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From the moment Yu Xiao first saw Cobra, he knew he had no chance of winning in a head-on confrontation.

His intelligent AI had already run the calculations. With Xingtian's current equipment modules, it did not even stand a chance of penetrating the enemy's armor!

Even if Yu Xiao used the [Hardening] skill to strengthen Xingtian's wrist blades against him, he would definitely be taken out before he could even touch the enemy—[Hardening]'s enhancement effect was inversely proportional to its area of coverage. The larger the portion of the mech it covered, the weaker the effect and the shorter its duration.

That meant that once Yu Xiao used [Hardening] on his wrist blades, he could no longer use it to reinforce the mech's defenses.

He could not have both offense and defense.

So Yu Xiao's only option was to stall!

Cobra stood in the doorway, holding the massive corrosive energy rifle known as Black Blood. The bright light outside stretched the giant's shadow so long that Xingtian was completely engulfed within it.

The Hart Brothers had intended to fire directly at Xingtian and finish him off cleanly, but Xingtian's movements forced them to abandon that idea.

"Damn it! He's still connected to charging lines from other power plants!"

Xingtian deliberately exposed the cables at his waist for Cobra to see, all to stop him from acting rashly!

In truth, if Yu Xiao overloaded another two-thirds of the generator units, Silent Graveyard would immediately be left without power.

If he wanted to, he could do it at any time.

But the next second, a live feed was projected from Cobra's chest.

"I thought this girl was controlling you remotely, but it seems that isn't the case at all."

Onscreen, Poison Scorpion covered Bai Ying's mouth with one hand while holding a dagger against her throat with the other!

"Though I don't know what kind of madness your artificial intelligence has gone through, I assume everything you've done was for this girl, wasn't it?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Poison Scorpion plunged the dagger beneath Bai Ying's skin. Bright red blood immediately began trickling down from the blade's tip.

"I'll give you thirty seconds. Put your hands where I can see them, then pull out every cable on your body one by one. The countdown starts now!"

As Poison Scorpion began counting down, the dagger in his hand slowly slid sideways across Bai Ying's throat!

Yu Xiao knew he had no choice. He could only do as Poison Scorpion said, placing his hands where Cobra could see them and pulling out his "bargaining chips" one by one.

But Yu Xiao understood even more clearly that once he lost all his "bargaining chips," Cobra standing in the doorway would pull the trigger on him without mercy!

One glowing cable after another fell away from Xingtian's body. Even through the screen, Yu Xiao could sense Poison Scorpion's smile on the other side of the camera.

Yu Xiao focused nearly all his attention on the system's countdown panel, watching until the number changed from double digits to a single digit!

Three!

Yu Xiao slowly reached behind Xingtian's spine. It was the highest-powered charging line of them all, and the only one directly connected to the power supply of Silent Graveyard's core area.

He had deliberately saved this cable for last, lest they choose to sacrifice some of the generator units in exchange for Xingtian's life!

Two!

Xingtian's massive alloy hand had already gripped the final cable. All Yu Xiao had to do now was give it a light twist, and his connection to that generator unit would be severed at once!

One!

"Do it."

Poison Scorpion gave Cobra the order right in front of Xingtian, because he had clearly seen Xingtian turn his wrist and pull out the last cable!

Crack!

But at that very moment, a tremendous crash suddenly came from Cobra's side. The entire image then shook violently before being forcibly cut off!

The smile on Poison Scorpion's face froze.

"What happened!?"

From the other end of the communicator, he could hear the Hart Brothers letting out bloodcurdling screams!

"The door... the door!"

After his older brother Rehn painfully forced out those two words, the voice connection was cut off as well.

Inside Hangar Four, Xingtian gripped the cable he had just pulled free and strode toward Cobra.

What Yu Xiao had just been counting was not Poison Scorpion's countdown, but the hacking countdown he had been waiting for all along!

Now, control of Hangar Four had been transferred to Yu Xiao. The first thing he did was forcibly shut the hangar doors—ever since opening them, the enemy had stood between them, aiming his gun at him.

If Xingtian and Cobra were not even on the same level in terms of strength, then Cobra's anti-energy light armor and giant-strength alloy were likewise not on the same level.

The standard configuration of a Third-Generation Duelist mech had originally been molecular memory-alloy armor, which performed quite well against physical attacks.

But Cobra's specialized modifications clearly were not meant for fighting monsters. They had been designed specifically to deal with other mechs!

To achieve greater mobility than other mechs, Cobra had abandoned the more balanced factory armor and installed anti-energy light armor capable of effectively resisting all kinds of mech firepower!

It was precisely because Yu Xiao had recognized this that he decided to use the hangar's giant-strength metal doors to launch a direct physical attack against Cobra!

If Cobra had been a standard Third-Generation Duelist mech, Yu Xiao would instead have worried that the inferior giant-strength metal would be unable to restrain him!

Thud!

Another support pillar sprang out from around Cobra's body. At that moment, he was like a walnut clamped between a pair of pincers, liable to shatter at any moment!

"What... what do you want!?"

Massive pressure crashed in from both sides of Cobra's frame like a tsunami, and the Hart Brothers felt as if their internal organs were about to burst out of their bodies!

"I have to say, your anti-hacking defenses are seriously thorough!" Yu Xiao had been attempting a network intrusion ever since he noticed Cobra, only to discover that fully cracking this mech would take more than four hundred hours!

The Hart Brothers couldn't hear those words, because Xingtian had no external speakers installed.

But Yu Xiao was still enjoying himself. Xingtian waved the charging cable in its hand at Cobra, then shoved it straight into a port beneath Cobra's waist armor the next second!

"Mind letting me take the back door?"

Although Cobra's anti-hacking measures were excellent, as long as Yu Xiao could bypass the firewall and access the port, he could immediately infiltrate their network.

And since most of Silent Graveyard's programs were on Cobra's firewall "whitelist," Yu Xiao only needed to implant his cracking program into the charging cable to easily disguise himself as a "whitelisted user," bypass the firewall, and invade the opponent's system directly.

[Warning: Neural synchronization forcibly disconnected!]

As the system prompt ended, the Hart Brothers completely lost control of the Cobra mech!