Super Mothership
“You dare play me for a fool?”
Even someone as slow on the uptake as Flint could tell that Nie Yun had absolutely no sincerity whatsoever.
Of course, Flint himself wasn't exactly overflowing with sincerity either...
“I'm not playing you. I know you're lying, but every word I've said is true. Robots don't tell lies.” Nie Yun replied with a serious expression.
In fact, he really had come to act as a peacemaker.
Unfortunately, no matter how sincere Nie Yun's declaration sounded, Flint wouldn't have believed a single punctuation mark of it at this point.
“Since you've chosen to oppose me, be prepared to bear the consequences! I guarantee that after the Dragoon, your Ghost Pirate Fleet will soon become history as well!” Flint threatened darkly.
Nie Yun could only shrug helplessly.
“Why is it that nobody believes the truth when I tell it? Sigh...”
Although Flint was furious at Nie Yun's interference, he hadn't lost his composure. His attention remained fixed on the battle unfolding in the distance.
The facts spoke for themselves. Not only was the Madman exceptionally powerful, it was clearly a Legendary Mecha designed for assault operations.
Aside from somewhat lacking long-range firepower, its speed, defense, close-combat capabilities, and other performance metrics were remarkably balanced, granting it terrifying breakthrough potential. The anti-air defense network hastily assembled by the Red Dragon Fleet was collapsing almost on contact.
At this moment, the distance between the Madman and its target was shrinking at an astonishing rate...
The situation looked excellent, yet Flint suddenly realized something.
“Hm? You're still not making a move?” he asked, staring at Nie Yun.
The Ghost Captain was a master mecha pilot. Even if his machine wasn't a Legendary Mecha, he should still have been capable of fighting the Madman on equal footing...
So why was he still standing here leisurely chatting about paradoxes and peace?
The Madman was practically about to pull off a dragon-rider-to-the-face attack over there!
“The reason I'm not making a move...” Nie Yun said with a mysterious smile, “...is because someone else already has.”
The Madman executed a 360-degree spinning side-flip, narrowly evading a massive main cannon shot from the front. Then, with a classic lightning-fast dash, it slipped past several energy beams fired from behind.
The long blade in its hand suddenly blazed with brilliant light.
Bzzzz!
As its energy output rapidly climbed, visible energy crystallization formed along the edge of the blade, making it almost impossible to look at directly.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The Madman slashed three times in succession. Three golden energy blades shot forth, instantly cleaving the three interceptor mechas blocking its path in half.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Without slowing in the slightest, it burst through the exploding fireballs.
Its field of view suddenly opened up.
Ahead stood the flagship, painted in brilliant crimson, nearly twice the size of an ordinary warship and impossible to miss. In the Madman's eyes, it rapidly grew larger and larger.
At last, he had broken through the encirclement and arrived before the Red Dragon flagship.
And not just arrived—he was practically face-to-face with it.
The Madman licked his lips in anticipation.
He loved this feeling—dancing on the edge of a blade, waltzing with death itself.
When Flint had proposed this decapitation strike, the Madman had agreed almost without hesitation.
Of course he knew Flint had ulterior motives.
But wasn't this exactly what he had always sought?
To fight in the most dangerous battles.
To kill the most challenging enemies.
To become the strongest man alive.
The one who survives...
Is the strongest.
That was the Madman's nin—ahem! Sorry, wrong script.
Though he regretted not being able to have one final, glorious duel with Red Dragon and bring this battle to a perfect conclusion...
Still—
You die. I live.
That was the eternal truth of combat.
“Bzzzz!”
The long blade in his hand once again erupted with dazzling golden light as the Madman slowly raised it high.
“Red Dragon! Allow me to send you off with a magnificent funeral...”
However, just as the blade was about to fall and shatter the flagship's shield, a red figure suddenly flashed into the corner of his eye, hurtling toward him at incredible speed.
The Madman's beast-like combat instincts kicked in at the critical moment. He spun around instantly, changing his downward strike into an upward guard.
Clang!
The violent collision of energy expanded outward in a circular shockwave.
In the next instant, the Madman was actually sent flying by the overwhelmingly powerful impact!
Boom!
The Madman's rear engines erupted with blazing exhaust flames, gradually stabilizing his position.
But when he looked up in shock at the figure that had ambushed him, his pupils contracted sharply.
“Red Dragon?!”
“Hahaha! What? Surprised?”
The familiar rough laughter confirmed the newcomer's identity.
The Red Dragon showed not the slightest sign of the severe injuries rumored to have crippled him. Not only was the mecha gleaming as if brand new, but its crystallized shield was also operating with remarkable stability.
It was practically in perfect condition!
As a fellow Legendary Mecha pilot, the Madman could infer far more than ordinary observers from the smallest details.
The opponent's crystallized shield...
It seemed even more stable than before. In fact, the shield gave off an almost perfectly realistic crystalline appearance.
The Madman's intuition was spot on.
In truth, since the founding of the Star Cross Knights, this batch of Legendary Mecha Cores had been in service for well over a thousand years.
For ordinary military equipment, a service life that long would put it in the generation of one's great-great-grandfather...
It had to be said that the high-end materials of the Iris Civilization were truly built to last.
But no matter how durable they were, that durability was only skin-deep.
After centuries of constant energy flow, certain internal circuit structures had inevitably suffered fatigue and accumulated microscopic damage.
As a result, aside from the Imperial Royal Family, which possessed the capability to perform proper maintenance, the output power of Mecha Cores scattered throughout the galaxy typically declined by roughly one percent every few decades.
Take the Red Dragon, for example. Before this, its maximum output had already fallen below eighty percent of its original performance.
Then Nie Yun, the miracle-working engineer, appeared...
Although Nie Yun's services were often criticized for his alleged tendency to “handle the killing but not the cleanup,” there was absolutely nothing to complain about when it came to service quality.
This time, not only had he fixed the overload issue, he had also thrown in a complimentary “old machine restoration package,” giving the core a meticulous and thorough overhaul.
The Red Dragon's Mecha Core had returned to peak performance.
The ecstatic Red Dragon not only gave him a five-star review but nearly dragged Nie Yun off to swear brotherhood over a chopped chicken's head.
Of course, if the Three Brothers had witnessed this scene, they would have immediately gifted Red Dragon two words:
Too naive.
If necessary, the backdoor Nie Yun had left behind would allow him to snap his fingers and instantly reduce the newly revitalized Red Dragon back to a limp state.
It was said that Codename, the only witness who had remained in spectator mode beside Nie Yun the entire time gathering material, gained a sudden revelation after seeing the tearfully grateful Red Dragon.
Inspired, she immediately penned a seven-character quatrain.
She even planned to frame it and hang it above her bed as a constant reminder.
The poem read:
Online purchases without certification are risky.
Impulse buying requires caution.
Unscrupulous merchants deserve to be trapped.
Endless pitfalls await in after-sales service.
Horizontal inscription: Heh-heh!
Mechanical Bugs: “...”
TL Note- Hehe...
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