Chapter 508: Real or Fake!

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

In reality, Ling Lan didn’t naively believe that they could conceal the real location of their headquarters from everyone. Just like how Ling Lan could remember the countless locations of the other military academies’ headquarters, their own headquarters’ location could also have been memorized by others.

Thus, even though Ling Lan had arranged many plans at the beginning that were capable of fooling others, the defenses of the headquarters in Area G17 was definitely not as weak as people had thought.

Jiang Shaoyu was very happy to see that with one round of attacks from his side, they had sent the patrol battle team from the First Men’s Military Academy crying home to their mothers. He happily and proudly said, “Move in!”

Right then, whooshing sounds suddenly came from in front of them—it was the sound of missiles being shot out.

Hearing this, Jiang Shaoyu looked towards that direction. He saw missiles coming straight at them covering both the earth and sky. That missile was what mecha operators feared and dreaded the most. He said in surprise, “Armor piercing missiles?”

Why did the First Men’s Military Academy have this type of missile? From what he had seen, the First Men’s Military Academy had clearly chosen only mecha weapons, equipment and other necessary supplies. They hadn’t applied for any of these armor-piercing missiles that were specifically meant for dealing with mecha.

The power of armor-piercing missiles was very strong; one armor-piercing missile was enough to destroy one special-class mecha. Even when it came to an ace mecha, once they were hit, they would suffer severe damage. Of course, the armor piercing missiles used in the battle royale had their power reduced by 5 times the original power. Even if they were hit, it could only harm the outer shell of the mecha and not hurt the operator. However, the mecha’s A.I. would determine the damage on the mecha based on the real power of the armor piercing missiles to determine whether the mecha was damaged or destroyed.

Armor-piercing missiles were very powerful, but their price was comparatively more expensive. One small missile needed 200 prestige points(this was the price in the battle royale as well). The expensive price had made countless military academies helplessly look upon it. Even if they were to exchange for it, it would be to only exchange for one or two to satisfy themselves.

However, for the First Men’s Military Academy, the number of missiles used in this round of attacks was definitely enough to deplete all the prestige points they were given. It was something that couldn’t be explained.

The team members that Jiang Shaoyu had brought saw what were shot out towards them. Before Jiang Shaoyu gave an order, they all fired their beam guns to intercept the incoming projectiles, trying to detonate these armor-piercing missiles to avoid getting harmed themselves.

They managed to successfully intercept this round of missiles, but with great difficulty. Before Jiang Shaoyu and the others could take a breather, they heard the sound of a new round of missiles being fired. As expected, countless missiles flew towards them from the sky, making Jiang Shaoyu and the others unable to do anything else but continue to intercept them.

Just like that, they were fully focused and had intercepted 4 to 5 rounds of missile fire. But it was then that Jiang Shaoyu finally came to a realization; something as expensive as armor-piercing missiles would definitely not be so easily wasted by the First Men’s Military Academy. Furthermore, the number of missiles were way beyond the amount of money that was given to them. Were these missiles not actually armor-piercing missiles?

“Little Tao, go closer and detonate one.” Jiang Shaoyu had his suspicions. He now sent out a member to check whether they were really armor-piercing missiles.

A special-class mecha operator came out from the crowd and rapidly flew towards the missiles. Jiang Shaoyu was very cautious, but he still let the other team members detonate these missiles. The missiles were quickly cleared with only three left. Right then, Little Tao had already gotten to around one kilometer in distance from a missile. Jiang Shaoyu then ordered, “Shoot.”

Little Tao didn’t think and instantly fired a shot from the beam gun in his hand and detonated one of the missiles. He then reported, “The mecha didn’t detect any energy changes.”

“Continue advancing!” Jiang Shaoyu’s eyes lit up and ordered Little Tao to continue to get close to the missiles.

Han Jijyun, who was on the ground and monitoring the air, saw this scene, following which he immediately pushed down the button to talk and ordered, “Ready the armor-piercing missiles.”

“Alright.” Li Yingjie excitedly rubbed his hands together and yelled, “Brothers, it’s our time to shine!”

This time, Lingtian Mecha Clan’s only had two mecha teams and one logistics team participating in the battle royale. Ling Lan’s team had already left their headquarters. Wu Jiong and Li Yingjie, who were left at the headquarters, had formed a mixed battle team. They were a battle team entirely composed of advanced mecha operators. They had all been onlookers in the Grand Mecha Tournament and even in the battle royale, they could only stay in the headquarters and do some patrolling and help the logistics team. This made Li Yingjie, who loved to perform, feel that his talents were not used to its full potential.

“Yes, vice-captain!” The members were all in good spirits. They picked up the real armor-piercing missiles that had been in the back the whole time and loaded them onto the launcher.

On the end, Jiang Shaoyu’s team member Little Tao got close once again. He detonated one incoming missile from 300 to 400 meters away. “The energy level appears to be really weak. Multiplying it by five wouldn’t make it something that we should worry about.”

“Man, they’re actually fake.” At this moment, Jiang Shaoyu didn’t know anything. He had actually been blocked by these fake armor-piercing missiles. “Let’s not care about them. Advance.”

Jiang Shaoyu was very frustrated. He thought that he had investigated the supplies exchanged by the First Men’s Military Academy. He didn’t find out if they had exchanged any armor-piercing missiles. Then why didn’t he suspect something was up early? He had actually wasted so much time.

Little Tao was now darted towards the last missile. The missile hit his mecha and instantly exploded. “Energy levels are extremely low. They won’t be able to get through a light shield. The power of these missiles is approximately zero.”

The information Little Tao sent back proved Jiang Shaoyu’s guess. As expected, these missiles were only meant to scare, and they were actually scared just then.

Little Tao’s words made the other mecha operators relax a bit. Following Jiang Shaoyu’s lead, everyone moved forward at top speed, rapidly flying towards Area G17.

“Shu Shu Shu…” Countless missiles appeared in the sky. Jiang Shaoyu and the others didn’t stop to intercept them, but instead moved even faster and went into the missiles.

“Boom, boom, boom…” The sounds of explosions rang through the sky. The mecha operators of Jiang Shaoyu’s group discovered that the missiles indeed didn’t do any damage to their mecha. They then became even more daring.

“Boom!” This explosion sounded a bit odd. After crashing into a missile, one mecha suddenly lost control and fell towards the ground. No matter how the other team members called out to him, they didn’t receive any response. Before the remaining operators could react, countless sounds of explosions rang out making more than 10 mecha instantly lose control and plummet towards the ground…

Seeing this, Jiang Shaoyu’s expression changed instantly, and it was at that moment that one missile headed towards him. He fired straight forward and detonated the missile before it hit him. The huge energy from the explosion made the A.I. of Jiang Shaoyu’s mecha show a warning message, which told him that the mecha had taken damage. The energy of the mecha’s light shield was all used up and required an energy storage unit replacement.

“They’re armor-piercing missiles!” Jiang Shaoyu screamed angrily. He hadn’t thought that after 4 to 5 rounds of fake missiles, the opposition would actually fire real armor-piercing missiles. While their guards were down, they had lost 14 mecha in an instant.

“Piece of sh*t. That’s what you get for attacking our headquarters.” Li Yingjie was very happy at seeing the results of this round of missile fire.

“Continue to fire fake missiles,” Li Yingjie continued to order. “Each armor-piercing missile is very precious. Without my orders, no one is allowed to use them.”

The First Men’s Military Academy originally didn’t have armor piercing missiles. However, before Zhao Jun and the others were forced to get out of the starship, they had snatched 4 boxes of supplies. One of the boxes had contained these valuable weapons. There were only 15 armor-piercing missiles. Adding on the armor-piercing missiles from Lingxing that the First Co-ed Military Academy had transported after Qiao Ting led his team and cleared the headquarters of Area S and P, they had almost 30 armor-piercing missiles in their headquarters. It was a shame that after only one round, they had used up more than half; there were only a bit more than 10 left. Li Yingjie had to use them carefully.

“Vice-captain, they stopped again,” a team member told Li Yingjie.

Li Yingjie mocked, “It would be strange if they didn’t stop.” Did they want to take another round of armor-piercing missiles?

Jiang Shaoyu and the others were unclear whether the missiles the opposition were firing were real or fake. In order to ensure their own safety, they had no choice but to stop and face the missiles.

“These modification mechanics that we have are so f***ing genius. They actually managed to imitate the real thing and create fakes in such a short time,” one member said excitedly as he fired a fake missile.

“It was still done by them from doing overtime. Fortunately, other than the necessary supplies and weapons, the commander also got many modification equipments,” one member said with admiration.

“I remember a certain someone was still very against this,” one member beside him said.

“That’s why I’m only a small, itty bitty member, while Boss Lan is the commander. The real visionary.” The member that was called out wasn’t angry, replying in a cute manner instead.

His words made all the team members smile on the inside. Indeed, every decision made by Boss Lan wasn’t something that they could hope to understand.

Hearing all of them speak words of worship towards Ling Lan, Li Yingjie didn’t feel any shaking in his heart. He had been hurt all the way starting from the time of his childhood until now; he had already fully given up on competing with Ling Lan. A normal person like him would definitely not be able to compare to a monster like Ling Lan. It was probably better for him to just focus on studying on how he would become the next head of the Li family.

In the following few rounds of fire, Li Yingjie only shot out two real armor-piercing missiles. However, because Jiang Shaoyu was very cautious, he didn’t leave out a single missile and thus the attack wasn’t successful. This time, Li Yingjie didn’t dare to waste more and switched to only fakes to block off the opponent.

“Beep, beep, beep!” Han Jijyun, who had been observing the situation of the battle all this time, suddenly received a call. Han Jijyun pushed down one of the buttons and heard Wu Jiong’s voice coming from the other end. “Han Jijyun, we’ve arrived at the position.”

“Understood,” Han Jijyun replied seriously. He pushed down the rest of the communication buttons one by one. Like Wu Jiong, they all reported that they had arrived at their positions. Hearing this, Han Jijyun’s serious and cold expression finally showed a hit of joy.

This was the plan that he had meticulously prepared for the attackers. “Jiang Shaoyu, have a taste of this!”

After coming to know that everyone was ready and good to go, Han Jijyun saw that the opponent was defending with their lives and knew that it would be impossible to use armor-piercing missiles to decrease the number of the enemy mecha now. Thus, he pushed down the button for communicating with Li Yingjie and said, “Li Yingjie, stop shooting fake missiles. Begin plan B.”

Hearing this, Li Yingjie immediately told the members to decrease the shots of fake missiles and in the end, make it seem like they had fired out all of their fake shells. When everyone stopped firing, Li Yingjie took the team members and the fake shells along with the ten armor-piercing missiles and silently went into the rear line.

“Commander, the opposition has stopped firing shells.” Seeing that the opponent no longer shot any missiles towards them, Jiang Shaoyu’s men finally got a breather.

Jiang Shaoyu was an oversuspicious person. It was also because of this over the top suspicion that he didn’t lose any more mechas in the rounds that followed. Two armor-piercing missiles that were among the fakes were destroyed. Seeing that the opponent didn’t fire any more shells, he still chose to wait. At the same time, he sent a battle team forward to investigate.

However, it was possible that the opposition really didn’t have any more shells left. When that one battle team moved forward and didn’t bump into any other obstacles, Jiang Shaoyu felt reassured and led the rest to follow. They went past Area G7, G9, and G11, and got close to G17. He had still yet to see the opposition shoot out more of their missiles, making Jiang Shaoyu feel fully relieved.

His guess was that those fake shells were probably made by the modification mechanics from the First Men’s Military Academy when they had just entered the map. Other than that, there would have been no way for them to have infinite missiles. And those armor-piercing shells were the same. 17 to 18 were probably the First Men’s Military Academy’s limit.

However, not long after, Jiang Shaoyu was in a crisis once again. While they were flying about, suddenly all of their mecha blared a warning, “Mecha has been locked-on, please take evasive maneuvers.”

Jiang Shaoyu was surprised. He glanced at the radar and discovered that the area that showed an empty space, suddenly had countless spots appear from all sides. They had actually fallen into an encirclement.

Jiang Shaoyu wasn’t an idiot. He instantly understood that these mecha that were lying in ambush had probably turned off their engines, which was why there hadn’t been any energy signatures enabling them to go undetected by the radar. He had also done something similar in Area Q and M. He didn’t expect that he would get a taste of his own medicine at this moment.

“Bang, bang, bang…” Countless beams of light were shot over from all sides. Surrounded, Jiang many members of Jiang Shaoyu’s battle team were hit and dropped towards the ground. In front of them, Li Yingjie had used fake and real shell to intercept them, giving the mecha operators in the surrounding areas enough time to reach the ambush positions. In other words, this was all of the battle strength of the forces defending the headquarters. Han Jijyun wanted to let them have a taste of their own medicine and at the same time destroy any chance they had of getting away.

“Who’d have known that the First Men’s Military Academy left such an amazing strategist back in their headquarters. This series of strategies are enough to cause the Second Men’s Military Academy to lose many mecha operators.” Those in the monitoring room had originally thought that those who were left defending the First Men’s Military Academy would not be able to defend against the six battle teams of Second Men’s Military Academy. Now it looked like that wasn’t the case. The fake and real armor-piercing shells in the beginning had made Jiang Shaoyu lose a bit more than a single battle team. Also, they were now surrounded, so they were now left with a lot less mecha operators than they had in the beginning. It was hard to determine the outcome… If Qiao Ting had been there to defend the headquarters, Jiang Shaoyu would have had no chance at all.

“Looks like we were still underestimating the First Men’s Military Academy. They aren’t as blind and egotistical as we thought. These arrangements that they made all were made with much thought,” said an officer who favored the First Men’s Military Academy.

“Well, now it’s up to Jiang Shaoyu. An ace operator won’t be taken down by a small ambush like this.” The people who were on the Second Men’s Military Academy side, of course, stated an opposing opinion.

“Even if they can’t take down Jiang Shaoyu in the meantime, they can still take down those people that he brought. It will be hard for Jiang Shaoyu to fight by himself.”

“As long as there’s one battle team left, with Jiang Shaoyu’s capabilities, it would be enough to take down these defending battle teams. Then, the First Men’s Military Academy’s headquarters would be in Jiang Shaoyu’s pocket.”

The two sides were not reaching an agreement. One of the people suddenly turned around and asked Ling Xiao, “Mr. General, what’s your opinion?”

Ling Xiao smiled lightly and said, “We’ll have to see if Jiang Shaoyu can endure this round of attacks. If he defends against it, then Jiang Shaoyu will win. If he can’t, then the First Men’s Military Academy will win.” Ling Xiao words were right on point. The critical point was the battle after the sneak attack.

Jiang Shaoyu was indeed Jiang Shaoyu; an ace operator wasn’t something to be taken down by a sneak attack. He didn’t hesitate and dove head first into the battle. He couldn’t hesitate now. He would only have a chance if he broke through the encirclement.

The battle team that Jiang Shaoyu had brought with him were their strongest mecha operators, including the two allied battle teams who were also carefully selected. It seemed that Jiang Shaoyu had thought that the First Men’s Military Academy’s headquarters was determined to be theirs.

Thus, even though the beams coming from all sides made them bewildered them, causing them to lose many mechas, the mecha operators who calmed themselves down saw Jiang Shaoyu’s movements and immediately followed suit. This showed that they had a strong mutual understanding of each other.

Just like that, with Jiang Shaoyu as an arrowhead, the rest of the mecha operators darted to that direction as they intercepted the beam attacks. In that instant, they lost many mecha again, but because of this decisive move, it allowed them to successfully open up a hole and get out of the encirclement.

Han Jijyun calmly pressed down on the button to talk and said, “Li Yingjie, fire the armor-piercing missiles.”

Following that, Li Yingjie and the others, who had fallen back towards Area G17, fired out the last 10 armor-piercing missiles and countless fake shells.

“Whoosh…” The sound of countless missiles roared in the sky once again. Before they could get a breather after just breaking through the encirclement, missiles came shooting towards Jiang Shaoyu and the others from all directions.

This time, Jiang Shaoyu faced two difficult choices. If he was to intercept the real and fake shells, he wouldn’t be able to intercept the countless mecha chasing them from behind and their beam attacks. If he was to fully defend against the forces who were chasing them, they would have to take the shells in front of them head-on. It was just that he didn’t know how many real armor-piercing shells were among the missiles.

He couldn’t hesitate anymore. Jiang Shaoyu bit his lip and ordered, “Fully block the forces chasing us.” This also meant that he had chosen to face the missiles head-on.

“Boom, boom, boom…” Following the exploding sounds of countless shells hitting mecha, ten mecha were again destroyed in this barrage. Seeing that he had lost ten more members, Jiang Shaoyu almost spat out blood.

When he chose to not intercept the missiles in front of them, he was gambling that the opposition didn’t have that many armor-piercing missiles, but it was too bad—he lost the bet.

One round of shells had just exploded, yet another round of whooshing of countless missiles were heard once again. This time, Jiang Shaoyu didn’t want to bet on it and told his team members to clear these shells. Although the members were performing unorthodox movements to dodge the countless beam attacks from behind them while they were clearing the shells in front, a few mecha still didn’t manage to dodge the attacks and were destroyed.

However, after analyzing the energy signature of the explosions, they were fooled again. This this, there weren’t any real armor-piercing shells.

Jiang Shaoyu was going to be driven insane by the real and fake missiles. He roared, “We don’t care anymore, we’re going ahead!” He didn’t believe that the First Men’s Military Academy would have that many armor-piercing missiles.

This time, Jiang Shaoyu had bet correctly. Seeing that the opponent didn’t care for their shells anymore, Li Yingjie no longer fired any more fake shells, but instead made all the members fire heavy shells. Although their power wasn’t comparable to armor-piercing shells, it was still better than the fake shells that had no power at all. Causing some damage to the opponent was better than nothing.

However, with this, Jiang Shaoyu was clear that the opposition definitely didn’t have any more powerful weapons such as armor piercing shells, or else they wouldn’t have just given up like this.