66: Chapter 66 First Battle of the Mechs, Demon Race Attack

Just past the hour of the Rat, the unextinguished spiritual candle on the desk let out a sharp 'crack' as it flickered.

Chen Wuwang's eyelid twitched, and his finger froze mid-air. A drop of ink from his suspended brush tip fell slowly, blooming into a dark blotch on the document.

He didn't look at the paper. A blue light flashed in his right Mechanical Prosthetic Eye, while three whispers echoed deep within his pupils—silent, yet vibrating through his Sea of Consciousness.

"In forty-five minutes, black mist will rise from the Northern Border Rift Valley, and Demonic Qi will soar to the heavens."

He closed his eyes for a moment; when he reopened them, blood-red spiritual runes swept past the corners of his eyes.

Pressing his left hand against the edge of the table, his palm met the spiritual energy interface embedded in the stone platform, and his consciousness instantly connected to the border array.

His vision shifted as surveillance footage from the Northern Border Rift Valley, three hundred miles away, projected directly into his mind: the ley lines were churning, and black mist seeped from the rocky crevices like a living thing, slowly gathering into a pillar that shot straight toward the sky.

It wasn't an illusion, nor was it a turbulence of Spiritual Qi.

The Yao Race had arrived.

He stood up, his robes catching the wind and knocking over the candlestick. The flame tilted, casting a shadow on the wall that looked as if it were carved by a knife and axe.

He didn't call for anyone or open the door; he simply raised his right hand, spread his fingers, and pressed down lightly against the Void Realm.

Buzz—

A low resonance echoed from beneath the main city, like a giant beast turning over in its sleep.

The spiritual energy network spanning the entire territory was forcibly awakened. An encrypted command traveled through the neural induction chain directly to the Northern Mecha Hangar.

"Starbreaker Sequence, all personnel board your units. Deploy to the highlands, triangular suppression formation. Target: Rift exit. Annihilate the enemy outside the borders."

The order issued, he stepped out of the hall. With a light tap of his toes, his figure swept up onto the observation platform.

His silver hair billowed in the night wind, and the blue light in his left eye flashed continuously, retrieving the real-time status of each mecha: Energy 98%, weapon Systems ready, neural synchronization stable above 87%.

"Xiao Dao," he connected to the channel in his mind.

"Present," came the crisp, decisive response, carrying the sharp edge unique to a youth.

"Don't wait for them to land; intercept and kill them in the air. Crush them with the first wave of fire. Don't let a single one step into the border town."

"Understood!"

Below the high platform, the gates of the Northern Hangar rumbled open. Three pitch-black mechas with cold, hard lines—the 'broken star-i'—slid out in sequence, their treads making a dull thudding sound as they ground over the rocks.

They lacked the elegance of traditional Cultivators soaring on flying swords. Instead, they activated anti-gravity engines, their back thrusters spitting out eerie blue flames as the hulls slowly left the ground, rising a thousand feet into the air to hover over the rift in a wedge formation.

The ground troops finally noticed the movement and looked up one after another.

An old Cultivator rushed out of his tent leaning on a staff, squinting at the three iron lumps in the sky, muttering under his breath:

"Are we really relying on these things to fight? Can the Rune Cannons even hit anything? I hope they don't just blow themselves up..."

Before his voice could fade, the black mist in the rift suddenly churned. Dozens of figures wrapped in a foul wind burst through the mist, fangs bared and claw-blades glinting with green light—the wolf-headed Yao soldiers that roamed the edges of the Eastern Wasteland.

They roared as they took to the air, moving with extreme speed, lunging straight for the watchtowers of the Chen family border town.

The garrison cried out in alarm, and some began to chant incantations to set up defenses.

But at the very moment they raised their hands—

Boom!

The shoulder-mounted Rune Cannon of the flagship mecha fired first. A thick beam of spiritual light tore through the night sky, accurately striking the three lead Yao soldiers.

The beam didn't just pierce through in a straight line; upon impact, it split into a web of electrical currents, locking the three bodies tight before exploding violently a second later, sending flesh and blood flying.

The two following mechas moved in sync, ejecting a silver-gray metal net from their undercarriages. It instantly expanded hundreds of meters, swelling in the wind as it pounced toward the second wave of Yao soldiers.

That was an Electromagnetic Interference Net, specifically designed to counter flight spells.

As soon as the net dropped, the Spiritual Qi around the Yao soldiers became chaotic, their wings disintegrated, and they fell like stones, one after another.

"Am... Am I seeing things?" The old Cultivator leaned on his staff, his mouth hanging open wide enough to fit an egg.

"That net... it can actually break through Qi?"

"Shut up!" a young Disciple nearby hissed. "You're disturbing the Family Head!"

On the high platform, Chen Wuwang stood with his hands on his hips, watching the battlefield data stream scroll through his prosthetic eye.

Enemy numbers, movement trajectories, and energy fluctuations were all marked in real-time. Red dots crowded the display, only to be cleared one by one.

The corners of his mouth curled slightly—not in a smile, but in confirmation.

Accurate intelligence, rapid response, and steady execution.

This was the combat power he wanted.

Deep within the rift, a roar shook the mountain, sending rocks tumbling.

A massive Yao General with bone spikes growing from its back soared into the air. With a shake of its arms, it condensed dozens of rotating blood-blades, which swept forward like a storm.

That Aura was already at the Golden Core Peak level.

"Watch out!" someone shouted over the communication channel.

"Leave it to me," Chen Xiaodao's voice deepened.

He piloted the flagship mecha into a sudden dive, the hull carving an arc through the air to avoid the brunt of the blood-blade storm, while simultaneously activating the 'Collaborative Locking System'.

The neural links of the three mechas synchronized instantly, data was shared, and the target lock was completed.

"Guidance lock engaged. Number Three, Number Two, hit the core with me!"

"Copy that!"

"Prepare armor-piercing rounds. Three, two, one—fire!"

Three beams of eerie purple light shot out from different angles, intersecting at a single point in the air—right in the center of the Demonic Qi core condensed in the Yao General's chest.

There was a thunderous boom. The shockwave overturned rubble within a hundred-meter radius. The Yao General didn't even have time to scream before its entire upper body exploded into a mist of blood, its remains crashing back into the rift like a broken kite.

The remaining Yao soldiers panicked completely and scattered in all directions.

"Pursue?" a crew member in the co-pilot's seat requested.

"No," Chen Xiaodao shook his head. "The orders said to stop at the edge of the rift. We are a garrison, not an expeditionary force."

He pulled the control lever, and the mecha slowly ascended to join the other two. The three-machine formation hovered quietly above the rift entrance, like three unsheathed blades yet to be returned to their scabbards.

Below, the black mist gradually receded, leaving only scorched earth and severed limbs. As the wind blew, the smell of blood wafted toward them.

On the high platform, Chen Wuwang finally breathed a sigh of relief, his shoulders dropping slightly.

He didn't applaud or order a celebration; he simply picked up a Jade Slip and began retrieving the full data records of the battle: weapon response latency, energy consumption curves, neural synchronization Peaks...

"Pass down the order," he spoke, his voice not loud but piercing through the night wind. "The mecha team is to return to base and remain on standby in their original units. Recover all wreckage, especially that interference net—not a single thread must be lost."

"Yes!"

The three mechas turned around, their thrusters flaring as they landed steadily in the Northern Hangar.

The hatch opened, and Chen Xiaodao was the first to jump down, removing his helmet to reveal a face still flushed from the intense battle.

He wiped away some sweat and turned to his teammates: "How was it? No crashes?"

"Nothing at all! But that last hit—it felt so good I almost screamed!"

"You did scream. We all heard it on the channel."

The group burst into laughter, huddling together to discuss their positioning and firepower distribution from earlier, their eyes bright and voices excited. Someone patted the mecha's hull and said:

"This thing is really reliable. It's much faster than chanting incantations myself!"

Chen Xiaodao didn't laugh for long. He looked up toward the high platform. The Family Head was still standing there, motionless, like a nail driven into the wind.

He knew that the real test hadn't even begun.

They had won this battle, but how would others see it? Would the old-fashioned Cultivators in the clan accept it? Would stronger enemies follow?

He took a deep breath and turned back to his team: "Don't just stand there. Check the units, swap the energy packs. If anyone messes up now, your name won't be on the next combat roster."

Everyone immediately dispersed and got to work.

On the high platform, Chen Wuwang finally moved. He turned and descended the platform, his steps steady as he walked toward the hangar.

Passing a surveillance post, he reached out and swiped the side of the post, retrieving a miniature storage chip—a backup of the battlefield's panoramic recorder.

It felt ice-cold in his palm.

He didn't look back, only whispering to himself: "The Yao Race... this is only the beginning."

In the distance, the last wisp of black mist sank into the ground, and the rift returned to silence.