178: Chapter 178 Early Stage of Fifth Order? That's unreasonable!

Deep within the abandoned trench, in the underground hangar.

Munro opened the maintenance panel of his power armor, his fingers sweeping rapidly across the touchscreen.

The energy core was consuming more power than expected in overclock mode, with enough charge left for only one more high-intensity battle.

But he didn't stop to recharge; instead, he took a backup energy cell from the equipment case and began to replace it manually.

Aiken stood at the hangar entrance, his back to him, gazing at the wasteland outside the trench.

The glow of the rune pendant had faded, but he could still feel that power, which did not belong to technology, pulsing faintly within his armor.

"Do you think he will come?" Munro asked.

"He will!" Aiken did not turn back.

"You heard what they said about him—the number one genius of the Great Xia. People like that are proud to the bone; he will definitely come, and he will come very quickly." His gaze fell toward the end of the wasteland in the distance, and the faint dark golden light in his eyes brightened once more.

...

On the other side.

When Lin Mo led Shen Yi, Old Zhou, and Feng Ping to advance southeast along the line of the abandoned trench, the sky had already dimmed.

The sunset glow was crushed by the low-hanging clouds into a grey, diffuse light. The wind on the wasteland blew from the northwest, carrying grit and scorched ash that struck their faces like countless fine needles pricking them.

Old Zhou walked at the very front. He used his only hand to gesture a direction at his chest, his footsteps barely pausing.

He had walked this shortcut no less than a hundred times; he could find his way even with his eyes closed.

Feng Ping followed beside Shen Yi, jogging while switching his wrench to his left hand, wiping the sweat off his right hand onto his pants before gripping it tightly again.

Shen Yi suddenly stopped.

She crouched at the edge of a dugout that had been half-collapsed by an explosion, her fingers touching the ground.

There were three very faint marks there, one of which was slightly skewed, matching perfectly with the power armor boot print she had marked at the first discovery site.

"They must have passed through here. The direction hasn't changed; they headed toward the abandoned hangar."

Feng Ping leaned over to look, but he couldn't see anything, yet he didn't ask.

Old Zhou poured some water into a canteen and handed it to Shen Yi.

Shen Yi took it, drank a sip, and continued walking forward.

She didn't make any further judgments, because it was no longer necessary.

The direction hadn't changed, the speed hadn't changed; the people from the West Federation had no intention of hiding their tracks at all, and might have even left traces on purpose.

"They are leading us there on purpose!" Shen Yi handed the canteen back to Old Zhou.

"Then we go." Lin Mo's voice was devoid of fluctuation, but his pace quickened slightly.

Old Zhou slung the canteen over his shoulder, also quickening his pace slightly.

The abandoned hangar.

Above the trench, behind a flipped concrete slab, Shen Yi spread out a map.

From here, she could see the hangar entrance. The half-collapsed steel gate was slightly ajar, revealing the blue-white shimmer of the energy core charging inside, pulsing on and off like the breathing of some cold-blooded creature.

Shen Yi's fingers traced four points silently on the map: the thermal signals of Munro's armor and Aiken's armor, as well as two thermal signals suppressed at a lower position, nearly stagnant—Ji Wuchen and Gu Yunting.

Lin Mo took in every one of her marks, his gaze extending from the steel gate of the hangar entrance to the broken walls and ruins of the abandoned trench outside, and then to the pile of mecha wreckage half-buried by wind and sand in the distant wasteland.

Shen Yi quickly drew the deduced arrows for a strangulation maneuver on the map.

Aside from a direct frontal assault, the entrance from the other direction was blocked off, but there was a ventilation duct in the rear left that couldn't be seen on the cross-section diagram. Old Zhou pointed toward the rear left of the hangar; it was a crack left behind after the hangar collapsed years ago, barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through sideways.

Lin Mo looked at him. "You've crawled through it?" Old Zhou used one hand to gesture the width. "That year during the collapse, I went in to drag out the wounded."

"That's enough." Lin Mo straightened up and shifted his gaze from the ventilation duct back to the hangar entrance. Shen Yi had already closed the map; there was no need to look at the rest.

Aiken stood at the hangar entrance, his back to the gate, facing the wasteland.

The energy core of his power armor emitted a very low hum in standby mode, his gaze fixed on the direction from which the abandoned trench line extended in the distance.

The communicator in his ear was silent; there was nothing but the sound of the wind and intermittent electronic noise.

But he didn't believe it. He could feel something approaching on the wasteland in the distance—not something thermal imaging could capture, but intuition, the intuition a beast has only when it is being stalked by another, more damned beast.

He opened the communication channel. "Munro, he's here."

Almost at the same moment, Lin Mo's figure appeared at the other end of the abandoned trench.

He did not hide himself, nor did he advance quietly by stepping on rubble and broken walls, but walked out openly along the trench line, his pace not fast, every step landing on the rubble and scorched ash.

The wind on the wasteland blew in from behind him, causing his robes to snap loudly.

He did not look at Aiken, but instead looked toward the half-ajar steel gate inside the hangar, toward the blue-white shimmer revealing itself from behind the gate; he was confirming the locations of Ji Wuchen and Gu Yunting.

It was not until Aiken took a step forward that he withdrew his gaze and let it land on this Temple Knight, who was radiating the light of dark golden runes all over his body.

"You've finally come." Aiken's voice came from within the power armor, carrying a metallic tone.

"We've been waiting for you for two hours, number one genius of the Great Xia!"

Lin Mo did not respond.

His gaze passed over Aiken's shoulder and landed behind the half-ajar steel gate inside the hangar.

The blue-white shimmer was still pulsing on and off, like the breathing of some cold-blooded creature, but the thermal signals were still there—the thermal signals of Ji Wuchen and Gu Yunting, suppressed deep within the hangar, faint but stable; they were still alive.

After confirming this point, he withdrew his gaze and let it land on Aiken.

"Number one genius of the Great Xia? Who crowned me that?"

Aiken raised an eyebrow. The next second, dark golden runes on his power gauntlets flared up, the light spreading from his wrists to his entire forearms, and the scorched earth beneath his feet cracked from the shock.

He did not intend to engage in a verbal spar with Lin Mo; as long as he pinned Lin Mo down and Munro sealed the entrance from inside the hangar, this battle would be over.

But at the exact same instant the runes flared up, Lin Mo drew his blade.

The sound of the longyuan blade leaving its sheath was as light as a sigh. The blade clashed head-on with the gauntlets at the edge of the trench, and golden-red lightning and dark golden runes exploded into a visible shockwave at the point of impact.

Rubble and scorched ash were thrown into the air by the blast, then fell down with a rustling sound.

Aiken took two steps back.

He had confidence in his power gauntlets.

On the Northern battlefield, this pair of gauntlets had smashed more than a dozen Great Xia defense mechas head-on.

But that strike just now had not only blocked his punch, it had also conducted the recoil force back along his armor, and the joints of his entire left arm were humming.

He steadied himself, staring at the blade in Lin Mo's hand. The Thunder Mark on that blade was flowing slowly, eerily, like some living thing!

"Early stage of the fifth order?" Aiken said in a deep voice.

"Impossible. Your cultivation cannot be only at the early stage of the fifth order; this makes no sense."