400: Chapter 400 Enemy Mechs Go Out of Control, Rebel Leader Panicked

On the battlefield where the smoke had yet to clear, rubble was scattered everywhere and broken armor lay strewn about.

Those lucky rebel remnants who hadn't been torn apart by the drills were retreating in a panic, stumbling with crooked helmets and cracked armor, crawling and rolling to escape behind the slope.

But just as they caught their breath, a figure slowly raised a hand on the high cliff to the west of the main battlefield.

Chen Wuwang stood there like a statue cast from cold iron.

His silver hair fluttered slightly in the wind, and the three old scars on his right cheek glowed a dull red. The Mechanical Prosthetic Eye in his left socket suddenly lit up with a ghostly blue light pattern, like a streak of cold light cracking through a glacier.

He tapped his fingers twice on the hilt of the dagger at his waist—tap, tap—the rhythm as precise as a countdown.

"the third quarter of the Hour of the Dragon... the window has opened," he whispered. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable coldness.

In the next instant, his pupils constricted suddenly, a spiritual light flashed in his eyes, and he muttered under his breath, "Protocol hijacking, code injection—initiate."

There was no roar, no flash, and not even the wind changed direction.

But at that very moment, the mecha groups at the rear of the rebel lines suddenly jerked to a halt.

Inside the cockpits of the heavy mechas that were still barely in formation, trying to reorganize their defensive line, alarms suddenly blared!

"Beep, beep, beep—System anomaly! Control signal lost!"

"Warning! Core protocol has been tampered with! Unable to identify the master control terminal!"

"Emergency network disconnection! Disconnect it now!!"

A technical Cultivator lunged at the console, fingers tapping frantically as veins popped on his forehead. "Impossible! We're using an independent encrypted frequency! Who could crack it in three breaths?!"

"It's not a crack!" another person shrieked. "It's... someone planted a backdoor in advance! This code... it looks like it was activated from the inside!"

Before the words had finished, a 'Po Shan' type mecha with dual shoulder cannons suddenly spun around on the spot, its muzzles turning to aim at its own chariots.

"Don't fire! Those are our own people!" the commander roared.

But the mecha ignored the command entirely. The cannon barrels hummed as they charged, and a crimson light flared—

Boom!!!

A single shot was fired, directly hitting a supply vehicle fully loaded with spiritual energy batteries.

The explosion sent up waves of fire, and the shockwave knocked over three surrounding mechas. Shrapnel swept through like razor blades, severing the arms of two Cultivators on the spot.

"Ah—my hand!!"

"Help! It's gone mad! It's gone mad!!"

Chaos spread instantly.

Another mecha, the 'Panshi-class' engineering support unit, which was supposed to stay in the rear to reinforce the position, suddenly activated its drilling arm and began frantically boring into the ground.

The drill bit spun at high speed, soil flying everywhere. In less than ten breaths, it had actually dug a deep pit in the level ground. Then, the entire machine plunged headfirst into it, continuing to drill downward as if trying to reach the center of the earth.

"Quick, stop it!" someone shouted.

Two Golden Core Cultivators rushed forward, but as soon as they got close, the mecha's rear exhaust vents suddenly blasted out high-pressure steam. The two were sent flying thirty meters away, crashing into the rubble with their fates unknown.

Further away, a bipedal 'Shadow Raid' type scout mecha suddenly deployed the folding blade wings on its back and charged at high speed toward its own command cluster.

Before the guards could react, it had already crashed into the crowd, its sharp blades sweeping through and causing blood to splatter everywhere.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!!"

"It's not an enemy attack! Our mechas have lost control!!"

Screams, roars, and cries for help merged into a single mess. The rear lines, which had still possessed some order, were completely transformed into a living hell.

Inside a metal cabin, the rebel leader ripped off his communication headset, his face ashen.

He wore dark red battle armor and a full-face helmet that only revealed a pair of bloodshot eyes, which were staring fixedly at the surveillance screens.

On the screens, over a dozen mechas were acting independently: some were ramming into each other, some were self-destructing their cores, and some were even beginning to dismantle their comrades' armor plating, as if they had fallen into some bizarre mechanical frenzy.

"This is impossible!" he bellowed. "I personally oversaw the construction of these mechas! Every single one has been reinforced with seven layers of spiritual Seal! How could they be remotely controlled?!"

He kicked open the cabin door and rushed out.

As soon as his feet hit the ground, he heard a thunderous 'Boom'—

A heavy transport mecha had knocked over three chariots. Its treads ground over corpses as it continued to charge forward, completely ignoring all obstacles.

"Stop it! Cut the power immediately!" he roared at his subordinates.

"We've already cut it! All external power supply lines are severed!" the adjutant's voice trembled. "But it... it's now running on its internal spirit core. It won't stop!"

"Then blow it up!"

"We can't! Our brothers are inside!"

Before the words were out, there was another explosion.

A mecha's core overloaded and it exploded into a fireball. The heat wave hit the rebel leader, making him stagger.

He knelt on one knee, his helmet askew, finally seeing the full scope of the battlefield—

His mecha units were slaughtering each other.

Allies were being crushed, chariots overturned, supply points detonated, and even the temporary medical tents were being leveled by an out-of-control engineering mecha as if they were mere obstacles.

The wounded shrieked as they tried to crawl away, only to be struck by falling metal components and killed instantly.

"This... this isn't a battle... this is a massacre..." he murmured, his voice so raspy it didn't sound human.

He snapped his head up and looked toward the high cliff to the west.

Chen Wuwang still stood in the same place, motionless. His right hand was slowly raised, his fingertips slightly upturned, as if waiting for something.

"It's him..." the rebel leader gritted his teeth, his eyes almost spitting fire. "Chen Wuwang... what did you do?!"

He grabbed a communicator from the ground and roared, "Get me the front line! Tell everyone to retreat! Retreat to the valley immediately! Abandon the mechas! Break out on foot!"

But the only response he got was the static of electrical noise.

All communication channels had been completely contaminated by an unknown signal.

"Impossible... we used a closed-source protocol... quantum encryption... how could you possibly..." His voice grew lower and lower, until finally, only a trembling murmur remained.

The guards around him had long since lost their nerve and were fleeing in all directions.

Some jumped off cliffs, some crawled into ruins, and even more simply threw down their weapons and knelt to beg for mercy.

The rebel leader sat alone in the mud, his helmet completely fallen off to reveal a distorted, hideous face.

He stared at the 'Panshi-class' in the distance that was still digging frantically, watching as its drill bit shattered, its spirit core smoked, and finally, it exploded violently, leveling everything within thirty meters.

"It's over..." he whispered. "It's all over..."

He suddenly burst into laughter, the sound dry and piercing, echoing across the empty battlefield.

"Hahaha... I trained for three years... three hundred mechas... three thousand elites... and just like that... just like that, it was destroyed by a single look?!"

He laughed until tears came out, his mouth splitting to his ears like he had gone mad.

Up on the high cliff, Chen Wuwang slowly withdrew his hand, and the blue light of his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye faded.

He looked down at his fingertips, then toward the completely collapsed enemy formation below, the corner of his mouth turning up imperceptibly.

The wind ruffled the stray hairs on his forehead, revealing his perfectly intact right eye.

Cold, clear, and without a single ripple.

His left hand rested on the hilt of his Titanium Alloy Dagger. Though his body hadn't moved, he had already assumed a posture as if about to give an order.

In the distance, the last mecha still active was using its broken mechanical arm to smash its own cockpit over and over, making a dull 'thump, thump' sound like some desperate countdown.