Unaware that he had already drawn a crowd of onlookers, Xu De remained immersed in the simulation.
At that moment, he was fending off ZAFT's Mobile Armors, constantly firing the Vulcan Cannons on both sides.
The cannons flashed through space, reducing the enemy Mobile Armors to wreckage one after another.
The group had arrived at the training area to find exactly this scene.
"Does he ever sleep?"
Hans had climbed out of bed too, watching the energetic figure training before them with bleary eyes.
"You're the one who got up late," Flint remarked.
"I keep a perfectly normal schedule, okay? Xu De's the freak."
Flint looked at the figure ahead but didn't argue.
Xu De was far better than them at piloting the Mistral alone.
He really was a freak.
"Do you think he can break the record?"
Price watched Xu De's performance without blinking.
"I don't think he'll have any problem."
Hans spoke with complete confidence in Xu De.
Meanwhile, Libby, who had also made it to the scene, watched Xu De with a dangerous look in his eyes.
His hands clenched into fists.
No matter how much he hated the other man, Xu De's movements were smoother than his own. That was an undeniable fact.
The fear of being replaced rose in his heart again.
He had no idea what Xu De's real goal was. He only thought his own position was under threat.
As he thought about it, he glanced down at his communicator again.
[Are you out of your fucking mind? The big boss is watching the livestream. You want me to cause trouble in the simulator?]
[But don't worry. There's no way he'll make it past two Ginns. He can't possibly be better than you were when you cheated, right?]
"..."
After reading the reply, Libby looked back up at the livestream screen.
He could only hope things would go as the other man had said.
But if Xu De really was better than he'd been when cheating...
"Sir, do you think Xu De can break the record?"
Just then, one of the subordinates he was usually on good terms with came over to ask.
"Well..."
Though he usually played the part of a nice guy in public, Libby couldn't stop the corner of his mouth from twitching.
"I hope he can."
"Then the Third Fleet will have someone to carry on after us."
Libby smiled, but inside, darkness had already consumed him.
Xu De, meanwhile, was focused entirely on training.
Breaking the record was just a side benefit. Training was what mattered most, and Survival Mode was a great way to do it.
The steadily increasing pressure helped him adapt and gradually improve his reflexes.
He wasn't thinking much about proving anyone wrong. He was simply focusing even harder on his piloting.
His mind raced as he calculated the variables among the wreckage before him.
It's not my imagination. This is a lot easier than before.
Xu De could feel that his body had grown stronger through days and nights of training, as well as his earlier brushes with death. His fingers danced lightly over the controls, as if playing an instrument.
As Mobile Armors rushed toward him, firing their Vulcan Cannons, Xu De made the Mistral drift in a small sweeping arc and activated one of the cannons beneath the fuselage.
A string of explosions erupted before him. Before, he could only pull off that maneuver in a Moebius. Now he managed it with ease in the cumbersome Mistral.
Outside the simulation, his slick maneuver drew a chorus of gasps.
"Holy shit, he's good! But why did he only fire one Vulcan Cannon? Is his nose stuffed up?"
A soldier from another unit couldn't help asking.
"Stuffed up your ass. Can't you see he's using the recoil to keep dodging the Vulcan fire?"
Someone replied in exasperation.
Just as he said, Xu De wasn't firing at random. He used the recoil in one direction to sweep through a half-circle, making a quick turn and escaping the battlefield.
Hit-and-run tactics were common.
But seeing them performed in the cumbersome Mistral made people question reality.
"Holy shit, that's possible?"
"Fuck, he's piloting the Mistral like a Moebius."
Even the usually steady Flint couldn't help swearing.
"When did that freak get even stronger?"
Price gave a wry smile.
At this rate, would they ever have a chance to catch up?
If it were Xu De as he was now, people might even believe he could take down a Ginn with a Mistral.
"There's still the Ginn... I refuse to believe it," Libby muttered inwardly, watching Xu De's movements glide across the screen like chocolate in a commercial. He wanted to devour the man.
As he'd said, once Xu De had made it through that small crisis,
the first eight minutes passed without a hitch.
For Xu De, the first eight minutes had been little more than a warm-up.
When the first Ginn entered in the ninth minute, his eyes sharpened.
"Come on!"
At Xu De's words, the Ginn's 76mm machine gun began spitting streams of fire. Bullets slammed into the space around him as alarms blared inside the cockpit.
But it wasn't long before Xu De hid behind the wreckage, just as he had several times before.
A hail of bullets poured into the debris, leaving Xu De with fewer and fewer places to hide.
"That's only temporary. Does he have anything else up his sleeve?"
Revil watched the livestream with interest. One Ginn was no problem, of course.
But against two Ginns, there was no way to use the wreckage for cover.
Even the debris couldn't possibly be dense enough to completely block two Ginns.
Especially not for a cumbersome machine like the Mistral.
What was he planning to do?
As Revil pondered, another minute passed, bringing the time to ten minutes.
A second Ginn appeared from another direction.
Xu De's pressure soared.
"It's over."
Watching Xu De about to be surrounded by two Ginns and five Mobile Armors, Libby's lips curled into a faint smile.
He'd said it: no one could break his record.
But his satisfaction barely had time to take hold before it froze.
The Vulcan Cannon beneath Xu De, which people had joked was too stuffed up to fire, suddenly launched something. But it wasn't a Vulcan shell. It was a harpoon.
Like the Linear Anchors used by the Zero and the Sky Grasper, the harpoon latched onto a piece of wreckage in the distance, then reeled in.
It didn't generate much kinetic energy, but, like a Gold Miner game, it pulled both sides a little closer together.
"Even with a harpoon, there's no way he can dodge by moving in a circle, dumbass."
After a brief moment of surprise, Libby watched the boy's death throes with satisfaction.
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