Chapter 416: A True Ace!

Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr

On his end, Qiao Ting had just managed to suppress Li Lanfeng, but before he could think of a way to finish off the other once and for all, he suddenly felt his heart clench, a strong sense of danger rushing over him. He decisively stopped attacking Li Lanfeng and operated his mecha to rise rapidly into the air …

Qiao Ting’s intuition was undoubtedly accurate. He had just left his original position when three beams of light struck right there.

Qiao Ting quickly zoomed out his mecha’s screen and only then did he notice that several hundred metres behind him, heaven knows when, another three Lingtian mecha had appeared.

Seeing this, Qiao Ting felt the faint stirrings of regret in his heart. If you recall, back when he had tried to ambush Zhao Jun, he had fired a radar disruption missile. Indeed, this radar disruption missile had caused the radars of Zhao Jun’s group to lose their functionality, but within the same area, the radar in his own mecha was equally affected by the missile. This was why he had not noticed Li Lanfeng, nor had he discovered the unexpected arrival of these three mecha.

Now, in retrospect, this decision of his back then was just digging a pit for himself. Keep in mind that the mecha he was operating was an ace mecha which had a radar search range of 5 kilometres. If he had not fired that missile at the start, with his search range of 1 to 2 kilometres larger than the Lingtian mecha’s, how could he have been taken by surprise again and again by these Lingtian mecha?

The ones who had failed in their sneak attack were Wu Jiong, Lin Zhong-qing, and Xie Yi. Seeing Li Lanfeng fighting alone and catching sight of the thick smoke down below as well as the remains of mecha scattered on the ground, and then looking over at Qiao Ting to see that his mecha was missing half a leg, they had a good idea of what had happened. Their teammates who had arrived before them had most probably used the tactic Boss Lan had designed, and bringing that piece of Qiao Ting with them as their spoils of war, they must have been defeated and ejected from the field.

The three of them did not dare to hesitate. As the primary mecha, he was the first to pounce with his mecha, while his secondaries Xie Yi and Lin Zhong-qing followed close behind. Meanwhile, at that moment, due to the assistance of Wu Jiong’s trio, Li Lanfeng had finally managed to catch his breath. He likewise operated his mecha forwards, the initially snuffed out beam gun in his hands lighting up once more to attack Qiao Ting.

“Godd*mmit!” Seeing Lingtian about to attack as a group once more, Qiao Ting carefully evaded Li Lanfeng’s beam attacks while flying swiftly in a particular direction at the same time. He did not want to be surrounded again and be forced to endure the opponents’ self-destructs and add even more wounds on his mecha.

Seeing Qiao Ting choose to flee, Wu Jiong and the others were surprised, but they immediately revved their engines to fly after him. Even though Qiao Ting’s speed was very fast, perhaps the damage on his mecha had still affected his speed — combined with the fact that Wu Jiong and the rest did not hesitate to overload their engines, Qiao Ting was actually unable to lose them for a while.

In this manner, chasing and running, this stalemate continued for two to three minutes. The extended pursuit made many of the spectating students think that this might be a match of endurance now. Perhaps they could only wait for one side’s mecha to completely run out of power before this boring chase war would end.

The cadets were dissatisfied by this — they wanted to see a fierce battle, and not this kind of boring chase which carried some element of luck. Qiao Ting’s active retreat also tarnished the glow of his previous glorious image as an unbeatable legend; he was swiftly losing his shine. In contrast, the Lingtian Mecha Clan which had always presented a brave front had earned the goodwill and favour of many of the cadets.

Even the spectating administrators in the VIP room were extremely unhappy at this moment, thinking that Qiao Ting’s performance was indeed too lame, upsetting their plans. However, they still did not give up hope. They were waiting for Qiao Ting to turn the tables around and carry off an exciting reversal from his dire situation right now …

Just as everyone was starting to feel bored, thinking that Qiao Ting would continue to run, Qiao Ting did something that shocked everyone. He suddenly stopped his rapid flight and almost without pause, he flew in the opposite direction, charging ferociously at the chasing four Lingtian mecha.

This action may seem extremely simple but was actually very hard to do. To suddenly stop while one was moving forwards at a rapid pace required one to withstand the inertia of the movement — only then would one be able to stop instantly. On top of that, after coming to a stop, to shift and fly in the opposite direction was several times harder than just pulling off an emergency stop. The average ace operator whose skills were still far from perfect would never dare to attempt this, because it was all too easy to lose control of one’s mecha this way, and might end up pushing one into a desperate situation instead.

This movement was considered a super hard double-S rank ace mecha control technique which only elite aces had the guts and qualifications to use. Even among the ace mecha instructors within the military academy, only the elite ace mecha master Tang Yu could do it. The other instructors would never dare attempt it normally, because they had no way to guarantee that they would pull it off successfully.

This action made instructor Tang Yu’s eyes glint, a faint satisfied smile appearing on his lips. This was the first time he had expressed any satisfaction at Qiao Ting’s performance — only a Qiao Ting like this deserved to be called his proud student.

“You’ve taught him well. Qiao Ting is finally about to display his skills.” The principal’s eyes were sharp. Qiao Ting’s previous performance had at most been at pseudo-ace level. But the appearance of this technique was enough to prove that Qiao Ting was now truly entering the mindset of an ace operator.

“Qiao Ting’s weakness is that he’s too slow to warm up. The fact that he’s able to enter the mindset of an ace operator so quickly this time should be all thanks to the repeated oppression of the Lingtian Mecha Clan … the victory of this challenge fight now looks like it may really belong to Leiting.” Tang Yu had not been certain of the outcome of the fight at first because he was well aware of Qiao Ting’s weakness. Although Qiao Ting was already an ace operator, he could not immediately enter the mindset of an ace operator. At most, he could only enter a pseudo-ace state, which was just a little higher than special-class, but he would not be able to completely overpower a special-class operator … this was why Zhao Jun and Li Lanfeng could wrangle with Qiao Ting for so long.

Mind you, a true ace operator could easily kill a special-class operator in a matter of seconds.

Qiao Ting’s sudden change of direction this time turned him from a fugitive to an attacker; he charged towards the four mecha who had been pursuing him. Wu Jiong was at the fore of the group. Originally, among the four mecha, Li Lanfeng was piloting a special-class mecha, which was also a speed-type mecha, so he should have been the one in the forefront. However, because he was a long-range attacker, he had not forgotten to attack Qiao Ting during the pursuit. This was also why Qiao Ting had not been able to blast away and escape at full speed; he needed to watch out for Li Lanfeng’s beam attacks.

This had also led to Wu Jiong taking the lead among the four mecha, followed closely by Li Lanfeng, Xie Yi, and Lin Zhong-qing. Therefore, when Qiao Ting abruptly changed directions to attack them, Wu Jiong naturally became his first target.

Perhaps this action of Qiao Ting’s was too sudden, or perhaps the distance between the two was too close — whatever the case, when faced with Qiao Ting’s sudden attack with his beam saber, Wu Jiong had no time at all to take any defensive action. The only thing he could do was to turn the power on his mecha’s beam shield to the max, hoping that it would be able to withstand the other’s sudden attack.

There was a soft “Swoosh!”, and the glowing beam shield on Wu Jiong’s mecha turned dark. Those with keen eyes could clearly see that Qiao Ting’s beam saber had sliced cleanly through Wu Jiong’s cockpit, achieving a one-hit kill!

Qiao Ting’s sudden outburst-like reversal left the spectating cadets gobsmacked. Some seniors who understood just how difficult the moves Qiao Ting had just executed had been could not help but become serious — this was how the Thunder King should perform.

“Regiment Commander Wu!” Xie Yi cried out in shock. He had never expected that the third strongest from the Central Scout Academy, Wu Jiong, would be killed instantly, unable to withstand even one attack from an ace operator. He finally understood the meaning of Boss Lan’s words right before the challenge fight. When they were up against a true ace operator, do not even think about exchanging blows with the other. Instead, they should think about how they could successfully self-destruct as soon as they made contact, so they could just deal even the slightest bit of damage to the other …

The gap between them and an ace operator was just too large — though it looked like just a gap of two levels, this gap was the difference between heaven and earth.

Wu Jiong was killed on the spot; without any chance at all to self-destruct, he had been defeated and kicked out of the field. In intense pain, Wu Jiong was sent out of Mecha World by the mainframe. At the login point, Wu Jiong could not help but crouch on the ground 1 . He was extremely frustrated — at that instant, why had he chosen to adjust his beam shield to the maximum instead of cleanly pressing his self-destruct button?

“Truly, if you don’t listen to Boss Lan, you will make mistakes …” said Wu Jiong with a bitter smile. He knew that he had chosen as he had back then because he still had that bit of ambition and competitive spirit in his heart. He had hoped to prove to Boss Lan that he was not as weak as Boss Lan thought he was. However, reality proved that he really was as weak as Boss Lan thought …

Wu Jiong was expelled from the fight without achieving anything, and his elimination had left Qiao Ting an opening in Lingtian’s encirclement. Qiao Ting did not push his advantage to chase victory, instead choosing to continue flying forwards to flee.

This time, however, Qiao Ting managed to shake off Xie Yi and Lin Zhong-qing. Although Li Lanfeng continued to stick close behind him, he had still fallen quite a distance behind Qiao Ting. After all, flying backwards after an emergency stop was something only an ace operator could do; it was not that easy for the three from Lingtian to change directions.

Li Lanfeng moved the swiftest — he used a horizontal-8 turnabout manoeuvre to turn his mecha around. Meanwhile, Xie Yi and Lin Zhong-qing had to make a large loop to turn their mecha around, and this was another reason why they had fallen so behind.

The chase began again, but this time, none of the spectators had any more objections about Qiao Ting’s actions. They knew very well that Qiao Ting could switch from running away to massacring his opponents at any time; it was all a matter of whether he wanted to or not.

“Actually coming back here. How lucky for me!” Rushing here with all his might, Qi Long had been very irritated to see his target originally going further away, as this would delay his reunion with his teammates even further. But unexpectedly, the target had turned back not too long later. This made Qi Long ecstatic — judging by the speed of the opponent, he should be able to join his teammates about a minute later.

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