The First Analyst of the Interstellar Era

Chapter 149 : Mechanical Tower

The black gold mecha flashed with red light. Through the mecha's conduction, Chen Sui felt pain from the outside. The moment the damage level increased, the protective device carried by the mecha activated, severing her connection with the mecha. The neural sensory feedback only left residual sensations on her body, which wasn't something unbearable for Chen Sui.

After the suffocating severe pain connection was cut off, the wounds from cannon impact in the cockpit seemed insignificant.

However, as the red light flickered, outside the cockpit, several Zhu Jing Fu members approached with pained expressions.

"Please ensure surrounding environment conditions"

"Confirm safety"

"Input mecha startup sequence, cockpit can be ejected"

The mecha program was locked, and unfortunately, Chen Sui's arm was firmly trapped, giving her no chance to input the sequence.

It was Xie Chunshi, who had rushed forward, who input the sequence, and only then did they hear a click as the cockpit ejected outward.

A figure wearing a combat suit rolled on the ground, pulling her arm from the trapped component. The sharp mecha element cut across her arm, splattering several drops of fresh blood on the ground.

"Little Sui!"

Seeing her roll up and stand, Gu Qinxue finally let out a sigh of relief, stepping forward to embrace her tightly: "You scared me to death..."

Her hand placed on Chen Sui's back trembled slightly. Chen Sui's palm soothed her spine: "It's fine, just a small issue. I'll just lie down in the medical pod for a while and it'll be fine."

Not getting injured on the battlefield would be a miracle; Chen Sui was well-adapted to this.

Gu Qinxue's face still showed some concern.

Behind them, members from several academies jumped down from their mechas, walking toward Zhu Jing Fu's position.

Entering the base station and seeing the instrument directly inserted into the placement point ahead, Jipuna instantly understood.

So Chen Sui was using her body to block the cannon fire, ensuring she had enough visibility to determine the placement point, then throwing the instrument, avoiding disruption to its trajectory from the cannon fire.

"You're too ruthless, Sister Chen Sui," he sincerely felt there was something remarkable about Chen Sui, while also thinking that this fearless charging aura was truly born for the Border Army.

"Small matter, we won, didn't we?" Chen Sui pointed behind her, "Firmly in first place, now it's your turn to panic."

The praise Jipuna had been holding back hadn't even left his mouth when Chen Sui's statement suddenly made him anxious: "Did you have to mention that?"

Chen Sui pulled out antiseptic bandages from a spatial button, wrapping them around her cut arm. Suddenly she sensed something and looked up.

"The Competition Committee isn't letting us leave yet?"

Ink Hills Commander Zhang Yingjie withdrew his observation of the upper base station, "The system hasn't announced the end of the competition."

He briefly explained the broadcast voice from earlier.

A thoughtful look appeared in Chen Sui's eyes.

From the Na Luo River team, He Lanqi thought of something and looked at the energy fluctuation chart within the team: "Could it be related to the energy changes inside the tower?"

"The energy concentration in the tower has been rising since a few days ago. If that's the reason, there's no reason the Competition Committee wouldn't have deployed in advance."

Chen Sui looked up at the sky. Inside the base station, it was impossible to sense the surrounding energy fluctuation situation. The isolation device thoroughly blocked energy, and currently the only way to monitor external energy was through the base station's information tower.

"Let's go to the information tower."

Indeed, several Commanders looked at each other, seeking opinions.

"If something's wrong with the energy field, the Competition Committee will definitely try to establish contact."

Zhang Yingjie turned back toward the corridor. Just as several people were preparing to evacuate from the monitoring base station, Chen Sui suddenly sensed something. She turned back, her gaze penetrating through the not-yet-fully-closed door, seeing the placed instrument flickering with light.

The monitoring instrument was still operating, but the absorption instrument was already showing a warning that energy absorption had exceeded the line.

"I remember I just placed it not long ago," Chen Sui's footsteps stopped, "The energy absorbed by the instrument has already reached the first alert mark?"

The energy absorption instrument is a special type of analyzer, jointly created by analysts and research institutes. Its purpose is to absorb large amounts of energy in a short period, generally used in energy fields where the main energy body has been removed and awaiting dissipation. It absorbs energy within the energy field to prevent the regeneration of energy bodies, restoring positions altered by energy to their original state. It's also suitable for energy fields with relatively large energy fluctuations, helping to absorb excess energy storms and maintain the stability of the energy field.

For SSS-level energy fields like the Mechanical Tower, the matched absorption instrument must meet SSS-level specifications. Generally, it has five levels and can be used for about a month. But Chen Sui had just placed it a short while ago, and the first level alert had already lit up.

This indicated that the energy situation in the energy field was far from normal.

The crowd ahead who heard her words stopped, turning back to look at the absorption instrument with troubled expressions. The Commanders especially frowned, seeming quite worried.

"Regardless, we need to go to the information tower first, contact the Competition Committee, and even check the surrounding monitoring indicators."

Hearing this, Noya suddenly looked up: "If the Competition Committee can't contact us, why did the system broadcast sound?"

"Backup program and backup power supply," Zhang Yingjie adjusted his glasses, "The broadcast just now didn't indicate the end of the competition. The Competition Committee probably modified the program in advance, but during the modification, something went wrong with the energy field, causing the last part of the voice to become garbled and the broadcast to stop."

In reality, besides the connection with the Competition Committee having problems, the live broadcast cameras were also constantly freezing.

But outside the competition venue, no one had the heart to pay attention to the league's live broadcast anymore.

The information tower was a tower in the center of the main base station. At the top was an observation deck that could connect directly to other buildings, carrying observation screens connected to the control room below.

As the military school students entered the main control room, they split into two groups. The Commanders and analysts from each school surrounded the central screen of the main control, looking at the Mechanical Tower information recorded from the other side. The energy monitoring spectrum began moving across the light screen, an abrupt broken line starting to rise. Energy fluctuations had skyrocketed dozens of times in the few hours since the academies had breached the base station door, and the trend showed no signs of stopping.

"Hiss—"

Someone in the crowd drew in a cold breath.

He Chigui instinctively raised his hand to cover his mouth, not wanting his voice to disturb others' thinking, but when he raised his hand, he realized he hadn't made a sound.

Then who made that gasping sound?

He turned to look. On the other side, among those exploring the connection signal on the operation console, someone was pressing the emergency button, but only a chaotic electric current sound could be heard.

"Wait, why is this signal so messy?"

"The last time I heard this kind of connection signal was in Red Moon Snow Plain."

Hearing Chi Buyu's complaint, Jipuna immediately joined in.

In Red Moon Snow Plain, it was because of lightning attribute interference causing the entire arena's signal to be disturbed by fluctuations.

The communications in the Mechanical Tower used special materials and, theoretically, shouldn't be affected by the dominant metal attribute.

"Can't connect to the signal?"

Chen Sui heard the conversation and turned to look. She emerged from the crowd in front of the light screen, with people on both sides making way for her.

Noya, seeing her still-bleeding arm, looked over at Xie Chunshi, silently indicating: "Let Sister Chen Sui go to the medical room first."

Xie Chunshi shook his head, his face showing helplessness. He spread his hands: "I can't convince her."

Seeing this, Xie You sneered with a twisted mouth.

Coward, no wonder he still doesn't have a wife.

Xie Chunshi heard this inexplicable laugh and looked over at Xie You, but the other wasn't looking at him. Following his gaze, he realized Xie You was observing Chen Sui's figure, watching the signal situation over there.

"The signal has been cut off."

Chen Sui tapped on the operation console, and the backend detection scan popped up a prompt. Her brows furrowed: "If the signal is cut off, then the live broadcast—"

She looked up, her gaze precisely capturing the invisible live broadcast equipment that had followed them into the base station.

Chen Sui couldn't see the bullet comments on it, but the internal broadcast seemed normal.

However, at this moment outside the venue, if anyone was still watching the screen, they would know that the current live broadcast image was completely scrambled, with various colors chaotically piled together, the sound noisy, seemingly about to go dark at any second.

"The broadcast probably won't show much either," Zhang Yingjie turned back, his expression somewhat grave.

The Ink Hills Commander looked at the spectrum image, feeling uneasy inside, sensing that the situation might be worse than he had imagined.

"Something's wrong, come look!"

After viewing the energy spectrum, the group observing the information tower situation dispersed. The Na Luo River analyst went to search for information from other base stations. After opening the monitoring footage, He Lanqi's usually calm and composed expression somewhat crumbled.

In the scene she enlarged, the tower city seemed to have come alive. The energy bodies within, like gathered armored cockroaches, scattered around. The cold, hard silver spread across the gray-brown soil of the energy field. The mechanical city gradually became empty, with the upper buildings and other city components leaving one by one, leaving only the bare ground below and the collapsed floating car tracks from the buildings' departure.

In this vast emptiness and silence, the entire city's surface began to shake.

The Zhu Jing Fu members and others who looked up at He Lanqi's voice were familiar with this scene, but seeing it from this overhead perspective still made them feel terrified.

"Damn," Zhou Chen's palm pressed on the operation console keys. Because the audio from the image wasn't clear, he stopped the noisy signal channel. His gaze was captured by the image, "Surely not every city has such a behemoth underneath?"

"Is it possible," Noya was looking at another part of the monitoring signal. He silently enlarged his screen, his tone seemingly calm but actually suppressing some frenzy as he added, "that not just under the city, there are such things elsewhere too."

"This is like asking me to die..."

Zhou Chen was just about to make an exaggerated statement to follow up, when on the other side, Gu Qinxue, hearing certain words, immediately shot him a dagger look. Zhou Chen, who had been keeping her in his peripheral vision, caught this and immediately changed the direction of his words.

"There's actually a big difference, it's just a steel giant after all!"

Zhou Chen clenched his fist, appearing full of fighting spirit.

"But this pit looks familiar!"

Looking at this part of the footage Noya had separately extracted, Zhou Chen pointed at his chin, showing a thoughtful expression.

Chen Sui's gaze fell on that large pit and the familiar surrounding land. She suddenly understood something. Turning around, she met Xie Chunshi's somewhat smiling eyes. He opened and closed his lips, very subtly forming two words.

"White phosphorus."

"Starship."

He spoke two words.

A huge pit had been blasted underground. The five Zhu Jing Fu members had piloted the starship away, blasting upward from below, directly collapsing the original underground foundation of the mining base. The load-bearing pillars broke directly, completely destroying the underground, causing many subsidence marks on the ground above.

But in this crater with an extremely large radius, a steel arm emerged from underground.

Only a section of the arm had emerged, still covered with many white phosphorus ore traces. What then attracted others' attention was the mecha's external color scheme.

Noya narrowed his eyes, suddenly turning to look at Zhu Jing Fu: "Don't tell me you guys blasted this?"

The crater, the mining area—connecting these two incidents, even without seeing that black and gold colored mecha, one would instinctively associate them with Zhu Jing Fu.

Zhou Chen waved his hand, his mind quickly flashing to what they had taken from below, instinctively wanting to deny.

Gu Qinxue, who had already walked over to him, grabbed his hands firmly, thereby suppressing what Zhou Chen was about to say.

Idiot!

Most of the giant steel energy bodies emerging from the mechanical city had no specific form, but some clearly bore the characteristics of the five schools' mechas. On the other side, some Commanders were already analyzing their routes.

It could be confirmed that whenever the five schools passed through towers swept by the energy storm within, the steel beasts beneath the city would 'replicate' their mecha forms.

In other words, the black and gold mecha energy body in this mining pit looked like Zhu Jing Fu's because the two had encountered each other.

Zhou Chen's direct denial, trying to cover up, was no different from loudly telling other academies "We Zhu Jing Fu found something good, so we can't say."

Though Zhou Chen was a bit slow, he was obedient. As soon as Gu Qinxue pressed his hand, he immediately stopped speaking.

Chen Sui in front nodded: "We encountered it. This is a white phosphorus mine. We went down into the mining pit when looking for white phosphorus ore."

"White phosphorus mine!"

Noya exclaimed in surprise, "Is that the one, the white phosphorus mine that once exploded by itself, holding back the Mechanical Tower energy bodies, thus creating the lowest casualty rate?"

Chen Sui nodded. When speaking of the white phosphorus mine, this was probably its most famous aspect.

Hearing this, Noya suddenly gave Zhu Jing Fu a deep look. He belatedly realized that he seemed to have been duped by Zhu Jing Fu again: "Something's not right!"

"So you never intended to rush the time difference, deliberately wandering around the energy field, just waiting for us to guard outside the main base station until we were exhausted, right!"

Several Commanders were drawing their routes, observing which tower locations they had passed through, thereby determining which of the currently appearing giant energy bodies corresponded to which academy's mecha.

Hearing Noya's words, Xie You, who was drawing Na Luo River's route, turned back. His movements also stopped, maintaining the posture of looking back at Zhu Jing Fu. After thinking for a few seconds, he suddenly said: "You weren't planning to bring energy bodies to surround us in the end, were you?"

"After all, they did bring energy cannons," Zhang Yingjie said quietly from the side.

At once, the gazes of others turned toward the Zhu Jing Fu members.

Chen Sui, staring at the scrutiny from all sides, silently took a step back, leaving the storm for the Commander to bear.

"I'll give you a chance to redeem yourselves," Noya pointed at the light screen, about to say something when Zhou Chen clicked his tongue from the side: "Don't talk like that, you hit our analyst, I haven't settled that score yet!"

Zhou Chen stepped forward, pulling Chen Sui to the back. He and Puluo moved forward, walking toward the Ink Hills and Xitisi teams.

Lu Hang Jiu and Jipuna hid behind their teammates.

"Misunderstanding! It's all a misunderstanding!"

"What misunderstanding? Wait until you get on the combat platform with me!" Zhou Chen said ferociously.

"Enough," He Lanqi and Jiang Zhongyu had collected all the energy body data, looking at the image information from other base stations, and resuming their serious demeanor: "The signals between base stations are being interfered with, but before the cutoff, these giant energy bodies' destination seemed to be the main base station location, which means they may already be approaching the base station surroundings."

"These things are so difficult to deal with just one, and now there's a group of them. What are they trying to do?"

Zhao Jingzhi collapsed in his chair, looking at the ceiling with lifeless eyes.