Lancelot was startled. In the next second, the person’s mouth had already stretched open to an utterly inconceivable degree, and their tongue shot out.
It was like a frog’s tongue. The difference was that even if an ordinary human tongue could extend that far, its reach would still be limited. This one, however, seemed to have transcended the boundaries of humanity.
The tongue had become a black, leech-like thing. Each time it shot out, it extended more than a meter—and unbelievably, that still didn’t seem to be its limit.
Lancelot had been standing less than an arm’s length from the attacker. Caught off guard, he had no time to dodge.
Fortunately, just as the thing was about to touch his face, a force from behind yanked him back, allowing him to narrowly avoid the ambush.
It was Pei Liang’s doing.
She had truly been through battle. She had experienced countless martial conflicts and, while occupying positions of power, had evaded an uncountable number of assassinations motivated by self-interest.
Her instinctive sense for danger was far beyond that of an ordinary person.
Both of them had exceptionally sharp dynamic vision. They could clearly see that the tip of the tongue which had just swept past Lancelot was lined with a hideous mouthpart.
At the same time, both attackers had a black insect the size of an egg stuck to their foreheads. Its back was smooth and glossy, like a pure-black river pebble.
Pei Liang could imagine that the thing’s texture would be cold and soft to the touch—enough to make anyone’s hair stand on end.
The two attackers did not stop simply because the siblings had retreated. On the contrary, after their first strike missed, they let out a burst of inhuman, furious hissing.
The next moment, they attacked at a speed far beyond what their level should have allowed. They were almost instantly in front of Pei Liang and Lancelot again.
Lancelot instinctively began to activate his mecha, but Pei Liang thrust out a hand. A wave of force surged forth, blasting the two of them backward.
They fell into the pond, sending up a splash more than a meter high.
But the next scene that appeared before their eyes was enough to make their blood run cold.
In the crystal-clear pond, the black river pebbles scattered across the bottom and along the banks—things that had looked completely harmless—suddenly came alive.
As they pushed the two of them toward the surface, the pebbles surged toward the shore en masse. Their writhing movements looked wet and slimy, raising goosebumps all over their bodies.
Lancelot immediately understood. The black patches on the foreheads of the two people who were clearly being controlled and used to attack them were obviously the same kind of leech-like black insect.
Most of these insects were about the size of volleyballs. Only egg-sized portions remained on the two people’s foreheads, and even those had continued shrinking during the brief exchange.
Where the excess had gone was obvious.
“They’re insectoids!” Lancelot shouted. He had already put on his mecha, and his palms instantly switched to high-temperature mode.
He fired at the swarm of black insects and called out to his sister, “Send out a signal!”
The moment he finished speaking, a mecha distress signal shot into the sky. Not far away, Brian Hodgson and three other contestants all saw the danger.
They immediately armed themselves and rushed over.
The high-temperature weapon filled the air with an unpleasant odor. At the same time, the black insects began to writhe and struggle in agony.
They looked as though they were unable to withstand even a single blow. But that was understandable. Compared with the sheer numbers and grotesque appearance of the creatures, these leech-like black insects were hardly anything remarkable.
After all, the Alpha warriors had faced insectoids in all kinds of bizarre forms.
What was unprecedented was that the insectoids before them could actually control humans.
Anyone qualified to enter the mecha league was an outstanding student at their military academy. Why, then, did the military place such importance on a warrior’s mental-force level?
Aside from the fact that a higher mental-force level allowed one to operate more advanced and agile mechas, there was another crucial reason: the stronger a person’s mental force, the less likely they were to be affected by the insectoid queen’s control.
If an ordinary civilian went onto the battlefield, they might lose all sense of identity upon entering the range of the insectoid queen’s control. They could lose their human consciousness, begin serving the queen, raise their weapons, and aim them at their own kind.
On the other hand, this also showed that, apart from the insectoid queen, none of the insectoid enemies known to humanity had ever been found capable of controlling an Alpha warrior above S rank.
Yet the organizing committee and the viewers watching the live broadcast had not realized the seriousness of the situation.
The scene before them did not look as though living people were being controlled. Instead, it appeared that two Alphas had been ambushed and killed, after which insectoids had taken over their bodies and turned them into walking corpses that attacked their own kind.
Though tragic, there were still several known species of insectoids that could burrow into human bodies and control corpses.
This one was simply unfamiliar.
[What is the organizing committee doing? How could they arrange for such an unpredictable kind of insectoid?]
[I only saw the two of them slip and fall into the pond just now. After they climbed out, the camera wasn’t aimed at their faces. Judging by their movements, I thought they were fine. I didn’t realize they’d already been invaded and killed!]
[They died so unfairly. The mecha league may not have a zero-death rate, but these are still students who have never been to war. This is entirely the organizing committee’s negligence.]
What the audience found hardest to accept was how silently the two contestants had died. Many people had watched them fall into the water and climb back out, never imagining that, in such a short time, the living had already become corpses.
Everyone was mourning the two contestants. But as Richter watched the battle on the screen, his brows drew into a deep frown.
“This isn’t right. Send the rescue team into the rainforest arena immediately.”
The league’s chief commander turned around and stared at Richter in surprise. “Why? As regrettable as those two students’ deaths are, these insectoids aren’t particularly powerful.”
“Given contestant Lancelot’s abilities, he should be able to eliminate them all in a little while.”
Richter’s voice was grim. “These aren’t insectoids deployed by the organizing committee.”
The people responsible for arranging the arena this time were from Imperial Capital. As the president of the Imperial Military Academy, Richter needed to avoid any suspicion of bias, but he was still aware of which insectoid enemies had been placed in the arena.
One aquatic insectoid species did share a similar appearance and corrosive nature with the creatures controlling the two contestants. Even so, Richter had spotted the difference from watching Lancelot fight them.
He pointed at the insectoids writhing beneath the high-temperature weapons and said, “The leech-type insectoids deployed by the organizing committee aren’t resistant to high temperatures.”
The offensive power of a mecha’s high-temperature weapon was no joke. Ordinary organic matter would be reduced to ash in an instant.
The others took a closer look and suddenly realized that although the insectoids were writhing in agony under the scorching weapons, their exoskeletons turning black, the rate at which they charred was indeed much slower than expected.
The next moment, the scene confirmed Richter’s observation.
Pei Liang had also sensed that something was wrong. She casually hefted a massive stone from the side and hurled it at the swarm of insectoids being held back by the weapons.
Sure enough, the illusion of unbearable scorching was exposed. The insectoids hidden beneath the surface were completely unharmed.
Several of the insects that had appeared charred fell back into the pond. After absorbing enough water, their outer shells instantly recovered, becoming plump and fully restored.
Pei Liang hurriedly shouted, “Stop! Don’t use the high-temperature weapons anymore. They’re luring you into wasting your fuel.”
Lancelot was startled. He looked at Pei Liang in disbelief. “They?”
No one could have imagined that these low-level, obviously instinct-driven insects—the lowest of the low—could possess such cunning tactical awareness.
Pei Liang raised her hand, and several strands of true energy solidified into blades before shooting toward the insects that were surging toward them now that their scheme had been exposed.
Her inner force proved somewhat more effective than the mecha’s weapons. Any insect struck by it immediately shriveled up, like a balloon with all the air let out.
A dark glint flashed through Pei Liang’s eyes. She could sense that there was something else inside these creatures.
Sure enough, the next second, a black thread nearly two palms long crawled rapidly out of one of the shriveled insects and burrowed into the water.
Pei Liang had been watching it closely and saw everything clearly. The black thread burrowed into one of the remaining insects beneath the water. At once, the leech-like creature swelled and sprang back to life, then began spreading toward the shore again.
By then, Brian and the others had arrived as well. Although the warning signal had only told them to watch out for danger, naturally they had to come and investigate the scene.
When they saw Lancelot fighting a swarm of small, leech-like insects, they immediately decided that he really was still too young and had made a fuss over nothing.
They were just about to stow their mecha when Pei Liang’s voice reached them.
“Stay inside your mecha and activate sealed mode.”
Sealed mode was primarily designed to deal with insects capable of corrosion through liquids or gases. Its advantage was that it isolated the pilot from external dangers, but its drawback was that neither the weapons nor the mecha could transform, severely limiting their combat options.
Although the others followed her instructions, the two bodies under the insects’ control suddenly pounced at them.
The black lumps on their foreheads had shrunk to the size of chestnuts. Hidden beneath their wet, flattened bangs, they were practically impossible to notice without looking carefully.
Hodgson and another S-rank contestant were startled, but when they saw their companions rushing toward them, they did not attack.
The next moment, however, Hodgson and the other S-rank contestant let out agonized screams.
Everyone turned around and saw that nearly half of the outer shells of their mecha had been corroded. The two bodies’ tongues had pierced straight through the mecha, reached the power compartments, and begun sucking them dry.
Everyone else was stunned. Even Pei Liang was taken aback.
These leeches were far more troublesome than she had anticipated.
Moving almost as fast as teleportation, she appeared in front of Hodgson and the other contestant. She raised her hand and struck both controlled bodies on the crown of their heads.
Two blasts of true energy shot out. Their tongues instantly shriveled and fell away, revealing their human forms.
Yet Pei Liang saw no black thread emerge from their mouths. Looking through the damaged shells, she saw that most of the blue liquid energy source inside Hodgson’s and the other contestant’s power compartments had already vanished.
Pei Liang asked, “Can you still maintain a sealed state?”
Sweat streamed down Hodgson’s face inside the mecha as he shook his head. “Nearly half of the mecha’s active-metal shell has been corroded. There’s no way to cover the entire body.”
Although the outer shell was not linked to their sense of pain, the attack just now had essentially stabbed halfway through them.
The mecha’s powerful self-repair system had barely restored them to fighting condition, but the situation had now left everyone constrained.
The insects could corrode liquid metal, drain the power fluid, and even invade human bodies. They were impossible to guard against.
They could withstand attacks from high-temperature weapons, and their small size and large numbers made them easy to disperse. Using particle weapons against them would consume far too much energy.
They had only just begun making their way out of the rainforest. At this rate of expenditure, even if they eliminated all these insects, most of their overall energy would be depleted. They could forget about fighting the powerful 3S-rank contestants afterward.
Pei Liang made her decision immediately. “Retreat.”
Without hesitation, everyone turned and prepared to charge out of the rainforest.
But what happened next gave them another glimpse of just how cunning these insects were.
No—cunning was no longer the right word. This was clearly a tactic that only a highly intelligent life-form could devise.
The moment everyone turned around, rain suddenly began to fall from the sky.
Yet through the dense canopy, they could see that the sun outside was blazing and not a drop of rain was falling.
The “rain” was actually water shaken loose from the leaves when the trees were disturbed.
The first person to come into contact with the droplets was Brian, the tallest among them, whose mecha was correspondingly the largest.
The droplets landed on his mecha and instantly corroded away the outer shell of its head.
The leeches behind him then shot forward at astonishing speed, trying to attach themselves to Brian’s head.
Brian had merely been beaten into a fool by Pei Liang; his true strength was not weak. Without question, he was one of the best contestants in this year’s competition.
Ignoring the pain in his head, he casually tore up a large tree and hurled it forward, refusing to come into direct contact with the insects.
At the same time, the others, who were one step behind, nearly stepped into the “acid rain” trap as well.
Their instinctive attempts to dodge the danger even slowed them for a brief moment.
But that single moment was enough for the leeches behind them to launch their attack.
The tips of their bodies bulged one after another, clearly entering a spraying configuration.
There were too many of them, and they were scattered too widely. With the “acid rain” formation blocking the path ahead, everyone was surrounded from all sides in an instant.
Pei Liang’s brows drew tightly together, and, for once, a surge of anger appeared in her heart.
Instead of retreating, she advanced. The weapon ports in both of her hands opened, but she did not fire at the leech-like insects. Instead, she instantly spread a layer of frost over the mecha of every other person.
The mecha’s rapid-freezing weapons could not only freeze enemies; they could also freeze the biological molecules of any living thing they touched for a short period.
The maneuver left the audience completely dumbfounded.
They were trying to escape with their lives, yet she was attacking her own teammates, making everyone rigid and robbing them of their mobility. They could not even dodge now.
But Richter, watching from outside the arena, saw through her intentions.
Sure enough, before the corrosive liquid and insects attacking the group could reach their mecha, they were frozen in place. Given the power of the extreme-freezing weapon, the effect would last for at least several seconds.
She had bought them those few seconds—but what would happen afterward?
If they did not eliminate all the enemies in front of them, then once their mecha thawed, they would be left to die before the swarm.
Yet the next second, everyone saw that Pei Liang had neither switched to the highly destructive particle weapons nor changed into any other combat configuration.
The corrosive liquid sprayed by the insects had already reached her. There was enough of it to dissolve her entire mecha shell in an instant.
But she moved as though in slow motion. Guided by her control, the mecha’s hands drew a circle.
And in that slow motion, the liquid suddenly seemed to become unaffected by gravity. For a brief instant, it hung suspended in midair.
Then all of it was sent back.
The leech-like insects had missed their first strike, and the supply of “acid rain” was nearly exhausted. Their attacks therefore grew even more frantic.
Pei Liang, however, became even calmer.
Even someone who knew nothing about combat could sense, through her mecha, the slow, tranquil composure emanating from her.
After this period of practice and adjustment, Pei Liang had become virtually one with the mecha. She could use it to reproduce her martial arts perfectly.
But this was her first time attempting to project her inner force through the mecha.
She had no idea whether it would work.
Yet the situation before her left no room for failure.
At that moment, the extreme-freezing effect she had imposed on everyone faded. She let out a roar. “Jump!”
After being ordered around by her for days, the others instinctively obeyed and leaped into the air.
In the next instant, the underground insectoids beneath them erupted and writhed in agony, bursting apart and shriveling everywhere.
It was like minced meat being hacked to pieces. An invisible blade seemed to grind over their bodies, not even sparing the parts that had leaped off the “cutting board.”
The others had failed to notice it earlier, but now they saw it clearly.
Countless black threads fled from the bodies of the leech-like insectoids, trying to burrow into the water.
Pei Liang sneered. “So you do have a weakness after all.”
If they had been completely impervious and could escape simply by burrowing underground, there really would have been nothing she could do.
Pei Liang raised her palm like a blade and chopped down a nearby tree of modest diameter. The laser in her palm sliced through it, and in an instant she fashioned a pair of enormous makeshift “chopsticks.”
Holding them in both hands, she plunged them into the pond and stirred vigorously. Then she turned to the others. “Find a nonmetallic container.”
Lancelot reacted the fastest. He immediately turned around and cut into a tree, hollowing out its core to make a simple container.
The others then watched as Pei Liang used the chopsticks to lift out a long mass of black threads, which looked like a giant bundle of vermicelli, and dumped it all into the container.
The black thread-creatures still tried to escape, but Pei Liang injected a stream of true qi into them. Without a host to inhabit, the exposed creatures immediately lost their activity.
Pei Liang continued stirring the pond until she had cleared out every last one of them. Only then did she stop.
She picked up the wooden bucket full of black thread-creatures and informed the others, “Take those two with us. We’re leaving.”
Everyone had assumed the two victims were already dead. But when they came over to check, they discovered that both still had vital signs.
“Press the emergency button!” someone immediately shouted. “What’s going on with the organizing committee? Surely they should be sending rescuers after seeing something like this!”
However, the organizing committee was in an even greater state of panic.
The chief director of the competition stared at his subordinate in disbelief. “What do you mean, all the transit channels have failed?”
The subordinate’s face was pale. “A mechanical malfunction destabilized the channels, causing them to collapse.”
“We have no way to reach the competition grounds instantly anymore.”
“What about the ships stationed in the space station above the arena? Have them go down directly.”
The subordinate was sweating profusely. “The ships have malfunctioned and are stranded inside the space station. They sent out a distress signal for reinforcements five minutes ago.”
“What?” The director’s voice rose sharply.
He looked at Richter. Richter’s expression was blank, but anyone familiar with him would know that he was furious beyond measure.
The director did not dare provoke him. He could only ask cautiously, “How long will it take the reinforcements to arrive?”
“At least two days, even at top speed,” the subordinate replied.
“Then dispatch the reinforcements immediately, and—” He glanced at Richter. “Should we cancel the competition?”
Richter gave him a mocking smile. “Do you have the ability to cancel it now?”
The director fell silent. With the transit channels collapsed, they had no way to intervene directly in the arena.
If they merely issued an announcement, the students would not be satisfied with their explanation and simply stop the competition.
How were they supposed to explain it? That the organizing committee had been so incompetent that an unknown force had severed their connection with the arena, and they had only just realized it?
Richter stood up. “Where is the reinforcements’ ship?”
It seemed he intended to make the trip himself.
Richter was considered one of the empire’s most outstanding fighters. His participation in the rescue effort greatly boosted everyone’s confidence.
Everyone present, as well as the spectators watching from outside, had witnessed that terrifying battle and gained a clearer understanding of how frightening the insectoids were.
But only those who truly understood the battlefield knew that the unfamiliar insectoids that had appeared this time posed an unprecedented threat.
Just imagine: the mechs they relied on for combat were completely defenseless against these creatures. Their dynamic metal armor could be corroded in an instant, and the insectoids could even drain their power sources.
It would take only a few of them to disable a powerful mech. Yet these absurdly overpowered insectoids existed in large numbers.
They were even cunning enough to set traps and possessed tactics of their own.
By contrast, Pei Liang’s performance had also left everyone astonished. Her movements had already gone beyond the realm of ordinary combat techniques.
Perhaps people unfamiliar with mechs thought she had used some kind of projection or duplicate. But anyone with even a basic understanding of the subject knew that was not the case.
The Pei family, in particular, had learned that Pei Liang had comprehended martial arts from the ancient texts kept by her family—and had displayed abilities like these. By now, the members of the Pei family were practically turning their entire collection of ancient books upside down.
The battle had provoked wildly different reactions from the various factions, but everyone felt the same regret for the two controlled contestants.
The spectators did not understand why Pei Liang had brought the two “corpses” back with her. But once they heard that the mechs had detected signs of life, they were taken by surprise.
Under normal circumstances, the two should have been automatically disqualified, after which the organizing committee would retrieve them for treatment.
Yet the two “bodies” lay in the open area, and no one from the organizing committee came to collect them.
The spectators had no idea how badly the game management team was struggling. Seeing this, they assumed Pei Liang had once again used her status as their guarantor to ensure that the two could continue participating.
Some viewers were dissatisfied:
[Why doesn’t she let them out?]
[Their physical condition clearly isn’t suitable for continuing the competition. They need a full medical examination.]
[Although I admit that Pei Liang is extremely capable, this decision is far too arrogant and irresponsible.]
[Who knows whether the two contestants have really escaped the control? You saw those black threads, didn’t you? If some are still inside their bodies, delaying the rescue could have disastrous consequences.]
The people at the scene had realized the same thing.
But when they called for rescue, they received the reply that help would not arrive for two days.
Brian was practically about to explode. “Two days? In two days, these two idiots will be dead!”
From up close, they could see two of the creatures moving through the victims’ heads, which meant they were still being parasitized.
Pei Liang tried to use true qi to destroy the black thread-creatures’ activity so that she could extract them. But the moment she injected her energy, she clearly sensed that the creatures intended to attack the two contestants’ brains.
The transit channels had failed, and the stationed ships had been grounded. The entire competition arena had become an isolated island.
Pei Liang did not believe the organizing committee could be so incompetent that they would fail to notice anything was wrong for several days. That meant all these accidents must have occurred at the same time.
Combined with the appearance of intelligent, unfamiliar insectoids clearly designed to target mechs, this was no longer something that could be explained as a coincidence.
For now, however, saving the two contestants’ lives came first.
Pei Liang said to Lancelot, “Prepare the medical gun.”
Mechs were equipped with simple medical guns. Their rays stimulated tissue regeneration, allowing ordinary external wounds to heal quickly and reducing the risk of infection among soldiers.
Lancelot asked no questions and immediately took out the medical gun.
Then Pei Liang said, “Aim it at my fingernail.”
The medical gun worked by stimulating regenerative particles. Used on an uninjured hand, its effect was naturally to make the fingernail grow at an absurd rate.
In the span of just a few seconds, Pei Liang’s fingernails grew to several centimeters long.
She used the mecha’s metal to file them down, then gave them a simple disinfection. The tips of her fingers became as sharp as blades.
Then, without a second thought, Pei Liang drove one of her nails into the skull of one of the contestants.
She moved incredibly fast, and barely any blood spilled.
But for crying out loud—she was opening someone’s skull! Performing brain surgery!
The spectators and the organizers were all dumbstruck. Even the finest surgeons had to proceed with extreme caution when dealing with those active parasites.
And this woman was using her fingernail to perform a craniotomy on someone out in the wilderness?
Without the stimulation of true qi, the black thread—which was actually a microscopic organism incapable of sight—reacted somewhat sluggishly.
Pei Liang seized the opportunity. With a quick lift and hook, she tried to pull the thing out.
The black thread was embedded in an incredibly tricky position inside the brain. Even with the precision of both her hands, Pei Liang had to maintain absolute concentration.
The next second, the black thread suddenly abandoned the passive state it had required a host to display its aggression. Its texture became as tough as a steel needle.
It shot straight toward Pei Liang’s eye—
