Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Semi-Finals Fury
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Heinrich was thinking about how to get Edna to hand over Phoenix. Dyna was thinking about how to win the mech league. The imperial faction in the military was thinking about how to produce a little crown prince with marshal blood.
The three parties reached a wondrous consensus: the Royal Military Academy had to lose. And Caroline definitely had no intention of losing.
The next day was the quarterfinals for the mech team's rankings. The principal, the academy director, and all the top military academy officials were in attendance. Everyone was intensely focused on the final top three—that would determine the lineup for the mech league a month from now.
That morning, Gavin stubbornly dragged himself out of the infirmary and headed to the hangar to give Luan Zhu its final tune-up.
The sky was just starting to lighten with dawn. Dean thought he was the earliest, but as soon as he entered the hangar, he saw Gavin sitting with his back to him in the shadow of the massive mech, intently tapping away at the computer.
Dean was a bit stunned and paused in his tracks.
“The neural circuits to the particle gun weren’t stable, so I rewired them.”
Gavin didn’t turn around as he said,
“The firepower activation time’s down by 0.039 seconds too—reached the limit for a C-class mech.”
“……Thanks. How’d you do it?”
“Observe, think, draw on experience, proceed with caution… That’s the basic process for pretty much everything.”
Dean chuckled.
“Oh? You’ve got a lot of experience?”
Gavin instinctively almost said he’d repaired more mechs than Dean had ever seen, no big deal. But the words caught in his throat.
“No, none.”
His voice softened, almost like he was talking to himself:
“……Weird.”
The weirdness was only just beginning.
At nine in the morning, the quarterfinals kicked off. First came two preliminary matches to decide the winners, then the losers would challenge the victors from the other group. Two losses in a row meant elimination from the top three.
Before the matches started, Gavin checked on Luan Zhu again, only to see Dean talking to the instructor. For some reason, both their faces looked grim. Gavin didn’t want to interrupt, so he slipped out the back door, pondering what could’ve happened.
But as soon as the match began, he sensed something off—Luan Zhu’s movements were way too uncoordinated!
Mechs were colossal giants, and the spectator stands were on shielded floating walkways a hundred meters up. Everyone wore special glasses that let them see every detail of the massive mechs’ clashes crystal clear.
Edna had specially arranged a prime seat for Gavin. Less than a minute in, he spotted it: Luan Zhu’s right side was moving sluggish.
The lag was subtle—just a fraction of a second’s delay. But in combat, even 0.01 seconds meant the difference between life and death!
“You see, I told you that little punk can’t hold a candle to General Aaron—he’s got stamina and endurance for days. If you’re interested…”
Gavin snatched the light orb. Seconds later, the gryphon yelped and broke free, diving headfirst into his backpack.
The match didn’t last long. A few minutes in, the opponent’s beam saber delivered a fierce diagonal slash, ending it clean and quick. The victor basked in the schoolwide cheers, while the loser rushed the mech off for repairs to prep for the next round.
Gavin slipped down from the stands unnoticed and intercepted Dean at the prep room door as he hurried inside.
“What happened? What’s wrong with the mech?”
Dean didn’t look defeated—in fact, he was eerily calm.
“It’s not Luan Zhu’s fault.”
“But your commands were spot-on. The mech’s response was just delayed.”
Gavin said seriously,
“Tell me what’s going on. We’ve still got time—maybe I can help.”
Dean stayed silent for a long stretch, his expression hesitant. Gavin stared into his eyes, and suddenly it clicked:
“—It’s that technician you hired?”
“…”
“Luan Zhu needs a co-pilot tech, but he didn’t show today?”
Dean’s face said it all.
Gavin turned toward the prep room. Dean grabbed his hand.
“No, you can’t co-pilot! These matches are too intense—you’re just a frail—”
“Omega who beat your ass anyway.”
Gavin said helpfully,
“I’ll skip the ‘soundly’ part.”
Dean:
“…”
The two stared each other down in the corridor. After a solid thirty seconds, Gavin finally voiced the question he’d been holding back:
“Overcoming an Alpha’s ridiculous pride that hard?”
“……N-no, it’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
Dean hesitated forever before admitting awkwardly:
“I was thinking… are you only helping because you said at the start of term you owed me a favor?”
Gavin stared at him stone-faced, a neat row of “…” symbols popping up over his head. After a beat, he patted Dean’s shoulder solemnly:
“—Grow up.”
Half an hour later, the matches resumed. Dean’s opponent was the winner from the other prelim: Claire, an elite from the same-year mech class.
These two were usually at each other’s throats on the team. Last semester, they’d at least kept up appearances. This term, for some reason, they’d turned into strangers who didn’t even nod hello.
Claire’s mech was overall D-class, not far behind Luan Zhu in specs. But he had a rare ace up his sleeve—electromagnetic rail twin blades. Compared to traditional railguns, this hot-cold hybrid weapon had been all the rage in the first Galactic War. Anything that could produce them was usually B-class, and in academy rankings, it was basically an insta-win.
Gavin was strapped into Luan Zhu’s co-pilot seat in a tight combat suit, goggles on. Lower-class mechs had more complex controls—at least a thousand mechanical buttons and levers in front of him. Dean’s voice came through the comms, heavy with gravity:
“I’ve remapped the keys. If anything goes wrong, shove the red lever all the way to eject. Remember, your safety comes first—nothing’s more important than your…”
“My well-being.”
Gavin finished.
“I skimmed the Omega Protection Act last week. If I die, you’re rotting in prison for life.”
Dean:
“…”
Ten seconds later, countdown over. Match on.
The opponent didn’t hesitate half a beat—drew blades and charged, slashing full-force at Luan Zhu’s right side. His speed was at least double the previous foe’s. Without a tech, it would’ve landed for sure!
Dean and Gavin yanked their levers in unison. The mech giant boomed backward, dodging the electromagnetic blades by a hair, then fired back savagely!
Cheers erupted from the stands:
“—Nice!”
The particle cannon nailed the opponent’s arm. Flames and black smoke billowed.
Dean barked over comms:
“Gavin!”
“…”
“What did I tell you! No proactive attacks—it’s too dangerous for you!”
Gavin ignored him. On-screen, the foe retreated a dozen meters. Luan Zhu lunged, grabbing the damaged arm barehanded. The steel titans’ close-quarters brawl was jaw-dropping—each clash whipped up shockwaves that rocked the aerial stands.
Edna couldn’t help standing.
“That cannon just now… his doing.”
“Normal—his mental threshold’s several times Dean’s. When commands conflict, the mech listens to him.”
Caroline paused, then added:
“But he’s not the one fighting close-range now.”
Edna nodded slightly.
Gavin lounged in the co-pilot seat, idly toying with a mech neural tip. Amid the brutal melee, Luan Zhu spared a sliver of its sensor suite to play along, feeling oddly bashful inside.
Dean and his opponent both fought textbook academy-style—nothing like Gavin’s. But Dean had his own flair: leveraging the C-class mech’s close-combat output, he pinned the enemy and unleashed a storm of earth-shaking punches.
Gavin just assisted—fine-tuning neural ops, nudging movements, mostly ensuring fists hit the weakest spots.
The enemy tech was clearly inferior, repeatedly trying to trip Luan Zhu but always missing the precision. Gavin countered with a shot that blew through its foot instead.
The foe mech roared in fury, finally shoving Luan Zhu back in an opening and hurling the wrecked blade far away. The hundred-meter blade crashed with a thunderous boom, then it raised the second high for a sweeping slash—blasting off half of Luan Zhu’s palm in a blaze of electric light meters wide!
Luan Zhu staggered off-balance, toppling backward. The enemy charged with a roar. In that instant, Gavin fired the magnetic oscillation cannon.
—Boom!
Point-blank electromagnetic clash hurled both steel giants flying. Luan Zhu blasted into the air; the foe smashed dozens of meters away. At the same moment, it raised its blade skyward, aimed, and unleashed a blinding electromagnetic cannon blast.
No time for comms. Dean’s instinct: evade!
Gavin slammed the thrust lever to max:
“Luan Zhu—!”
Stretch this moment to infinity, and you’d see Dean and Gavin commanding simultaneously—one for dodge, one for charge—paths forming a perfect 180° opposition.
Luan Zhu froze mid-air for a split second, bizarrely.
Then Gavin’s command dominated. The mech lunged forward wildly. Dean yanked the reverse gate in frenzy. The conflicting ops made it stumble, crashing straight into the oncoming cannon.
A colossal boom. Co-pilot cabin flashed red, then the escape hatch “popped!” open!
In this crisis, Dean didn’t save himself first—he ejected the tech!
Gavin couldn’t fathom it. This shattered his worldview—no pilot in all Galactic War history had ever done that. No time to unstrap his neural bands. A massive force hit—he rocketed out of the cockpit, wind screaming past his ears.
Screams of terror exploded from the stands.
Gavin spun half a loop in the air. His parachute deployed from his back. Centrifugal force flung him toward the mech’s hull. He hugged his head instinctively—but no use.
“Bang!”
A deafening crash.
He slammed into the metal wall, head buzzing, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth flooding with blood.
2.
Spectators surged to their feet, many clapping hands over their eyes. Caroline whipped around, snapping:
“Alert the judges! Stop the match!”
As she spoke, Gavin’s body rebounded, swinging a graceful arc high up before smashing into the hull again.
Unlike the panicked stands, Gavin was ice-cold calm in that instant. He flung off his goggles to avoid shards in his eyes, suppressed the gryphon ear cuff on the verge of shifting, then linked to Luan Zhu’s mental bolt and issued a rescue command.
The neural band clamped on his ankle disintegrated instantly. Luan Zhu reached to catch his fall—
But too late. The enemy fired, shattering the arm into countless fragments amid earth-shaking blasts!
Gavin:
“……= =”
Trapped between the two steel behemoths, Gavin plummeted like a wing-clipped fledgling through crossed skyscrapers—hurtling past cannon fire, black smoke, flying metal shards, from sky to ground.
Overhead, the mechs bellowed. Their electromagnetic muzzles flared blinding white, locked on each other’s cores!
This had to be the match-ender.
Freeze time now, and it’d be epic: warfire sweeping the heavens, titans roaring, metal shards exploding, barrels glowing with infinite power, poised to obliterate all.
Gavin faced the massive muzzle head-on, twisting to the stands, reaching out desperately. One second stretched forever—until the ground heaved violently—
Boom!
Like something underground slamming upward, the shockwave toppling swaths of aerial spectators; both mechs lurched unsteadily!
Countless fell, yelling:
“What’s that—an earthquake?!”
Only Edna remembered, face draining white.
From here, every scene unfolded simultaneously—stopwatch precise to milliseconds to recapture it all—
Same instant as the quake: Caroline stumbled forward, red crystal pendant snapping free from her chest, bursting into red light that shattered the stand’s ceiling;
Arena: the mechs’ muzzles collided viciously, cannon blasts merging in horrific electromagnetic waves into a meters-wide light sphere;
Stands: Caroline gaped up as the red crystal decomposed and reshaped mid-glow, assembling countless red-glowing massive parts that rocketed skyward, scooping the falling Gavin;
Next second, the electromagnetic sphere erupted downward in terrifying thunder!
Edna cried out:
“Celia—!”
A world-shaking boom. The red giant dropped to one knee, instantly raising a full-body shield! The electromagnetic cannon poured in, slamming the shield into a massive explosion—high-speed particle streams forming a barrier, blotting out the entire sky!
“Wh-what’s happening!”
“Look, an A-class mech!”
“Blazing Fox—it’s Blazing Fox—!”
Gasps filled the stands. The red giant rose from black smoke, shield away, sword drawn. Next instant, the beam sword bisected the foe waist-high. A brilliant light-arc fanned out overhead, metal chunks spraying with countless sparks—like fireworks in broad daylight.
Royal Military Academy’s most spectacular sight ever.
Blazing Fox reached out, snagging the ejecting cockpit from the debris storm and setting it gently down.
The cockpit was half-wrecked. Claire leaped out first, turning to haul out his trembling tech. Both panted, looking up.
Blazing Fox straightened slowly, systems intoning mechanically:
“Command complete. Shutdown sequence initiated.”
The red giant’s eyes flickered, then went dark.
A white-with-red-patterned cockpit auto-ejected, floating down lightly on antigrav, hatch pinging open.
Gavin, face bloodied, crawled out. Before he could stand steady, Claire lunged forward, ecstatic:
“You’re Dean’s armed tech?!”
“…”
“How much? I’ll pay! Team with me for the league!”
Gavin wiped blood, looking up:
“You—”
Their eyes met. Both froze.
“You’re an Omega…”
Claire staggered in the intense sweet pheromone reek—then recognition hit, voice quavering:
“You’re… that Omega…”
“You’re the Alpha who beat on me,”
Gavin narrowed his eyes, confirming after two seconds:
“That’s you.”
New grudge, old grudge—all surged in Gavin: Alphas drawn to Omega heat pheromones, craving mating—fine. But why the beating? Even if academy boys had violent heat urges, treating him like a mortal enemy and pounding to kill—what the hell?!
Claire sensed doom, stepping back futilely:
“I—”
Before he could finish, Gavin seized his collar, landing a brutal right hook that sprayed blood from mouth and nose. The tech beside them froze in shock—no time to scream before Gavin chest-kicked him, slamming Claire flat on his back!
“You bastard, stop—I just… ah!”
Claire wailed as Gavin dropped a knee hard into his gut, yanking his collar with one hand, voice icy:
“Just what?”
“…”
Any Alpha this close to a blood-soaked, pheromone-drenched Omega would be dizzy, lost.
Claire floated in clouds, mouth gaping uselessly for ages before weakly croaking:
“I just… passively went into heat…”
Gavin punched his face—nearly dislodging teeth.
“—So now you’re passively getting beat.”
Gavin said coldly, tossing him aside and striding off.
Author’s note:
Years later, the marshal wrote a book: *On the Destructive Power of Pig Teammates and the Importance of Teamwork*. Subtitle: *A Sad Story*.
Comrades, I’m plugging again—Luo Ye’s new novel after three years, same series as his rebirth one but standalone. Huge rec!