A Prophecy Fulfilled

Cheng Xiaoyu's mech had held the upper hand from the very beginning, its twin blades skillfully weaving a curtain of flashing steel through the air.

Clearly, Cheng Xiaoyu had spent plenty of time syncing up with this mech.

Each slash of the alloy blades left a deep gash in Wang Jintang's Iron Bucket Warrior.

Wang Jintang frowned slightly.

After blocking two blows, the Iron Bucket Warrior seized an opening. Its large belly suddenly opened, revealing a cannon barrel.

Boom!

A cannonball as thick as a forearm shot from the fist-wide barrel and slammed into the Silver-Armored Warrior.

The violent explosion made the arena tremble. Smoke instantly filled the air, obscuring the scene from everyone's view.

But when the smoke cleared, the Silver-Armored Warrior's waist had only been slightly deformed, with a large scorched patch across its body. Meanwhile, the Iron Bucket Warrior's cannon barrel had been sliced cleanly in half.

Clearly, the trump card Wang Jintang had specially prepared for this match could only fire once.

Unfortunately, it still could not overcome the power of money. Its firepower simply was not enough.

The Silver-Armored Warrior swung a blade backhandedly. The Iron Bucket Warrior nimbly dodged it, but then the Silver-Armored Warrior raised its leg, which suddenly shot outward like a telescopic rod.

Its foot slammed into the Iron Bucket Warrior's completely unguarded right leg.

Then it swiftly retracted.

One of the most basic mechanics in mechs was this kind of hydraulic extension and retraction. Many melee mechs had similar designs, which offered the advantages of Intent-based surprise, ease of use, and readily sufficient power.

Its drawbacks were an extremely low ceiling, no room for growth, and how easily it could be guarded against.

Once you revealed such a design, even relatively unintelligent monsters would not be easily caught by it a second time.

Furthermore, hydraulic power had little potential for improvement and relied entirely on energy consumption, making it cost-ineffective.

Regardless, this hydraulic extension had done its job this time.

That kick instantly threw the Iron Bucket Warrior off balance. Its entire right side tilted, and it crashed to the ground.

The Silver-Armored Warrior lunged forward and took the opportunity to slash at the Iron Bucket Warrior's head.

Wang Jintang was horrified. If its head were cut off, he would not be able to repair it anytime soon, and there would be no point fighting the next two matches.

Click!

The Iron Bucket Warrior's head instantly retracted into its bucket-like body like a turtle, and the Silver-Armored Warrior's slash struck nothing.

At the same time, Wang Jintang shouted:

"I surrender!"

Once he had surrendered, Cheng Xiaoyu could no longer attack. He snorted coldly and slowly withdrew his blade.

"First match! Cheng Xiaoyu wins! Both sides have fifteen minutes to adjust! Please repair your mechs."

Mech battles always had lengthy breaks so both sides could fine-tune, repair, and modify their mechs, making for more exciting battles.

Although he had won, Cheng Xiaoyu was still somewhat annoyed that he had not directly chopped off the opposing mech's head.

However, the moment he entered the waiting room, a wave of cheers erupted.

Cheng Xiaoyu responded somewhat perfunctorily.

"That was incredible, Brother Yu! It was a complete stomp!"

"Exactly! That idiot Wang Jintang couldn't even win by playing dirty. He deserved to lose!"

"Brother Yu is awesome!"

For a while, everyone slipped back into praise mode.

"Is the Silver-Armored Warrior okay? That deformation looks fucking painful. That's money, you know."

"Would Brother Yu care about that little bit? There's definitely nothing wrong inside!"

Someone circled the mech twice as well. Flattering the mech was the same as flattering Cheng Xiaoyu.

But seemingly to back up his own words, the student who had spoken last heavily slapped the Silver-Armored Warrior's shoulder twice, producing two dull smacks.

Immediately afterward, a rising hiss of energy leakage sounded from inside the mech.

Then came a crack, followed by a series of rattling sounds...

After a burst of cracking noises, the mech's left chest plate suddenly slid down on its own, exposing the internal core.

It looked like an automatic protection mechanism. It was telling Cheng Xiaoyu that its Intent was for him to repair it—that something inside was malfunctioning.

Cheng Xiaoyu was instantly alarmed. He pushed several people aside and looked inside, only to discover that a power structure around the lumbar area had completely failed. It had not broken apart, but it simply would not move.

He spread his right hand and forcefully manipulated several controllers.

The robot took two steps forward and nearly fell, like a drunk man searching for a wall!

Its upper body suddenly lurched terrifyingly to one side, looking distinctly eerie.

The sight frightened the others badly.

The student who had slapped it twice immediately panicked, helplessly shrinking behind everyone else.

Cheng Xiaoyu hurriedly removed the mech's waist armor plate, exposing the core around its lumbar section.

There did not seem to be any major issue inside, but that was precisely the fatal problem.

He could not even tell what had broken!!

"W-What's going on?"

"Could it be an energy issue?"

"Doesn't look like it. I think it's a hardware issue, maybe the circuit board?"

"Bullshit. The circuit board is fixed inside the rear spine, so it can't be the problem. Besides, the spine warning light isn't even on."

The students immediately began discussing it all at once. They were all mech majors, yet none of them knew where the problem lay.

After listening for a while without hearing a single constructive Intent, Cheng Xiaoyu anxiously clawed at his scalp. Then his eyes suddenly lit up.

"I saw Teacher Sun just now! Teacher Sun is here!"

"Right, I saw him too! I'll go get him!"

Another student suddenly cried out and bolted outside like a shot.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Teacher Sun was their mech major instructor, so this problem should not be difficult for him.

"How strange. Fu Junlin actually got it right."

While they waited for the teacher, someone muttered helplessly.

Those words made Cheng Xiaoyu's entire body jolt.

Right!!

He had been so anxious just now that he had forgotten about it!

After all, it had happened two days ago. He had not taken it seriously at the time and had nearly forgotten it.

But Fu Junlin seemed to have said back then that something would go wrong with his mech!

And he seemed to have listed three possibilities.

The left chest plate falling off, lumbar imbalance, separation of the upper and lower body structures...

Cheng Xiaoyu's breathing quickened as he looked at his Silver-Armored Warrior. There was a huge hole in its left chest plate, and its upper body was severely tilted. Its balancing mechanism had obviously malfunctioned.

Humanoid mechs naturally developed in an increasingly humanlike direction.

Among their most important functions was balance.

A person could still swim even with an arm or leg missing.

But if their waist were broken, they would basically be unable to move.

Fu Junlin had been completely right.

How had he done it?? The mech had not even malfunctioned at the time, yet after he said those things, Cheng Xiaoyu had gone back and spent a long time fine-tuning it.

Yet it had still ended up like this.

How on earth had he done it...