Arena Carrying God 2

With the conflict between the Empire and the Federation intensifying over the years, the interstellar Sky Network's mech arena had only grown hotter and hotter.

In this atmosphere, the Sky Network had rolled out unrestricted virtual mechs, and everyone naturally wanted to try their hand at piloting one. Besides, although the Sky Network ostensibly kept the Empire and Federation domains separate, anyone with a mind to could still observe the other side's goings-on, and the two sides were quietly competing across the divide.

The livestreams spawned by the mech arena were also exploding in popularity. There were civilian mech experts streaming, and military academy mech soldier graduates who hadn't made it into the Military Department streaming too. Top streamers could draw over 200 million simultaneous viewers a night.

Hei Shi was a small-time arena streamer in the livestream section—small-time, but still pulling in tens of thousands of viewers a night. His main content was smurfing in the low ranks of the arena.

He'd studied martial arts and had decent physical fitness. After two years of researching virtual mechs, he'd managed to reach a level of around 3,000 points, more than enough to curbstomp the newbies below 500.

People were constantly calling him a bully, but others flocked to him, saying the ones getting stomped were just bad and deserved it.

Tonight he went live on schedule. After greeting the viewers as usual, he hopped onto his alt account and began his nightly hunt in the arena.

The moment he entered the matchmaking queue, an ID called Weiwu Great King Rabbit Aowu immediately caught his eye. Checking her match history, she'd already completed a nine-win streak—one more win and she'd earn 500 points and escape the newbie matchmaking pool.

The bullet comments started flooding in:

[Her her her, go for her]

[Checked her out, she's a military academy student, but from a third-galaxy academy. What, Xima Academy? Peasant school lmao]

[Look at the ID and avatar, she's probably a little girl. I love watching those get crushed. Streamer, go go go]

...

The chat was roaring, and Hei Shi cracked his knuckles. He decisively sent the join request. Tonight's stream was gonna be a moneymaker!

Xu Lingqu's nine-win streak had gone by pretty fast. With a fresh account, matchmaking success rates were much higher. To save time, she just picked an assault-type mech. Everyone here was basically a newbie, and her goal wasn't to torture them but to rack up streak points. She'd just hang back, fire a few cannon shots, and wrap things up quick.

That had made the nine wins fly by. When she was one win away, someone named Hei Shi joined her arena.

The moment he entered, the normally empty virtual spectator stands started filling up—over two hundred people trickled in.

"This guy's a streamer?" Xu Lingqu glanced around. They were presumably all fans of this Hei Shi.

"Seems like it. Not very famous though, but his skill level should be decent probably? You can go all out this match!" Compared to the livestream section, Liu Ming much preferred watching interstellar cartoons and didn't know much about that scene.

Xu Lingqu started the match and decisively picked a speed-type mech just to have some fun.

The instant she made her choice, both the chat and the spectators in the arena started trash-talking.

[This girl's no good, she doesn't get it]

[A newbie playing speed type? How'd she win her first nine matches?]

[The guy above saying speed type means no understanding is the one who doesn't get it]

[Speed players are all low score, quit barking]

[Black-hearted Rock, go easy on the girl this match, don't make her cry]

To stretch out the stream's length and entertainment value, Hei Shi naturally chose defense. As the saying goes, cutting with a dull knife is all about the torture. He had it all planned out—he was going to grind this Weiwu Great King Rabbit Aowu down to death!

The trash talk inside the arena was directly visible to Xu Lingqu, and she spotted the hostility and mockery right away.

Liu Ming was fuming. How dare they say Xu Lingqu had no understanding of mechs! And with such a flippant, disgusting tone too.

"He picked defense and crawled back into his turtle shell. Master Lingqu, smash him to pieces!"

The instant he finished speaking, the gray-green mech shot toward the opponent.

Hei Shi's heart jolted, and he barely had time to summon a shield weapon from his defense kit.

A deafening crash rang out as the speed-type's blade slammed into the shield. Hei Shi watched in disbelief as the speed type—universally derided as a garbage mech—carved fifty-three percent of the shield's durability off in one stroke.

"Holy shit, I've hit a wall."

It wasn't just Hei Shi. Anyone with eyes could see how much weight that single blow carried. Every single person in the arena shot to their feet, staring wide-eyed at the two mechs on the stage.

The bullet comments were going wild too.

[Black-hearted Rock's gonna capsize in the gutter this time]

[Can the guy who said speed type means no understanding come out and talk now?]

[Seriously, is this not a hack? That damage from a speed type?]

[Here we go again, lose and cry hacks. Damage variance on bladed mechs is common knowledge, isn't it?]

Xu Lingqu gave Hei Shi no chance to recover. She'd failed to split that turtle shell open with a vertical slash, so she immediately swung her left leg up in a flying kick, sending the defense mech, frozen in place, toppling uncontrollably to the left.

Hei Shi fought desperately to keep his footing, but the second strike was already coming. It slammed hard into the mech's neck, and his health bar plummeted—but by now he'd completely lost the ability to operate.

For the final blow, Xu Lingqu fired the cannon on her left shoulder. It was one fluid, seamless motion. By the time the system declared Hei Shi's defeat, only fifty-two seconds had elapsed since the match began.

Fifty-two seconds. She'd taken down a fully defense-maxed mech using what everyone considered the most useless model—and the pilot on the receiving end was a small-time streamer with genuine 3,000-point skill.

A brief silence hung over the spectator stands, then erupted into thunderous applause.

The livestream chat was blasting too:

[Justice served]

[What goes around comes around]

[Weiwu Great King Rabbit Aowu is too cool]

On Xu Lingqu's side, the ten-win streak was secured and the 500 points were banked. She was about to ask Liu Ming about cross-tier matches when Hei Shi over on the other side completely lost it.

This was the first time he'd flipped in all his time streaming—and this badly, this humiliatingly.

As a smurf streamer, he'd long since drowned himself in the thrill of stomping noobs. Today, being stomped in reverse like that? Hei Shi couldn't accept it.

"You hacked. You must have hacked to beat me." He stared at Xu Lingqu in stubborn disbelief, then sent another ready-for-battle request. He refused to buy it. He was going to pull out his best heavy mech and run it back.

"If you hack twice in a row, you'll definitely get flagged and banned. Do you dare beat me again? Huh? Do you?" Hei Shi's eyes were red as he roared. His pathetic meltdown was on full display for everyone in the stands and every viewer in the stream.

Some busybody had already rushed off to the forum to post a thread: [Smurf streamer Hei Shi suffers tragic upset today—gets obliterated in 52 seconds by a random player, currently frothing at the mouth. Come quick.]

The arena's spectator stands flooded with even more people, all watching to see whether Xu Lingqu would accept the rematch.

"Getting some traction now means the cross-tier challenge probably won't get rejected as easily later!" Liu Ming was excited.

Hearing that, Xu Lingqu accepted Hei Shi's challenge.

Otherwise, she had zero interest in stomping this guy a second time. Too boring.