Chapter 217: Hypersonic
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A shrill in the cave!
Ye Chong could feel his head pounding. Boom! A force came after, breaking his shaking stance. Thup! He was lifted by the violent wind and slammed upon the rocky wall behind. He could hear his backbones cracking and his insides were rumbling. Splash! He spat a pool of blood as he landed on the ground.
That slam had woken Ye Chong, as he discovered the waves coming from the dark disc. He looked at Mu, whose legs were dragged behind, forming a trail. The artificial intelligence had its eyes frantically flickering which meant he was clearly fighting against this force.
Ye Chong stumbled upon the sight, where Mu was at the edge of defeat, the first time it was. And the foe was merely using sound to fight…
The strong sonic waves wrecked the surrounding atmosphere. The fright and its overwhelming strength put upon Ye Chong was no longer imaginable.
The sound did not seem to be stopping anytime soon, as its pitch grew higher, the pressure intensified within Ye Chong’s body, a stream of blood dripped off the corner of his lips. The droplet of blood did not survive the waves as well, as it shattered into vapors, flying away.
A shockwave of high frequency could be fatal to human anatomy, even for sturdy ones like Ye Chong’s, as discomfort drained his face pale.
Ye Chong knew it well that he could be dead right there if he did not take any action. It was the biggest danger he had ever faced. His muscles were forced to vibrate along, as the atmosphere was shaking drastically. The fatigue stung his body, dizziness clouded his head.
He took a deep breath and tried to regain his calmness. As he understood, the way to deal with death was to grab the lining of life within it.
He tried his best to disregard these influences. Ye Chong’s cold gazes set upon the ripping dark disc. He readjusted his respiration with his chest pulled forcefully like an accordion and slowly it regained the inner peace.
His mind flowed through the cold water, as Ye Chong felt withdrawn from his physical body slightly. It felt like his usual meditation, other than the fact that he was doing it consciously as the pain still lingered in his body. He felt like an audience to his own agony, standing at the edge of his body.
He looked at the dark disc, his arms somehow mustered a bit of strength. His right hand drew the dagger out and with all that bit of strength he mustered, he tossed it right into the dark disc.
He had no idea what the dark disc was. He had no idea what the owner of that frightening arm was. But he knew he had to attack and that was the only way he could think of.
The dagger zoomed into the dark disc.
Ye Chong could feel his senses returning almost simultaneously after, when a wave of pain surged in him. Oww… He could no longer hold his whimper.
The deadly shrill ceased…
Ye Chong was already half-fainted. Mu, at his quickest speed, grabbed Ye Chong up right after the shrill stopped. He opened up his cabin and placed Ye Chong gently inside. He then turned away to the tunnel and began running, with Multipede following like a pet behind.
Mu would not let go of the ores even under such devastated circumstance. Poor Multipede, being the engineering model, had barely any appropriate armor on its body. That demolishing shockwave dealt great damage on it. Sluggishly it dragged its shattered body. Fortunately, the processor remained intact, so Mu could remotely control its movement.
The winding tunnel to the outside was troublesome for Mu to travel but that was not the time for him to calculate. He would most likely bombard the underground to create a pathway directly to the surface, if he had the right weapon for it.
Ye Chong remained unconscious. If he had woken up at any point he would probably be ranting about how long the tunnel was.
Mu still travelled faster than Multipede as it only caught up 2 seconds after Mu hit the opening.
Mu used his only hand to grab Multipede and blasted off into the sky.
An infuriated shrill roared violently from the underground.
The ground was shattering the second after Mu flew off. The opening collapsed under the hypersonic of the unknown. Half a meter of the barren circular ground crumbled, forming a large rift.
Mu did not look down, he flew on, as long as he reached the sky, he would get back to Coxcomb.
Halfway through their journey, Ye Chong regained his consciousness. Thanks to his well-built body, he got back to his usual condition. That shock caused only an emergency shutdown to his system as a form of defense.
"M-Mu…" His words rang softly, "What was that…"
"Unidentifiable. Object: Unknown according to database," Mu replied.
"It is horrible…" Even an in-human like Ye Chong was exclaiming at the frightening event before. And that was also his first time seeing Mu behaving so gracelessly, he did not even have the energy to fight back. What kind of living thing could produce such scream…?
Soundwave-based weaponry was not something foreign to Ye Chong. Well, its development was rather primitive in the 5 major galaxies. It was a kind of area-of-effect attack, which disregarded friends or foes. In other words, if you wanted a stronger sound wave attack, you would have to be much stronger to withstand it. Also its effective areas were of limited choices, as it required a medium like the air in the atmosphere to travel. But most of humanity spent their lives in the airless space now, which justified the underdevelopment of soundwave-based weaponry.
Despite all that, Ye Chong experienced the potency of sound-waves, and there was this particular living thing that was capable of producing them. How horrible… The three forces, be it the MPA, the Sanctuary or even the Black Coves, might be nothing compared to its power. Obviously one could say the attacker was no way a human.
And, under such existence, there were humans who always assumed themselves to be the ruler of the galaxy. What was the truth, the very truth of the rulership in the end, anyway?
The sight before Ye Chong widened, Mu had left the forest completely and reached the sky. Ye Chong sat steadily inside Mu. A sense of nostalgia struck, as he remembered the days back on Trash Planet when he had to log into the Virtual World almost everyday inside Mu. Well, that was no longer the case ever since they left Trash Planet. He hardly had the chance to board Mu. It felt warm… the memories, as the stiffened expression of Ye Chong melted.
!
"Mu!" Ye Chong yelled as he saw something approaching, "Look out! The mech behind!"
Mu’s detection was based on hologramic scanning and on this planet, Mu’s detection only was capable of proximity about 3 kilometers, and 3 kilometers to a mech were hardly a distance, not even the distance of safety. So Ye Chong’s naked eyes could do better than the mechanical eyes under such condition, especially when they were in the sky, away from the blockage of the woods.
A few mechs were flying towards them, in spread.
Ye Chong modified the setting as he switched Mu’s camera to photographic mode, to have a better look at the mechs. They were of the same models, which Ye Chong could not recognize. A total 5 of them. Ye Chong directly related them to the case of the student of Vicente. The flock underneath could possibly be the organization who abducted that student.
The 5 mechs were pretty strange to him. He looked at the screen and made a few estimations. The height of the mechs were about 15 meters, which were much taller than most mechs; their body size were much larger than most mechs as well - a little bulky in design.
Those were not strange enough to Ye Chong, as he realized the mechs of such model were somehow a conglomeration, with the energy shooter in the hand, of a large musket, which made those energy shooters from MPA look like a toy pistol of a kid, at most an art piece rather than a real killing weapon. From the weapon they were holding, it obviously labeled them as a ranged model, and their shooting chamber further supported Ye Chong’s assumption.
But, the catch was, there was an ancient lance made out of alloy at their back, along with a pair of laser swords installed on their body. They were not activated yet but Ye Chong could see the handle flashing at their sides. They were even armed with parrying spears, and a shield on the left arm, which its size was above average as well.
Ye Chong’s eyes widened. What is this? Did a rack turn alive from someone’s armory?
Judging from the enemies he had encountered before, be it the Black Covers or those from the MPA, they all had very distinctive characteristics, either identifying them as the close-attackers or ranged attackers. This was applicable even for the Sanctuary, the one who struck the balance between yet they picked the other path as they collaborated a unique skill of theirs into the combats.
Closed-ranged and ranged attacking were two different concepts, that a single pilot could hardly wield both. This was exceptionally true as a pilot further honed his or her skills, usually they would prefer to have one of the paths fully improvised, since the saying of "when you are good at everything, you are good at nothing."
Frankly speaking, despite Ye Chong’s comment of labelling them as the walking rack from someone’s armory, they did not look that bad. It felt like an ancient coat of arms. With that ancient lance on the back, it looked pretty chivalrous. The edge of the shield was coated with sky blue, capsuling the golden brand in the center, giving off the vibes of the nobility.
There were shrills from the ground. Ye Chong could hear it clearly even above the sky. But the shrill had transformed into a mere sound traveling through air, since the shockwave had been fully absorbed by the ground.
"The mechs were probably attracted by the sound waves," speculated Ye Chong.
Mu was obviously not in the mood of having any duel with the mechs. His goal had been achieved while there was this unidentifiable monster rampaging underground. The sanest choice would be to get back to their warship.
Ye Chong was confident of Mu’s velocity as he still travelled faster than most of the mechs even with Multipede in his grip.
At first he thought Mu would lose the 5 mechs in a matter of seconds. However so far, the only change was the distance between him and the 5 mechs. Yes, Mu was gaining distance from the 5 mechs, nevertheless it should not be the case since Mu had such an insane speed.
Ye Chong had the thought and was shocked, as the speed of the 5 mechs could compete with the unmodified war machines of the three forces… with such bulky body, yet they had such velocity which Mu could not zap away from right away. It was shocking indeed. They were also flying in perfect position, their rapports were trained.
So which of the three forces were the mechs from?
This was the biggest mystery to Ye Chong currently.
Mu’s speed also seemed to surprise the 5 mechs, as Ye Chong could occasionally see tiny flinches from them.
"Mu, be careful. They are shooting," warned Ye Chong as he saw two of the mechs charging energy at their muskets. Compared to Javelin Wing of the MPA, the charging action was too blatant in the eyes. He recalled the time he fought Javelin Wing, which the energy shooter did not even seem to be charging before it fired an explosion. That would be the ideal way of fighting, Ye Chong supposed.
"Understood," Mu replied flatly.
Ye Chong felt his head falling. He understood that it was Mu, doing the standard dodging procedure by disrupting the foes’ shooting in unpredictable rhythm. This was Ye Chong's first time sitting right inside Mu experiencing the shaking of standard dodge.
Mu was still Mu, the skillful artificial intelligence, as his debut was a series of super duper advanced rapid disorderly turnings, which gave the sturdy man Ye Chong a lingering dizziness in his head. Ye Chong could not imagine doing the same turnings by himself.
Mu’s moves were effective, as they confused the foes successfully. The light beams traveled right by Mu's side. Boom! The forest was seared into two baldy zones. "Man!" exclaimed Ye Chong in his mind. The energy shooter was not the random shooter from the market!
The firings from the foes came off as a warning. Well they intended give a warning, till Mu’s dramatic spin made them missed their shoot, reminding them that they had messed with the wrong guy.
One of the mechs fired a signal into the sky right after that. The bombardment occurred as a flash of red signal covering the sky. It might be a primitive methodology, but anyone would have used such a primitive technology, since the magnetic interferences were so strong that any communicative device would fail.
Mu’s orbit was still confusing as hell. But Ye Chong could see their destination being not too far away - the Coxcombs, resting at the corner silently.