He was only excited at his unexpected great luck in locating the mission target so quickly. If he could eliminate the other, when he returned, he would become a national hero.
Perhaps emboldened by the honour and glory within his grasp, the enemy mecha became very talkative. He continued to say, "As far as we know, in your Huaxia First Men's Military Academy, the only one who has advanced to ace mecha status recently is someone called Qiao Ting, alias Thunder King. He's another aberrant prodigy after Ling Xiao and could be said to hold the hopes of the masses ... this person should be you!" At this point in his speech, the enemy mecha clicked his tongue regretfully, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, what a shame. There cannot be the emergence of another Ling Xiao in Huaxia."
Gao Jinyun's gaze flickered — was the ace operator who saved him truly the Thunder King? If so, he would truly be put in a tough spot. Gao Jinyun knew very well that when he had made the decision to follow Boss Lan, he would eventually go up against the Thunder King one day.
"Are you finished?" The ace mecha in the air finally spoke. His icy voice was so cold that it almost seemed like it could freeze everything in its surroundings.
When Gao Jinyun heard this voice, his irises contracted and his face was filled with disbelief ... but soon, his expression turned ecstatic, and his mouth involuntarily split open in a very wide grin. By the time Gao Jinyun managed to rein in his emotions to look up once more at the ace mecha in the sky, his eyes were filled with worship, respect, and admiration, along with joy and happiness that just could not be concealed.
"If I say that I'm finished, what are you going to do?" The enemy mecha's tone was mocking. An ace operator who had advanced within a military academy, who had never seen real battle nor shed any blood, was, in his eyes, just like a newborn chick, nothing to be afraid of. He believed that, with his decade of battle experience, finishing off such a rookie would be a breeze.
Moreover, while they had been speaking earlier, he had already sent news to his team that the Thunder King Qiao Ting had been sighted here. Thus, his team members should be rushing here soon as well. It turned out that his talkativeness had just been a cover for him to find a chance to send his teammates a message. At the same time, it also worked to buy time so that his teammates could hurry over.