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Genius Mechanic: Chapter 209
ZOMBIE EMPEROR CULTIVATION
Slared Contaminated Zone(Star Alliance Mission)
209. You Yuying
Proofread by Cloud Chip Cake and An Zheee
“Not the primary target…?” Wen Yi glanced into the depths of the ice cave. Due to Ying Chenlin’s actions and the movements of the mechas following SLY and GBK, all the strong teams had been lured to that area by Ying Chenlin.
Ying Chenlin’s plan had completely removed him from the competition for that special item underground, diverting all sparks of conflict towards the stronger teams.
The distant sounds of explosions still echoed, and the activity of the pollutants became increasingly apparent. Ji Qingfeng stored the large storage equipment, which had been placed nearby, into his mecha without hesitation, and then followed the others back to the surface through the path Alice had dug.
Deep underground, a sudden energy explosion destroyed part of the ice cave’s structure and fully enraged the plant roots below. A large number of pollutants swarmed towards Alice and the other mechas.
Alice hid behind their Tank, barely avoiding the impact of the energy explosion. However, other strong teams’ mechas, without shield protection, weren’t as fortunate. Some took the full brunt of the blast, while others experienced a sharp increase in mecha damage and were attacked by the surrounding pollutants. The entire underground ice cave, provoked by this incident, became completely enraged. The plant roots’ attack speeds increased, launching successive assaults on the strong teams’ mechas amid the explosion’s aftermath.
A GBK pilot: “F*ck! We got ambushed by KID.”
Alice smashed away the surrounding pollutants with the hammer, her eyes showing a flicker of fiery determination at the provocation.
First, Sink, then Trace—these two mechas had plotted against her twice, once when blowing up the Snowy Mountains, the other in the ice cave, and ultimately escaping each time.
No one had expected KID to go through so much trouble to lure so many mechas here, only to slink away using spatial displacement and withdraw from the competition altogether.
In the communication channel, news came through that KID had returned to the top of the ice layer, including the fact that they had brought a large number of pollutants with them.
The reconnaissance mechas above relayed the information, and the pilots in the ice cave weren’t fools. They had just fought their way through countless pollutants without picking up anything in their pursuit of KID. No wonder three Dawn mechas had appeared behind them; it turned out these guys had been using them as labor.
The pilots of the several strong teams had never been treated like this before, but in the chaos of the battle, they couldn’t be sure who had killed which pollutant. They were too prideful to consider asking the Dawn mechas to hand over the pollutants, so they had no choice but to swallow this bitter pill in silence.
A SLY pilot noticed Alice’s silence and asked, “Captain, should we follow KID?”
“Follow them? Just to get played again?” Alice’s eyes swept over the ice cave’s complex environment, the aggressively attacking roots, and the countless surrounding pollutants. “Keep moving forward. We need to find the source of these pollutants.”
The major strong teams did not halt their advance due to KID, but the challenge of the underground environment only increased. More and more pollutants continued to attack the underground. The same information was transmitted to the starships of the various teams outside the Slared Defense Line. After receiving Alice’s message, SLY’s coaching team confirmed that the Dawn team had indeed completely outwitted them.
“Have we found any trace of the two missing KID mechas?” SLY’s head coach asked.
Another person replied, “No, we used the system to scan the underground, but the energy response is too vast, we couldn’t detect any traces of pollutants. Also, the damage in the ice cave is extensive, and the large-scale pollutant explosions make it difficult to deploy mecha pilots for investigation.”
SLY’s coach frowned tightly.
—
On the other side, as soon as Dawn’s mechas returned to the surface, they were immediately under the watchful eyes of various strong teams. They were well aware of what had happened underground through communications with their teammates. The looks from the other teams varied. The Dawn mechas, however, made no move unless attacked. They openly remained on the ice layer’s surface.
They didn’t remain idle; they found a relatively inconspicuous corner and began organizing and consolidating the pollutant corpses they had collected from the underground, emptying the storage compartments into a large storage device.
Since Dawn had abandoned the competition, the three mechas that had been fighting with GBK’s Bai Xuyan also ceased their engagement. When Bai Xuyan came over from the other side, he saw KID handling a large number of pollutant corpses in a concealed part of the ice layer.
“KID has given up the competition?”
“With so many strong teams following, they’re smart to retreat.”
“It makes sense to abandon the competition once they see they can’t take anything with so many people around.”
As the attention on KID from the other mechas waned, Dawn’s mechas understood what Ying Chenlin had meant by not being the primary target. The strong teams’ focus on KID was merely on KID’s actions underground, assuming they had clues about the special underground energy. However, once it became clear that KID didn’t have clues or had withdrawn from the competition, the strong teams’ attention to KID dropped to a minimum.
With a large amount of energy responses still present underground, the strong teams gathered beneath the ice layer. It was more strategic to focus resources on monitoring the movements of the strong teams rather than a small galaxy’s team that had withdrawn from the competition.
This strategy wouldn’t work in the Dawn Galaxy, but was a straightforward decision in the context of being underestimated in this Star Alliance Special Mission.
Wen Yi looked at the large number of pollutants around, including one or two S-Level pollutants. From the perspective of resource acquisition, they hadn’t lost out.
“Wait! I’ve been meaning to ask,” Ji Qingfeng counted the coordinates on the map, “Why haven’t Lao Zhao and Yao Bao’s coordinates shown up? Where are they?”
They had initially thought it was part of Ying Chenlin’s arrangement, but now that everyone else had withdrawn and was watching the others fight, Lin Yao and Zhao Lejie had disappeared.
Qi Sicheng, who had been listening to everyone from the base station, suddenly asked, “Did you kill the flower underground controlling the signals?”
Qi Sicheng had studied KID for a long time and knew KID’s true nature well. So when they saw KID staying underground, Ke Lin and Wen Yi were the first to help KID block some of the strong teams’ attacks because they were certain KID wanted to grab something. However, now that Ying Chenlin had led the strong teams underground and surfaced, along with the unknown whereabouts of two teammates, it was clear that this was unusual behavior for KID.
When Ying Chenlin heard Qi Sicheng’s question, he marked a location on the radar.
— It was where they had discovered Ying Chenlin’s coordinates for the first time.
“I didn’t kill that flower. Lin Yao and Zhao Lejie are still heading further underground,” Ying Chenlin said.
Hu Luobu immediately reacted, “Damn! You deliberately led them in the opposite direction!”
“There are a lot of pollutants underground, and these pollutants are leverage for that unknown root pollutant,” Ying Chenlin explained briefly. “If we hadn’t moved the Parasitic Flower and continued to hide our coordinates while going further down from the original position, we might have been intercepted by the strong teams before we even reached the underground.”
With so many pollutants around, and with the roots encountering danger, those pollutants would definitely be driven to attack them. Moreover, the combat power of the plant roots themselves wasn’t weak.
In a situation of being surrounded, even if all 12 of their mechas were deployed, they might have ended up just being a decoy for the latecomer strong teams.
The energy responses below Slared’s ice layer were dense, and the pollutant information was overwhelming. They were originally in a passive position, their goal was to let the strong teams kill the pollutants and weaken the root’s combat power, waiting for Lin Yao and Zhao Lejie’s signal.
The others didn’t have a Parasitic Flower to hide their mechas’ presence, so it wasn’t easy for them to reach deeper into the ice layer.
Ke Lin and Wen Yi were alarmed. Ying Chenlin had indeed calculated everyone interested in the underground’s energy. He started a fight between the pollutants and the strong teams, pretended to abandon the competition and withdraw from the battle, while actually conserving strength and waiting for the right moment to re-enter.
While the others were dealing with the pollutant corpses, Ying Chenlin focused on the points ranking.
Their five mechas had been delayed underground for a while, but upon emerging, they found their points ranking was still stable, holding steady at 42nd place.
Ying Chenlin opened the interface and saw tasks around the Snowy Mountains that had been completed one after another not long ago. Clearly, while they were out of contact, their other teammates hadn’t wasted any time and had been steadily maintaining their team’s ranking.
“We didn’t have a displacement weapon to get underground, so doing tasks was the most time-efficient decision,” Ke Lin said. “But our ranking isn’t high, and other strong teams haven’t fully committed their forces here.”
Many strong teams were interested in pollutants. Except for the top ten teams in the Alliance, other teams had a mindset of seizing any opportunities if they could, and giving up if they couldn’t. Even though E.M had taken advantage of them for a while, most teams’ plans remained intact, generally operating in separate squads. As a result, the points for the top ranks continued to rise.
“It seems like the pollutants underground don’t count towards the task list,” Huo Yan said. “It’s a bit of a pity.”
If they did count towards the task list, their points would have increased more quickly.
As they discussed this, Zhao Lejie and Lin Yao had not yet sent a signal. They had no choice but to continue doing the remaining tasks above ground and wait for the right moment. While the others planned to continue looking for tasks around the Snowy Mountains, Ying Chenlin decided to visit the base station.
Although the strong teams hadn’t paid much more attention to KID, it didn’t mean they were completely disregarding them, especially since KID had two mechas with missing signals.
When the others saw that KID had finished dealing with the pollutants and continued staying here without moving, they assumed KID was planning a different strategy. However, KID’s members split into two teams: one started doing tasks, while the other went directly to the base station near the Snowy Mountains, indicating they were no longer interested in the underground at all.
Slared’s base station wasn’t far off, and after the split, several heavily damaged mechas returned to the base station.
Huo Yan was responsible for monitoring the signals connected to the underground, and Qi Sicheng was doing tasks near the Snowy Mountains. Everyone was waiting for the signal from underground.
Ying Chenlin asked Huo Yan about the underground signals every half hour but received no response from Lin Yao and the others.
“So, are they going to fall asleep underground or what!?” Ji Qingfeng, doing tasks outside and having time to chat, complained to Hu Luobu in Lin Yao’s absence. “Luobo, you’re close with Lao Zhao. How does he sleep?”
Hu Luobu, becoming increasingly annoyed, said, “I don’t share a bed with Zhao Lejie, don’t call me Luobo! My name is Hu Luobu!”
“However, the fighting here seems quite intense,” Chi Lizi and Qi Sicheng were near the ice cave. “Several strong teams are clashing.”
They watched the chaos unfold, as they were simply there to enjoy the spectacle.
Let them fight; the fiercer, the better.
Qi Sicheng noted, “The people watching us have also left.”
Huo Yan, in the command center, connected to them through his light brain. “Don’t worry, I’m in touch with Tang Jie and the others. They’ll notify us as soon as there’s any signal from underground.”
Although the base station here had been non-functional for a while, its basic functions were still operational. Ying Chenlin, carrying repair equipment, immediately began working on repairs upon arriving at the base station’s landing pad. The mechas that had fought underground were severely damaged, with about 50% wear and tear due to the cold waves and other damage.
Ying Chenlin first disassembled and meticulously repaired the two weapons on Huo Yan’s mecha, then transferred them to a backup mecha to ensure Huo Yan’s mobility. After addressing Huo Yan’s mecha, he moved on to help Hu Luobu and Ke Lin with their more severely damaged mechas. Dawn had brought backup mechas for this trip, prepared for prolonged combat.
Ke Lin observed the busy mechanic at the landing pad. The mechanic’s familiarity with adjusting the mechas was faster than many he had seen before. When he had been in charge of rescuing a damaged mecha cockpit during the Qiu Jin incident, the then-new KID member, Ying Chenlin, had taken on significant responsibilities among a group of experienced mechanics.
He had heard from the chief mechanic of the YDS’ maintenance department that their base’s repair specialists praised Ying Chenlin highly. Even when Ying Chenlin’s identity as Sink was revealed, veteran mechanics had frequently defended him. In their view, technical skills and practical experience were developed over time, and it was rare for someone to excel in both mecha repair and piloting.
These ambiguities surrounding Ying Chenlin seemed to fit him very well.
He always gave off the impression that he could do anything.
“Your mecha weapons aren’t severely damaged; you can use them with the backup mecha,” Ying Chenlin said after inspecting the issues and handing the mecha key to Ke Lin. “I’ve adjusted the weapon’s precision. Try it out, and let me know if it doesn’t suit you.”
“Thank you,” Ke Lin replied.
Ying Chenlin nodded and quickly returned to his other tasks.
Ke Lin stood nearby, his gaze lingering on Ying Chenlin for a while. Turning around, he saw Wen Yi standing close by. With Qi Sicheng gone on-site, everyone here had a chance to take a break.
“I find such opponents terrifying, yet they also ignite a competitive spirit,” Wen Yi suddenly said.
Many commanders were skilled in strategy; in the Star Alliance, such strategists were common, especially during wartime. However, commanders with strong on-the-spot reaction ability are rare. The Dawn teams and KID had encountered numerous strategies and innovative tactics from their opponents. While they saw only the results when facing them as enemies, they only truly understood how fast Ying Chenlin’s thinking could be when working alongside him.
When most people were only on the first step, his strategies had already accounted for multiple layers of complexity. Even though Dawn was a galaxy with poor combat resources, he could still use the available resources to achieve the greatest benefit.
Most importantly, this commander was young.
Ying Chenlin was only 20 years old. Two years ago, a prediction for the individual-soldier competitions suggested he would dominate the field for a decade. Now, it seemed like if given time to develop, he could achieve even more in the team battle field, with a higher margin for error.
Ke Lin knew who Wen Yi was referring to and put away the mecha key. “But that’s a good thing. The higher the mountain in front of us, the bigger the steps we need to take.”
Wen Yi nodded in agreement but then looked towards another direction. “I’m a bit worried.”
“Will our plan continue to go so smoothly?” He hesitated. “I’m concerned about the movements of E.M and PJT.”
Among the top five teams in the Star Alliance, E.M was still in the Volcanic region, and PJT had not made any further moves after reaching the Snowy Mountains. They hadn’t even delved deeper into the ice layers.
SLY and GBK’s elite teams were in the ice layer, exploring the details of the underground with other Star Alliance teams. The latest information showed that they had gone deeper, from 200 meters to 289 meters. The data from the underground revealed increasing amounts of information, with unprecedented counterattacks from pollutants and plant roots. The movements of the strong teams coming and going near the ice layer were becoming clear.
“Among the top five teams, WHG hasn’t made a move,” Ke Lin said.
WHG, who ranked third in the Star Alliance, had been staying in the Forest area since the Snowy Mountains’ information leak. Their current points ranking was second, just behind E.M
The top three teams in the Star Alliance had yet to take effective action, which gave Wen Yi and Ke Lin a peculiar feeling they couldn’t quite describe.
It seemed like there was more than one team sitting back and watching.
Wen Yi said, “Also, there are three special mission zones in the Star Alliance, and we are currently only in the Snowy Mountains region. E.M and WHG are in the remaining two zones.”
The temperature in the Slared base was generally low. You Su stood not far from the landing pad, watching the other man move around like a continuously spinning top, as busy as he had been at the KID base.
Theo asked, “You Su, why are you just waiting here?”
You Su didn’t respond.
You Su’s Artillery mecha had been damaged to a certain extent, and the equipment on it was old. All the weapons had been transferred to Theo before departure, so You Su didn’t need to repair any other mecha and stayed behind to respond to any orders promptly.
Theo’s attention was wandering. Watching Ying Chenlin repair mechas for the others, Theo also wanted to get in on it and have Ying Chenlin repair his mecha. “You should go over there. I can talk to Yuan. I haven’t talked to it much these days!”
You Su didn’t speak, letting the noisy sounds of the mecha beside him continue, while his gaze stayed fixed on Ying Chenlin.
The excellent vision of his S-Level physique was highly effective at this moment. Ying Chenlin was only wearing a jacket, with his sleeves rolled up, revealing the well-defined lines of his arms, extending from the mechanical arm to below the jacket.
From a distance, the view was calm and straightforward; as soon as Ying Chenlin turned his head, he would see where You Su was standing and inadvertently observe him.
The two were positioned with one above the mecha and the other standing beside it, with little communication, yet neither was entirely calm.
After inspecting and confirming that the others’ mechas were in good condition, Ying Chenlin finally took out his own mecha. His frequently used Medical mecha had also suffered considerable damage in the ice cave, and while its two weapons were useful, they weren’t suitable for the ice cave’s environment. After switching mechas, Ying Chenlin focused on the spatial displacement weapon of the Medical mecha.
As Ying Chenlin climbed up the mecha, he suddenly realized he had forgotten to bring the mechanical tools for disassembly.
He was momentarily distracted.
“Here.” A voice came from below.
Feeling a gust of wind near his ear, Ying Chenlin instinctively reached to the side and securely grabbed the mechanical pliers.
You Su had thrown the tool up to him.
Ying Chenlin paused. “How did you know I needed this?”
You Su replied, “I have good eyes.”
“Oh.” Ying Chenlin took the pliers and turned around. After a moment, he added, “You’ve been watching me all along.”
You Su didn’t say anything but didn’t deny it either. He only said, “If you need tools, I’m down here.”
Ying Chenlin leaned half of his body against the mecha, continuing to disassemble the weapon. His gaze, passing over the surface of the parts, saw a shadow below through the mecha’s gaps. He removed a joint clasp with a precise motion and slowly withdrew his gaze.
While the Dawn team’s mechas were being repaired at the base, the battle in the Slared Contaminated Zone’s underground reached a fever pitch. As they advanced deeper, more and more energy reports were being transmitted to various teams’ logistics departments, including the highest command of the Star Alliance’s Special Missions.
The restoration of the Slared Contaminated Zone’s abandoned system had put the entire Star Alliance on high alert. Various departments were conducting effective analysis of the Slared Contaminated Zone’s situation, obtaining more detailed intelligence from the massive energy reactions.
“We have obtained a large amount of specimen information and are currently analyzing it.”
“Pollutant coverage is 98%. There are still so many pollutants underground.”
“Large amounts of unrecorded pollutants detected—”
News about the unusual situation in the Slared Contaminated Zone had already spread across major star systems not long ago. When the Slared Contaminated Zone was listed as this year’s Star Alliance mission’s Contaminated Zone, there had already been detailed discussions within the Star Alliance.
More than three years ago, Slared experienced a bizarre energy anomaly. The origin and cause of this anomaly were unknown, and the energy specimens detected were still retained in the Star Alliance’s database without being disclosed to the public. However, well-informed mecha bases had long received confirmed information about it.
The energy specimens were traces of energy that had never been recorded in the current Star Alliance’s data.
The energy contained in this substance was extremely rich, exceeding the detection standards of Star Alliance machinery. Most importantly, this energy contained a significant amount of pollution reactions.
The energy anomaly from that time was too brief for the Star Alliance to pinpoint. In this mission, eliminating the pollutants was just a part of the task. The real objective was to gather the strength of powerful teams to uncover the reasons behind Slared’s uncontrolled situation.
In the busy command center, the commander stood in front of a multitude of information displays, his face stern as he reviewed the data, “This discovery of the underground anomaly was by the Dawn Galaxy?”
The staff replied, “Yes.”
The Dawn Galaxy… The commander’s voice grew more serious, “Retrieve the mecha information.”
Information on multiple mechas from the Dawn Galaxy was pulled up, with the pilots’ data displayed in the top control room.
The commander quickly skimmed through the simplified information, pausing when he saw a particular name, “…You Su?”
The staff brought up You Su’s data.
In the detailed information, a simple professional photo was prominently displayed at the top.
As soon as the photo appeared, the commander’s serious face showed a hint of surprise, “Just as I thought.”
The commander’s aide suddenly asked, “Commander, is there a problem with this person?”
“No,” the commander replied, “It’s just that when I last saw him three years ago, he was still a mercenary mecha pilot. Three years ago, when the energy anomaly occurred in Slared, that mercenary mecha pilot from Dawn Galaxy, the son of Lieutenant General Lin Yilin from the First Star Domain’s General Frontier Army, don’t you remember?”
Three years ago, the energy anomaly in Slared was triggered by the outbreak of Super S-Level pollutants in the Third Star Domain’s Frontier Contaminated Zone. The closest mecha to the Super S-Level pollutant at the time was a lone mecha pilot who had managed to escape from the pollutant’s ambush despite severe injuries.
It was because of that Super S-Level pollutant outbreak that they became aware of the energy disturbance in Slared.
The aide said, “There’s no record of him in the database.”
“He’s not recorded. The First Star Domain couldn’t manage him, so the Third Star Domain had to turn a blind eye,” the commander replied, his serious face softening slightly as he said, “Rushing into a Contaminated Zone without regard for frontier rules, just like You Yuying…”
Before he could finish, a staff member suddenly shouted.
The commander quickly walked to the console, his voice cold, “What’s going on?”
“Energy levels are severely exceeding the standard,” said the staff member responsible for energy detection. “Commander, based on our energy measurements, the energy in the underground is increasing at an irrational rate.”
The commander asked, puzzled, “Abnormal growth?”
“Yes, and this growth doesn’t resemble a typical energy increase; it’s more like a pollutant,” the staff member continued. “This pollutant occupies the depths of the underground, and from the chaotic pollution data, we’ve concluded that this pollutant has almost filled the entire underground space. All the energy responses are coming from it.”
Hearing this, the commander said sternly, “Immediately conduct a pollutant source analysis and determine its species—”
At that moment, a severe alarm suddenly sounded throughout the command room.
The commander looked up abruptly and saw, amidst the complex energy signals at the core of the ice cave, two faint mecha signals suddenly appearing. He was taken aback, “…Mecha signals?”
Deep within Slared, beneath the ice cave covered in eerie blue light, a strange subterranean fire was hidden under a thick layer of bottomless blue ice. Numerous roots were densely spread out, with a blue, glowing crystal ball at the core. It pulsated with vibrations, and a large amount of energy seemed to be flowing towards its core.
In the air about three hundred meters from the core, the desperate Parasitic Flowers clung tightly to the roots, not daring to move.
At this moment, two mechas had no choice but to emerge from the gaps between the Parasitic Flowers.
Zhao Lejie said, “F*ck, give me some space to breathe!”
“Why is this flower like this? There’s still a path below; why hasn’t it fallen yet?” Lin Yao complained, poking the flower with his blade, but it didn’t budge in the slightest, “Chenlin, it’s not working. It’s game over for this flower.”
TN:
No, at this point Lao Zhao should sue KID for psychological damage and trauma!
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