Chapter Twenty-One

Of course, none of this had anything to do with Ye Chong. In his eyes, there was only the opponent before him.

The battlefield was a jungle. This terrain was rarely used, for nowadays the primary battleground for mecha pilots was outer space. Even when entering a planet's atmosphere, aerial combat was still the norm, which was one of the reasons why ranged mechas had become mainstream.

Shooting had always been Ye Chong's weakness. From childhood to now, he had never so much as touched even the lowest-grade thermal gun in reality. The government of the star system took the destruction of obsolete weapons very seriously, and this had forced Ye Chong to survive in an era of cold weapons. Of course, space pirates could no longer use garbage planets as supply bases as they once did.

Consciousness training, without physical feedback, could only go so far; at a certain point, one could make no further progress. The mind and body complemented each other, neither could be dispensed with. This was precisely the difficult situation Ye Chong faced with his shooting skills—yet even Mu Shang had no solution.

The thought of Mu Shang brought a faint curve to Ye Chong's lips. He wondered what that fellow had been up to lately.

Ah, to be distracted in the face of an enemy was a grave mistake. Ye Chong quickly gathered his focus.

He was piloting a Purple Shadow, a melee assassin-type mecha that had already stepped into the ranks of advanced mechas. Its frame was slender and elongated, exceedingly agile in tight turns and sudden maneuvers. Standing only 8.5 meters tall, it was nearly one and a half meters shorter than most mechas. Its configuration was impressive: two high-strength magnetic daggers that glimmered dully in the night—these were nothing like the useless blade on Blackbird, nor would they shine blindingly like laser knives, making them all the more lethal under the cover of darkness. At each wrist was a sickle-shaped blade, thirty centimeters long, forged from high-compression alloy, sharp enough to cut through the vast majority of mecha armor. Both edges were honed to a razor’s finish, and Ye Chong’s favorite detail was the black enamel coating applied to the surface to prevent reflection and avoid alerting the enemy. Similar blades were mounted at the calves. Moreover, there were countless small mechanisms, such as retractable blades at the toes. For Ye Chong, who always sought the next level of cunning, this was perfection—he recalled with some embarrassment the crude barbs he once embedded in Winnie compared to these sophisticated instruments.

If only the frame were black, it would be flawless, Ye Chong mused.

This mecha was also an unpopular model. Shadow had no ranged weaponry whatsoever, requiring its pilot to be exceptionally skilled in close-quarters combat. In an era dominated by long-range attacks, this alone condemned it to obscurity. Furthermore, to enhance its agility, its armor was designed to be extremely thin—any direct hit could be fatal. Shadow packed immense explosive power at close range, but due to limited energy capacity, its endurance was poor. In a time when space travel could span hundreds of thousands of kilometers, this was another reason why few chose it.

Ye Chong, a master of mecha modification, was intimately familiar with all of Shadow's characteristics, but he disagreed with the common criticism. Shadow was designed for assassination; if you used it in a one-on-one duel, you were simply using it wrong. If you failed to bring out the mecha’s true potential, you had only yourself to blame.

The enemy’s mecha was a modified model, bristling with eight astonishing gun barrels and resembling nothing so much as a porcupine: two fifty-thousand-grade double-barreled particle cannons, two twenty-thousand-grade scatterlight guns—heavens, could these even be called guns? They were more like cannons. There were also two subsonic wave guns, capable of bypassing mecha armor entirely to damage the pilot’s body inside, inducing dizziness, nausea, and other symptoms to severely disrupt the pilot’s controls. But the shortest barrel beneath the ribs made Ye Chong’s heart race with alarm—it was a Farilang laser sniper rifle. Laser weapons were already renowned for their accuracy, and this sniper variant was terrifying: within fifteen kilometers, its margin of error was less than half a millimeter, and the beam it fired could pierce any mecha except for the very top models. The other was a hundred-thousand-grade thermal gun, capable of wide-ranging adjustment to cover blind spots.

The enemy mecha itself was peculiar—perhaps ugly was a better word. It looked less like a mecha than a fortress, equipped with engines for limited mobility.

Ye Chong doubted whether this even qualified as a mecha—wasn’t it simply an aerial firepower fortress?

Given its massive size, it could carry more than ten times the energy of the Shadow. Wasn’t this an inexhaustible skyborne fortress? Ye Chong couldn’t help but inwardly lament; this was the first time he had encountered such a monstrously extreme mecha.

Due to the complex terrain, the system had randomly placed them both in the jungle.

Once inside the forest—heh—Ye Chong’s heart was coldly amused. Shadow’s outstanding anti-detection system would shine in such complex terrain; for the enemy to pinpoint his location would be all but impossible.

Ye Chong moved cautiously through the trees, unaware that the grandstand above was already abuzz with astonishment.

As Ye Chong’s popularity soared, more and more people came to watch his matches, and the stands were packed to capacity. Multiple holographic screens captured his every move from various angles.

The audience’s amazement was well justified. Even though Shadow was famed for agility, Ye Chong’s speed in such complicated terrain did not decrease in the slightest; he maintained a high velocity, moving like the wind, as if the dense growth posed no obstacle at all. How was this possible? Everyone in the stands was dumbfounded. In the primeval jungle, with trees, branches, and vines everywhere, just walking would require utmost caution.

His piloting skills were terrifying!

In truth, for Ye Chong, this was merely an essential survival skill. The garbage heaps he’d grown up in were even more chaotic than this, and the mutant creatures that dwelled there forced him to be nimbler than they were if he hoped to catch them. Otherwise, he’d have to resign himself to drinking that sludge-like nutrient gruel. Even when piloting the aging Winnie, Ye Chong had mastered this environment. Later, Mu’s training regimens pushed him to even more extreme proficiency, until he was now completely at ease in such complex surroundings.

Suddenly, a violent explosion erupted from the southwest.

Crouching low, Ye Chong moved silently toward the sound like a vigilant leopard. This stealthy action drew another wave of gasps from the audience.

He hid himself carefully amid the dense leaves of a large tree, eyes fixed intently on his opponent.

The enemy had no intention of engaging Ye Chong in the forest. Instead, he hovered in midair and used his artillery to clear a vast swath of ground beneath him, creating a huge open space. If Ye Chong entered that area, he would be utterly exposed—greeted either by a laser beam that could pierce his thin armor or by a barrage of firepower that would leave not a scrap of him behind.

Now, Ye Chong found himself caught in an impossible dilemma.