That Mecha Was Cheating

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Sitting in the cockpit, Mu Fan had no idea that the soldiers were already saluting him, and the soldiers were even less aware that the real Macas was still unconscious in the Escape Pod.

"Enemy mechs are approaching." Black accurately warned, marking the four Reapers on the screen. Mu Fan looked over and saw four identical mechs attacking him from the area that had broken away from the chaotic battle, combining a single-barreled shoulder cannon with the Magnetic Oscillation Blade on his right hand.

"Ready for battle! "Mu Fan immediately controlled the RX-16 into an offensive stance. The current objective was to reach No. 1 City Zone; they couldn't afford to be bogged down here and needed to preserve the mech's energy reserves as much as possible.

"The Reaper, Adventure Grade mech, has A-level melee power and A-level mobility. Be careful of their Magnetic Oscillation Blade on their hands; these are their signature weapons and can effectively damage the mech's energy system." Hei introduced the enemy mech's information as Mu Fan sprinted forward.

They were getting closer and closer. These were four Adventure Grade mechs, not like the four Travel Grade they had fought before. Mu Fan stared intently at the positions of the four mechs on the screen, his brain racing, telling him which routes to take. His fingers began to dance across the control panel, and the mechs took their first, chaotic step.

Having entered the effective range of the shoulder cannon, Mu Fan saw a white light flash on the shoulder of the Reaper closest to him. However, his RX-16 was already performing Five-Key Disorderly Steps attack. Unaware of this, Mu Fan had compressed the 1-second charge command to within 0.85 seconds. As a result, an explosion came from his diagonal rear, successfully avoiding the attack!

"Old Wolf, you're such a jerk! You missed the first shot, you couldn't even hit a military 'turtle shell'." A mocking voice came from the Reaper channel. The RX-16 was known as a "turtle shell" among space pirates. Whenever the Federation Military brought it out, it was basically cannon fodder used to draw fire. Space pirates like them, who were used to fighting year-round, loved to shoot at these "turtle shells." However, when the Federation Military had the upper hand, they hated these "turtle shells" the most.

But right now, a lone mech is charging forward. It's so close to the enemy that it can't even hit them. It might as well just crash into something and die! The Reaper pilot who just fired the first shot, the space pirate known as "Old Wolf," turned red in the face and fired another shot to try to stop the charge. But in his field of vision, the heavy mech twisted its body and dodged the shot again.

Old Wolf's tone was full of incomprehension. "That's weird, I can't even hit it!"

"Hahahaha!"

"Old Wolf, you should stop driving. This line of work isn't for you."

"If you can't even hit a target properly, you should just leave the group and become a good person."

A chorus of mocking voices filled the air. The space pirates never held back when they started to ridicule people. Old Wolf was behaving so poorly today, and the group seized the opportunity to laugh at him to their heart's content.

Old Wolf glared at himself, wondering if he had really been weakened these past two days. This performance was definitely below his usual standard.

"Closer, 800 meters." Hei gave Mu Fan the distance to the first Reaper mech. This mech lacked long-range firepower and was so cumbersome that Mu Fan had to get closer to it.

Seeing the mech fire two more shoulder cannon shots in quick succession, Old Wolf lost face and immediately yelled in the channel, "Damn it, the enemy has no ranged firepower, hurry up and wear them down! If you're so capable, then you go and do it!"

"Hahaha!"

"He got angry out of embarrassment."

"Brothers, it's our turn to go."

The other three space pirates burst into laughter in the voice channel, and soon the second mech not far behind Old Wolf also entered the effective range of the shoulder cannon.

"Watch this, you rookie."

"Bang bang!" Two shoulder cannons fired in quick succession, entering a fifteen-second cooldown period. The space pirate immediately activated his combo mode, unleashing two swirling white beams of light towards Mu Fan.

"Mu Fan, the 45 keys from E1 to J6 on the left side of the console are the left arm control area. Now, you will use your left hand specifically to control this area, and you are required to use the shield for effective protection. All other random actions on the key area will be performed by your right hand! Start trying Left-Right Asynchronous Operation!" Hei suddenly made a request. Mu Fan didn't react in time, but his hands had already subconsciously followed suit!

With a loud bang, a shell exploded on the shield, halting the RX-16's offensive.

"See that, you rookie wolf! Hahahaha." The arrogant laughter came from the voice chat, making Old Wolf's face fall even further. Why didn't he see the strange flash of the mecha this time?

"Why?" Although the shield held, the straight-forward movement of raising the shield absorbed all the kinetic energy of the shell, Mu Fan felt the powerful impact transmitted into the cockpit. Seeing that the energy shield had dropped another 3%, Mu Fan asked Hei with heartache.

"Melee Mech Tutorial Move 97 - Shield Defense. Real combat is the best training. The shield, upon which Sword Shield Mecha rely for survival, is the core of their defense. Training your mastery of the shield can improve your survival rate. The above is excerpted from 'Practical Teaching Content of the Dingchuan Academy Mech Textbook'." Hei said a sentence that almost broke Mu Fan's Dark Breath state.

"Does this defense increase the survival rate? Look at the energy drop rate." Mu Fan struggled to complete a Three-Key Disorderly Steps with his right hand, controlling the mech to dodge another shell and continue forward.

"In ten seconds, three mechs will fire simultaneously, and in seventeen seconds, four shoulder cannons will fire simultaneously," Black said, silencing Mu Fan immediately. With increased long-range firepower, the difficulty of evading them would increase exponentially.

Although both are Adventure Grade mechs, Mu Fan had no way of controlling this mech to perform any extraordinary maneuvers.

"Try adjusting the angle, adjusting the angle between the cannonball and the shield. 90° will cause the most damage, and theoretically, the damage will be minimal when it's infinitely close to 0°. Your angle was just 90°, so the energy loss was relatively high," Black explained with rigorous data and theory. Recalling that when he was hit, it seemed like his shield was directly facing the cannonball, Mu Fan firmly remembered Black's words.

Indeed, real combat is the best training. I doubt any school has ever taught students directly through life-or-death situations. In this respect, the great Lord Black has surpassed the Federation's current level of mecha education.

If you can't dodge properly, you'll really be killed.

Black still had a trick up its sleeve: when Mu Fan really couldn't hold on any longer, it would forcibly take over the operating system and escape the battlefield in a chaotic manner, using commands directly generated by the intelligent life form.

Under this sudden and forceful pressure from Hei, Mu Fan unexpectedly began to actually try to Shield Defense.

Seeing that the cooldown was over, Old Wolf immediately fired a shoulder cannon shot. Now he was 500 meters away. The system had successfully locked on. Firing!

Mu Fan now seemed to be multitasking, using his left and right hands to perform different actions. His left hand controlled his hand to Shield Defense, while his right hand controlled his legs to dodge.

Perhaps because it was the first time they had tried it, in the eyes of these four Reapers, the military's RX-16 suddenly started walking crookedly, completely unrelated to its previous smooth and continuous movement.

"What's wrong with Macas? Has he decided to give up?" A large group of people inside the mountain were watching the brave and tragic mech. When they saw the shoulder cannon flash white light again, they were filled with worry.

But soon an incredibly exaggerated scene unfolded – the RX-16 casually slapped the incoming spinning shell away.

Yes, that's right, it's slapped away!

Mu Fan was deliberately adjusting the angle; if he weren't in Dark Breath mode, he probably wouldn't have been able to complete the asynchronous operation of both hands. While controlling the mecha to charge, his left hand had already rapidly executed six sets of four-key commands.

The black sign reads "65°".

Then we saw the RX-16 extend its left arm, the shield constantly and rapidly adjusting the small scale direction, finally colliding with the shell at a 65° angle. When it hit the shield at an angle, the shell deformed, but due to the angle of force, the shell just... ricocheted.

"Old Wolf, you can go act now. I actually believed that the mech could deflect cannonballs!" His companion's voice echoed in the channel.

"Bullshit! That, that mech is definitely cheating!" Old Wolf was already slurring his words, either saying he was the actor or the other person was the director.

"You're cheating too, aren't you? Do you think this is a multiplayer game? You stupid wolf! Go explain yourself to the leader later."

"Grass!"

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P. S.: Thank you to reader "dgcyc" for the 100-coin reward! Thank you to reader "Soviet Armored Infantry" for the 10-coin reward!

[May 15th is almost here! I hope to continue my efforts to climb the 515 Red Envelope Ranking, and on May 15th, I can give back to readers with a red envelope rain and promote my work. Every little bit helps, and I'll definitely update harder!]