78: Chapter 78 Boss Battle

The Orks charging madly all around seemed to receive some sort of primal instinctive command, and they stopped their attacks one after another.

Wielding their choppas and letting out deafening war cries, they spontaneously backed away, forming a massive dueling circle.

In Ork culture, a duel between leaders is sacred and inviolable.

The players also ceased fire.

"Look! Boss has charged right into the Warboss's face!"

"Holy crap! This plot! This sense of pressure!"

"The Faction Boss is dueling the stage's Big Boss! Place your bets now!"

The players were as excited as if they were watching a fighting match; some even climbed to the highest point of the rocks just to find a better viewing angle.

The Orc Warboss's bloodshot, crimson eyes glared fixedly at the short 'iron humie' before it.

It let out a low growl and lifted a massive power axe stained with shredded meat with one hand, its hulking body leaning forward slightly.

Lin Li slowly cracked his neck, his Power Armor letting out a dull sound of metal grinding.

The over five-meter-tall Orc Warboss stepped over the pile of shattered stones, its shadow completely enveloping Lin Li.

It held a power axe in its right hand, while the massive power klaw on its left hand emitted bursts of grinding noises.

Lin Li held his halberd with one hand, the servo motors of his Power Armor emitting a faint hum.

He glanced at the distant slope.

There, several hundred players were sitting in rows as if watching a play.

Someone had even pulled out mutated dried fruits from their backpack, snacking while pointing and gesturing toward the scene.

Flash tossed a dried fruit into his mouth. "What do you guys think of this Faction Boss final showdown cinematic?"

"What else is there to say? Of course we're rooting for our boss!" Slaanesh took advantage of Flash's distraction and secretly swiped a handful of dried fruit from his pocket.

"Wait, why are your hands so dirty?"

Slaanesh got annoyed. "What do you mean my hands are dirty? Didn't you see me take these dried fruits out of my own pocket?"

Flash: ???

"The Blood Raven Regiment is looking for their 'daddy' everywhere, and isn't 'daddy' right here!"

Slaanesh remained deadpan but stopped paying attention to Flash, instead shouting at Lin Li, "Boss, go for it! Give him a 'pig-hugging' kill!"

"If you lose this, we're calling you 'Red-Painted Crispy Chicken' from now on!"

Lin Li's mouth twitched slightly.

This bunch of trolls didn't realize at all what would happen if he died.

Once Lin Li died, the Shelter gates would close again, and players would be forced offline with no further access.

Moreover, as the faction leader, this battle was a matter of his reputation.

If he were torn apart in public by this big guy, tomorrow's forum trending topics would definitely be high-quality photos of his death.

That way, he'd not only die once in this world but also suffer a 'social death' back on Earth. The thought alone was terrifying!

Opposite him, the Orc Warboss's bloodshot eyeballs remained fixed on Lin Li.

In Ork logic, if a leader doesn't accept a challenge, he'll soon be slaughtered as a spineless weakling by the Orc Bosss below him.

Of course, it was impossible for an Ork to back down.

"Humie! Die!"

The Warboss was the first to attack.

Its roar even drowned out the rumble of the nearby vehicle engines.

In the Orks' understanding, the louder you shout, the more powerful the weapon in your hand becomes.

The heavy power axe brought with it a piercing whistle as it swung down toward his head.

Lin Li didn't choose the safest option of dodging.

He wanted to test it.

With thirty-two points of Strength plus the amplification from the athletic-type Power Armor, he wanted to see just how much he differed from these top-tier violent creatures of the wasteland.

He raised his halberd diagonally upward to parry.

"Clang—!"

Dazzling sparks flew from the point of impact, and the tough steel halberd shaft bent into a bow-like arc.

The soil beneath Lin Li's feet couldn't withstand the heavy pressure and instantly cracked, causing him to slide back three or four meters.

His arms felt a wave of numbness.

"In terms of pure strength, the big guy is still stronger," Lin Li thought, instantly gaining a sense of the situation. "I can't go head-to-head; this big guy is a lunatic who stacked everything into pure attack."

Seeing that a single strike failed to kill the 'humie', the Warboss's gaze grew even more excited.

It swung the axe in its right hand again in a wide sweeping cut, while the power klaw on its left hand was like a sinister venomous snake, locking onto Lin Li's throat.

This monster's combat instincts were very sharp.

It saw that the neck joint of the Power Armor was a defensive weak point.

Lin Li ducked to avoid the axe blade and thrust his halberd forward in one motion.

"Accelerate!"

The nitrogen acceleration device on the halberd shaft instantly activated.

Accompanied by a short explosive boom, the tip of the halberd turned into an afterimage, precisely piercing the Warboss's right leg joint armor at a speed it couldn't comprehend.

“Puchi—Crack!”

The originally sturdy scrap-metal kneepad was as fragile as paper before the high-speed rotating spear tip.

The Warboss's kneecap was mangled into a mess.

Its massive body suddenly tilted, and it fell to one knee.

"Oh ho! Boss has tactics!" The players in the distance let out a round of cheering and whistling.

The surrounding Orks were stunned.

In their simple brain circuits, the Boss was invincible.

Now that the Boss had knelt, was the Boss actually a weakling?

The WAAAGH energy seemed to be wavering, and the Warboss's momentum weakened significantly.

"While you're down, I'll take your life!"

Lin Li was preparing to deliver the finishing blow.

Suddenly, the fallen Warboss let out an almost frenzied roar.

Its other intact leg suddenly exerted force, and it lunged forward like a cannonball.

Five long, narrow blades suddenly snapped out from its power klaw in mid-air, cutting off almost all of Lin Li's retreat paths.

The power axe in its other hand blocked the blind spot above.

Lin Li gritted his teeth under his faceplate, his eyes becoming fierce.

"Trading injuries, huh? Bring it on!"

Instead of retreating, he proactively slammed into the Warboss.

"Bang!"

The power axe slammed heavily into the armor on Lin Li's left shoulder.

Despite the cushioning from the adamantium composite material, Lin Li still heard the crisp sound of bone fracturing.

Intense pain instantly swept through his entire body.

But his right hand wasn't idle either.

All the power in his body erupted at that moment.

The long halberd, which originally required two hands to wield, felt as light as a dagger in his hand.

Lin Li gripped the end of the halberd shaft with one hand and swung it upward, tracing a silver arc.

"Nitrogen, full load!"

An explosive boom rang out between the two.

The halberd's blade sliced directly through the Warboss's wrinkled neck, and then, under the impulse of the nitrogen burst, it cut through half its head like a knife through butter.

Blood mist and various tissues sprayed all over Lin Li.

The Warboss's arms, still waving in the air, went limp.

The massive frame swayed,

The power axe slipped feebly,

And crashed heavily onto the ground.

After a brief silence,

Both the players and the Orks erupted in a synchronized cheer.

Especially those Orks; as they looked at Lin Li's blood-stained armor, their eyes were actually filled with... admiration?

"I reckon dis red humie is da toughest!"

"WAAAGH!!"

Lin Li leaned on his halberd with one hand, panting heavily.

He looked at this absurd scene and couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"Wait, I just killed your boss, why are you Orks so happy?" Lin Li complained wildly in his mind. "No wonder you're the most joyful race in the universe."

However, before he could rest for even two seconds, a sudden change occurred.

The Warboss's death caused the massive WAAAGH energy that had been concentrated on it to instantly lose its core.

This chaotic power, like an invisible torrent, suddenly poured into the ten-meter-tall Gorkanaut behind them.

That iron behemoth suddenly let out a piercing mechanical roar.

Its eye lights turned from red to green.

"Click-clack—click-clack!"

The Gorkanaut, which had been serving as the Orks' heavy firepower, went completely out of control and berserk.

The massive chainsaw on its left arm spun wildly, instantly sawing several nearby cheering Ork Boyz into meat scraps.

The cheering stopped abruptly, replaced by the screams of Orks and the sound of saw blades cutting through flesh and bone filling the battlefield.

"Holy crap! The big guy is moving!"

"Why is it even killing its own people?"

"Quick, take it down!"

The players were enjoying the show.

That ten-meter-tall hunk of iron, clad in tons of scrap-metal armor, moved like a mobile mountain when it charged.

The players raised their cannons and RPGs to fire.

But those shells and bullets were deflected by an unknown green energy field before they could hit the mecha.

After killing the Orks around it, the Gorkanaut's massive mechanical head slowly turned and locked onto Lin Li.

Its multi-barrel autocannon began to spin up.

Lin Li looked down at his limp left arm, then at the approaching mountain of steel.

"Conventional weapons can't scratch this thing."

Lin Li sighed and slowly reached his right hand toward his waist.

There, the adrastite pistol, with its dark gold body and streamlined artistic design, was magnetically attached.

This gun could only be fired once.

Lin Li hesitated for less than half a second before decisively drawing it.

"Something this unreasonable should be handled in an even more unreasonable way."

Lin Li raised the golden muzzle.

No complex aiming, no light from charging up.

He pulled the trigger.

A faint, almost invisible transparent beam instantly crossed the distance of dozens of meters and struck the center of the Gorkanaut.

Under the gaze of everyone present, there was no explosion.

No shockwave.

There wasn't even a sound.

The ten-meter-class steel behemoth that had been roaring madly was wiped from the world by some invisible eraser the moment the beam touched it.

Its armor, the engine inside, and the Big Mek in the cockpit all lost their physical form in an instant.

They turned into countless extremely fine, almost invisible dust particles, silently dispersing in the wind.

In just three short seconds, only an absolutely smooth semi-circular gouge remained in its place.

That war machine, capable of destroying an entire defensive line, had completely vanished without a single scrap of residue left behind.

Lin Li withdrew the pistol and looked at the empty wasteland, feeling a bit creeped out himself.

"So this is the technology of the Golden Men; it's freaking insane."

The battlefield, which had been rumbling and roaring just a moment ago, fell into a dead silence that lasted for over ten seconds.

This silent erasure was more soul-shakingly terrifying than even the most violent nuclear explosion.

The first to break the silence were, surprisingly, the Orks who should have been plunged into despair.

In the Orks' simple and crude brain circuits, the underlying logic of the WAAAGH energy field was the worship of ultimate violence.

Whoever has the biggest fist and can smash others flatter is the Boss.

The Gorkanaut, which could kick multi-ton armored vehicles like balls, was already an invincible existence in their eyes.

And now, that little humie in the red iron shell had made the Gorkanaut disappear without even lifting a finger!