Chapter 518: There

The retreating Black Night Saber performed a Swallow Return, blocking the attack and drawing cheers from countless Warriors. It was a high-level technique, a ground combat technique. Ace's pupils constricted; this idiot really thought this was his home turf!

Although the Obsidian Mecha's attack was blocked, in space, the force was insufficient. The Obsidian Mecha's powerful propulsion system easily neutralized the impact. Immediately following, accompanied by the roar of the wing system and engines, it arrived in front of the Black Night Saber in an instant. The two Shoulder Laser Cannons at close range fired with precision, while the Titanium Blade slashed out simultaneously. This was Ace's signature three-line controlled entanglement kill!

Boom, boom, boom...

Swish, swish, swish...

Lasers and blade light enveloped the Black Night Saber, and everyone's hearts tightened. Then, a masterful scene appeared again. Under the terrifying suppression of the Obsidian 009, the Black Night Saber moved with the flow, the Mecha swaying constantly, easily and gracefully dodging the dazzling attacks. A sudden forward Top-Heart Elbow directly blasted the Obsidian Mecha away, and under engine control, the Black Night Saber actually performed a space Hovering.

A true space sway + recoil Hovering!

This backhanded Hovering move instantly left all the space Warriors dumbfounded. This meant that Li Hao's mastery of impact force had reached a state of perfection; he had fully estimated the recoil of his own attack and manipulated the Mecha to control it, completely mastering the Mecha's impulse in space.

This was absolutely impossible to calculate; it was a kind of intuition.

To be able to achieve such a level of subtlety, one couldn't find ten people in the entire field army. It had nothing to do with the Golden Zone, nothing to do with physical fitness, it was purely a sense for space combat.

The space Warriors could see it, and many ground pilots also reacted, immediately responding with enthusiastic cheers. Anyone who came from a military academy had been exposed to space combat to some extent. Although it wasn't their major, wanting to control the stability of a Mecha during space combat was one of the most difficult links. It was difficult even with space Mechas, yet Li Hao had done it using the Black Night Saber.

"No wonder they all say Li Hao is a monster, invincible as a lone soldier. I didn't believe it before, but now I believe it a little." As a Starship Captain, if Elena couldn't see it at this point, she wouldn't be up to standard.

"Captain, Li Hao is actually quite low-key. He is not only strong in combat capability but also a very excellent leader. The key to Tianjing's championship is his leadership. If given a space to perform, he will definitely bring surprises to our warship." A Youyou tried to use an objective tone, though in her heart she was dying to recommend him strongly, fearing only that she might push too hard.

Elena nodded. As the supreme commander of the Kuangfeng, she was the sole king on the warship during wartime, with the power of life and death. At first, she only regarded Li Hao as a ground Mecha Warrior here to gild his resume and did not intend to entrust him with important tasks. But now it seemed he was prepared. As for how to arrange things later, she would have to wait and see.

A Youyou also knew that too much is as bad as too little; the more commanders like Elena were, the more they actually knew in their hearts.

After one round of probing, Ace had already put away the thought of easily finishing off Li Hao. This person could actually achieve this level using the Black Night Saber; it was impossible to win without using his full strength.

Boom...

In an instant, Ace's pupils turned crimson. A raging Red Flame bloomed instantly, and the Golden Zone unfolded. In space, this change appeared even more dazzling. The Titanium Blade burned with rolling light flames, and the Golden Zone continued to rise, crossing Burning Will and reaching directly to Flowing Heart Martial Arts. Having reached this point, Ace did not intend to dawdle with Li Hao. Since his opponent could match the power of a space Mecha even while using the Black Night Saber, he didn't need to hold back anymore.

The Black Night Saber's Blood Moon swung, and the golden light also began to spread along the Blood Moon to the entire Mecha. It had been more than a month since the end of the S Tournament, and finally, Li Hao's Black Night Mecha was seen again.

The Mechas for this expedition did not use the Meraphis Transcendence System. On one hand, the expedition required a large number of Mechas, and there was simply no time to produce them. On the other hand, during testing, the military discovered that this system had certain problems; there seemed to be a link they couldn't solve. Undoubtedly, it was a trap laid by Nangong Yuhang. If it weren't for this expedition plan, they might have really mass-produced the new Mechas, and then they might have completely fallen into the plan of Noah's Ark. Nangong Yuhang knew that the military wouldn't truly cooperate; they were just using the name of cooperation to extract technology, so he played along. Once the other side copied this system, the Mechas would develop compatibility issues after fighting for a period of time, and at that point, the situation would be in his hands.

Overall, Nangong Yuhang had really calculated everything; everything was under his control, and it was inevitable that he would be a bit conceited. In fact, that level couldn't even be considered conceit. At his age, having done so many things, how he longed for his true self to be revealed, especially in front of the opponents he cared about, and then... he collapsed. Tragic.

This collapse not only caused most of Noah's Ark's power in the Solar System to crumble but also caused this plan of pulling the firewood from under the cauldron to go bankrupt. After learning that Xilian was Nangong Yuhang, the military began an internal investigation, only to discover that the "meritorious person" who obtained the key technology during the negotiations was also arranged by Nangong Yuhang. Self-directed and self-acted, utilizing the greed of human nature—who could not fall for that?

Therefore, this expedition only replaced the K23's weapons, and the mass production speed was very fast, which could be matched to this expedition.

At this moment, having reached Flowing Heart Martial Arts, Ace revealed a smile at the corner of his mouth. Immediately following, the Obsidian Mecha changed into fighter mode, engines roaring. The Obsidian fighter increased its speed to the limit, charging in a straight line toward the upper wind in full view of everyone, and then, after reaching the speed limit, it disappeared into space in an instant, completely losing its trace.

His Flowing Heart Martial Arts ability—Vacuum Concealment.

This was Ace's unique specialty for running rampant on the space battlefield, a concealment that no instrument could track.

Ace, piloting the Obsidian Mecha, revealed a confident smile. Originally, his ability was only a Mimicry-type concealment, and the effect wasn't actually very good. But after reaching the speed limit in Obsidian fighter mode, he entered a strange state—the super-speed state!

A few seconds later, the Obsidian Mecha appeared above the warship again. At this time, it had returned to the Humanoid Mecha state, but strangely, the visual state the Mecha presented was somewhat odd.

Boom...

The Obsidian Mecha performed a diving motion. The next second, the Obsidian Mecha had already arrived in front of the Black Night Saber, leaving behind a string of afterimages of the Obsidian Mecha.

Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang...

It seemed like a series of critical hits condensed into one sound in an instant. The overlapping ripples exploded with a bang, and the Black Night Saber was directly blasted away. Before it could break free, the Obsidian Mecha appeared again, another slash coming down. However, the entire motion of the blade swing looked like slow motion; countless blades merged together and slashed toward the Black Night Saber. At this moment, the Black Night Saber wanted to defend but seemed to have been hit by a slow-motion spell; its speed was too slow.

Hum...

A golden light shield enveloped the entire Black Night Saber. Accompanied by an explosion, the light shattered, the energy shield burst, and the two Mobile Suits were pushed away simultaneously. It was just that the Obsidian Mecha only swayed, pulling away more afterimages, and the energy was digested, while the Black Night Saber flew out dozens of meters before being stopped by Li Hao.

I don't know how many people in the entire fleet were watching this battle. Needless to say, those who were resting, even some maintenance personnel were watching on their SkyComms. Whether active duty or reserve, everyone was very interested in who was stronger, the ground pilots or the air force pilots.

The air force erupted into bursts of cheers. They had all seen Li Hao's performance in the S Tournament—a miracle, it was no exaggeration. But this was the air force's turf. Li Hao's first few moves had really bluffed everyone, but the situation reversed immediately once Ace brought out his true strength.

"Li Hao, the understanding of the Golden Zone will only be above yours. Ground combat has ground combat's environment, and air combat has air combat's environment. This is insurmountable!" Ace said confidently.

Li Hao controlled the Black Night Saber to return to the battlefield. "Your ability is very special, fixing your own state in that kind of acceleration and maintaining it all the time—very impressive. Mars also has a Warrior like this, but he is stronger than you."

Ace's eyes sharpened. Who the hell was he looking down on? Those bumpkins from Mars were worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as him?

The Obsidian Mecha suddenly launched an attack. It was the same situation; the moment it started, it arrived in front of Li Hao, leaving a string of afterimages of the Obsidian Mecha behind it.

And at the same time, Li Hao's Black Night Saber also swung a sword, similarly bringing up a string of afterimages.

Hum~~~~

The two Titanium Blades crossed, the light of the Golden Zone exploded instantly, and immediately following, the Obsidian Mecha was blasted away. The Black Night Saber's engines roared, the Blood Moon in its hand swung fiercely, and a golden light shot out violently.

Undying Slash—Hidden Flow Two-Directional Blade.

Ace had seen it, but only as a spectator at the S Tournament. From the perspective of a bystander, it was nothing special, but when it was truly his turn, it was a completely different experience.

The Titanium Shield blocked it directly from the front. This ability of his allowed him to be in a state of "different speed," allowing him to perform super-speed attacks and super-speed defenses. All the afterimages were due to the human brain's automatic "frame-filling" ability for excessively fast speeds. He could reach ten times the speed of a normal pilot, integrating offense and defense.

However, his confidence didn't last two seconds. A terrifying force penetrated through. The attack he thought he had blocked was only the first wave of the offensive; he was caught off guard by the second wave of concealment power. His face instantly lost its color, the entire Mecha was blasted away a hundred meters, and the Obsidian 009 was also blasted out of that strange visual state.

Ace in the training pod spat out a mouthful of blood.

Li Hao did not pursue. He had figured out the problem with the air combat soldiers. In the past, the media's criticism of military academy students was that they were too idolized, their training was not hard enough, and they were too lacking in actual combat, needing more arduous tempering and polishing. But honestly, compared to air combat soldiers, they were really much better. In any case, the Mecha S-Tournament had high exposure and was targeted very severely; the training volume was actually very strong, combat was intensive, training was also correct, and various training matches were actually fought very fiercely. The Mid-Season Tournament was also of a life-or-death nature; they really couldn't be considered soft. And the air force? The main bonus item for the Starship S Tournament was battlefield command, and the air combat Mecha was just one link. "Cool" and "handsome" were the main themes. Ace's ability was actually quite outstanding, but his mysterious confidence didn't know where it came from. It looked very flashy, but in fact, he was just putting himself in an accelerated state. Romero's Time Dilation ability was much more brutal than this; that was not killing the enemy meant killing oneself from exhaustion, and it was not an exaggeration to say it was dozens of times stronger than Ace's.

Ace wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. He didn't know how this could happen. How did his opponent approach his speed, and what was going on with that hidden power?

(End of chapter)