Chapter 308: Escape
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The land was glowing in blue. The Blue Crown Serpent was fearsomely the pain for every man and woman who underwent their trial. You might be one of the strongest fews from your planet, but when you saw that deadly blue cloaking the entire place, the immediate despair would convince you to stumble. They came from the underground and soundlessly they travelled, silently they attacked their prey. It was already death before you noticed.
Every pilot from Ye family would have to complete such trial after passing their elementary test. Unlike the other families out there, the connection between combats and piloting were much closer than one could imagine, their hands were still used for close combats rather than tapping buttons on the control panel, which justified the hatred towards Blue Crown Serpent on their journey.
Ye Qin was the significant figure in the younger generation of Ye family, who passed her trial at flying colors at the age of 18, while also being the youngest among the only 10 females who completed the trial alive. And currently she received an order from her family, of heading to Lunaris to assist Ye Bei, who - like most youngsters in the family - had a cold, lonesome personality and a crude desire towards strength. While she disliked young men like Ye Bei, the order was an emergency, also a compulsory one, with an elaboration stating to follow Ye Bei's order wholly. "Who does Ye Bei think he is!?" She was not pleased by the setting this time.
The more thought-provoking part was, what had actually happened on Lunaris, that her family asked almost every descendant of Ye they could find to help. There were war machines, 500 of them, which would be a compelling sight even at the parking lot if you would ask me. In her family, you would surely be something if you were officially indexed in the family record. And there were 500 standard war machine models in standby, with 500 indexed, recognized and registered pilots inside. Those were more than enough to launch a small-scaled intergalactic war. He Yue galaxy had been at peace for all these years, which at most, little conflicts would happen sometimes but it would not be as outrageous as this time, where every pilot was called on.
Ye Bei should probably know why, I'm going to have a talk-to with him once I got there.
...
What?
Her eyes rested upon the blue screen of despair, where the Blue Crown Serpents covered the place. There was something different from the crawling mess she used to see. It's a blue cocoon?! Ye Qin spotted the cocoon being constantly attacked by those Blue Crown Serpents.
She then quickly launched a full input on the control panel. Her Night Impaler was equipped with the most hi-tech detection system. It was powerful that it could give high definition zoom-in on any spot, like the cocoon for example. "What the..." There were people inside?!
That was skillful! Complimented Ye Qin in amazement, which to her more surprise, it was a female too! The female actually guarded all the raining attacks by the serpents! The Alloy Cane literally was dancing in her waving sleeves. Ye Qin was speculating if this white lady was an apprentice of some great masters.
But she should not be doing that. She had a mission to do, no time to stop. Well, she might not have the time, it did not mean she could not lend a hand.
Blue Crown Serpents were always a horror to martial arts practitioners, but they would be nothing as soon as they got into the air, fighting against mechs.
"Zi, lead two Netters and rescue those people. Don't take too long, we won't be waiting forever," ordered Ye Qin.
"Yes, Ma'am. It will only take brief seconds to handle the pests." A strong young man replied on the screen.
Three Netters zapped away from the formation and headed towards Rui bing.
Netter was a rescuing/assisting model built with great firepower. It was armed with Lux Terrain technology, which could impose a dense network of firepower to - as its name suggested - net friends or foes. The weakness was, however, its speed was mediocre, so as its guard. It was born to be the stapler between different mech models in the party, while it also had tedious demand on energy consumption, that it would be a hassle to constantly resupply the battery. The appearance was Netter was peculiar, it actually looked like a clam?
Rui Bing had changed to automatic mode herself, as she swung her cane subconsciously, so she did not notice the coming of the three Netters. Her ears had been drowned by the clashing sounds that negated her surrender to death, repetitively slamming the serpents away.
The Netters headed towards Rui Bing in a triangular formation.
"All in Battle Station."
"Set the net."
"3...2...1..."
Zappp! The Lux Terrain was launched, as hundred beams blasted from the launchers, forming the terrain itself.
Netter was the model exclusive to the Ye family, as they had gotten so used to close-ranged battles that they lacked a standard assistance on a long-ranged war. With this in mind, the Netter was built, to cover up their weakness, though the Ye family was notorious for their accuracy. The model was then designed in a way that it did an Area-Of-Effect attack rather than the standard firing.
The three Netters were gliding in the air, reposting the terrain like a spotlight, as the ground was painfully cut open, the Blue Crown Serpents obviously did not survive. If it was not an operation of rescue, they would have turned up the power and bombarded the entire place, and the serpents would be ashes by then.
Their army was leaving, as it was rather ahead of them now. Zi did not want to waste time any longer. Madam wanted to save these people, so the Netters would save them. The side quest would be accomplished once they netted the folks.
So they lowered themselves and flew by Rui Bing rapidly, they also adjusted the range of their terrain to a diameter around 5 meters. It was like a cage that isolated the folks from the serpents.
They turned up the lever, "Full Power Initiated!" The density of the terrain intensified, that every serpent would be grilled upon contact.
Rui Bing had finally gotten out of her trance, she grabbed Shi Fuyin and Shi Chongming tightly and followed the Netters.
The Netters moved forward and cleared out a zone with their terrain. Rui Bing began sprinting, sprinting hard, on the scorching grilled ground for her and her ally's lives.
She ran on and made a close escape from the aggression behind.
She took a glance back, those horrible blue glows... Rui Bing might be a Jie expert, but she still had the nature of humanity of being in fear, that she almost tripped herself. She was fatigued, drastically fatigued. The moment she confirmed her successful escape, her adrenaline sank, that fatigue caught her steps, she panted heavily, wondering when she would fall before she noticed, hoping that she could regain little vitality from her catch of breath.
The Netters - upon seeing the folks escaped - made a sharp turn and zoomed back to the army.
Pant... pant...
"Wh..." Rui Bing took half a minute to finally comprehend the situation, "What was that? Who... were those mechs?"
"It's the Ye family!" Said Shi Chongming with joy, "But..." His face tightened right away, "They seemed to be heading Guilar... what was happening there, that the Ye family would send such a huge army...?"
"Ye family?" Rui Bing was choked, "Ye... Ye..."
...
... ...
Feng Wuqing, Duo Huang and Ye Bei led their own underlings and chased the group desperately. The strength demonstrated by those Jie experts had convinced them to even consider about attacking in a No-fly zone. The 3 teams only hoped they would not lose the Jie experts for now, although fortunately the Jie experts seemed to be slowing down, as their distance did not increase.
A No-fly zone about 300 kilometers was rather distant to be passive. Feng Wuqing and her mates were wondering if they could deploy their mechs now. "No, I don't think that's right. It would be really bad..." They agreed on the opinion and scrapped the idea.
The landscape was tiring ahead, as it was no longer flat, rather there were slopes, even a few hills too.
The Jie experts had already entered the area and submerged into the valley. "No! You aren't going away!" Feng Wuqing and the mates panicked as they ran even faster.
Ye Bei and his own underlings were ahead, thanks to their well-built physique as required by their family. *Beep* Ye Bei received a message from Ye Qin - We have entered Lunaris, coming soon. "Good!" Ye Bei was overjoyed.
The flocks headed into the valley. The Jie experts might be strong, but there were merely 20 of them, and we have at least 300 men on our side. It would be a daydream to capture the Jie experts without our mechs, but it also would be a joke if the Jie experts wanted to annihilate us.
I would love to have a one-on-one with those Jie experts, it would be fantastic if they stopped chickening out and turned back like a man. That is too what we desired in the first place - to cling to them.
Ye Bei and his allies were well-prepared so no fear, no worries.
But after they got into the valley, they changed their mind.
They were welcomed by 10 teams of hundred men army standing still in formation wordlessly. The atmosphere was frightening, as their mask showed an emotionless cruelty.
Ye Bei, Feng Wuqing and Duo Huan flinched.
They quickly turned back to have a glance, which then they realized a few silhouettes were circulating at the exit.
Luring the foes into trap - that was the simple yet effective strategy Ye Chong came up with, as somehow that instinct he grew up with back on Trash Planet was coming back to him and guiding him out. That was when he still piloted good old Winnie with that poor piloting skill of his, despite of which he still fought on, bravely.
And in his cold eyes, those foes in a flock about 600 to 700 were nothing but those preys he once hunted back on Trash Planet.
"Charge," briefly he spelled the commencement.
The air was clouded by countless afterimages, the Sangs finally revealed their deadly fangs again.
This speed! Jie Experts?! ALL of them?! The three aristocrats were in utter grief, as fright filled their eyes begging with mercy. The slaughter happened fairly quick. Compared to those beasts in Archipelago, killing these aristocrats would be a piece of cake. There was no letup from the Sangs however, despite the foes they were fighting being weaklings. The formation was there, so was the strategy, which boosted the efficiency dramatically.
"ARE YOU HUMAN!" Screamed Ye Bei on top of his lungs, "I KNOW YOU GO BY THE YE FAMILY'S NAME! Don't YOU too, want to know who your PARENTS-" And he was ambushed.
Ye Chong lifted his head straight away, the glow in his eyes shook like his will.
Parents... Parents? What a foreign word... If it was not the biology lesson Shang had with him, he would have assumed he never had any parent. He only remembered his Papa, but never once Papa had mentioned anything about his parents.
He knew it, he knew it well, that those words of rage coming from Ye Bei was for no one else than him.
He knew he went by the Ye family's name. His name was Ye Chong. Wait... Did that person know something? He should know something! Thought Ye Chong as he looked at the ambush... And Ye Bei was there, on the ground, no longer mobile, no longer could word his rage, no longer able to spell out the past of Ye Chong.
The war ended quickly. It happened to quick it did not feel like a war, "Like a street fight maybe." Laughed Ye Chong, realizing how ridiculous he was being unfocused by some triviality. The only entity I would care... would probably be Mu Shang, that was what I thought. It seemed like I was wrong.
He on his throne, looked at the Sangs repositioning themselves back into their formation, their eyes were bloodshot, their breath was frantic as the wild.
It was a problem, Ye Chong thought.
As long as they could not withdraw their bloodthirstiness as soon as the necessary fight had been conducted, they would be forever aimed by the enemies, they would be that bullseyes in the war field, that spotlight in the public. Nothing on them was low-profiled, which Ye Chong could not tolerate. He just wished to expand his forces in the dark, to a point where he could at least stand alone in this world.
He was small, he was insignificant, as he stood in a boundless new world of unknown. The idea of heading back to the 5 major galaxies in search of Mu Shang had already become a tale, told by a fool.
The Sangs were great assistance, yet they were poor - finance-wise and standard-wise, yes they were impeccable fighters, but their skills were mere brute force exerted crudely. They could not hide their nature, so were the Collisions they piloted, which travelled so uniquely everyone on the road would look at them inevitably. Ye Chong did not even dare to deploy the Collisions to hasten their travel.
The Sangs were great force, but they were one force that could not be deployed on a whim. Once the Collisions were exposed, Ye Chong knew what he had summoned from the defensive He Yue galaxy.
Ye Chong gave a nod to Sang Fan, who understood his intended order immediately, as he ordered everyone to deploy Collision and get into the cabin. To be frank, Collisions - despite being unnecessarily eye-catching - were the perfect tool to make a runaway, due to its anti-detection ability as well as its superior speed.
Piloted the Collisions, they zoomed away from the scene.