Before the First Match
Jin hurried along behind Xu Lingqu. "Please, Commander, just let me go beat him up. Tomorrow, if I have to take orders from someone like that, I might as well find a tree and hang myself."
He had no idea Xu Lingqu had traded command of this match for slots on the grand mech arena roster. He despised Feng Bu on every level, and if this weren't a military academy, he would have called in Ares to lock that father-son pair in a dungeon for a couple of days.
"You're still planning to take his orders tomorrow?" Xu Lingqu was relieved to be out of there, away from Feng Bu's nonsense; she felt lighter now.
Catching the implication in her words...
Jin raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Commander has a plan B?"
"We'll talk about it tomorrow. Let's head back and rest for now." She glanced back at Tang Muwen. She hadn't paid him much attention over the past few days—he seemed thinner, his walk so light it was almost ethereal.
Sensing her gaze, Tang Muwen offered a gentle smile.
The same smile as always, but Xu Lingqu felt it didn't quite reach his eyes.
—
The next afternoon, Moye Military Academy's cadets, fully geared up, made their way from their quarters to the Sky Network venue.
That morning, Longyuan had taken on Situke on a new map—an island assault battle. Longyuan's Chief Commander, Gu Tingzhi, orchestrated a dual-pronged amphibious and airborne surprise attack that left Situke scrambling. The match ended in a total elimination, and the livestream commentary was nearly all about Gu Tingzhi.
By the time Moye arrived, Gu Tingzhi was leading his Longyuan team out. The two sides crossed paths head-on, and he nodded at Xu Lingqu. "Looking forward to seeing what you do this afternoon."
Feng Bu shot him a venomous glare. Wasn't he the commander for this match? What was the point of talking to Xu Lingqu?
Xu Xiqin walked beside Lin Xiao, watching her yawn repeatedly. "What exactly did he have you guys doing last night?"
Lin Xiao shook her head. "Some kind of tactics? He was all over the place—couldn't make heads or tails of it. And then he had the nerve to tell me to have the terrain map done within an hour of entering the arena. Hilarious..."
Guan Zhongli chimed in from the side. "I actually figured it out—it's just formulaic playbook strategies, straight out of the textbooks. He copied them wholesale and still managed to butcher the explanation. I have to give him credit for that."
As a command-track student, Guan Zhongli could feel more keenly just how empty this principal's son was. He harbored resentment but didn't know where to begin—after all, this was Xu Lingqu's choice, and he couldn't guess what she was thinking.
Today, the main venue—the same one used for yesterday's opening ceremony—was reserved for Cimei versus Du'e, while Moye faced Shaji in a separate arena.
Inside the sub-venue, the crowd was somewhat thinner than the main hall, though the stands were still packed.
On Shaji's side, the students not participating held up a massive banner bearing the Shaji academy emblem, looking imposing.
Moye's side was smaller and less flashy—just Lan Ruo leading the non-selected students with a few modest flags.
The cocoon pods for neural linking were all prepared, and the two commanders for this match, Guan Chuanjun and Feng Bu, stepped to the center of the arena to confirm the match rules.
1. Sensory acuity is set at seventy percent. Participants experiencing extreme discomfort may withdraw at any time; medical staff are on-site.
2. Victory conditions: (1) Total Annihilation, (2) Decapitation.
Total Annihilation: Eliminate all active forces in the opposing camp, with the opposing commander as the last target.
Decapitation: Eliminate the opposing commander.
3. Total combat time is unlimited, but if both sides deliberately avoid engagement to stall, both will be disqualified.
4. Commanders for this match are confirmed and cannot be changed mid-battle.
Feng Bu and Guan Chuanjun confirmed and signed under the staff's watchful eyes before returning to their respective cocoon pods on their halves of the arena. The two hundred students took their seats, and under the staff's operation, everyone linked into the battlefield simultaneously.
A blink, and Xu Lingqu found herself once again in familiar mountainous terrain—an eerie echo of the final assessment from the trial period.
They wore light-green camouflage combat uniforms, each with a comms earpiece. The moment they entered, Feng Bu's voice crackled through the channel.
The commander held absolute control over channel usage.
His first order was to announce his own coordinates and command everyone to rally to his position.
If they'd been facing Du'e, with top hacker Jinfang Taibai on the other side, the enemy commander would be laughing their head off—instantly locking onto the opposing commander's position and throwing everything at them for a quick win.
Spawn locations were randomized. Xu Lingqu decisively pulled off the comms earpiece and switched it off. She moved through the jungle, searching for the others.
She had walked them through this scenario on the way here. Feng Bu's self-exposure was part of her calculations. They'd agreed to rendezvous seven hundred meters southeast of wherever Feng Bu had announced.
Shaji and Moye likely wouldn't spawn too close at first—both sides would need to make contact, set up, and then start probing and skirmishing.
If Feng Bu had been sensible enough not to broadcast his position, they'd have had to gather whoever they could and hunt for the enemy. Clearly, she had overestimated him; he gave himself away in his very first sentence.
Keeping concealed in the trees, Xu Lingqu soon reached the rendezvous point and waited in calm silence. Before long, Jin, Xu Xiqin, Tang Muwen, Liu Zheng, and Shen Shouli arrived one by one.
She tapped her ear, signaling everyone except Tang Muwen to switch off their earpieces.
Commander Feng Bu, still waiting at his position for everyone to come to him, was glued to his commander's tactical visor. When he saw Xu Lingqu and her group switch off their earpieces, another surge of anger flared in his chest.
But then he remembered—if they'd turned them off themselves, he wouldn't have to bother kicking them out one by one. That thought lifted his spirits a little.
He stood there in the open, waiting for the others, planning to grind out a terrain map for his deployment. With things this chaotic, he couldn't organize anyone properly.
Back on Shaji's home planet, Desert Eagle Star, in a small tavern, the owner was projecting the Sky Network military academy league livestream on his tactical visor. Instructor Zhang sat beside an old classmate he hadn't seen in years. He'd finally gotten leave to come back, so of course they had to catch up.
His friend, drunk as a skunk, pointed at the feed where it cut to Shaji's side. "What's the point of watching them play Moye? This new batch ought to taste what we had to deal with—face Longyuan and Dolanston instead."
Instructor Zhang smiled. "Moye's not bad either."
His friend was taken aback. "You go coach one trial period at Moye and you've switched sides? That Guan kid this year is Shaji's Chief Commander—he can't be a complete waste, right..."
Instructor Zhang unconsciously rubbed his nose, the memory of Xu Lingqu's punch driving straight into his face still fresh. He'd met Guan Chuanjun a few times—from a prominent family, solid military training, and a real piece of work who deserved a beating.
He wondered if this battlefield map would let him witness the glorious sight of Xu Lingqu pinning Guan Chuanjun down for a thrashing.