Chapter 425 Extra: Enemy Core Units
"Fear not! We have eight Core Units here! There are only two enemy Core Units!" Deng Long said to rally the Pandawans who were felt slightly cheated by Commander Furi. But at the sidelines, Mari was already giggling if they believed that was all the Pandawans were going to encounter.
Jia Ying was the first to rush towards the enemy Core Unit. She knew that her aim was terrible even with the aid of the Assisted AI Movement so what about a melee brawl? Perhaps her knowledge in melee combat could aid her in bringing down the enemy Mecha down.
"Ahhh!! Stupid! If you rush in, how am I going to shoot the enemy!" Yue Wen said as she refrained from attacking. Even Jing Ru, who was a sharpshooter, was shaking her head at Jia Ying single minded selfishness in attacking solo. Since she was blocking the way, there were only two ways.
To join her in a close combat fight or stay out of the way until the coast was clear.
Choosing the former, Se Lang started pushing his robot forth towards the second Core Unit while searching the inventory of his Core Unit for any other weapons. He found that there was a combat knife attachment hidden under the armour chest plate. He announced it to all of the Pandawans and took it out by hovering his robot arm over his right chest plate. However, Jia Ying was already engaging the enemy Core Unit with her fist.
She was a spear user, but her Grandmaster taught her to a few basic moves regarding fist and leg strikes to complement the openings a spear user could potentially show whenever she missed her targets. Thus, Jia Ying used what she learnt and apply it for this particular fight. But…the robot was just too slow in responding in a close quarter fight especially with Assisted AI mode on.
The enemy Core Unit was not as easy they thought it would be. It managed to dodge the opening blow that Jia Ying had thrown and activated a jetpack booster to ram against her. The other Pandawans saw that and frantically search for a booster option in their cockpit too.
"No, you smellies had nothing attached than a gun and a knife. Do not bother to try finding." Commander Furi shouted as he picked his nose and removed a booger that was stuck in it with a flick.
"At the very least, I have a clear shot." Jing Ru said as she fired her pistol when Jia Ying was slammed to the ground by the charging enemy Core Unit. The Core Unit took a hit from Jing Ru, but it only damaged its left arm considering the AI use it to block the attack. Unlike living beings, the robots had no pain in them so that precise shot was nothing unless Jing Ru aimed for the cockpit.
"Shit." Jing Ru said to herself as she thought she could kill one of the enemy Core Units before unloading the empty magazine on her pistol. Her right Mecha's wrist flipped open to reveal a pistol magazine compartment.
She still had four more clips compared to the rest who were hovering between one or at most two magazine clips left. Some like Shi Hui and Yue Han were dangerously low on ammo too, but Jing Ru also knew that they did not expect a 'mini' game in WunderPanda would be that overly complicated.
It was challenging which dawn upon Jing Ru that she was beginning to like it as much as Bu Dong and Deng Long. Unfortunately, to the rest, they find it extremely hard to cope, and it also reminded them how powerless they were when they first started out cultivation.
"Too much of a grim reminder of how unfair this world could be." Jia Ying sighed as the enemy core unit took out a metal stick from its waist which eventually powered up to be an energy sword. With just one plunge of the sword into the cockpit area, Jia Ying's Core Unit lost power immediately.
"Reckless behaviour but it cannot be helped. She does not have the essential items to help her survive." Furi said while looking from the battle from afar.
"Her spear?" Mari asked and Furi laid in silence.
"Her determination to win. All the unknown factors had made her lose confidence in herself." Furi said, and Mari wrote it down as part of the evaluation. "…and yeah, I guess you could say, her spear too."
"Shit, this is serious, they can easily take down our core units just because it had attachments and fancy gadgets." Yue Wen said as she warned Se Lang not to be as reckless as Jia Ying. However, it was too late. She could see Se Lang was enraged, shooting his pistol at the other enemy Core Unit relentlessly.
Similar to the previous enemy core unit, the one Se Lang was facing had a portable shield that deflected a few of the shots. The shots that got through was inconsequential, and the enemy even fired back several rounds against Se Lang. Thankfully, none hit the chest area where the cockpit lied within.
Se Lang could see that damage was taken to his shoulder and his chest too. There were armour integrity values indicated on the console screen of the cockpit, showing how much damage the armour could suffer before its integrity was compromised, exposing the internal circuity of the robot. But knowing all this was futile when all Se Lang wanted was to annihilate this particular threat as soon as possible.
When his pistol clip was empty, he flipped the pistol around and held the barrel, whipping the butt of the pistol at the enemy Core Unit which it, in turn, blocked with its shield. However, the impact from the charging Se Lang caused the shielded arm to be torn off.
Apparently, from Furi's point of view, the shoulder joint of the enemy Core Unit was already critically wounded by one of Se Lang's shot when he was running towards the enemy Core Unit. The pistol whip did the rest of the work, causing the enemy Core Unit to lost an arm. Se Lang did not stop there as he pulled the combat dagger from his chest plate and slash at the area where the cockpit would be.
Sadly, the slash was shallow, revealing the crust of the cockpit module. Se Lang believed a subsequent penetrating stab would finish the job, but the enemy Core Unit was not going to stay there being defenceless. It headbutted Se Lang's Core Unit, causing it to flinch and became unstable. It then reached out a submachine rifle from its back and aimed at Se Lang's Core Unit chest.
The enemy Core Unit fired ruthlessly at point blank towards the chest of the core unit, destroying any remaining armour plate it had before breaking the circuitry in the chest. Without a doubt, the Core Unit fell to the ground with the cockpit all destroyed too.
As if the enemy Core Unit was basking at the glory for destroying Se Lang's Mecha, the other Pandawans fired shots in retaliation. Yet, all those shots were just a distraction for the actual killer to prepare her move.
Jing Ru recalculated her trajectory and aimed her shot towards the enemy Core Unit. The distraction was enough for the enemy Core Unit to turn its back at Jing Ru, allowing her bullet to penetrate the enemy core unit frame from the back and destroying the AI cockpit.
The rest cheered momentarily, but there was still the issue of the one that had killed Jia Ying's Core Unit. At that point, Bu Dong and Deng Long who had gotten used of the controls decided to team up together to fight against the remaining core unit.
Similar to Jing Ru, Bu Dong realised there was an aim assist in the AI Cockpit system, and he utilised it to the maximum. "Aim at those joints!" Bu Dong said to the AI Cockpit system which the AI proceed to predict the hit probability of those joint parts. It also adjusted and increased the likelihood of its analysis the more Bu Dong moved closer to the last Enemy Core Unit.
However, unlike Jing Ru, who did some manual calculations to append the hit rate probability, Bu Dong relied only on the AI assist. Hence, some of his shots missed because of the moving robot frame. Deng Long, on the other hand, kept his pistol back in the Mecha's holster to conserve his bullets and charged in with his combat knife.
Unlike Jia Ying fighting bare fisted, Deng Long knew how to handle a knife since the fighting style had some consistency with his dual batons techniques. He was also getting used to the robot movements and fighting close quarters would not be a problem as compared to Jia Ying who usually fought with some distance between her enemy due to the range of her spear.
The Enemy Core Unit did not stay stationary upon Bu Dong's firing and instead used its Jet boosters to evade the attacks while maintaining its distance away from Deng Long. However, it was not long before the fuel in the jet boosters were used entirely, giving the Wobbling Wombat cultivator a chance to catch up.
Therefore, it fired up its energy sword and decided to eliminate Deng Long first. "While I know I can evade, this heavy piece of junk is just too slow! I rather count my blessing surviving the attack then rely on it to dodge!" Deng Long complained as he maintained his charge forward while placing its left arm ahead to block the attack first.
The AI computed that the energy sword was sufficient to destroy the left arm of his Core Unit and a high chance of penetrating the armour plates to reach Deng Long's cockpit. So, it proceeded with the attack with Deng Long blocking the attack as deduced.
Nonetheless, Deng Long was not going to let the enemy Core Unit to kill him that easily. He slammed his brakes, causing him to place all the strain of the momentum and weight of his Core Unit on the left leg to crouch. The left leg sunk deeper into the sandy terrain causing the entire Core Unit to dip in height.
This caused the energy sword attack only to have sufficient power to slash the left arm away and not able to penetrate the chest plate since the angle of attack was displaced by Deng Long's shrewd movements.
That was when Deng Long initiated the attack at the Core Unit's cockpit by attempting to stab his combat knife into it. The AI responded by putting its arms forth to block the attack, but its arm joints were partially damaged by Bu Dong. The stopping power of the enemy Core Unit was severely hindered and was being overwhelmed by Deng Long's Core Unit, allowing him to push the knife through the arms.
Given that the Deng Long's Core Unit had sunk deeper into the desert terrain, he was able to strike at the weakness of the armour plate that was protecting the cockpit. Through a low angle, Deng Long slipped the knife into the inferior crevices of the armour plate and stabbed through the enemy Core Unit, rendering it immobile.
It was a hard earned victory for the Pandawans in the end.
Deng Long was sweating and panting crazily at the adrenaline rush he was feeling after the fight had ended. He could not believe that robot piloting could be this thrilling. Commander Furi sent a short message that the mission had concluded, telling the cultivators to rest in the cockpit for those who were unable to move.
He was specifically talking to Deng Long who was stuck in the sand. For Se Lang and Jia Ying, they had been teleported away by Commander Furi (aka the System) before the enemy Core Unit ravaged their cockpit with their attacks. They were now sitting in the jeep behind Furi and Mari as they saw the rest of the fight unfold. "You guys won't be that lucky next time if you ever play Supa Robot Wars again," Furi said as he ordered Mari to drive back to base.
For the rest, a voice activation by Furi allowed the Core Units to enter back into autopilot mode as they walked back to base. A statistics summary tab was shown along the way back to the base to let the cultivators see how well (or badly) they had done for this mini game.
There was even a best action scene replay, best shot replay and Furi's 'That's a dumbass stupid thing to do' of the day replay too. (Thankfully, Jia Ying was not in the cockpit to see that, but some of the Pandawans were giggling at it.
Else, the communication channel was open, and they talked about their experience of the mini game while resting in the cockpit during the autopilot mode.
"Erm…guys, anyone going to rescue me? I am still stuck! Guys! Help!" Deng Long groaned loudly through his intercom for being the one to be ignored again.