Dragon of Rochester
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AFS 2: Strange Flame Strangeness - Part 12 - Survival Challenge Finish Line
🕑 Added 2025-03-30 18:34:03 +0000 UTCPart 12
I cultivated for a couple hours while Hanna and YaoYao worked on merging the broken mechs into one usable one. They even had Chad help. His new SSSS-rank physique was useful since he was able to twist the muscles just right. He was actually better and faster than the machine that we usually used in my workshop!
Sometime after I finished cultivating and while they were in the middle of preparing the mechs, two S-rank beasts came near us. The giant rabbit alien bared its large tusks at a massive feathered bear that growled menacingly. Apparently, they were bringing their physical argument into our clearing.
Chad immediately pushed the artificial muscle he was working on into place and practically teleported over to them. It was a speed reminiscent of those Nascent Soul equivalent body cultivators from my past life.
Unfortunately, while he was fast and strong, Chad forgot to take into account one small fact: his goddamn weight hadn’t changed. One swipe from the bird bear’s paw and he was sent flying. He wasn’t injured at all, though.
I crossed my arms. “Amateur.”
He landed and skidded across the ground, leaving deep tracks in the moist terrain. He sent me a glare. “I’d like to see you do better.”
I grinned. “Sure. Stand back and let me show you how it’s done.”
I pulled out my sword and stared at the beasts. They didn’t even seem to think much of me and continued biting each other and rolling around on the ground as they attempted to get the upper hand.
Sadly for them, we couldn’t let them get close to our mechs and ruin our work. We still had a challenge to win, since the empire’s military was a toxic work environment.
I stood in the basic sword stance that any beginner would learn.
Let’s see, keep it thin because the Empire had a use for every scrap of meat and split the strike in two to get both of them.
For a single breath in, I closed my eyes. I became one with my sword. Having reached the pinnacle of the world, I knew more about the path of swordsmanship than any other in this universe. My Dao was Unlimited and so was my sword. I let my sword Dao fill in those paths, lost to time. The universe may seem like new with the return of spiritual energy, but the sword was always and forever. It never truly vanished.
I will connect the present to the past and split the heavens, for they cannot control me. I am the way of the sword. And the sword is me.
“Twin Heavenscraper Blade,” the words left me as I breathed out and opened my eyes.
I slowly lowered the tip of my sword as if this one slash could return the lost heavenly laws of swordsmanship to this universe. The weight of that idea infused into my one slash, breaking the space before me in three.
The two beasts were almost on top of me. I could even smell their musty fur. They both collapsed with no visible wounds. There also were no other traces that I had used an immensely powerful and deeply profound technique. In fact, it looked like I hadn’t done anything at all, and they just collapsed by themselves. But inside their feeble skin, their bodies would be split in two.
The only other sign I left was in the clouds far above us. They had been split into three parts.
Sometimes it was the subtle unobtrusive techniques that should generate the most fear, but only to those masters that understood them. Being flashy wasn’t everything, but it certainly helped intimidate the unknowledgeable.
I turned to look back at everyone. They just looked confused.
Wait, did these fucks think the beasts died merely from their internal wounds, and that I got lucky? Goddamn it.
Being a master was so lonely sometimes.
“How would you like to join my unit once you graduate?” Chad suggested nonchalantly.
Oh? Had Chad sensed something? With his strength, he must have, even if he couldn’t tell what it was. Too bad for him, though!
“Ha! You already signed a contract after losing our bet. I can choose any unit except yours, and you can’t do anything about it. Nah, I’m going to transfer somewhere relatively safe and make mechs.”
He scowled.
Ah, this belated face slap sure felt good.
I cleared my throat. “Well, let’s get cracking! We have a challenge to win.”
***
Hanna worked with us for a solid 6 hours before she became too worried about James’s health and left with him in the escape pod. By that time, the base had sent a few more spy bots to replace the ones that had been obliterated. Sadly, both Drebot and Steve were unrecoverable. Even their chips with the saved raw footage had been crushed completely, as if a certain someone had gone around making sure my cultivation techniques weren’t seen by anyone.
The morning of the next day, Chad and YaoYao piloted the mech while carrying Spring and me in one giant hand to cross the finish line as the only challenger to have at least one flag and a single mech intact.
Foam confetti cannons blasted colorful, foamy bubbles into the air. A bunch of the bubbles landed on my hand, and I blew them out at the crowd that had gathered to cheer us on. They were mostly soldiers from the base, but there were also a few civilians and children.
Spring waved at everyone with a wide grin on his face.
We made our way past them to where a press conference honoring our hard work was held. It was being broadcast throughout the interstellar Empire and was especially notable since the next in line for the throne was on the winning team.
The host of the press conference gave quick interviews of each of the participants... At least they were supposed to be quick. Sadly, they took for-fucking-ever.
Chad admitted that he couldn’t have done it without everyone on his team, and that he learned a lot while fighting together with us.
YaoYao expressed that she had eyes but couldn’t see Mount Tai. When asked to clarify, she just said that her team members were far more impressive than anyone here could possibly imagine.
She mentioned that working with the standardized mechs that were used for planetary recon was more difficult than she thought. They were really flimsy compared to personalized mechs, but, because everything was standardized, it was easy to repair and upgrade.
Spring talked about how he was glad to take on this challenge. Fighting alien beasts was very different from his battles against star crabs since their healing factor wasn’t as good, even though they were much larger than the space crustaceans. It encouraged him to work harder and improve himself going forward. He had to struggle to not overwork the standardized mech and was impressed by the pilots in service who had to do that every day.
Hanna and James congratulated and thanked us in front of cameras and me in particular for doing emergency treatment on James, saving his life.
Maya and her blue team were upset that they were the first to bow out, but glad that they managed to take out many of humanity’s enemies while still making it back to base safely.
Finally, it was my turn to be interviewed. The host of the conference smiled at me.
“Congratulations Lady Victoria Lin on winning.”
“Of course I won. No team with me in it could lose as long as I want it to win.”
His smile faltered for a single second. “According to our sources, your team earned more points than any that came before you.”
I shrugged. “Well, I took down two bipedal star crabs. I think both Miss Liu and I could make a personalized SSS-rank mech or two with the resources we can buy using our points.”
“And that’s well earned. Almost everyone so far has enthusiastically mentioned you by name, but they never said specifically what you did. Would you care to elaborate?”
I crossed my arms and grinned. “I kicked ass.”
“Uh... does that mean you ended up piloting a mech?”
“I stole Lord James Gu’s after saving him, then killed both bipedal star crabs.”
“... That’s an interesting nickname for humanity’s worst enemy.”
“It’s a more accurate term than star bug.” I stared at him until he felt uncomfortable.
“Can you elaborate... What exactly are crabs?”
Goddamn it. How could this interstellar universe have no real crabs in it? It was the ultimate evolutionary form! “Likely what the star crabs were before they evolved into star crabs.”
He cleared his throat. “You were signed up to be the engineer of the team, so it’s unusual that you can pilot and fight as well.”
“Nothing unusual about that. I’m a dual major.”
“Right, the first one in history. Truly impressive.”
A camera bot flew close to me and the interviewer smiled. “I was hoping you could tell us the story of how you took down the bipedal star bugs.”
“No.”
“...”
Spring came over and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Lady Victoria worked incredibly hard over the last couple of days. This isn’t the best time to hold an interview.”
The host looked relieved. “We’ll end it here then. Once again, congratulations to the participants and well done!”
As we walked off stage, I turned to Spring. “What? I thought it was going fine?”
He gave me a look that asked me ‘really?’ “Maybe if your goal was to make the host uncomfortable.”
“Good, you figured it out.”
He sighed deeply. “I feel like if I didn’t stop it, you’d end up calling the star bugs, crab people like in those strange conspiracy theories you mentioned.”
“Well, the bipedal ones are crab people. Next time, I’ll make sure to explain it. Excellent suggestion.”
“Shit. What did I just do?” he mumbled under his breath.
Today was a good day.
