Chapter 39

The mech burned fiercely in the sea of fire.

Shi Xueying breathed a sigh of relief. She raised her eyes and looked at Ji Fu with mixed feelings.

Mech engineers like them would appear exceptionally vulnerable once they were separated from the team. If the light brain could be used normally, she would still have some means. In that moment just now, she was indeed at her wits’ end.

The last time Ji Fu performed in the simulation chamber, she had heard people gossiping afterward, saying it was just Ji Fu picking a good moment.

Shi Xueying disagreed with that statement at the time.

The fact also proved that strength is strength.

The C-level mech repelling the S-level mech engineer last time was not accidental, and this time was even less so.

Sizzle.

The light blade stopped at her side, and a pure white hand reached out to her: “Are you okay?”

Shi Xueying had been targeted by this S-level mech soldier since she landed, and although she had suffered some minor injuries, it did not affect her movement. She shook her head in response to the question, “I’m fine.”

“Thank you.” Shi Xueying was mature beyond her years, usually rarely interacting with people, and a bit shy when speaking.

But she also knew that without the person in front of her, she would be dead by now.

“If you’re okay, we need to prepare early.” Ji Fu didn’t dwell on the matter. She turned her head and looked at the S-level mech that had already burned to ashes, saying in a deep voice, “Apart from this one, there are two more S-level mechs.”

Shi Xueying’s face changed drastically.

She turned pale and said, “Someone wants to kill us?”

The strange thing was, the mech soldier who had come after her life, all the signs indicated that this wasn’t just an accident.

“Yes.” Time was of the essence, and Ji Fu didn’t offer too much explanation, just asking her, “Do you have any mechanical equipment on you that can be used?”

She looked at the screen in front of her, where the S-level mech, blinking with orange light, was rapidly approaching their location.

Among them, one dot was particularly bright, almost orange in color.

After a slight pause, Shi Xueying said, “There are two S-levels, one of which is S+.”

“Besides that, there are quite a few A-level mechs.”

Shi Xueying had never experienced anything like this before, and upon hearing that there was an S+, her heart sank.

Ji Fu noticed her pale face.

Shi Xueying was only sixteen years old this year, a genius mech girl who had always been well protected by her family.

She asked, “Are you afraid?”

Yes, she was.

Shi Xueying also noticed the emblem of the legion on the mech being piloted by the opponent. Mech soldiers who could enter the legion were all strong, and even with mech soldiers of the same level around, dealing with legion members was not easy.

Moreover, they didn’t even have a place to take cover now.

But for some reason, as she looked at Ji Fu’s calm profile, her suspended heart calmed slightly.

She composed herself, pinched herself hard, and asked Ji Fu, “What do you need me to do?”

The opponent’s reaction speed was indeed unusually fast.

Especially after finding out that five mechs in their team had been destroyed, the S+ mech captain immediately issued orders for all scattered mechs to regroup.

The situation wasn’t quite right.

The two individuals who had been forcibly dropped here, after the light brain malfunctioned, should have had no means to fight back.

Meeting an A-level mech would be fatal for them, yet they managed to destroy an S-level mech.

When this mission was issued from above, the intention was for these two individuals to not be able to leave the star rift alive.

It wasn’t easy to mobilize star-level mech soldiers within the legion, so they directly sent an S+ to lead the team.

Before entering the star rift today, they thought the higher-ups were being overly cautious.

After all, it was just two inexperienced individuals.

But now it seemed that these two individuals were indeed somewhat extraordinary.

The team leader confirmed the location where the S-level mech had died and opened the team-wide communication:

“Form up, activate mech patrols and defense, prepare the cannons.”

“Ensure that the moment you see the enemy, you kill them with one shot!”

“Yes!”

Twenty mechs all converged, forming a V-shape, with the S+ mech captain at the forefront, quickly approaching the location where the message of death had been sent.

The star rift was very quiet, as if there were no one else there except for these mechs.

The team leader initiated mech searches. Although the search range of S+ mechs was very wide, within this star rift, their movement was restricted, and the area they could scan was reduced from hundreds of kilometers to tens of kilometers.

Fortunately, apart from the restricted search area, everything else was normal.

[Bee, bee, bee]

[Target spotted]

Several tens of kilometers away, his mech detected a person.

The team leader immediately said in a deep voice, “Attention, target spotted, everyone! Spare no effort to kill the target!”

As he spoke, he had already fired several high-explosive S+ cannons in succession.

The moment the cannons were fired, the sky seemed to distort.

The first target they found was directly blasted to pieces.

Even as the cannons fired, the mechs continued to move and analyze. After the unidentified target was destroyed, the mech’s analysis also synchronized: [No human characteristics]

In other words, what they had just blasted was just a pile of scrap.

The team leader’s face changed slightly, and he pressed the communication button: “Regardless of what we find, destroy it all.”

“The enemy is carrying camouflage materials. Focus on analyzing.”

Operating mechs in a geomagnetic storm was a great test of the operator’s ability.

But even so, they were still mechs, capable of destroying a heavy mech in a city at any moment.

It was almost impossible for the enemy to hide using camouflage materials and evade pursuit by so many mechs.

The sound of cannons continued unabated.

Since the appearance of the first camouflage material, at least three highly matched camouflage materials had appeared within their line of sight.

Because of the team leader’s orders, all mechs chose to attack upon detecting the materials.

After three consecutive misses, the team leader’s face became increasingly ugly.

The impact of the geomagnetic storm worsened with time, but the enemy seemed to be playing with them, setting up obstacles along the way.

Most of these obstacles came from several mechs that had been killed earlier.

They were all scraps taken from mechs, using S-level camouflage materials, making them difficult to distinguish.

After three attempts, their movement speed was greatly affected.

From the first full-speed advance to the third time, even his speed had dropped to A-level.

He said coldly, “Everyone, adjust the battle plan. Analyze the biological traces clearly before attacking.”

The unexpected happened after he said these words.

Out of caution, all mechs were marching in the order of the team, and were influenced by the team. The last mech to move, its speed had been reduced to B-level.

And the mech operation was still okay. In the strong geomagnetic storm environment, making a call would disrupt the mech’s state.

The awaited moment was this chaotic state.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Holding her breath, her body covered in stealth material, Shi Xueying gripped the modified sniper rifle handed to her by Ji Fu, firing three shots in rapid succession.

The mimetic and stealth materials were what they used previously to deal with the two major military academies, mostly stored in Shi Xueying’s hands.

However, there weren’t many S-grade ones, just enough for her and Ji Fu to use once.

Ji Fu had said she needed to kill as many A-grade mechs as possible the moment she sensed the magnetic storm area’s disorder, to lighten the situation on her end.

The more she killed, the easier it would be for Ji Fu.

Shi Xueying had never been this nervous in her life; she tightly clenched the sniper rifle, her hand trembling.

Luckily, her judgment as an S-grade mech pilot was still intact; the moment she saw the chaotic magnetic field, she fired several shots in rapid succession.

Ji Fu had said: kill and then run.

Her shoes had also been modified into mech boots; under the influence of the magnetic storm, those disordered mechs surely couldn’t outrun her.

She did everything she could, but the first shot missed. She couldn’t smoothly kill the mechs, but for the following shots, she activated the stabilizers without hesitation and fired away.

Bang!

Boom!

The bullets fired from the modified sniper rifle by Ji Fu with S-grade materials exploded like inflated balloons amidst the clustered mechs, creating an effect comparable to a nuclear blast.

Shi Xueying, hearing the deafening roar, didn’t even look back but continued forward irregularly as instructed by Ji Fu.

Ji Fu had said to run as fast and as erratically as possible, without any clear purpose.

For the first time in her life, Shi Xueying unleashed unprecedented potential.

Shoot! Turn back! Run!

Boom!

Every mech hit exploded into a huge spark in the sky.

The power of those bullets was immense; the formation maintained by those mechs became their natural death sentence.

One explosion led to a chain reaction of explosions.

Since appearing, Shi Xueying had only hit two shots, but due to the consecutive explosions, at least seven mechs were destroyed.

The leader of the squad was furious, shouting, “Adjust formation! Spread out!”

It was fortunate he hadn’t opened the communication channel; once opened, it would lead to severe disorder.

As their A-grade mechs reacted to spread out, most of them had already been shot down.

The junior squad leader immediately realized that the enemy was using the magnetic storm to their advantage. This was supposed to be their advantage, but now they were dragged into the enemy’s rhythm.

As long as he opened the communication channel, the person covered in stealth material would turn and shoot.

Although their marksmanship wasn’t precise, those bullets were made of something unknown, exploding into a sea of fire upon impact.

The sea of fire distorted space, severely affecting the mechs’ judgment.

The speed at which the enemy turned and fled was extremely fast, surpassing the current A-grade mech’s movement speed, and it was irregular, making it impossible for the system to predict.

The junior squad leader was furious at the time; he activated the mech scan, using the strength of the S+ mech to scan for the figure constantly turning back and shooting while fleeing.

Because of the high-grade stealth material used, only a vague silhouette could be seen in the scanning interface.

But for an S+ mech, that was enough.

He lifted the mech high and quickly approached Shi Xueying on the ground, simultaneously activating the quantum cannon, unable to capture Shi Xueying’s trajectory, so he blasted the entire area into fragments.

At the moment the high-speed quantum cannon was activated, he suddenly realized something and turned back.

In his field of vision, everything was blank, but as a mech soldier, in this moment, every hair on his body stood on end; regardless of the magnetic storm surging, he opened the communication channel:

“Hurry! Everyone, switch to defense mode…”

Before he could finish his sentence, he saw the space in front of him suddenly tear apart.

A person wearing white mech armor suddenly jumped out.

With two giant quantum blades popping out of her hands, in the instant of appearing, she directly tore through the void, rebounded, and split the other S-grade mech in front of her into two halves!

The S-grade quantum blades intertwined, drawing beautiful arcs in the air, instantly lethal!

The whole process was controlled within five seconds, which was the moment when the junior squad leader aimed at Shi Xueying, preparing to wipe out her position.

But due to the strong impact, his quantum cannon deviated, landing beside Shi Xueying.

Shi Xueying looked at the deep pit suddenly appearing beside her; her physical strength was already at its limit. At this moment, she couldn’t care about anything else and climbed up without regard for her life.

… Exhausted all her strength.

After killing the S-grade mechs, Ji Fu didn’t conceal herself again.

The mech suit on her body was made by the two of them, using materials from several A-grade mechs to control speed while running.

Under tight time constraints, they couldn’t make it too sophisticated.

But fortunately, with the S-grade stealth material applied, after Shi Xueying detonated the A-grade mechs, Ji Fu could run quickly without being noticed.

The reason for not continuing to conceal herself was that she knew this method could only be used once.

After one use, the S+ mechs would come back to their senses and could easily target both of them at once.

With the equipment they currently had, they definitely couldn’t outrun the S+ mechs.

So, she never intended to run in the first place.

After killing the S-grade mechs, she turned around.

Her right arm had been completely refitted, using all the best materials, waiting for this moment.

A grappling hook shot out from the mech’s right arm, locking onto the engine of the S-grade mech she had killed.

Then she tightened it with the mechanical core.

The whole process took only two seconds. When she locked the mech’s engine, she turned back and saw the S+ mech on the opposite side firing a quantum cannon at her.

Ji Fu wore goggles to ensure she could still see despite the quantum cannon’s attack.

She raised her right arm and, as the cannon fired, threw the grappling hook along with the entire engine of the S-grade mech!

Boom!!!

At the moment the quantum cannon hit the engine, it seemed like everything in the world was violently shaking.

The explosion of super-level intensity swept through the entire space in an instant, turning everything into ashes!

In the face of such a powerful and almost seismic explosion, Shi Xueying was dumbfounded.

She turned back and witnessed the entire sky and earth being blasted empty.

Meanwhile, the figure in white mech armor in the distance had sidestepped after throwing out the engine, taking cover behind the severed leg of the S-grade mech she had destroyed.

The explosion pierced through the ground, shattering the mech leg blocking her path into fragments.

Her mech suit shattered, and she was propelled far away by the shockwave.

Rumbling!

Ji Fu heard the loud noise, turned back, and saw a mech descending from the sky.

Another one?

The high-intensity explosion had blurred her vision, but she attempted to fire the small cannon hidden in her right arm. Before the cannon could fire, she heard Shi Xueying shouting from a distance:

“Zhou Lu Hai!”

Who?

Zhou Lu Hai?

Crack.

Ji Fu was pushed back thousands of steps by the immense force. Finally, she stabilized herself.

She took off the goggles, now blackened from the explosion, and looked up. It was indeed Zhou Lu Hai.

Boom!

Zhou Lu Hai landed on the ground, his urgent voice transmitting, “Ji Fu!… Are you both alright?”

Upon landing, he saw the nearly blasted-through space and halted his words.

… It didn’t seem like they were alright.

He watched the wreckage of the S+ mech falling from the sky.

The intensity of the explosion had almost obliterated all the A-grade mechs surrounding that mech.

Because the second formation change had caused some dispersion, one or two mechs had been spared.

But they were also rendered lifeless by the explosion, leaving behind twisted wreckage.

Shi Xueying collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath.

Her physical strength and talent had been depleted in the battle just now.

To her, this earth-shattering explosion was just ordinary.

Three years ago, when she was still in the Yun Chi, she was blowing up star-grade mechs.

It’s just that, with or without talent, she was still causing explosions.

She sat on the ground, unable to hold back a laugh. In her eyes, that grand explosion was just business as usual.

She glanced at Zhou Lu Hai and said with a smile in her eyes, “So you’re the lucky one, Haizi.”

When she and Shi Xueying were making the mech suits, she had explained this place to Shi Xueying.

Shi Xueying had asked, “Aren’t they afraid of accidents? What if others fall into the star-layer crevice?”

Ji Fu had replied at the time, “The probability is very low. If such lucky ones really exist, we’ll just kill them together.”

With the enemy’s methods, killing two is killing, killing three is also killing.

Shi Xueying, dragging her tired body, walked over. Upon hearing Ji Fu’s words, she couldn’t help but laugh. The two of them exchanged glances and laughed together.

Leaving Zhou Lu Hai looking puzzled.

After Ji Fu stopped laughing, she learned the whole story from them.

Shi Xueying’s face turned serious. “There are still two days before this star-layer crevice closes. The wormhole swallowing outside is still ongoing. If one attack fails, will the other side continue to send reinforcements?”

Ji Fu paused, propping herself up with both hands as she slumped onto the sandy ground, softly saying, “They won’t.”

Originally, they should have, but Zhou Lu Hai became the variable in this plan.

Him breaking through the crevice to find them must have spread.

Regardless of whether they lived or died, the other side wouldn’t move again.

Zhou Lu Hai was a variable, not just because of his identity. Ji Fu speculated that his talent was probably higher than many imagined, and… the heads of the Third Legion and the current Second Legion were both from the Zhou family.

Zhou Lu Hai, the only child of the current head of the Zhou family, would only continue targeting them now if the other side had gone mad.

However.

The other side not moving again didn’t mean she wouldn’t move either.

Before the wormhole swallowed them, she hadn’t made a move to clear the two marks because she noticed the emerald green mech that had fired ultrasound waves at her and Shi Xueying.

So, the only thing she did before entering the star-layer crevice was to mark that mech.

If the other side could mark her, she naturally could mark back.

She lowered her gaze, looking at the blank screen of her light brain.

When the star-layer crevice closed and they left, she would immediately obtain the specific location, identity, and even complete information about the other side.

Her system marking was not just a mark but also a signal of hacking intrusion.

As long as her system level was higher than the other side’s, she could decipher all the information in a short time.

However.

Before that…

Ji Fu was completely buried in the sand, listening to Shi Xueying’s cold voice beside her, “After we get out, how should we handle this?”

Encountering this level of pursuit, if it weren’t for Ji Fu, she would probably have died in this dreadful place.

Zhou Lu Hai’s voice was cold. “Inform the Legion.”

The remaining mech wreckage here all bore the Legion’s insignia. Moreover, according to them, the Legion was currently short of about twenty people.

With so many missing people and S+ mechs, regardless of which Legion the other side belonged to, it could be investigated.

Unexpectedly, after listening to their words, Ji Fu chuckled lightly, “No.”

Both Shi Xueying and Zhou Lu Hai looked at her.

They saw her looking at the sky with clear eyes. The sky in the star-layer crevice was beautiful, with countless shooting stars falling in her eyes.

Ji Fu said softly, “Anyone who can dispatch such a team must have a high status within the Legion.”

“The first time we killed those assassins, the second time they sent an extermination team, and the third time they would send star-level mechs.” She smiled ambiguously. “There are plenty of scapegoats within the Legion who would shelter those involved in this matter.”

The room fell silent.

Zhou Lu Hai looked at her deeply.

Shi Xueying fell into contemplation. After a while, she nodded lightly. “You’re right.”

If they were going to retaliate, they should eliminate the other side completely to prevent future trouble.

But if the other side was indeed from the upper echelons of the Legion, removing them wouldn’t be easy. Her family was just a small family, and she was only an S-level mech pilot.

It wouldn’t do to rely on Zhou Lu Hai either.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Lu Hai also looked at her.

If she asked, he wouldn’t refuse.

But Ji Fu smiled mischievously. “Then, let’s report to the authorities.”

Someone has been missing for a long time, and they probably found a lot of good stuff.

With such an eventful situation, how could they not involve the Chief Executive Officer?

Fang Yanli was a police dog even more useful than Yan Yan.

A day and a half later, when the star-layer crevice closed, Ji Fu and her two companions emerged from the wormhole swallowing.

As soon as they landed, several Legion officials hurried over.

Before they could even ask, what they saw was the evidence they had brought with them.

Shi Xueying explained the encounter in the star-layer crevice, and after Zhou Xing listened, his face turned extremely ugly. He said solemnly, “The Legion will definitely give you an explanation for this.”

After Shi Xueying fell silent, she looked at the Legion officials in front of her, all with strange expressions. Without them speaking, these people had already ordered the evidence to be taken away.

Except for the relatively polite Zhou Xing, the others all looked like they were giving orders from a high position.

After all, the ones who had the accident today were just two students from two interstellar academies.

“No need.”

Under the gaze of countless eyes, she said slowly, “We’ve reported it.”