Chapter 334: Underground Base
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The two mechs represented very different combat styles. The black and white mech fought openly, its long weapon swinging about powerfully. The mech fought carefully and continuously, leaving no openings. From a combat expert’s perspective, Ye Chong thought highly of him. He was like a rock among the waves, resisting all forces against it.
Han Jia fought with a completely different style. With its wings folded back in, the slender Han Jia was just like an assassin weaving in and out of the darkness. It took advantage of the territory and its speed to circle around the black and white mech like a ghost. Whenever the opponent had a small opening, Han Jia would swipe in with its brown-gray dagger. The black and white mech would then be temporarily flustered. Besides, Han Jia’s 12 flexible tentacles attacked without warning, a terrifying weapon to deal with.
The black and white mech’s defense was solid. Ye Chong was surprised to find that the opponent did not use any defensive weaponry at all, such as shields or the like. It managed to block all of his attacks with just its strange looking lance. "Excellent skills!" Ye Chong thought to himself in increasing astonishment as he fought. Moreover, whenever he slowed down just a bit, the strange looking lance would quickly be on his tail. Ye Chong dared not slow down, and could only desperately kept maneuvering Han Jia to circle around the mech.
Ye Chong did not know that his opponent was even more surprised. He was already giving his best, but could only barely hold against Ye Chong. The enemy fought strangely, its two daggers reflecting no light in the darkness. He grew more terrified when he noticed that the daggers had always attacked his weakest spots. Once the daggers appeared, the attack would come in waves, leaving him no room to breathe. The tentacles were even harder to deal with, vanishing as soon as they appeared.
No one who knew him well would believe that he was suppressed to this extent.
Both of them were in a stalemate. It was a battle of patience. Whoever presented an opening first would receive a devastating blow. None of them expected the battle to drag on like this. However, given their situation, they could not just escape.
Similar to them, Rui Bing and the other mech were also ending up in a stalemate.
The gray-brown mech’s red sniper rifle shot with astounding accuracy, and the mech pilot was also a competent fighter. He recognized that his opponent was in a miniature mech. Miniature mechs were never a match for normal mechs. However, he was confounded by the fact that this rule did not apply in his battle now. His opponent was shockingly powerful, changing directions in mind bending ways. That was not all. He found himself unable to lock on his opponent due to her unbelievably deft footwork.
Cold sweat began to roll down his spine.
If it was any other combat expert, that person in Guardian would have died a few times over. However, this was Rui Bing. In ancient times, combat experts were most afraid of weapons like arrows and bows. These long range weapons allowed a slightly trained young child to kill a combat expert with decades of harsh training.
Every attack has its counter. Combat experts thought hard on ways to overcome these deadly long range weapons, designing techniques specifically used to avoid them. However, these techniques gradually lost their use in the advent of energy weapons, and were slowly lost in history. Even if someone found out about them, they would not learn those techniques due to their uselessness.
However, this was Rui Bing.
The Rui Family grew to become an independent school of combat, and kept complete records of its techniques. As a focused learner since young and a strong conservative, Rui Bing was familiar with almost every technique that could be found in her family records.
Additionally, she was a Jie expert. She could perform a technique that was useless to someone else and achieve different and better results. Moreover, with her acute spiritual senses, she could judge situations very accurately, much like the mentalists from the Sanctuary.
That was how she managed to avoid being hit for so long. However, it was not a walk in the park for her. Rui Bing felt her stamina decreasing rapidly. Her opponent’s shooting accuracy was also putting her under great pressure. She could feel the threat of death every second. The red beam had barely grazed past her three times already.
Both sides did not expect to meet strong opponents here, but they were now all in this stalemate. Each of them groaned on the inside at their predicament, but had to keep up with their own battles.
It was the other side that finally relented. From the public comms channel came a low voice of a man, "My friend, this must be a misunderstanding. Why don’t we stop fighting?"
"Alright!" Ye Chong replied. Both sides would suffer if they continued fighting. Given that they had fought with each other for so long, they had a good grasp of their opponent’s strength. Giving up the fight was the obvious choice for both sides.
The black and white mech immediately eased down his defenses. Ye Chong noticed, and quickly stepped back. Han Jia’s daggers were hidden by its sides like a poisonous snake waiting to strike. If the opponent came back for him, the dagger would deliver a fatal blow.
The black and white mech vanished into the darkness.
Han Jia disappeared as well, hiding behind a stone pillar. It barely stood still when Rui Bing, in Guardian, came back to Han Jia’s shoulder.
After a full half minute, Ye Chong said, "They’re gone."
Rui Bing was breathing quickly. She had been stepping left and right avoiding her opponent’s attacks, and found herself fatigued. Besides, unlike Ye Chong, this was her first time facing such a cold battle. The thought of death was also tiring her quickly. She would have fainted by now if not for her strong determination.
The two of them were sharing a direct comms channel, and Rui Bing’s short breathing was heard clearly.
After a long moment of silence, Ye Chong suddenly asked out of nowhere, "Are you alright?"
Rui Bing froze for a second before replying calmly, "I’m fine." Guardian’s soft mask traced every detail on Rui Bing’s face, and it was now etched with a barely visible smile in the darkness.
"I see, let’s go then."
The two mechs that led them so far were dead now, right at a junction with many branches to choose from. There was nothing left for them to do but choose one at random and enter it. Han Jia carried Rui Bing silently as they advanced further into the sewer.
Soon, Ye Chong found that they had gotten lucky, because the number of holographic cameras along the way had suddenly increased. It seemed that they were heading in the right direction.
Ye Chong was not unsure if the holographic scanning could detect Han Jia and Guardian now. He did not know how those two mechs managed to see them earlier. Of course, it was most likely that they were equipped with a very powerful holographic scanning system.
However, now that they had come so far, it would be foolish to turn back.
They followed the sewer tunnel, which was beginning to form a slope upwards. The water level dropped until finally they could see the ground beneath. There were clear signs that someone had been keeping the place clean.
They reached an alloy door, which stood wide open before them. After some thought, Ye Chong and Rui Bing decided to enter. As they flew past the alloy door, Ye Chong found the thickness of the door surprising. It was 10 meters thick, enough to block even the lower grade cannons.
Beyond the door, the space opened up into a round hall. No one was there. The floor was a mess, scattered with chips of all colors.
Ye Chong moved carefully inside, and his expression turned grim. This was a laboratory. There were many virus cultivation equipment lying around, but they were all destroyed now. The containers he saw were all empty as well.
After passing by a few rooms similar to the first, Ye Chong and Rui Bing still did not met anyone. The place was obviously a central laboratory. Such a large central laboratory built underground must have been expensive.
The innermost room was an archive room. Unlike the other rooms, it was left untouched, with no signs of things being moved around.
Ye Chong came out of Han Jia, and Rui Bing withdrew Guardian. They studied the archive room with interest. The room was simple, with an empty cupboard at human’s height standing in a corner. The rest of the room was filled with all kinds of chips, arranged based on their serial numbers.
At the center was a holographic screen, showing all the feeds from the holographic cameras. Ye Chong noticed that one of the rows of holographic feeds was quickly disappearing one by one.
Suddenly, two figures appeared on the holographic screen. One was Engradie Academy’s Old Xu, while the other was a middle-aged man. They were heading towards the archive room where Ye Chong and Rui Bing were.
Ye Chong looked around him and stopped at the cupboard. It was tall enough, and large enough to fit them both snugly.
"Come in," Ye Chong went in first, and yelled to Rui Bing.
Rui Bing saw the meagre space left in the cupboard, a faint blush crawling up her neck. She hesitated for two seconds before squeezing in.
Ye Chong quickly closed the cupboard.
It was cramped inside as they were both squeezed tightly together. Rui Bing dared not move. Any movement from either of them made her uneasy, and her heart would beat even faster.
They were too close together. Rui Bing could even feel Ye Chong’s warm breath on her neck.
A strange tension was growing between them.
"You’re shivering," Ye Chong said.
"I’m not," Rui Bing said with forced determination.
"You’re definitely shivering, at 92 to 136 tremors per minute," Ye Chong said this with unusual certainty. Given a watch, he would be able to narrow down his estimation even further to a more accurate figure.
"I said I’m not," Rui Bing insisted with a tiny voice, biting her lips as her cheeks reddened considerably. The tight space did not even allow her to lower her head as she continued to helplessly shiver.
Ye Chong could not understand why Rui Bing would blatantly lie, but he did not ask further.
They both quieted down. Being so close together, they could hear each other’s beating heart. Ye Chong felt his mouth went inexplicably dry. His breath turned hotter, like fire, and his breathing grew heavy.
As if sensing the changes in Ye Chong, Rui Bing’s breathing shortened as well.