Fortunately, Zhu Guodong took a few deep, ragged breaths and recovered.
On the other end of the video call.
Division Commander Kong could tell from the two chiefs' expressions that they believed him.
He finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Just then, the twin cannon barrels slowly retracted as well.
The red light in the mecha's eyes quickly faded, and the four vector thrusters on its back stopped running.
Clunk-
Clunk-
Two dull sounds rang out.
The guards gathering around instantly went on high alert.
They all looked toward the mecha cockpit where the sounds had come from.
The cockpit opened.
Wang Yixue and Tong Yao both leaned out.
Grinning, they gave Division Commander Kong a military salute.
Division Commander Kong was dumbfounded.
What the heck was going on?
They weren't Autobots?
How were they two girls?
"Who are you?" Division Commander Kong worked up his courage and asked loudly.
"Reporting to Division Commander Kong!"
Tong Yao held her head high and chest out, shouting crisply,
"Tong Yao, major and commanding officer of the Electronic Countermeasures Battalion, 8th Marine Armored Combined Arms Division, and pilot of the Crimson Sky No. 2 mecha!"
Wang Yixue also abruptly raised her head and declared in a ringing voice,
"Reporting to Division Commander Kong!"
"Captain of the Mecha Special Operations Team, 8th Marine Armored Combined Arms Division."
"Wang Yixue, pilot of Crimson Sky No. 1!"
After speaking, Wang Yixue could not help smiling.
Switching to her normal tone, she said,
"Division Commander Kong, your side has surrendered unconditionally. We've won this military exercise, so we should get going!"
With that, Wang Yixue and Tong Yao waved together at Division Commander Kong and his phone camera.
They returned to their cockpits.
A series of mechanical notifications sounded above Division Commander Kong's head.
[Engines exiting standby] [Attitude adjustment complete] [Power transmission normal] [Weapon mounts normal] [Ready to deploy-]
Rumble-
Two waves of air over three meters high rolled outward, spreading in every direction.
The tents that had just landed were blown back into the sky.
Both mecha blasted bursts of azure flame against the ground at the same time.
They rose vertically into the air.
Several dozen meters above the ground, they adjusted their attitudes, and clearly visible sonic vapor cones erupted behind them.
They turned into streaks of red light almost too fast for the naked eye to follow and vanished above everyone's heads.
Division Commander Kong stared blankly in the direction the mecha had disappeared.
His eyes were numb, his expression vacant.
The division headquarters staff beside him were much the same.
Every one of them looked as though they had just had a dream.
But the wreckage before them and the huge craters left by the mecha proved this was no dream.
Division Commander Kong suddenly remembered that the video call was still connected.
Coming to his senses, he looked at his phone screen.
Only to discover that the two old chiefs' expressions seemed to have frozen.
Anyone who did not know better would have thought a bad signal had frozen the video.
After a long while, Division Commander Kong and Chief Luo looked at each other in silence and tacitly ended the call.
Immediately afterward, Li Guozhong received a call from Chief Luo.
The moment he answered, he heard the chief's sarcastic voice.
"Well done, Young Li. Nice work. It's a real waste of your talents not to have you in intelligence."
"Two enormous hunks of iron, and not a word leaked beforehand. Keeping your security measures that tight-what a feat!"
"You've taught Old Zhu and me a lesson!"
"Us two old bones will have to learn from you."
At those words, Li Guozhong sprang out of his chair.
Looking terrified, he said,
"Chief, you're giving me far too much credit! I had no choice!"
"If I'd revealed them earlier, would you have let me use something on that level?"
"After all, their actual combat power completely upsets the balance. One person in one mecha could just steamroll straight through. There'd be no need for all this trouble..."
"Besides, no matter how you look at it, I used to be one of your soldiers. Didn't I learn all this from you...?"
As Luo Bing listened to Li Guozhong's explanation, he initially thought it made sense.
By the end, he was laughing and cursing,
"You bastard, are you blaming me for not teaching you properly?"
"No, no, old chief! I learned it wrong. It has nothing to do with you! Absolutely nothing!"
Hearing the slippery old veteran Li Guozhong laugh it off, Luo Bing could not be bothered to criticize him.
Changing the subject, he said,
"All right, all right. Let me ask you something, and answer honestly. Just how formidable are those two hunks of iron?"
When he asked this question, Zhu Guodong, beside Luo Bing, also pricked up his ears.
This was what they truly cared about.
At the end of the day, both the red side and the blue side were troops under their Southeast Theater Command.
A minor incident during a military exercise was nothing.
What they cared about were the two mecha that had helped Li Guozhong pull off a shocking turnaround.
If those things could be deployed to the troops on a large scale, they would absolutely raise the overall combat capability of the Southeast Military Region.
The next time Little Japan held an exercise, sending a damn mixed mecha company over to stir up trouble would be thrilling just to think about.
That would scare them to death!
Hearing the old chief's question.
Li Guozhong thought, Now this is the real reason for this call!
He cleared his throat and said solemnly,
"If you're asking how formidable those things are, I simply can't describe it to you."
"They're seriously formidable!"
"Incredibly formidable!"
"Ridiculously formidable!!"
Li Guozhong grew a little excited as he talked about the mecha,
Speaking with his face lit up,
"You have no idea. I was right there during the combat tests."
"A mountain that huge-one railgun shot, and the mountain was gone!"
"A Hairy Bear T-54 tank that was originally meant to serve as a missile target was hacked twice with a particle blade and instantly torn to pieces!!"
"Ten-centimeter-thick armor was like tofu!"
Li Guozhong's excited account made Luo Bing frown slightly on the other end of the call.
The mecha might indeed be formidable, but surely they could not be as powerful as he claimed!
There was certainly some exaggeration involved.
Still, regardless, those two mecha were extremely powerful war machines. That was beyond question.
As for improving their performance, they could take their time.
The two spoke a little more about maintaining secrecy around the mecha. It was easy to imagine how great an impact such powerful war machines would have if they abruptly appeared on the international stage.
For now, they still needed to enforce a strict gag order. Once they had a mature mecha production line in the future, perhaps they could truly unveil them on the international stage.
Luo Bing then agreed to attend the commendation ceremony three days from now and inspect their work while he was there.
After hanging up, Li Guozhong curled his lip.
Inspect our work? He's clearly coming to see the mecha!
Fine. Since you want to see them, I'll give you a proper look!
High-frequency particle blades, railguns, laser weapon systems, miniature missiles, the Dragoon System-I'll show you every last one.
Just don't get scared to death!
That evening, Wang Yixue and Tong Yao piloted the mecha back to Zhonghai Military Research Base.
Driving a jeep from the research base, Wang Yixue took Tong Yao, Elder Wang, and Elder Hua toward Xu Fan's old warehouse, traveling light.
They had already arranged with Xu Fan to visit his research and development workshop that night.
Elder Wang and Elder Hua were very excited.
What a magnificent, spectacular place a research and development workshop capable of producing such powerful mecha must be.
Just thinking about it filled them with longing.
The vehicle sped along the road. If speeding had not been prohibited on the highway.
Wang Yixue could have made the vehicle fly.
After getting used to piloting mecha, driving was simply too slow.
And it could not even fly. Wasn't that infuriating!