Volume 6: Mecha Contest Chapter 327: Fierce Fight in the Abandoned City
"Could it be your illusion?" The Hound rubbed the stubble on his chin, frowned, and asked in a tentative tone.
"I'm not sure..." Ke Lan shook her head.
"The thing in the Iron Maiden was hit head-on by the Ark's main gun... With that kind of destructive power, even a primitive species would have no chance of surviving." said the Hound.
"Maybe..." Ke Lan nodded and waved to the hound, "Old dog, come with me."
The two walked around to the hallway, and after making sure that Chi Hanfeng couldn't hear their conversation at all, Ke Lan said to the hound seriously: "Suppose, I mean suppose... suppose that thing is still alive, and it survived the bombardment of the Ark's main gun, then, what do you think it will do?"
"Tsk...if that thing is really still alive..." The Hound rubbed his temple vigorously with his index finger and closed his eyes and pondered, "Then I think...it must survive first."
"Survived?"
"Yes." The hound opened its eyes and looked directly at Ke Lan. "Even if it is still alive, it can't be unscathed... Just like a seriously injured beast, it must find a safe enough place to recuperate and accumulate strength... But no matter what it wants to do next, it must first survive."
"It has been nearly two months since the destruction of East District 9... Combined with my own self-healing ability, even if that thing has suffered a serious injury, two months is enough for it to recover as before."
Ke Lan continued, "My ability comes from it... and the calling voice that appeared in my nightmare last night should be the connection between me and it. "
The hound's face turned slightly pale. "You mean... that thing, after recovering from its injuries, wants to find you and take back your abilities?"
"I don't know." Ke Lan shook her head, "But it seems to want me to go somewhere..."
"What are the coordinates?"
"Well... I just can't remember it at all..."
"Don't dwell on this. Don't you Chinese have a saying that goes 'there is always a way out when the car reaches the mountain'... It's useless to worry about this now. Instead, you will be worried and unable to sleep... If you ask me, it's a pity to miss such a rare opportunity last night." The Hound took out a cigarette box, "Want a cigarette?"
"No, let's wait until everyone else finishes breakfast and then get ready to go to the stadium. We have four games today." Ke Lan said.
Faced with this unknown existence, he decided to give in for once: before figuring out the true meaning of the coordinates, he would not accept any more missions to go out for exploration... If that thing came to him on its own initiative, Ke Lan wouldn't mind letting it take another close-range bombardment from the Ark's main gun.
…
At exactly nine o'clock, everyone once again came to their floating viewing platform...but what surprised Ke Lan was that Ye Yan had arrived earlier than them, and sitting next to him was the girl who had electrocuted and dragged him away yesterday.
Ye Yan's childhood sweetheart, if Ke Lan remembered correctly, should be called Song Shiyun.
She was wearing a cheongsam-style dress in the color of "blue and white porcelain" today, with smooth straight black hair draped over her shoulders and a hairpin decorated with pearls and gold foil flowers and leaves inserted in her ears...but the thing she was playing with in her hand didn't match her outfit very well - it was a 0.44-inch Magnum pistol with an exquisitely carved barrel and a black walnut handle. Although this gun could be considered a rare work of art, what concerned everyone more was its terrifying destructive power and lethality.
Seeing Ke Lan and others coming up, Song Shiyun first greeted them with a smile, and then quickly stuffed the pistol into the makeup bag she carried with her.
Fortunately, this is a short-barreled version of the Magnum pistol, otherwise this exquisite cosmetic bag would not be able to fit it.
"To be honest, I won't be surprised when I see a woman taking out strange things from her makeup bag in the future." The Hound complained to Ke Lan in a very low voice.
But it must be said that Song Shiyun's appearance is definitely one of the best women Ke Lan has ever seen, and she can be regarded as a beauty of the same level as Zofia. It's just that the two are completely different beauties, so it's hard to compare who is better.
With such a beautiful girl by his side, Ye Yan still goes out to flirt with other girls. Ke Lan feels that it is not unfair for this guy Ye Yan to get electrocuted.
Not only Ke Lan, but even the Hound, when he saw Song Shiyun and Ye Yan sitting together, he felt as if flowers were stuck on something.
"Mr. Ye, you came so early, do you have something to talk to us about?" Ke Lan glanced at Song Shiyun beside Ye Yan and asked.
As for the deeper meaning of this sentence, he believed that Ye Yan must have understood it: he came here yesterday to "hide from the limelight", but now the "limelight" he wanted to avoid is right next to him, so why he came here must have something else going on.
"Hehe." Ye Yan smiled, "To be honest, I bet money on you."
He held up five fingers, and Leighton subconsciously asked, "A bet of five hundred thousand?"
"No, it's five hundred million." Ye Yan still had that playful smile on his face. "This is all the money I can mobilize. I also borrowed a lot from my good friends. I'm counting on making a big profit today."
Five hundred million... Even though Ke Lan and the others already have a considerable fortune, when Ye Yan casually said this number, everyone was still shocked.
"...If we lose, Master Ye, you won't ask someone to buy our hands and feet, right?" Leighton said subconsciously.
"No, no...but if you lose, I'm afraid I'll have to eat at the Song family for the next year." Ye Yan pretended to be pitiful, and at the same time glanced at Song Shiyun next to him with grievance.
"It's okay to come to my house for a meal, but you have to eat whatever Tom eats."
"Who is Tom?" Ke Lan asked.
"My little cat is very well behaved. At least, it's much better than someone else."
"...Shiyun, you wouldn't be so cruel, right?" Ye Yan's face suddenly changed.
"Don't you know whether I'm cruel or not?" Song Shiyun said with a smile, which made Ye Yan look even more embarrassed...
"See... Brother Ke Lan, you must win today, otherwise I will have to eat cat food for a year."
Putting aside the fact that the cat food Song Shiyun's cats eat might be better than the food most civilians eat, what puzzled Ke Lan the most at this moment was why Ye Yan suddenly bet a huge sum of 500 million on her... You know, in terms of strength, among the many participating teams, they can only be regarded as middle-class - not to mention, what they are facing today is a strong team with quasi-rich level strength.
"Why bet on us? Instead of betting on those wealthy clubs? In my opinion, it would be safer to bet on those popular and strong teams, right?" Ke Lan asked immediately.
"Alas... I would like to bet on those strong teams, but their odds are too low, with a return rate of less than one thousandth. Moreover, even strong teams can fail sometimes... If I really run into one of them, then the five hundred million will be lost. It would be more cost-effective to bet on you. Anyway, you have drawn the SOLO competition today. This competition system can eliminate the gap between the top teams and ordinary teams to the greatest extent. It is all ace against ace. In comparison, I am more optimistic about Miss Valentina's performance."
Just as Ye Yan said, among all the competition systems that can be drawn into the Mecha Competition, one-on-one SOLO competitions account for more than 70% of the total. This setting is mainly to take care of those ordinary teams that only have one ace pilot, so that they can also fight when facing powerful teams.
Otherwise, if the three ace pilots were to go into battle together, there would be almost no suspense about the outcome... In this way, the matches between the powerful teams and the ordinary teams would not be very entertaining to watch... A one-sided crushing battle might be very exciting to watch once or twice, but after watching it too much, the audience would still get aesthetically fatigued.
There were two hours of preparation time before the game. Chi Hanfeng and Layton were busy replacing new equipment for Valkyrie - the long-range railgun and retractable physical shield were replaced. The Abandoned City map was built based on the city destroyed by nuclear war on Earth in the old era. The entire venue was full of building ruins more than ten meters high, coupled with the intricate city underground pipeline system. On this map, only close encounters or ambushes that tested patience would break out. Long-range shooting battles like the first game would never happen here.
At the same time, precisely because the abandoned city map is complex, the collection and analysis of information has become one of the important factors affecting the outcome of the game. Off-field personnel such as Ke Lan cannot communicate with the players on the field. All judgments and decisions must be made by Valentina herself, which also places extremely high demands on the pilot's own tactical qualities.
Valkyrie's new weapon is a pair of small arm shields fixed to the outside of the arm armor with cutting chainsaws on the edges, plus two short-barreled rapid-fire shotguns - this combination of equipment is designed entirely for close combat, especially the shotgun's barrel that is less than one meter long. Even if the opponent's beast-shaped mecha pounces on her, Valentina is able to turn the muzzle of the gun and fight back in a close combat state.
"Remember, don't force yourself. If you can't do it, just admit defeat." Before setting off, Chi Hanfeng slapped the cockpit door heavily, "Put your own safety first."
"I know." Valentina's calm voice came from inside the mecha, sounding very dull. Then, she controlled the mecha to turn around and walked towards the entrance of the competition venue.
The second group match of the God Hunting Group has officially begun!
As soon as she entered the venue, Valentina found a building that had collapsed to the point where only one-third of it remained as her hiding place. She squatted down in the right-angle area formed by two ruins and placed the camouflaged gun muzzle at the window on the second floor.
Not only the muzzle, but also the body of the machine itself has changed from the eye-catching black, white and orange paint to a gray wasteland-style urban camouflage. Squatting in the ruins, it has completely blended into the environment.
Because there are no restrictions on equipment, the participating aircraft basically all carry anti-detection devices, such as thermal infrared detection devices, metal detection equipment, etc., but the detection range is very limited. Facing an opponent who is twenty meters away and remains motionless, the pilot can basically only rely on his own eyes.
"We can see that Valentina has changed her previous offensive style and has chosen an ambush tactic..." The commentator for this game is still Alex, but the difference from before is that the entire competition venue is under a soundproof cover, so even if the commentator's voice is loud, the players in the venue cannot hear it at all.
"If Wolfgang from the Flash Wolves Club also chooses to use static braking, then this will be a competition that tests the patience of both sides..."
Choose a suitable location, lie in ambush, and wait for the opponent to step into the ambush area. Although this tactic seems very despicable, in this kind of urban battlefield with complex terrain, once the battle begins, the side setting up the ambush will have an extremely huge advantage.
In the 9th competition, there was an upset: in the same Abandoned City map, three ace pilots from a wealthy club were careless and fell into the opponent's ambush. Almost instantly, one of their machines was shot down by the opponent who launched the first attack. In the subsequent battle, the three non-ace pilots fought and retreated, and with the help of pre-laid traps and favorable terrain, they killed all three ace pilots at the cost of only losing one machine. This is also the only time in the group stage that a wealthy team was defeated by a "make-up team".
Although outsiders may think that this powerful team lost to their own arrogance, it also proves that in this kind of venue, the advantage of the ambush party is enough to make up for the hard power gap between the ace and non-ace... It is precisely because of this that the organizers of the competition designed more such maps to increase the unpredictability of the game.
"Let's switch the camera to contestant Wolfgang... Wait! Contestant Wolfgang didn't choose to set an ambush. He... He dug up a collapsed sewer entrance - he is now in the underground part of the abandoned urban arena! And he is quickly approaching the location of contestant Valentina!"
"Trouble..." Chi Hanfeng crossed his arms and frowned, "This Wolfgang seems to be very familiar with this map... Especially the underground part. Look at his movement route. He almost chose the shortest path without going into any forks or dead ends... For other contestants, it is not easy to figure out the structure of the upper part of the city, not to mention the maze-like underground pipeline system."
"And he also guessed Valentina's hiding place... The building area consisting of those buildings is almost the best ambush location in that block." The Hound added.
"That's impossible... Although there is a map of the abandoned city in every competition, the details of the map are different in each competition. There is no way he would have the chance to become familiar with the map!" Ye Yan said in astonishment.
"Maybe someone provided him with some help." Ke Lan whispered, "Just like you, Master Ye, told us the details of the elimination round in advance."
