Pillar of Yita

Fang Hong bent down and was the first to place his Walker on the ground. Sword Hong looked much lighter and more elegant after changing its base plate, its metallic blade feet shimmering with a cold light under the flickering firelight.

He then straightened up, adjusted the tightness of his control gloves with a small bow of his head, and looked up.

Opposite him, the girl beckoned, and a black regular octahedron-shaped Flexible Construct also rose slowly from the crowd behind her and flew to her side.

It hovered in mid-air the whole time, maintaining a constant rate of spin, but unlike the Clockwork Fairy, it did not rely on oscillating wing principles to fly; instead, it depended on Guy Crystals.

This was the Annihilator QV700, a rare Magic Guided Flexible Construct.

It was actually not ’flexible’ at all, with a speed of only 7, less than half that of an average adult male, and an Evasion Value close to zero. However, its clumsy maneuverability was exchanged for a diversity of combat modes.

Like a Magic Guided Conductor, the Magic Guided Flexible Construct’s combat style tended towards ranged and spell output, achieving different attack effects through various subsystems.

The more common ones were Flame Ray, Shining Field, Gravity Trap, and Magical Spear, well-balanced in offense and defense.

But the real mental trap was that the Annihilator QV700’s four subsystems were not fixed; they could be adjusted according to the owner’s combat style. If Fang Hong confronted it with a traditional mindset, he might suffer a significant disadvantage without care.

However, he didn’t hesitate.

The referee blew the whistle, and Fang Hong pulled down his Wind Goggles, allowing his Walker to enter the field at high speed. The main competition arena was more thoughtful, no longer just flat ground. It was about ten meters square; the north side had artificially set up barriers, while the southern terrain was gentle, with grasslands and shrubs scattered about.

The grass, shrubs, and walls were all constructed by magic, nearly indistinguishable from reality until the Ether Magic Power dissipated.

The Walker, like a silver shadow, slipped behind a stone wall. A glaring beam of light came from afar, striking the wall and leaving a golden-red spot of high temperature.

”Flame Ray,” Fang Hong noted as he saw this scene, identifying one Attack Mode.

He memorized the data in his mind: Flame Ray cooling time 1.5 seconds, heat increase 4 degrees. He made a note of the opponent’s high-temperature data and waited one second before letting the Walker leap from behind one wall to the next.

The opponent did not attack.

Fang Hong took mental note of another detail—there was no Plugin installed to reduce the cooldown time.

The Walker slipped out like a ghost, and another golden-red beam came from afar. But as if Fang Hong had anticipated it, he made the Walker shrink back, and after the ray passed, it only left a dazzling spot where it had been.

The very next moment, the Walker immediately switched to sprinting mode and dashed behind the next stone wall.

Not far away, the Annihilator hovered on the right side of the field, floating more than a meter above the grassland, spinning on its own, motionless, aside from the previous strike.

Red Leaf also slowed down her Construct’s maneuvering and felt a chill in her heart when she saw this. Having missed twice in a row and not even managing to ascertain the opponent’s Evasion habits was unprecedented, not just in competition but even when practicing with instructors.

She felt vaguely surprised but wasn’t sure it wasn’t a coincidence. Wasn’t her opponent someone who came from the preliminaries?

After two slow-paced probing attempts, the spectators below also grew a bit impatient, and some isolated booing could be heard. Only Wu Di, upon seeing Fang Hong’s Walker, couldn’t help but utter a soft ”huh.”

”What’s up?” Liuli Yue turned to ask him.

”Can your Walker move that smoothly?”

”I can go much faster than him.”

”It’s not about speed, it’s about smoothness—”

Liuli Yue frowned slightly, not taking it seriously, and didn’t bother to look.

Meanwhile, Blood Night Demon Moon had already activated her tracking device. As she adjusted the focus, she pressed her communication device with one hand and typed on the opened communication page:

”I’ll send it to you—”

’Why don’t you record it and send it later, real-time transmission is expensive.’

An ID popped up in the window, with the speaking person using an abbreviated ID—R.

”Are you that short on money?” Blood Night Demon Moon rolled her eyes.

R: Very poor.

At the arena, meanwhile, a wave of exclamations suddenly erupted.

It turned out the Walker had finally emerged from behind the wall, but not of Fang Hong’s own volition; rather than walking out, it was more accurate to say it was blown out by the air blast. Red Leaf, having lost patience, simply blasted the wall open with a Magical Spear.

The scattered airflow sent the Walker tumbling, causing slight structural and vital damage. Fang Hong couldn’t help but click his tongue and thought, ”What a forceful girl!” The essence of Magic Guided Flexible Construct tactics lay in resource allocation and combination; he had never encountered such an aggressively offensive approach.

This slightly disrupted his plans.

Of course, at the same time, he took note of the second Attack Mode, Magical Spear—Magical Spear’s cooldown time five seconds, heat increase twelve degrees, leaving two more to go, Fang Hong thought.

He pressed his palm downward, signaling the Walker to spread its six legs and sink its whole body lower.

Red Leaf indeed started to lose patience. Her instructors often said she had a strong offensive desire, an advantage but also a flaw. The flaw being the lack of patience—something Red Leaf was aware of but was not interested in correcting, as she considered it her style.

Her gaze swept across the dusty arena, identifying her opponent’s location, and a flash of red light swept past.

But the beam just missed the lowered Walker, grazing over its top with pinpoint accuracy.