Where Else Can We Run?

A single person, with just two legs, could never outrun a fifteen-meter-tall mecha equipped with vector thrusters.

The direction in which Ye Lan and Su Lixiao were fleeing did not take them farther from the battle between the two mechas—on the contrary, they were moving closer into its range.

Although the mechas were certainly not targeting them, the sheer scope of their battlefield meant there was a real chance of being caught in the crossfire.

[Warning! You are within the fire coverage zone! Please evade immediately! Warning!]

[Warning! You are within the fire coverage zone! Please evade immediately! Warning!]

Both Ye Lan and Su Lixiao’s school badges sounded the alarm.

But they didn’t even know where to run.

All they saw in their field of vision were jagged, ruined buildings.

The mechas themselves were not visible, so they couldn’t tell where the attack would come from.

“The sky…”

Being carried in a princess hold, Ye Lan suddenly spotted glowing dots above.

These dense clusters of lights were easy to recognize—they were rockets, and in such massive numbers that they blanketed the entire sky.

Ye Lan let out a bitter laugh.

He had nothing to say, because he too didn’t know where they could hide.

Perhaps their only hope was to rely on the safe zone’s overloaded shield to save their lives.

The rockets’ coverage was so vast, they clearly weren’t aimed at Ye Lan and Su Lixiao specifically.

They had simply been caught within the blast radius.

“Boom-boom—boom-boom—”

Rockets rained down like meteors, plowing through the land with devastating force.

But when the explosions subsided, the violent shockwaves Ye Lan and Su Lixiao had imagined never came.

They opened their eyes and saw a massive shadow looming above them.

It was a blue-painted mecha, crouched down, holding up a defensive barrier against the sky, shielding the two of them beneath it.

Seeing them open their eyes, the blue mecha’s speaker transmitted the pilot’s voice:

“Are you two alright?”

The voice, altered by the modulator, made it impossible to tell gender, but one thing was clear—this was the voice of a righteous and noble knight.

“Thank you,” said Su Lixiao.

Ye Lan added sincerely: “We’re grateful to you, kind knight.”

“You freshmen shouldn’t be in a place like this.”

The blue mecha raised its mechanical hand, pointing the way to safety.

“Hurry north, get out of here.”

Ye Lan noticed that after the blue mecha retracted its barrier, its energy shield dimmed slightly.

The drop in shield output meant a significant portion of its energy had been consumed fending off the rocket barrage.

“Boom!”

Suddenly, behind the blue mecha, a building—already on the brink of collapse from the bombardment—crumbled completely.

From the debris burst a black mecha.

It didn’t care that the blue mecha was in the middle of speaking—it raised its power axe and swung directly at it.

The blue mecha drew its laser sword just in time, barely managing to block the strike.

Its vector thrusters flared, blasting out torrents of force, yet under the black mecha’s raw strength, it was steadily pushed back.

Its steel feet scraped deep trenches into the ground as it struggled to hold its ground.

In sheer strength, the blue mecha was clearly at a disadvantage.

This wasn’t just because of its depleted energy reserves.

From Ye Lan’s understanding of mechas, the blue one was a “Scout” type, while the black one was a “Assault” type.

Scouts were slimmer in build, never designed for direct confrontation.

They specialized in mobility, ranged attacks, and harassing tactics—hit-and-run skirmishes.

How could a Scout ever win against an Assault unit in a head-on clash?

Yet now, for the sake of protecting Ye Lan and Su Lixiao, the blue mecha had no choice but to face the black mecha head-on.

“This is the price of pitying the weak,” the black mecha mocked.

“The weak should vanish. The strong should rule everything.”

“Hmph! Nonsense.”

The blue mecha was not cowed in spirit.

It raised its head, locking eyes with the black mecha.

“If the weak all disappear, then how will you judge whether you are strong?”

“Perhaps you hate the weak so much because, among the strong, you are the weakest. That’s why you refuse to see their worth.”

The blue pilot’s voice rang with conviction:

“You are not worthy of calling yourself strong.”

Every word struck like a blade, piercing the black pilot’s pride, wounding his ego.

“What?! And you dare lecture me?”

The black mecha erupted in fury.

Its thrusters roared as it poured in more power, attempting to crush the blue mecha here and now.

Its strength was indeed overwhelming—far beyond what the blue mecha could withstand.

But that didn’t mean the blue mecha had no trump card left.

“Clang!”

With a sharp click, eight mechanical wings unfolded from its back.

From them, streams of particle beams fired out, lancing toward the black mecha.

These “wings” weren’t just stabilizers for flight—they were also the Scout unit’s floating cannons.

Even the black mecha’s high-grade shield couldn’t hold out for long under the particle barrage.

The best option for the black mecha was to retreat, regroup, and strike again later.

That’s what the blue pilot thought would happen.

If the enemy withdrew, the Scout could regain space, circle around, and fight on its own terms.

But in reality, the black mecha had no intention of retreating.

Instead, it poured even more thrust into its charge, making it harder and harder for the blue mecha to resist.

At this moment, the black mecha fought like a reckless brute, determined to force the blue into submission with sheer strength.

But crippling a mecha—these pinnacles of human warfare—wasn’t something brute force alone could achieve.

Something’s wrong.

The blue pilot suddenly realized something was off.

He reversed his thrusters, trying to retreat—but the mecha didn’t budge.

Even at maximum thrust, it couldn’t move an inch backward.

Worse, it felt as though it was sinking.

The ground was giving way?

The blue pilot’s expression changed.

He understood instantly.

Because the blue mecha was half-kneeling, and the black mecha had pressed most of its weight down onto it, the Scout now bore not only its own mass but also the enemy’s.

Its thrusters had to withstand both mechas’ weight and the opposing thrust, forcing it into a desperate struggle.

Now, the force exerted by the black mecha wasn’t so much pushing backward as pushing downward.

And the fractured, war-torn concrete beneath them was far from solid.

Already cracked from the earlier battle, the ground gave way further, pulling the blue mecha deeper into the earth.