Chapter 224: Kings of Close and Long Range Combat II (2/2)

Now, Shang looked cold and emotionless, Recursion held steadily in his right hand. If he was performing at the mech pilot’s NR Training Center, he would earn full marks for this.

Despite his usual blabbering, Shang was now the perfect killing machine.

To Blade and his three-hundred strong advanced mech squad, it was a disaster of devastating proportions. The blue beam came as a harbinger of death, each shot answered by a loss of one of their mechs.

What terrifying accuracy! The sniper had never missed. Even someone as capable as Blade could not help but feel hopeless. Could there really be such a crazy sniper mech pilot? With his long experience walking the edges between life and death, Blade knew that no matter how strong a person was, anyone, even himself, would commit a mistake at some point. His experience had validated this belief of his time and again, but this half-concealed sniper mech pilot had yet committed any fault.

The constant explosions of mechs illuminated the swarm of mechs. An observer could easily mistook that the mechs were facing the full force of another mech squad. In truth, their enemy was only a single person.

Long distance sniping, the most difficult part of shooting training, was now performed flawlessly by this unknown mech pilot. It was a divine performance. The further the target, the harder it was to shoot accurately. At their current distance, any slight error in shooting angle would be greatly amplified. No sniper mech pilot could maintain a perfect shooting record at long distances.

There was once a famous sniper mech pilot who said, ”In long distance sniping, you need luck more than half the time.” This was the perfect testimony on how difficult long distance sniping could be.

What vexed Blade now was how very lucky his enemy was at the moment.

On normal days, the time it would take for him to reach the Zika class starship would be but the blink of an eye; now, however, it felt like forever. His comrades were thinning out. Blade knew that retreat was not possible at this point. Even if they turned back, they would still be within range of the enemy, and it would only make it easier for the enemy to finish them off.

Blade was not the only who understood their situation. Black team’s members were all veterans of battle, who came to the same conclusion. They braced themselves and charged forward. Once the sniper was within their attack range, they would be able to fire back.

Without the need for orders, they flew in a scattered formation, and deployed evasive measures. While these evasive measures could not prevent the death of the sniper’s targets, it was obvious that the frequency at which the blue beam appeared had decreased.

Shang continued to shoot steadily, unperturbed.

Ye Chong could not remember how many times he had attacked, but the number of mech pilots he had rescued from battle was increasing. For the first time, the mech pilots in the two mech squads outnumbered the pirates, if but slightly.

In the control room of Red Lion’s mech squad captain, everyone gaped at the holographic screen. After a long moment, the beautiful redhead sitting on the captain’s seat muttered, ”Heavens, is that guy human?” This beautiful redhead was Red Lion’s squad captain, Claudia. With her fiery red hair, she was one of the very few female mech pilots who attained the title of advanced mech pilot.

At twenty five, Claudia was at the prime of her beauty. Her mature and hot personality was attractive, and made her the center of attention anywhere she went. Her snow white skin, aquiline nose and sapphire eyes were assets that she took pride in.

She was also a good leader. Red Lion mech squad was only a group of twenty when she took over, and now it had expanded into a massive five-hundred strong mech squad.

Now, Claudia was wearing a dazed expression, tinged with awe born out of ignorance. However, this beautiful sight was lost to the people around her, for everyone was as shocked as she was now. The skinny mech figure on the holographic screen did not seem remotely strong or valiant, but perhaps a little comedic, its colorful exterior making it look much like a clown. However, this clown-like mech had evoked a chilling sense of foreboding in their hearts.

This was a master of ambush, and an expert in mech combat and mech maneuvering!

The clown mech’s colorful face was silly looking, but no one in the control room was laughing. To them, the silly face was a cover for whatever chilling fear it could evoke. They can all imagine the mech pilot sitting in the pilot cabin watching those pirate mechs with arrogant eyes!

Claudia was also thoroughly convinced of the clown mech’s pilot's strength. The pilot was a master in all respects, be it in strategizing, timing, combat skills and mech maneuvering. What surprised Claudia the most was the pilot’s calm steadiness - the clown mech had dealt with dozens of pirate mechs, but he still continued to fight as systematically as when he had first started.

Such an inhuman calmness! Claudia could almost believe that this mech pilot was a top class assassin from a professional killer’s guild.

He did not like flying, but preferred to leap, or move on all fours. He kept to the darkness, and stuck to ambushing, using the rarely preferred parrying spear. All these signs showed that the mech pilot was someone rather peculiar.

She could not help but steal another glance at the starship named Coxcomb. She could not understand how an ill-named starship could have such an expert.

Was this an unconventional master of battle?

Coxcomb also had another equally intimidating sniper mech pilot, and he was now single-handedly and successfully dealing with over 300 mechs! Claudia looked at the other holographic screen. The swarm of mechs was now left with only a few dozen of them, engaged in shooting with the sniper. She felt reluctant to continue watching. These were all advanced mech pilot veterans, and a formidable power when they were deployed. Nonetheless, they were now undeniably being broken apart by a single mech with a weird energy gun.

What was Coxcomb’s story? What was its owner like? What did its two masters of combat look like? How were they related to the owner of Coxcomb?

This was all very curious!

If Shang were to find out that a beautiful woman was calling him a master of combat, perhaps he might lose a bit of his current fighting composure. Of course, that was another story.

Fortunately, Claudia understood her situation. These two masters of combat could never be hers to command. She would not try to pull them in to her mech squad.

The battle was nearing its end, as the pirates mech numbers dwindled. Ye Chong had scoured the entire fleet of starships, and killed all of the pirate mechs who wished to board the starships.

”Shang, how’s your side?” Ye Chong asked.

”Hehe, Ye, this is too much fun! Sigh, too bad there’s not enough of them going, if they only have a hundred more mechs.” Shang’s excited reply made Ye Chong relax. ”Shang must be in a really good mood,” thought Ye Chong. In fact, Shang was not only that, but nearly mad from exhilaration. If not for the diminishing number of energy cells by his side, Shang would even try shooting with the recursive particle cannon shots.

A huge rock of ore was flying slowly past Ye Chong. Ye Chong looked towards the pirate ships far away, tightly protected, and was struck with a crazy idea. Immediately, Puppet leapt to the ore and grabbed onto it like an insect, securing itself on one side of the ore. Then, the mech fired its engines at full blast, and the ore drew an arch in space with Puppet and Ye Chong on it, headed towards the pirate ships.

Claudia took everything in and could not help but gasped, ”What is he thinking?”