Only Hudi naively believed that for these facts even they knew of, Fang Hong must also have been prepared.

Indeed, he had not misjudged.

As soon as Fang Hong's Walker landed, he clenched his hand, and the Walker's brass shell suddenly opened, resembling an enraged beetle. The magic patterns on it glowed golden-red and entered an overload state.

Then, the Swift Burst Plugin and Strength Enhancement Plugin were activated.

Once the construct structure fully expanded, the Walker appeared larger, and with a swing of its twin blades, it struck the Shining Field again, causing the light net to wobble.

Red Leaf was startled, and quickly increased the magic power output instinctively to stabilize the Shining Shield once more.

But between one offensive move and one defensive, the audience could see that the former could not break through the latter's defense—the level gap was too vast; even in an overload state, it only forced Red Leaf to further boost her magic power output.

But that bit of magic power output, in terms of the Ether capacity of a Flexible Construct, was trivial, right? Fighting for an hour wouldn't even matter.

However, the duration of the overload state is considered in seconds—

Just when people thought so, something unexpected happened. Two small orbs suddenly burst into a magic spark, twinkled in mid-air, and then both fell to the ground.

Everyone was stunned.

And Red Leaf's heart skipped a beat.

In a panic, she opened the panel only to find that the core temperature of the crystal had not decreased but instead had risen and had reached a critical temperature. Under the high temperature overload, the Annihilator's self-protection system was activated, disconnecting every system except for those essential for maintaining the construct's survival.

The floating octahedron suddenly came to a halt in mid-air, no longer spinning. The magic patterns on its surface dimmed, turning it into an inert brick floating in the air.

Red Leaf was stunned.

She finally realized that Fang Hong had tricked her. His full firepower was not to break through her defenses but to force her to increase her magic power output.

The Shining Field, always magic-guided towards Combat Artisan controlled temperature, would also affect the core temperature's rise under high magic power output, especially when the core crystal's temperature was already close to critical.

A terrifying thought suddenly crossed her mind:

"He, he might have been calculating my temperature control all along?"

Red Leaf's mind felt dizzy for a moment.

She almost thought she was not participating in a local craftsman challenge in Elpaxin but in one of the Second World's top three traditional Chosen events, or in the Dragon Knight championships.

By then, Fang Hong had commanded the Walker to start attacking the Annihilator, which had lost all its power sources.

He immediately grimaced, though.

The Walker's silver Blade Feet only struck a faint gleam of refraction, which appeared around the Annihilator's body in a circle before vanishing. 'Sword Hong' was repelled once again, falling back to the ground.

Seeing this, a glimmer returned to Red Leaf's eyes.

It was a shield, the last line of defense for a magic-guided Flexible Construct—

Although for most Flexible Constructs of the same rank, the offensively oriented Annihilator had almost no Shield Value, and one or two attacks could shatter it.

But the problem was, 'Sword Hong' was clearly not among them.

Its attack was too weak.

In fact, from the brightness change of the Annihilator's shield during the second attack, others had noticed this—the Walker of Fang Hong could not easily penetrate the latter's shield.

A murmur rose among people: how low must the level be?

Tianlan couldn't help but exclaim, "How can that shield be so thick?"

"It's not that the shield is thick," Hudi shook his head: "It's that Ade's attack is too weak."

Above the arena.

Red Leaf looked at Fang Hong in surprise, she had faintly perceived his low level in the previous combat, but never imagined it would be this low.

The almost insurmountable gap in levels seemed all too apparent at this moment.

Red Leaf's heart felt both embarrassed and relieved, relieved because, she realized she still had a chance. She did not hesitate to pull a lever on the Magic Guided Reactor to activate the ranged shield recharge device.

But Fang Hong appeared utterly calm.

As if he was unaware of everything around him, he let the Walker launch repeated attacks, '-57, -62, -33, -51...' Under the recharge conditions, the decrement of Shield Value was very slow, but it was at least steadily decreasing.

Fang Hong silently calculated the opponent's recharge efficiency, already deducing that it would take seven more attacks to break through the shield.

A curious scene appeared on the arena, everyone focused on this tedious, nearly static combat, holding their breath, because everyone understood the outcome of this battle depended on whether Fang Hong could break through the shield first or whether Red Leaf could control her Flexible Construct's core temperature.

Red Leaf also kept a close eye on the temperature slowly decreasing on her panel; it was already nearing a critical state.

She too silently calculated and suddenly realized her opponent's attack had significantly dropped off, understanding that the Walker's overload state had ended. Red Leaf couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief—seven more attacks.

A resolute gleam passed through her eyes.

She had won.

Indeed, when the Walker made its final charge, the Annihilator's surface shield finally shattered, turning into a myriad of light points that dispersed into nothing. However, it was also at this moment that the black octahedron's surface patterns brightened up again.

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