Chapter 188: Brewing Storm IV
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Sen Hai carefully observed the surrounding. He was piloting a Cosmic Flare but he remained cautious as ever. The MPA, the nemesis should have noticed their whereabouts after such major activity from the Black Coves. No way the Black Covers could remain invisible after making such a huge move. So every Black Covers flew out with vigilance as they headed for their mission, fearing to be snuck upon by the MPA.
This was exceptionally true since there had been rumors that their group stirred up members of the Sanctuary a while ago. Sadly he was not in the position to demand that bit of information, the hows and whys were nothing he could know.
The movement was so massive that both MPA and the Sanctuary would be utter fools if they never noticed it. I seriously do not get what this Instructor Hak from Group F had in his mind when he launched this. Sen Hai was from Group B, naturally he was not under Hak’s administration. He was transferred since there was an insufficiency in the work force.
Sen Hai would never know the pain Instructor Hak had to bear. It was challenging and stressful for Hak to find that needle from that haystack namely the galaxy, especially when the needle could hide and squeeze into other haystacks. If without the cooperation of local governments, finding F-58 would stay difficult as ever. Certainly Black Coves were influential enough to convince the government into assistance, the catch was however, if he were to seek assistance from them, he would have to hand them the visuals of F-58 to be publicized everywhere - that would obviously alert the MPA and the Sanctuary, which further escalated the complexity of the situation.
It would be less hassling if there was only the MPA, but there was the Sanctuary too, where their relationship started to worsen at an alarming rate. He knew the situation much better than Sen Hai, the so-called "conflict" between the Black Coves and the Sanctuary was not a mere scratch on the surface. The counterpart lost 4 of their combat squads, it had been rumored that they even lost an ace from the fight while the Black Coves suffered the first ever dead serious fatalities all these years! Such fight had never been the case when they fought the MPA. The Sanctuary would not be resting just yet obviously.
The leader is a f*cking donkey isn’t he? Did his brain shrink that day?
And now Hak is stuck in a sticky situation where he could not even reach out his limbs. Dammit, of all men, of all tasks, they picked this and they picked me! And this very task required tons of work forces, I did bring tons of work forces as mentioned but seriously they could not even get a change from the price.
The biggest bewilderment was the identity of this F-58 he used to instruct. He was actually a skeleton artisan? Well maybe he snatched a skeleton mech somewhere on the road but no matter what it was in reality, this F-58 would be the sole source of information on skeleton mechs and we got to get him.
Hak had been rather dreadful of F-58 due to his outstanding performance back in Black Coves, which made the instructor fascinated enough to presume him as the strongest pilot ever in his group, especially that extreme speed of his hands, impressive and terrifying! And that capture he attempted after that… It was a few seconds where they both exchanged moves but the fear was never-before-felt. The accurate calculation, the reasonable utilization of the situation, the potent capability in combats and the fearless decisiveness, combining these elements would make F-58 the greatest pilot ever!
Hak had been replaying the scene that night numerous times afterwards and there were quite a few parts which he could never comprehend. He tried imagining putting himself in the shoes of those men but the conclusion he obtained was depressing. If he was there, it was in fact, either captured or slaughtered. There was nothing better he could have acted.
Terrifying… Such a terrifying monster!
…
Sen Hai was still in the sky piloting Cosmic Flare. He could be pissed by Instructor Hak’s arrangement, Instructor Hak could have zero involvement to his career in the Black Coves, he still tried his very best to execute the orders. The discipline in Black Coves was something to be drilled in the heads of the men, so stern that it was unimaginable for people outside, which justified his curiosity over F-58’s sudden betrayal. How could he ever survive without the Texturizing Solution? Sen Hai’s heart felt all heated up the moment he reminisced that odd sensation where the solution covered every inch of his skin, opening up the pores . Texturizing solution, the silver liquid would strengthen his body by maintaining the balance between strength and flexibility of muscles, allowing them to have parallel growth without breaking the balance.
After he had assassinated the target of his greatest spite 3 years ago, he offered himself to Black Coves, body and soul as it was Black Coves that gave him every of these. Each day he grew stronger but also more in daze? Sigh, what am I thinking? Such boring thought, like stop it! Criticized himself, his focus went back to the surrounding.
Wait… His eyes went large as they glared at the space-warping mech on the screen.
Double Curved Steps?
Of course he recognized the step after all these years in the Black Coves! Ye Chong never expected that that application of the step in mech was not the creativity of those bodyguards under Mr. Robert, it was in fact a common technique among the Black Covers! It was merely that he stayed at the Black Coves so briefly that he never was exposed to these techniques.
Yes, that’s right! It had to be Double Curved Steps!
Sen Hai affirmed to what he saw. Double Curved Steps do not restrict on the size of the curves, but it had demands on the pace as well as the rhythmic sense of it which differ from the usual turning he saw on other mechs!
And he had pinpointed one more fact, where Double Curved Steps were the combat technique exclusive to the Black Covers. It was not really difficult but no way one could imitate the steps without proper tutorial.
F-58? Was that you?
The code sprung in his head. Uncontrollably his heart raced!
Did I hit the jackpot today? Did the lady luck smile at me?
Is that you? F-58! Is that you!? He would not want to spend more time on figuring things out. For someone who knew Double Curved Steps, other than our men, it had to be that F-58!
0.1 second lapsed and he made up his mind - to capture, alone!
Being inside the circle, he knew the rules well enough - if he were to ever inform the authority, he would not be sharing any credit of it. The inhuman competition between the groups was also something unimaginable to folks out there. The time when he and Instructor Hak headed out with other mates, all of them came back either wounded or killed and everyone from the Black Coves knew it. So, no reason he should inform the authorities! If such merit ever laid onto his hands, he would be flourished! More advanced techniques, more advanced mech, more advanced position! His eyes tightened.
The most important motivation to his one selfish attempt of taking this slice of credit was the mech. Clearly one could say that F-58 picked an extremely substandard, cheap mech to avoid the attention, namely Volt mech.
The logic behind this decisive factor was how F-58 would be a fish in the net disregarding his amazing skills, as long as he piloted that cheap mech, he would be no match to the Cosmic Flare. Sen Hai could also imagine a similar situation if Instructor Hak were to pilot this metal piece and failed to escape the grasp of his. The capabilities of a pilot in the field would be determined by the capabilities of the mech other than his own skills! Although he was aware that F-58 might possessed a skeleton mech, well, would he have the time to switch into that then?
No!
The idea flashed in his head as quickly as he flew towards the Volt mech like a shooting star, striking the name of his mech - the flare in the cosmos.
…
Ye was returning to the dojo. He was walking on the street under the invigilation of Shang who continuously provided feedbacks of the surrounding. As being well-aware of the situation, Shang who had been the talker behaved himself.
At least there was nothing strange going on. Once he stepped into September dojo, he would be alright!
"Ye!" Shang’s voice came abruptly, "There’s a Black Cover’s mech ahead, seemed to be engaged."
Engaged? In fight?!
Ye Chong’s heart skipped a beat. He recovered fast. If it was one single mech, he would be fine. Do we fight? Do I call Han Jia? Ye Chong was stimulated. Wait, they are fighting? If the Black Covers made it here, they must be here for me. Then why are they fighting? Were they warring with the MPA? His speculation was turned down by Shang immediately. It was not a MPA mech, rather it was a Volt mech.
Volt mech? That was just some junkish mech… Ye Chong was feeling odd.
The time taken for Ye Chong to get into the cabin of his mech was magically shorter compared to the other pilots. Whether there was the rope ladder to the cabin was not his concern, he climbed all the way up like a mutated ape. He rolled into Han Jia.
…
Weeeeee…
Wei Yuan was having fun making the acrobatic performance. Boom! He lost control as he began spinning.
He was not clear about the situation but he could deduce that his mech was crashed by some nonsensical driver! Utterly angered, he cursed, who the hell forgot his eyes when he piloted the mech? How the hell he got his license? He swiftly tapped a few switches, the engines were on. Volt jerked clumsily after a few tumbling in the air. The dizziness from the intense flipping lingered in his head.
Hmph. Sen Hai sneered. F-58 was weaker than I thought. He actually kept his position instead of taking the flow to dodge the attack, aren’t you a walking bullseye or something?
At this rate, it would be only a matter of one shoot to finish the foe off. But the authority ordered to capture this F-58 alive… and I should not be wounding him, well that was not much of a problem either.
The Cosmic Flare zapped to the back of Wei Yuan like a phantom. Wei Yuan remained dizzy and his outdated detection system could not detect the existence of this Black Cove mech in the dark. Wham! One more blow! The elbows of Cosmic Flare struck upon the back of Volt, causing Volt to land onto the ground harsh like a meteorite. Boom! The ground was hollowed.
The pedestrians on the ground scurried away like animals of a forest fire, only few fearless kinds lingered at the corner, wanting to witness the very scene. Fearless they might be, they still feared to head to the frontline.
Sen Hai landed by the hollow. He snorted, with this level of crash and that cheap buffering system of Volt, the pilot would not be protected into safety. The pilot must have fainted. Out of his carefulness, Sen Hai also destroyed Volt’s engines right before it crashed to the ground.
Volt was stuck into the ground, not moving in a bit. Sen Hai snickered in his Cosmic Flare. Of course he would not just be snickering, he flipped Volt over and withdrew the dagger, a few hushes the chest of Volt was scratched a square. The tip of the dagger locked at the center, one pick and the sliced armor went tossed away like a giant coin to the side.
Han Jia hid itself in the crowd of mechs at the side. He was confident to tell that the Cosmic Flare must be from the Black Coves, which was weird… A Black Cover usually would keep his or her firepower before the target was confirmed. They should not be launching attacks randomly. So who is that person in the mech? Why would the Black Cover aim him?
Wait.
"Shang, is there any other Black Covers around here?" Ye Chong got something in his mind.
"Nope, no other Black Covers were detected in the proximity of 50 kilometers," asserted Shang.
"Good." His tone was cold as blizzard as his hands started shrouding into stacks of afterimages.
The recovery rate of Wei Yuan was clearly beyond Sen Hai’s expectation. Wei Yuan was proud of his piloting skills the most, which justified the endurance of his body being stronger than most men. Moreover to protect himself better, he had already requested his father to modify the buffering system inside the cabin, well since he feared some accidents like these could happen.
Wei Yuan opened his eyes to see a giant mechanical arm reaching him gradually and was making a grasp round him!
Wei Yuan’s face was paler than a paper.
He might be a mentally stable boy but a boy he was in fact, being in his early adolescencee, how in the world would he have experience with being treated like a puppet in a crane machine?
Oh no! I’m doomed! His eyes enlarged. The world suddenly became slow in his eyes, as the palm came towards him slowly like the slow motion in movies. Right at that second when the gigantic hand touched him, he could hear a profound sound of crash coming from the outside. The hand was then withdrawn in shock like a serpent being stabbed.
Ah! Wei Yuan shrieked. The mechanical hand swept his left arm when it was taken back! He could hear the cracking sound of his bones! His face went distorted as droplets of sweat gushed over his head like lava into water.
Wei Yuan’s face had lost its colors.
Enduring the pain, Wei Yuan was more than convinced that he would be real done for if he did not make his move. He was not aware of the happening outside, but he knew this would be his only opportunity to survival! That owner of the mechanical hand who nearly captured him had to be some evil-natured kind. Anyone could tell from that huge gap he cut open on the mech!
Wei Yuan struggled his way out of the gap.
And he saw a scene where he believed he would remember for the rest of his life!
A mech which both the texture and color were ominous as hell was smashing that mech whose nearly caught him. And the techniques were obviously the type visible in Virtual World. His eyes went fully focused on the fight, burning with passion as he forgot the pain on his arm.
…
Rui Bing knotted her brows as she saw the two mechs fighting in front.
Well it was nothing to see two mechs competing for their silly pride from time to time, but it would be something if they were doing it on the street, in public! She despised that since such an unprofessional fight of dead-or-alive would easily hurt any innocents nearby!
Wait a second… That movement of the mech was very orderly… Interesting…
It was the first time in her life she saw a mech fighting in such style, which intrigued her to keep watching along.