The wire shot forward with incredible speed. At such close range, with Pei Liang still hooked onto part of its body, it should have been impossible to avoid.
In principle, it had already exceeded the limits of human neural reflexes. In other words, even though Pei Liang’s brain registered the danger, she had no time to defend herself.
Lancelot, standing beside her, had even less time. He had only managed to raise an arm.
The black wire plunged straight toward Pei Liang’s eye. He cried out in horrified disbelief, “Sis—!”
But the abrupt shout was forcibly cut short, because the wire suddenly went limp.
From a slightly different angle, one could see that Pei Liang had closed the eyelid of the eye under attack.
Just before the black wire struck her eyelid, it seemed to have been blasted by something. At the same time, the other end—embedded in the unconscious contestant’s brain—was pulled out by Pei Liang as well.
It struggled desperately to slip away in her hand, but with a single squeeze from Pei Liang, the black wire went slack and dangled limply.
Pei Liang let out a breath of relief. It seemed the rudimentary Iron Head skill she had picked up while exchanging pointers with those senior monks had actually come in handy.
Still, martial arts all ultimately led to the same destination. With her profound inner strength, she had long reached the point where any part of her body could be turned into armor.
Calling herself impervious to blades and spears might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but she could gather her true qi into a protective layer and shield a specific area for an instant. Besides, the black wire itself feared true qi.
The moment it touched it, it lost its vitality.
Pei Liang tossed the black wire into the bucket, then turned to look at Lancelot.
Smiling, she ruffled his hair. “Your sister is fine.”
Lancelot’s face reddened slightly. His lips moved, but instead of immediately bristling in embarrassment and anger as he usually did, he muttered with some dissatisfaction, “You really... That thing was attacking you, and you were still worrying about the end inside his head.”
Pei Liang smiled. “I expected it. In fact, precisely because it attacked me, it couldn’t keep holding the person’s brain hostage while confronting me.”
“It was the perfect chance to pull it out.”
Lancelot looked at Pei Liang. She was truly different from the person he remembered.
Back then, full of hope and longing, he had been rejected by one of the only two blood relatives he had left in the world. For years, the other person’s hateful, disgusted expression and lofty, condescending figure had remained painfully vivid in his mind.
He had stopped expecting anything from blood ties long ago. He already understood that sharing blood did not mean people would naturally treat one another with warmth and kindness.
Yet now, the expression on that face in his memories seemed to be gradually fading. The sharp aggression around her features had softened, replaced by a gaze full of affection and gentleness.
The curl of revulsion at her lips had become a relaxed, tolerant smile. When he tried to recall those scenes from the past now—
Images that had remained deeply etched in his mind for years had suddenly become blurred.
But then Lancelot noticed the key point in Pei Liang’s words. “You expected it? You knew this thing was capable of attacking?”
The people around them also looked surprised. After all, aside from parasitizing its hosts, this iron-wire-worm-like creature had never displayed any initiative to attack.
Pei Liang nodded. “Without a doubt. When I was scooping these things out earlier, I noticed their texture. They may be tiny and flexible, but their outer shells don’t actually have much elasticity.”
“In other words, they can’t burrow silently into uninjured flesh the way leeches do. When leeches aren’t hunting, their mouthparts remain closed. With their strong elasticity, they can’t break through without making a sound—they can only force their way in.”
Lancelot casually fished a black threadworm out of the bucket and crushed it between his fingers. Sure enough, though it was now half-dead and limp, it felt remarkably hard to the touch—not soft and squishy like a leech.
“Then what about the liquid that corroded the mechs’ outer shells earlier? Did that come from the leeches or from these things?”
“Probably the leeches,” Hodgson said ruefully. “These things are tiny. You all saw the scale of that acid rain just now, didn’t you?”
Hodgson and another contestant had suffered the heaviest losses. Their liquid metal had been corroded to the point that it could no longer cover their entire mechs. If that were all, it would merely mean a drastic drop in defense; their offensive capability would still remain.
But the real problem was that more than half of their energy fluid had been drained. From here on out, they could forget about fighting Alphas of the same rank.
Brian, on the other hand, had not suffered much damage. Though part of his head had been corroded, the liquid metal could reform itself without affecting the mech as a whole.
Yet Pei Liang said decisively, “It can’t have been the leeches. It must have been these hairworms.”
Everyone looked surprised, but Pei Liang had already cleaned the blood from her hands, disinfected them again, and cut open the second person’s skull.
This time, she was visibly more practiced and composed. After dealing with it once, she had completely figured out how to handle the hairworms hidden inside the brain.
“The organizers wouldn’t deliberately introduce such dangerous insectoids into the competition. No offense, but if I hadn’t been here just now, all of you would have been wiped out.”
The viewers in front of their screens choked on those words—
【What is this feeling where I hate how arrogant she is, but I can’t refute her at all?】
【She’s not wrong. She really carried the entire situation by herself just now.】
【That’s what you’re focused on? She just performed a craniotomy! And she actually succeeded! Are mech combatants these versatile now? This med student is crying.】
【Honestly, I think the craniotomy was just basic stuff. I recorded the scene where she wiped out those hairworms, slowed it down twenty times, and watched it frame by frame with my eyes practically popping out. The precision of those hands, her attention to every last detail, her control over the entire situation—it was no joke. Compared to that, opening a skull with her nails was easier.】
【Even though this woman made me lose a fortune on my bets, I think I might be getting turned on. What do I do?】
【Apparently, fans from the Imperial Military Academy have already formed a personal support club for her.】
【If nothing we say can diminish how awesome she is, then we might as well join her side.】
A moment later, Pei Liang lured out another hairworm.
Lancelot quickly followed up with his medical gun. The wounds of the two contestants healed at a visible rate, and before long, they slowly opened their eyes.
At that moment, everyone—both on-screen and off—let out a sigh of relief.
Hodgson, still anxious, continued, “If the organizers didn’t put them there, then where did they come from? Before the competition, the organizers would definitely have inspected the arena repeatedly to ensure the students’ safety.”
Pei Liang smiled. “Who says they had to appear before the competition?”
After the match? Even less likely. If the insectoids could sneak in unnoticed after the match, then with that level of stealth, the Empire would probably have already lost quite a few planets.
But Pei Liang tapped her wristband, and a leech dropped out of it.
No one knew when she had captured it alive. The moment it emerged, the leech instinctively attacked everyone present.
Having suffered badly from them before, Hodgson hurriedly backed away. But Pei Liang suddenly formed a metal spike in her hand and drove it down in front of the leech.
Everyone immediately feared that her liquid metal would be corroded in an instant.
Yet, unexpectedly, the insectoid leech rammed its head into the metal spike, only to let out a feeble shriek before skirting around it.
The metal spike instantly branched apart, transforming into a fine-meshed cage that trapped the leech inside.
Pei Liang said, “Look. This is a leech without a black threadworm inside its body. Not only can it not secrete the acid that corrodes liquid metal, it also has no sensitivity to liquid metal or energy fluid.”
Previously, the reason Hodgson and the others had suffered such heavy losses was not merely because the acid caught them off guard. More importantly, the insectoids had attacked without hesitation, as if they had already prepared a battle plan.
First, they struck when their opponents were unprepared and corroded the outer shell. Then they punctured the structure and drained the energy fluid. If it had not been for such a seamless, cunning sequence of tactics, a 3S like Hodgson would never have ended up in such a sorry state.
This proved that the enemy already had an established method of attack—which also meant that they possessed considerable sensitivity to liquid metal and energy fluid.
Yet Pei Liang’s liquid metal was right in front of this leech, and it could only charge at it in confusion, without any strategy at all. It did not even secrete acid in time.
What was more, if it had shown even half the intelligence it had during the ambush, its first thought upon being released should have been to escape.
“This is clearly just a low-level insectoid. The ones released by the organizing committee should only have been this type as well.”
“But—” Pei Liang fished a black threadworm from the bucket and stuffed it into the leech’s body.
The black threadworm was listless at the moment, but Pei Liang’s metal spike mercilessly stabbed into the leech’s body.
At once, liquid began to seep from around the leech’s mouthparts. But because the threadworm controlling it was inactive, it could not even spray the fluid out.
Pei Liang looked at Hodgson. Hodgson stared back at her, utterly baffled.
Pei Liang’s smile took on a faintly threatening edge. Hodgson sucked in a breath and nearly jumped. “You want to test it on my mech?”
“Pei Liang, are you even human?”
Before Pei Liang could explain, Lancelot said coolly, “Senior, we’re a team. With an unknown powerful enemy ahead of us, the most important thing is naturally to preserve our strength as much as possible.”
“Your mech is practically half-disabled already. If we’re not using yours for the test, are we supposed to use our brand-new mechs instead?”
Hodgson looked to Brian, hoping he would join his side and condemn such unfair treatment. But Brian silently turned his head away.
He had the unmistakable air of someone who would rather let his comrade die than himself.
Hodgson was practically in tears. Under such tyranny, he had no choice but to extend the small amount of liquid metal his mech had left and brush it against the fluid.
Sure enough, it was instantly corroded.
Everyone was horrified. So it really had been the black threadworms’ doing.
“This is the most troublesome kind of enemy.” Pei Liang infused it with true qi. The leech shriveled up and died, while the black threadworms were captured once more.
“They’re tiny enough to launch stealth attacks, intelligent enough to take hostages and devise tactics, and capable of granting ordinary insects additional abilities.”
The others still felt lingering fear. “This thing is practically impossible to guard against. What if they hadn’t made such a big show of it and had simply crawled into our ears while we were asleep? Then we’d—”
“They have natural enemies,” Pei Liang said. “They just can’t pull that off, which is why they had to go to all this trouble.”
A thought struck Lancelot. He quickly grabbed a handful of insect-repelling grass nearby, squeezed out its juice, and dripped it into the wooden bucket.
The horsehair worms inside, barely clinging to life, immediately began writhing in agony. Most of them dissolved outright.
Pei Liang smiled. “Looks like Lance’s careful protection is what kept us safe.”
Lancelot gave a snort, though the corners of his mouth rose. “That’s because I was here. If you’d only had those two useless idiots slacking off beside you, who knows what would’ve happened to you.”
Brian and Hodgson: “How the hell did being a prisoner make him feel superior?”
After confirming that horsehair worms by themselves would not damage mechs, Pei Liang kept a few specimens sealed away. The rest were destroyed with the insect-repelling grass.
It was unclear whether there were still other horsehair worms in the rainforest, so the group decided to leave the rainforest overnight.
After dinner, they packed up their food and flew out in their mechs.
Before night had fully fallen, they reached a rocky area. Since the surroundings were unfamiliar, they assigned someone to keep watch before settling down to sleep.
Yet after everyone else had fallen asleep, Pei Liang’s eyes remained open.
There were some things she naturally could not say to people of this world, but she found the black threadworms’ weakness rather interesting.
To her, their vulnerability to insect-repelling grass was only natural. Everything had to follow certain fundamental laws. The more powerful and difficult a species was, the more likely it was either scarce and hard to reproduce, or else had widespread, easily found natural enemies.
Everything had to abide by this basic principle—even something that had invaded from elsewhere.
As for why her true qi dealt such devastating damage to these black threadworms, Pei Liang could think of only one explanation.
Her true qi was not something that originally existed in this world.
The logic was simple, even crude, but sometimes the logic behind seemingly complex problems was just that straightforward.
Following that line of thought, it became much easier to explain why the transport passage had suddenly collapsed, why the space station’s ships could not enter, and why the competition grounds had abruptly become an isolated island.
It was because another kind of energy—one that likewise did not belong to this world—was interfering.
Pei Liang thought back to how, after entering this instance, she had initially been unable to obtain the script’s contents, and then had been inexplicably hunted down in the slums.
Until now, she had always believed that her character was the climax of the plot. And judging from how events had unfolded, the original owner of this body had indeed been destined to die at that time.
Because aside from Hill and the others, there was another group of people trying to kill her. Pei Liang had always assumed it was a grudge the original owner of this body had inadvertently provoked—or that the original owner had seen something she was never meant to see, something even she herself had not realized—thus bringing about her own death.
But what if that initial assumption was wrong? What if those people had never been trying to kill the original owner at all, but her?
What if her not receiving a script was also meant to conceal that true motive?
Pei Liang smiled. It seemed someone really did possess influence and reach so great that they could hunt down a player across instance worlds.
That only made her more excited. Casually, she disabled the system’s Do Not Disturb mode.
“Are you sure I didn’t receive a script because of an arrangement made by the new boss?” she asked.
The system naturally understood the situation. Something was obviously off.
“It... it should be,” it said hesitantly. “That was the notice sent down from above.”
“Did they tell you in person?” Pei Liang pressed.
“How could that be possible? Why would the boss personally come speak to a little system like me? It was in a task file.”
“But don’t worry, sis. The moment I sensed that something might be wrong, I checked it. The file itself is legitimate—it was sent from the boss’s work account.”
“Oh?” The smile on Pei Liang’s face deepened. “Then that makes it even more impressive.”
The system said worriedly, “Sis, should I file an appeal on your behalf? But if I leave my station, the difference in time flow—and the absence of system oversight—could create even bigger loopholes.”
“Don’t,” Pei Liang said without hesitation. “Don’t let a word of this get out. Act as if we know nothing.”
The system had no idea what she was planning, but trusting her, it did as she said.
This planet had long daylight hours. After they slept for several hours, dawn arrived.
Pei Liang got to her feet and said to everyone, “Finish eating quickly. From here on, we move at full speed.”
“Yeah!” the group cheered.
Only Hodgson said, “But that would consume a lot of fuel—”
Before he could finish, he realized what she was getting at. Didn’t they have his 3S mech, which had lost its combat capability? That meant they had one more high-speed spacecraft at their disposal.
Left with no choice, Hodgson began miserably chewing on the fruit that looked like an elongated pear but tasted like durian.
A 3S mech’s flight speed truly was much faster. In just half a day, they had flown out of the rocky region and across a stretch of desert.
They encountered quite a few Zerg along the way, though few were capable of launching attacks into the air. Any that managed to fly up were simply cut down by Pei Liang in a single strike. By now, she was no longer concerned about earning points.
And the closer they drew to the flag platform, the more contestants they encountered.
Some took one look at Brian, Hodgson, and Lancelot—three 3S fighters gathered together—and immediately chose to steer clear.
Pei Liang’s group did not appear inclined to initiate fights, which made quite a few people breathe a sigh of relief.
But in just over a day, the distribution of competitors across the arena had already changed drastically.
In particular, Pei Liang’s group was no longer the team with the greatest number of 3S fighters.
Many contestants had begun gathering into larger groups. Teams from elite military academies were gradually absorbing students from ordinary academies or driving rival contestants out.
However, by this point, many people had also noticed a problem.
The eliminated contestants were not being taken away. By now, nearly everyone knew that the arena had temporarily lost contact with the organizing committee.
Only the committee’s skillful camera cuts kept the audience from noticing their awkward predicament.
Once they reached a certain distance, Pei Liang’s group could no longer brazenly fly overhead.
Anyone who tried to use a mech’s speed to charge straight at the flag platform and seize the flag within this zone would draw attacks from competitors in every direction.
Still, no one had expected the defensive perimeter to extend this far.
Pei Liang and the others had assumed they would have another few dozen kilometers before reaching it, but several laser cannons suddenly fired at them.
Fortunately, Hodgson was serving as their transport. With the reflexes of a 3S, he immediately evaded the attack, and the others naturally descended with him.
They equipped their mechs in midair, and by the time they landed, they were already in battle formation.
There were only four people on the other side, but every one of them was a 3S.
Pei Liang was not particularly familiar with them, but someone immediately recognized their mechs—and they recognized him as well.
“Lancelot, why are you with Brian and his group?” An arrogant voice came from one of the opposing mechs.
So they were contestants from Poseidon Military Academy.
Lancelot replied, “Our drop points were too close. We ran into each other on the first day, and to avoid pointless attrition, we formed a temporary alliance.”
The other party accepted the explanation and nodded. “A sensible decision.”
Then he said without mercy, “The alliance ends here. Now you can take them out and earn some points.”
Brian burst out laughing. “Hahaha... Ross? You were trash who only managed seventh place last year, and now you’re putting on airs?”
Ross sneered. “Brian, I acknowledge your strength, but you’re all bark and no bite now. What’s the point of saying that?”
He pointed at Hodgson. “Hodgson’s mech is already badly damaged, isn’t it? Its power source must be nearly depleted too, or he wouldn’t be acting as your transportation.”
“And you’ve even brought along several people below 2S—people who, in theory, are useless once you enter the inner zone.”
“If Hodgson puts that mech into combat, it won’t last five minutes. And you alone will be facing our five 3S-level fighters. Brian, do you really think you’re that strong?”
Seeing that they had not counted Pei Liang among the threats, Brian felt a perverse sense of satisfaction at the thought of someone he disliked repeating the very mistake of underestimating an opponent—and getting slapped in the face for it.
He offered no explanation, merely grinning viciously. “Perfect. I could use some points myself.”
With Pei Liang controlling him now, seizing the flag was out of the question. But if he could take down a few more 3S opponents and rank highly enough in points, there was still hope for the following rounds if he performed well.
Hodgson also entered combat mode, flashing a broad grin. “Five minutes? I’ll take one of you out in three.”
Ross gave a contemptuous laugh. “Brian may still have some fight left in him. You? You’re overestimating yourself.”
As they spoke, both sides had already launched into battle.
Perhaps believing that the S-ranks and lower were worthless distractions, the four opponents immediately charged straight at Brian.
Contestants from the same military academy had naturally trained to coordinate with one another. But Brian had also been one of last year’s strongest favorites to win the championship; his strength was no less formidable.
With Hodgson launching a no-holds-barred, desperate counterattack, the situation somehow ended in a draw: four against two, with one of the two already badly wounded.
It would have looked rather ugly on a live broadcast. The Poseidon Military Academy students understood that, so they decided to end things quickly.
They shouted at Lancelot, who had yet to join the fight, “Lancelot, what are you standing around for? It’s only a temporary alliance. Isn’t this exactly when your knight spirit should be used?”
Lancelot frowned, then spread his hands. “Sorry, senior. I can’t make a move right now.”
“You—!” The other student flew into a rage.
Despite his young age, Lancelot had been qualified to become a first-string member, which had once stirred considerable resentment. On top of that, he came from a great aristocratic family, so most people normally only dared to be angry in silence.
But now, in the middle of the battlefield, he was actually backing down. The others immediately found an opening to attack him.
“Lancelot, can you still call yourself a warrior? Or did Brian scare the courage out of you?”
“Poseidon Military Academy is disgraced to have a coward like you. Even if we take the flag first this time, you won’t get any of the credit.”
Brian sneered. “You’ve got time to talk while fighting your daddy?”
Brian was huge and immensely powerful. Even three against one, they still couldn’t gain a complete advantage over him.
Fortunately, Hodgson had already been dealt with, and the contestant who had taken him down immediately rushed over.
Just as he was about to join the fight, his mind jolted violently—as though a massive bell had been placed over his head and someone had struck it hard from the outside.
The other three were too occupied with the battle to notice what had happened.
After a long struggle, the three students from Poseidon Military Academy finally brought Brian down. The price was one of them collapsing unconscious, while the other two suffered injuries of varying severity.
The remaining two exchanged a glance, then turned their eyes toward Lancelot, clearly intending to settle the score.
“Lancelot, you must explain your cowardly behavior just now.”
Lancelot said helplessly, “Senior, I wanted to help you too, but I’m a prisoner at the moment. I can’t act without authorization.”
Ross laughed. “Ha! A prisoner? Lancelot, you’re not only the shame of Poseidon—you’re the shame of your family as well.”
“I thought you were allies, but you’re Brian’s prisoner? As expected, the headmaster’s choice was far too reckless. You—”
Before he could finish, Lancelot’s expression turned meaningful.
“Who said I’m that guy’s prisoner?”
“The person who captured me is still standing right there.”
