Together, the End

"What kind of multi-control was that?"

People asked one another in private. Everyone turned their heads; some looked confused, while others shook theirs.

"Was that multi-control?" Among the crowd, Blood Night Demon Moon typed the question word by word.

R fell silent for a moment before answering, "No. A walker doesn't need control while in a weightless state, but—"

"But?"

"But I'm not sure whether he did that deliberately."

Hong Ye did not have so many distracting thoughts.

She was simply enraged. To her, Fang Heng's smile in response to her seemed like silent mockery. Gritting her teeth, she swiped her hand, and the Core Crystal in its high-temperature state fired two Flame Rays once more.

The two red beams swept across the walker one after the other, startling Fang Heng. "So aggressive?" As soon as the walker landed, he had it slide to the right to evade the first strike. But against the second, it merely shifted its center of gravity, avoiding its vital parts and allowing the beam to pierce its shell from the upper left and exit through the lower right.

It left a golden-red flare on the ground some distance away, its residual heat lingering for a long time—

This was the first time Sword Plover had been directly hit. The shell melted through by the high temperature still glowed red-hot. The Visual Link Crystal had been damaged, the second gear set on the right side was also damaged, and the second right leg had failed.

Fang Heng calmly opened the panel—speed and balance had both dropped by 20%, speed -4, maximum balance -2. The second right leg had suffered a 70% functional loss, and maximum evasion -30.

But the second strike had readjusted its center of gravity and balance, bringing its evasion value back to the safe line of 80.

As for durability, it still had 25 points.

Its non-core areas could withstand at least several more attacks.

Red beams came stabbing down from all directions like a rain of fire, but Fang Heng's decision to restore evasion even at the cost of taking damage played a decisive role in this round of attacks.

Just as it exhausted its last point of evasion, the walker carved out a path through the beams.

Another scrape appeared on its shell, but it was nothing serious.

Hong Ye's storm-like assault nearly made Fang Heng think he had miscalculated. But after checking her temperature increase again, he found the result unchanged—two Flame Rays, eight degrees; two Magic Spears, twenty-four degrees; two Golden Rains, at least fifty degrees; Gravity Trap and anti-gravity, twenty degrees. Added to the initial temperature, it had long since exceeded the warning threshold.

Fang Heng could not help glancing at her Flexible Construct. White steam rose from all over the Annihilator's regular-octahedron shell. Its Core Crystal cooling system should have been operating under overload; even accounting for its cooling efficiency, it was already near the limit.

Is she still not going to control the temperature?

Hong Ye finally realized that something had gone wrong with her temperature control.

This was actually her usual style. Normally, after a round of such torrential attacks, her opponents—even the instructors—should have been at the end of their strength by now.

But the problem was that her opponent was clearly nowhere near that point.

Hong Ye furrowed her brow, but she still gave up on another overload. Once she entered the critical high-temperature state, she would have only one chance to strike, yet she had no confidence at all that she could end the battle in a single move.

Her style was aggressive, but not reckless—

"Switching to defense?"

Hong Ye calmed down and assessed the situation—her disadvantage was that she had already lost control of her temperature, and the Magic Stabilizer had already been used. But her opponent was not unscathed either. The key on the field now was time.

She immediately ordered the Annihilator to slowly retreat, then activated another subsystem. Metal plates on the back of the Annihilator opened, and small spherical objects flew out from inside.

The two little spheres were less than a quarter the size of Clockwork Sprites, but their operating principles were not much different. They too flew with a pair of thin wings. They traced graceful arcs through the air and arrived in front of the regular octahedron.

These were the sub-cores of the Shining Field. The spectators outside the arena grew excited; people always loved talking about the multi-control skill of Combat Artificers.

"Is that triple control?" Even Tianlan could not help turning around and asking in surprise.

"No." Hudi shook his head. "Although the Annihilator itself is slow, one of its greatest advantages is that its flight posture is extremely simple. The system can manage it directly, and it barely uses any computational resources. So she's really only using dual control."

After listening for a moment, he added, "The Shining Field actually has four subsystems. Each one is an independent shield. Experts can even control all four, but dual control is already impressive at this stage."

What happened in the arena at that moment proved his point.

The Annihilator retreated very slowly, and Sword Plover quickly caught up. It lowered its body and assumed the preparatory posture for a leap and attack. Silver light flashed as it lunged like a hunting predator, opening its two fangs to bite at the regular octahedron in midair.

But the two little spheres suddenly split open, releasing rainbow fluorescence from their centers. It formed a dome-shaped hexagonal net of light that blocked the walker's sharp blade legs. As though it had struck a real wall, it was bounced back and fell away.

The Shining Field vanished in less than a second. Hong Ye's timing had been precise to the very instant.

Without a doubt, it was a splendid exchange, and cheers erupted from outside the field.

When Tianlan saw this, her fists clenched. Etila and the others wore solemn expressions as well. Their opponent had switched to defense and temperature control. Once she stabilized her temperature, Fang Heng would surely lose.

Only Hudi simply believed that Fang Heng could not possibly be unprepared for things even they understood.

He had indeed guessed correctly.

The moment Fang Heng's walker landed, he clenched his hand. Its brass shell suddenly opened like the wing cases of an enraged beetle. The magic patterns atop it shone golden-red as it entered overload state.

Then came the activation of the Swift Burst module and the Strength Enhancement module.

With its construct structure fully unfolded, the walker seemed to grow a size larger. Its twin blades swung out and struck the Shining Field once more, making the light net tremble violently.

Hong Ye was startled and hurriedly increased her magic output on instinct before stabilizing the Shining Shield again.

But in that exchange between attack and defense, the spectators had already seen it—the former could not break through the latter's defense. The difference in their levels was simply too great. Even with overload activated, he could only force Hong Ye to increase her magic output further.

But how much did that little bit of magic output matter to a Flexible Construct's aether capacity? It could keep this up for an hour without issue.

Yet overload duration was measured in seconds—

Just as everyone thought so, something unexpected happened. The two little spheres suddenly burst with magic sparks, flickered once in midair, then fell to the ground together.

Everyone froze.

Hong Ye's heart skipped a beat.

She hurriedly opened her panel, only to discover that the crystal's core temperature had not fallen at all. It was rising instead and had already entered the critical temperature range. Under high-temperature overload, the Annihilator's self-protection mechanism activated, cutting off every system except the core systems required to keep the construct alive.

The regular octahedron hovering in midair abruptly stopped. It no longer spun, and the magic patterns on its surface dimmed one by one, turning it into an utterly motionless flying brick.

Hong Ye was stunned.

At last, she understood that Fang Heng had tricked her. His all-out assault had not been intended to breach her defenses, but to force her to further increase her magic output.

The Shining Field had always been a powerful tool for Combat Artificers to control temperature, but at high magic output, it could also accelerate the rise of core temperature. Moreover, the Core Crystal had already been close to its limit at the time.

A terrifying thought suddenly surfaced in her mind:

"He... could he have been calculating my temperature control all along?"

Hong Ye's mind spun.

She almost thought she was not participating in a local artificer challenge in Elpaxin, but one of the three major traditional Chosen competitions in the Second World, or the Dragon Knight Championship.

At that moment, Fang Heng had already ordered the walker to attack the Annihilator, which had lost all sources of power.

But he immediately bared his teeth.

The walker's silver blade legs only struck a faint layer of refracted light. That shimmering pale glow appeared in a circle around the Annihilator before disappearing again. Sword Plover was bounced away once more and landed back on the ground.

Seeing this, Hong Ye's eyes brightened slightly.

That was the shield, the final line of defense for a magic-guided Flexible Construct—

For most Flexible Constructs of the same tier, the offensively inclined Annihilator's own shield value was practically negligible. One or two attacks would be enough to shatter it.

But the problem was that Sword Plover clearly did not belong in that category.

Its attack was too low.

In fact, by the second attack, others could already tell from the brightness fluctuation of the Annihilator's shield—Fang Heng's walker could not easily penetrate it.

The crowd erupted in uproar. How low did its level have to be?

Tianlan could not help crying out, "Why is that shield so thick?"

"It's not that the shield is thick." Hudi shook his head. "It's that Ed's attack is too low."

On the field.

Hong Ye looked at Fang Heng in surprise. During their earlier fight, she had vaguely sensed that his level was not high, but she had never expected it to be this low.

The nearly insurmountable gulf in level seemed to reveal itself completely at that moment.

Hong Ye felt both humiliated and relieved. Relieved, because she realized she still had a chance. Without hesitation, she pulled down a lever on the Magic Furnace and activated the remote shield recharge device.

But Fang Heng remained utterly calm.

As though he were unaware of everything around him, he had the walker attack again and again. "-57, -62, -33, -51..." With recharging active, the shield value decreased very slowly, but at least it was steadily falling.

Fang Heng silently calculated her recharge efficiency. He had already determined that he needed seven more attacks to break the shield.

Thus, a strange scene appeared in the arena. Everyone watched this dull, nearly motionless battle, completely focused, some even holding their breath. Everyone understood that the outcome would be decided now—would Fang Heng break through his opponent's shield first, or would Hong Ye control her Flexible Construct's core temperature first?

Hong Ye kept staring at the temperature on her panel as it gradually fell. It had actually dropped close to below the critical state.

She was calculating in silence as well, when she suddenly noticed that her opponent's attack had dropped sharply. She immediately understood that the walker's overload state had ended. Hong Ye could not help releasing a long breath—seven more attacks.

A deep gleam flashed in her eyes.

She had won.

Sure enough, during the walker's final charge, the shield on the Annihilator's surface finally shattered into countless fragments, turning into specks of light that vanished into nothingness. But at that very moment, the patterns on the black regular octahedron brightened again.

And it began to rotate slowly.

The walker launched its eighth attack, but crashed into two dome-shaped light nets—the two little spheres had flown out from behind the Annihilator. The Shining Field had activated once more.

"Ah!" Tianlan let out a cry of disappointment and flopped back into her chair.

The walker fell back to the ground.

But Hong Ye did not feel much joy at winning. She had already fought this battle disgracefully enough. If her opponent's level had not been so low, she would never have had any chance at all.

She raised her hand and spread her fingers, preparing to end this farce.

The four metal plates above the Annihilator slowly opened downward. The magic patterns on its dark surface gradually turned golden-red, a sign that it was entering overload state—

At the same time, nine overlapping magic circles appeared above it.

The overload form of Magic Spear—Thorin Formation.

But at that moment, Hong Ye did not notice Fang Heng's fleeting little movement. A tiny object flew from his hand, and a faint golden light flashed once in the northern covered area before vanishing.

Only Blood Night Demon Moon noticed the detail. "What is he planning?"

On her communication page, the other side did not answer directly. It merely wrote:

R: Watch closely.

In the spectator stands, Wu Di and Liuli Yue both shifted uneasily. The latter had already been drawn into the battle by the end of the first round, and the two exchanged a glance.

"Adorably stupid." The young man could not help glancing at Hong Ye.

Sword Plover was retreating.

Hong Ye's calm gaze searched for her target. The nine beams had already gathered in midair, converging into a sphere of light beneath the hall's dome before exploding into a shower of cyan arrows that blanketed Fang Heng's walker.

But at that very moment, her vision suddenly blurred.

A golden brass sphere buzzed as two pairs of wings vibrated. It hovered motionlessly less than five centimeters from the tip of her nose.

She instantly lost her target.

"Wait, attacking a contestant is not allow—" The dwarf referee's voice abruptly cut off.

Because the Clockwork Sprite made no further move.

There was not even any physical contact between it and Hong Ye.

The dwarf referee was dumbfounded, standing there with his mouth open. He did not know whether this counted as directly attacking an opposing contestant. If it counted, that did not seem quite right. But if it did not count, that did not seem right either.

But that instant of hesitation had already changed the situation in the arena.

Hong Ye could not determine whether she had hit her opponent.

The arena fell utterly silent.

Everyone saw it—Fang Heng's walker moved through the Light Rain. It was wounded repeatedly, with at least three beams piercing its torso at once—the second right leg dragging on the ground was nearly blasted off, the first left leg was severed, and the third left leg also lost its responsiveness.

The data Fang Heng saw on the panel was even more grim. The Strength Enhancement module and Swift Burst module had both gone dark. The cooling system was 50% damaged, and the gear sets had suffered damage to varying degrees. Only the Core Crystal remained intact under his careful protection.

Sword Plover was nearly riddled with holes, its durability reduced to a single digit.

But it still had not fallen—

Hong Ye anxiously swayed left and right. When she could not shake off the little thing in front of her no matter what she did, she reached forward to grab it. The tiny object nimbly pulled back—and only then did she see, for the first time, that the battered walker had returned to a point not far from the Annihilator.

Alarm bells rang in her heart.

But the moment her attention relaxed, the Clockwork Sprite returned to her face again.

At that moment, Hong Ye nearly cursed aloud:

"How did he do that?"

"Is he even controlling his walker at all?"

At that very moment, Hong Ye suddenly heard a low murmur of amazement from around her.

Her heart sank. No longer bothering with the Clockwork Sprite before her, she simply closed her eyes and began blind control. First, she positioned her Shining Field in front of the Annihilator to guard against a sudden attack.

But at that moment.

The murmurs of amazement only grew louder.

Hong Ye's heart began pounding. She did not understand where she had gone wrong, and could only instinctively pull the Shining Field back to defend the rear of the Annihilator. Because she was using blind control, her movements seemed somewhat clumsy and halting.

But in truth, that no longer mattered.

Because people watched in astonishment as Fang Heng's walker stood perfectly still before that black regular-octahedron construct, while his opponent actually moved the two Shining Field shields aside herself.

For a moment, the way was wide open.

Only then did Fang Heng let out a breath, wipe away his sweat, and send his walker lunging forward.

The Annihilator's shield had long since been reduced to zero and could no longer protect it from damage.

When Hong Ye opened her eyes again, the Clockwork Sprite had mischievously landed on her hand. She stood there blankly, watching her Flexible Construct split into two and crash to the ground.

Instinctively, she wanted to throw the Clockwork Sprite away, but after hesitating, she stopped.

She only looked at the young man before her with a complicated expression.

She suddenly thought of a scene from five years ago. When facing that person, those people's thoughts must have been exactly the same as hers now.

And so, the second round ended—

I posted the protagonist's character sheet in the work-related section. I wasted some time on it yesterday and went to bed late. The construct information can wait another couple of days; I need to stockpile chapters these next few days, since the New Year is almost here. As usual for the New Year, I do not plan to stop updating. The protagonist does not have much equipment for now, so I will not write about that yet. I will add the Magic Furnace and control gloves separately later.