"Then could you wait until the old hunk's finished charging before you attack? I don't have a backup power source!"
If transmigrating into a mech came with a cheat, Yu Xiao would've picked a blue pill that let him reach through the screen and smack Bai Ying twice.
But the truth was that from the moment a pilot completed neural synchronization with Xingtian, the pilot took control of most of the mech's movements and commands.
Once the neural link was established, Yu Xiao couldn't move freely like he could when the cockpit was empty. If he tried to resist the pilot's commands, their consciousnesses would clash, increasing the mech's energy consumption.
That was extremely dangerous for an old-model mech like him, especially since his pilot, Bai Ying, loved to manually trigger overload mode to force the mech's performance higher.
Crash!
Just as Xingtian had finally torn free of its cables, an Aggregate Beast standing thirty meters tall ripped the hangar doors completely open!
Its head resembled that of a hammerhead shark, with three pairs of glowing green eyes arranged along the edges of its skull. Its thick, powerful forelimbs let it stand hunched over, and its claws—each nearly as large as its head—could shred any man-made armor. Three spiked tails covered in scales swayed wildly behind it.
A sub-kaiju specialized in close-quarters combat.
It was twenty meters shorter than Xingtian, but in terms of bulk, the beast was a match for him!
After all, Xingtian was a first-generation mech, while the Aggregate Beast was a third-generation monster!
"Roar!"
Yu Xiao didn't know why monsters always seemed to roar when they made an entrance, but for Bai Ying, who fought dirty, it was the perfect chance to attack.
She didn't spare a thought for Xingtian's fuel reserves. She cranked the rocket boosters to full power, shot into the air, and punched the Aggregate Beast in the head!
Boom!
The Aggregate Beast had barely made it inside before Xingtian punched it right back out of the hangar!
Before it could react, Xingtian was already driving a second punch into its jaw!
After taking two punches, the Aggregate Beast immediately lost its balance and toppled backward toward the ocean!
"Wrist blades, deploy!"
Two enormous blades sprang from the black armor covering Xingtian's arms. Xingtian leaped onto the Aggregate Beast's body and swung the blades down at its head!
Clang!
"Warning: back armor has sustained 32% damage!"
Bai Ying grunted at the controls and nearly stumbled forward.
Xingtian's wrist blade veered off course, failing to sever the Aggregate Beast's head.
The mech's back had been stabbed by the Aggregate Beast's three spiked tails!
Before Bai Ying could regain her balance, the beast's tails launched a second attack!
Suddenly, Xingtian entered overload mode without receiving a command from Bai Ying. The reactor's output surged!
For an instant, Bai Ying felt as though the mech had taken control of her body. Xingtian twisted at the waist and swung a blade at the incoming tails!
"Warning: back armor has sustained 41% damage!"
One of the tails had pierced deep into Xingtian's back armor, severing part of its support frame.
But at the same time, Xingtian's wrist blade cut through the other two tails!
The Aggregate Beast let out a bloodcurdling roar. Green fluid gushed from the severed ends of its tails.
"Now!"
Too busy to think about what had just happened, Bai Ying made a snap decision!
Ignoring the tail embedded in Xingtian's back, she fired the rocket boosters while still straddling the beast, raised her arm, and brought the blade down on its head!
Crack!
The sharp blade, backed by tremendous momentum, sliced through the bone and flesh of the Aggregate Beast's head, cleanly severing it from its body!
Watching the seawater turn green, Bai Ying gritted her teeth and pulled the tail from Xingtian's back.
With neural synchronization active, the pain felt no different from pulling a knife out of her own back!
"Warning: mech back has sustained 43% damage!"
Xingtian rose from the Aggregate Beast's body. Sparks kept spitting from the gash in his back.
"That crazy girl really wants me dead!"
If Yu Xiao hadn't forcibly taken back control of the mech just now, Xingtian would've been torn into scrap by now.
"Did you see that, General? That's what I can do!" Riding the high of her first victory, Bai Ying's confidence soared.
"No! There's a new energy signature nearby! Get back to the hangar—we need to descend to the safe level!"
Before General Chen could finish speaking, two newly fused Aggregate Beasts emerged from the sea!
"There's no time. It takes too long to lower the hangar. You two head down now; I'll hold them off!" Bai Ying had no intention of retreating. Instead, she put Xingtian into a fighting stance.
"What the hell makes you think you can take on two at once?!" Yu Xiao was close to tears. The damage to his back had already slowed him down, and his reactor temperature remained dangerously high.
He couldn't risk taking control again. Otherwise, Xingtian might lose control and blow himself apart from reactor overload before the fight even began!
Ding!
Just as Yu Xiao was torn between his options, he heard a sound etched into his DNA from his past life playing video games.
Whenever he faced a level he couldn't beat, he'd put in the effort and press a number key on the numpad to make the sound of invincibility!
Was it finally happening?
[Host has completed their first kill. Evolution System activated]
[Historical kills have been converted into the corresponding evolution points]
[Name: Yu Xiao]
[Mech designation: Xingtian]
[Mech soul level: 1]
[Mech specifications: First-generation nuclear-powered armor, height: 50 meters, weight: 8,000 tons]
[Equipment modules: Slayer wrist blades, heavy artillery, back-mounted rocket boosters]
[Combat skills: None]
[Combat rating: D-rank (1,300 points)]
[Available evolution points: 20,000]
"Why the hell did this useless thing have to activate now?!"
The timing of the system's appearance nearly made Yu Xiao laugh in disbelief, but he had to figure out how this so-called Evolution System worked right now. Otherwise, once Bai Ying charged in with him, it'd be too late.
The reactor's output instantly shot to maximum. The heat was so intense it nearly roasted Bai Ying inside the cockpit!
Yu Xiao's mech brain entered an unprecedented state of overload. He quickly figured out how the system worked!
The entire Evolution System revolved around evolution points. Whenever Xingtian made a kill, it earned a corresponding number of points. The higher the monster's level, the more points it was worth.
But not all kills were equal. If Yu Xiao killed a monster on his own, without any help, he'd receive 100% of the points. If the monster had taken damage from other attacks, he'd receive points in proportion to the damage he had inflicted.
There were also two special reward mechanics:
First, if Yu Xiao killed a monster never before seen, he'd earn 200% of the evolution points for scoring the first kill.
Second, if a monster was rated [Unique] or higher, Yu Xiao would receive not only evolution points but also an equipment module or combat skill with special abilities.
What Yu Xiao hadn't expected was that the system would convert all of Xingtian's historical kills into evolution points and give them to him, since Xingtian was a legendary first-generation mech.
However, first-generation monsters were generally rather weak by today's standards, so the points didn't add up to all that much.
Evolution points could be exchanged for rewards in the shop, but what surprised Yu Xiao was how far the range of rewards exceeded his expectations.
Most of the shop's inventory consisted of mech upgrades and equipment modules, with everything from full-mech enhancements to individual parts. Yu Xiao only had to scroll through a few pages to find dozens more!
Some of the technology on offer hadn't even been mastered by humanity yet!
The shop also had a dedicated category for mech soul evolution, but the products in that section were so abstract that Yu Xiao couldn't figure out what a mech soul even was.
Even so, one particularly unusual item caught his eye.
[Mech Soul Manifestation: Appear in the world as a living being, and switch between mech soul and living form at will.]
[Required mech soul level: 3]
[Price: 100,000 evolution points]
There was hope for becoming human!
"Roar!"
The Aggregate Beast's bellow dragged Yu Xiao back to reality. Bai Ying had already taken control and charged him toward the monsters!
"Could you stop being so reckless?!"
Yu Xiao was furious, but with only a few seconds left in the charge, all he could do was quickly exchange points for two upgrades: a turbo nuclear reactor and a sealed, high-intelligence holographic AI interaction system.
The first would extend Xingtian's rapidly dwindling lifespan and greatly improve his performance.
The second would serve as a vessel for Yu Xiao's mech soul, letting him communicate with his pilot, Bai Ying, while reducing the energy he used when controlling Xingtian.
Both components were at the very core of a mech, and they didn't come cheap. Together, they cost Yu Xiao 16,000 evolution points!
[Exchange successful. The system will complete delivery within ten minutes.]
"Why the hell is there a delivery time?!"
Yu Xiao had assumed the parts would be installed in his body the moment he placed the order.
Even if materializing them out of a fourth-dimensional space was unreasonable, the system could've at least sent down two beams of light to strike Xingtian and made a show of installing them!
What kind of backward system made its host wait ten minutes for delivery in an era of cyberpunk-level technology?!
But the points had been spent, and the order had shipped. He had to make it through those ten minutes!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The twin cannons on Xingtian's back weren't idle either. They opened fire on one of the charging Aggregate Beasts!
The fierce barrage struck the beast but did little more than slow its advance!
The cannons mounted on Xingtian were simply too outdated. They couldn't penetrate the armor of a new-generation monster!
"Then let's do this the hard way!" Bai Ying pushed Xingtian into a full-speed charge and swung his blade at the Aggregate Beast's head.
The Aggregate Beast raised a claw to block Xingtian's blade, while its other claw shot toward Xingtian's chest!
Thud!
Xingtian blocked the beast's attack as well. Their four fists met, locking them in a stalemate. Neither could free a hand.
But the Aggregate Beast had tails. Xingtian didn't.
All three spiked tails shot toward Xingtian's head, moving too fast for Bai Ying to react.
The next second, Xingtian's head was pierced clean through!
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