Chapter 334: An Intense Battle!

Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr

In another hidden room, D2 was directing the hackers as they put their full effort on carrying out project T. Witnessing this scene unfold, D2 could not help but cry out, "He cannot be just an advanced mecha warrior! He must be an ace mecha master ..."

Sitting beside D2, cold sweat poured from D3's forehead as he urged D2 anxiously, "Quick, inform D1 to send our ace operator over. Otherwise, relying on these mecha warriors alone, we won't be able to stop him."

D3's reminder abruptly jolted D2 to awareness. Project T was just a little short of success now — if the opponent managed to break into this area, all their previous efforts would be for naught. Thus, they quickly contacted D1, but the news they received in return was that the fight at the trap area had fallen into a stalemate. An ace operator who was infinitely close to breaking through into imperial status had appeared there as well, and their ace operator was currently already engaged in battle there.

"We need to stall." Seeing Ling Lan's team finish off another 4 or 5 mecha, D2 knew he could not afford to hesitate any longer. He decisively sent the remaining two mecha teams over.

"How much longer will it take to succeed?" D2 asked one of his subordinate hackers who was carefully channelling his hacker power into a black box inside the hidden room after the mecha teams had left at a sprint towards the battlefield on his orders.

"It has already entered the propagation stage. Based on this speed, we need at least one more hour for proper formation." The subordinate hacker wiped away the cold sweat on his forehead and answered softly.

"Can't you speed it up at all?" When D2 heard they would still need an hour, he frowned.

"No more than we have. Any faster and it'll be dangerous. They will devour our power, all of it ..." When the subordinate hacker heard the request to speed up, his face instantly changed. He had been there during the research process of the T-virus. Previously, someone had once tried to speed up the cultivation process by sending great amounts of hacker power at it, but in the end, he had been consumed mercilessly by the T-virus. That person's final outcome had been death.

His subordinate's reminder calmed D2 down. He too knew of that incident that year and knew the cultivation of the T-virus could not be rushed. He could only hope that everything would turn out well — as long as the cultivation succeeded, they could then leave the virtual world and quietly wait for the victory the T-virus would deliver to them. The Chinese Federation would be their prize.

"Boss, they've sent another two mecha teams over." The mecha teams' movements naturally could not be concealed from Little Four who was closely monitoring the secret base. This time, Little Four had learned from his previous mistakes — he immediately reported this to his boss so that his boss would not flick him in the head and bully him again.

"D*mmit, forcing me to go all out." Ling Lan placed all of the energy blocks she had in her bag into the standard Federation advanced mecha she was currently piloting. If not for the fact that crossing levels to operate a higher level mecha was a great burden on the body, Ling Lan would have liked to use the imperial mecha more. Its standard-equipped six-tube maglev 1 cannon would need only 3 to 4 shots to finish off all these mecha operators.

Ling Lan sighed internally. For now, imperial mecha could only be a last resort, not to be used unless absolutely necessary. She knew well that based on her current level of strength, she could only operate an imperial mecha for 5 minutes. Beyond 5 minutes, her body would not be able to endure the tremendous feedback force generated by cross-level mecha operation and would collapse completely.

Doing such an idiotic thing in the enemy's main camp was utter suicide — Ling Lan would definitely not let herself fall into such a desperate situation just to show off momentarily.

Ling Lan had just filled her power up to the brim when she felt a faint vibration coming from the ground. It went without saying that the final two mecha teams of the heart of the secret base were rus.h.i.+ng over. Ling Lan's team needed to finish off these enemy mecha before them now before those mecha arrived. Otherwise, with the addition of 20 or more mecha, they would not be able to hold out no matter how strong their control skills were.

"The enemy is sending reinforcements. Hurry up and kill off these mecha." Ling Lan connected to the team's dedicated channel and issued a decisive order. (Little Four had created this dedicated channel for the nine of them at the moment they had boarded their mecha.)

Everyone knew the situation was critical and that they needed to go all out. Like Ling Lan, they plugged in the spare energy blocks they had in their bags, making sure their mecha were fully charged. In the upcoming battle, they would no longer try to save power by sealing away some of the advanced techniques that consumed a lot of energy.

Qi Long and the original four plus Li s.h.i.+yu each controlled their own mecha and began sprinting. They weaved left and right as they ran so that the enemy could not predict their route, and so could not hit them with beam guns. Furthermore, this kind of airy and mobile running method made the enemy unable to determine which target they were aiming for ...

All the enemy mecha became nervous, because any of their remaining group of 18 mecha could become the attack target of the six incoming opponents. Suddenly, the figures of the six fluttering mecha vanished ... Oh, no, not vanished, rather, the six were drawing indistinct ephemeral streaks of light through the air. This was the advanced technique only advanced mecha warriors could learn — Light-and-Shadow Slidestep.

There were two types of footwork techniques for advanced mecha warriors. One was the Z-flicker, which was in fact what Qi Long and the others had been using at first, while the other was the Light-and-Shadow Slidestep they were displaying now. The reason why they had chosen to use the Light-and-Shadow Slidestep in this final attack with unplanned synchronicity was because the technique not only functioned to increase speed but also had the effect of confusing the enemy. It would cause a display lag on the external cameras of enemy mecha, making it difficult for the enemy to determine their true position and attack timing.

Of course, experienced advanced mecha warriors could make judgements based on pure experience and would not be fooled by the Light-and-Shadow Slidestep ... however, these mecha operators before them now were not truly controlled by humans but were true NPCs. Right after engaging them in combat, Qi Long and the others had already figured this out.

In the settings of the mainframe, these NPCs only had 20% probability of not being confounded. In other words, the likelihood of them being confounded was rather high. Meanwhile, Qi Long and the others ignored these NPC mecha's wild beam attacks. The next second, they were already before their respective target mecha, ruthlessly lifting up their cold weapons to swing it down savagely at the opponent.

The beam s.h.i.+elds of mecha could be said to be specially designed to deal with a variety of energy weapons such as beam guns — against cold weapons which were pure physical violence, beam s.h.i.+elds were rather weak.

Five mecha were subject to fierce chops by Qi Long's group. The strikes instantly broke through the energy of the beam s.h.i.+elds and the powerful force behind the blows slammed into the enemy mecha. The intense collision between weapon and mecha instantly created a string of sparks.

Qi Long and the others had not been attacking mindlessly — the areas they had chosen to attack were the various joints of the mecha. In order to maintain the flexibility of mecha, the defensive strength of certain areas needed to be sacrificed during the manufacture of mecha. For instance, at the shoulders, the neck, the hips, the arms, the ankles, the knees and so on. Their chosen target areas made their attacks effective immediately, directly destroying a part of the mecha.

Only one mecha managed to dodge the crisis this time. It had fallen into the 20% chance of not being confounded — it could be said that mecha had been extremely lucky. The one who failed was Luo Lang and this made Luo Lang rather displeased, unable to figure out why he was the only one so unlucky.

Luo Lang gritted his teeth and followed up with another attack. Since he had failed, he would just have to make up for it. He did not believe that the enemy would still be so lucky to fall into that 20% the next time he attacked.

Luo Lang was full of confidence for his attack this time, but when he found that he had once again struck air, his entire pert face became flushed red with anger. D*mmit! Even if his appearance was a little feminine, that didn't mean others could look down on him like he was a girl!

Fuming, Luo Lang followed up with another Light-and-Shadow Slidestep. It looked like Luo Lang had decided to challenge the mainframe till the end. He just did not believe this NPC mecha warrior would truly be so lucky and avoid being confounded three times in a row ...

Dreams are beautiful but reality is cruel — Luo Lang's confidence-filled third attack was once again evaded by the NPC. Right then, Luo Lang could not stop himself from cursing, "b.a.s.t.a.r.d ..."

********

Meanwhile, Ling Lan, who was attacking with both hands, had also been using the Light-and-Shadow Slidestep. Against real people, this technique more or less had its weaknesses, but against NPCs, it was extremely effective and was one of the primary techniques for all players. The cold weapon she was using right now was the wondrous weapon Regretless that Chang Xinyuan had forged. The special sharpness Regretless possessed was displayed to maximum effect by Ling Lan at this moment.

With a swing to the left and a slash to the right, Ling Lan instantly split open the outer sh.e.l.l of two mecha before her. She felt that the tough outer sh.e.l.l of mecha was not as st.u.r.dy as she had imagined ... her swings had sliced through easily, chopping right into the c.o.c.kpit of the mecha.

The c.o.c.kpit of a mecha was its most deadly weakness because the operator was housed within it. Whether it was an NPC or a real human pilot, once the mecha's c.o.c.kpit was struck, the mainframe would judge that a devastating blow had been struck to the mecha. Sure enough, the mecha exploded and on Ling Lan's screen, the notification window indicated that the enemy mecha had been utterly destroyed.

Seeing this, Ling Lan could not help but blink, stunned, glancing over at Regretless in her hand in disbelief. She had always known Regretless was sharp, but she had not imagined that it was this sharp. A standard advanced mecha in Mecha World actually could not even hold up against even one of its attacks.

Right then, an enemy mecha behind Ling Lan saw that Ling Lan had stopped moving after destroying two of his comrades. Thinking that he had a chance for revenge, he swiftly raised the cold weapon in his hands and swung it fiercely at the back of Ling Lan's head.

Ling Lan, who had the entire situation in hand, thrust Regretless backwards without hesitation. This move was so concealed and sudden that the other mecha had no time to react, instantly pierced through the c.o.c.kpit by Regretless.

The highly raised cold weapon in that mecha's hands was now powerless to chop downwards. Executing a scorpion kick 2 , she kicked out powerfully, sending that mecha flying to crash into the back of another mecha who was desperately attacking Chang Xinyuan's pot lid with its cold weapon. The sudden attack from behind him did not give that mecha any time to react. He stumbled forwards uncontrollably, falling onto Chang Xinyuan's pot lid mecha, his attack interrupted.

He was just about to struggle his way up from Chang Xinyuan's pot lid mecha, when two huge sets of teeth appeared on both sides of the pot lid to bite down mercilessly on that mecha. As the pot lid was completely swarmed by enemy mecha, no one saw when the centre of the pot lid suddenly split open slightly to form a round hole. Then, a beam twined with purple shot out at the mecha caught in the grasp of the teeth, blasting a hole of about 50 centimetres in radius through the mecha. The spot it blasted though was precisely the c.o.c.kpit of the mecha. And thus, the enemy mecha fell to Chang Xinyuan's pot lid mecha ...