Charge

Watching the middle finger raised on the screen, the organizers and the audience burst into joyful laughter.

"Quite the character."

"I like this kid!"

Comments about Reno echoed one after another, surprisingly without causing any anger.

The Storm League had seen countless participants, and someone like Reno was nothing new. Not only that, but at the moment of seeing him, they even felt a sense of pleasure because they enjoyed seeing competitors frustrated and relished the joy of controlling others' destinies.

Reno was unaware of the organizers' thoughts, nor did he have time to care.

Lowering his middle finger, he checked his equipment. Without a doubt, this had been another battle with significant losses. In order to take down that guy, he had used up thirty percent of his energy, two crates of 9mm bullets, six missiles, and all the shells he had previously produced.

Two points were not even enough to exchange for half of these resources.

But this was war. No one could truly profit from the battlefield; staying alive was the greatest reward.

Leaving the corpse behind, Reno continued to move forward.

He changed his route, no longer taking the desolate path but heading straight for the main road.

"It seems our Mr. Shadow has finally realized that evasion is pointless, and facing bravely is the mark of a true hero!" Christina exclaimed loudly.

Ben, the host, continued his professional commentary style, "I don't think so. I believe he did this because after experiencing a battle with that armored beast, he thought it would be better to fight humans. At least he can harvest the remaining ammunition from those mechs. Compared to the armored beast, which although has two points, its flesh and blood cannot be turned into strength to arm itself. In this situation, Shadow made the choice he believed was advantageous to himself."

"But not every mech is necessarily easier to deal with than an armored beast," Christina retorted. Never underestimate similar opponents; those competitors might have fewer points, but they could definitely cause more trouble.

"Indeed, but at least he still has the advantage in firepower, doesn't he?" Ben replied leisurely.

Ben was indeed correct.

Twenty minutes later, Reno dashed out of the jungle.

He ran straight along the main road, heading to his destination as if no one else mattered. After running for a while, he suddenly heard a sharp whistle in his ear.

Without time to distinguish what the attack was, Reno lunged forward. A shell exploded two meters away from him, which at this distance was basically equivalent to hitting the target, and the tremendous shockwave directly lifted the mech.

While still in the air, two more shells whizzed towards him, but this time they didn't have such a good effect. The energy shield on the mech lit up, blocking the attack.

At the same time, the Silver Wing Angel rolled and landed, leaping behind a large rock and firing back towards the direction of the attack.

Since Reno didn't see where the enemy was, this shot hit nothing but empty space.

This hasty counterattack posed no threat at all, and even the assailant couldn't help but shake his head, wondering how there could still be such rookies in the finals. He didn't continue the attack but retracted his weapons and started to move.

Of course, he didn't know that while Reno was firing, he also activated his message receiver. With a flash of light, a conspicuous red dot appeared on Reno's map. Enlarging the red dot, one could see a mech with a dark green paint job moving rapidly through the forest. This mech obviously had powerful stealth capabilities; even its energy shield had an optical camouflage effect.

It was weaving through the forest, circling around to the side and rear of Reno.

Reno pretended not to know and continued to bombard the original position.

Taking advantage of the cover of the jungle, the dark green mech arrived at Reno's flank.

It crouched down and aimed its cannon at Reno, this time even closer than before.

"Time to taste what real power feels like, buddy," the assailant muttered to himself.

Just then, he saw a flash of light on the opponent's body.

"What's that?" The assailant was momentarily stunned, then realized the danger and shouted, "Oh no!"

He maneuvered the mech to evade, but it was still too late. A massive positron stream slammed into the mech, unleashing a huge energy explosion on the dark green mech.

Boom!

The mech started firing blindly without locking onto a target; this time, it was his turn to shoot indiscriminately.

He had no choice; he had to suppress the opponent as quickly as possible and give himself a chance to escape. Unfortunately, his plan still failed. Following the positron cannon blast, not heavy artillery but two axe missiles came next. They whistled through the air, tracing graceful arcs before automatically locking onto the dark green mech and slamming into it.

The fierce shockwave lifted the dark green mech, and before it could land, another barrage came.

The assailant had been completely bewildered by this ruthless attack. Positron cannons, missiles, heavy artillery—what kind of rhythm was this?

As he fell, he lost all ability to resist.

Reno controlled the Silver Wing Angel to approach, starting to absorb the energy from the dark green mech and collect ammunition. The assailant looked at the Silver Wing Angel and finally remembered something: "You're Shadow? The one who took down the Expedition?"

He finally remembered who his opponent was.

"Yes, it's me," Reno replied without hesitation.

The assailant breathed a sigh of relief as he exited the cockpit. He turned out to be a handsome young man who said to Reno, "Losing to you is better than losing to anyone else... I owe it to you for getting this far. During the first stage, I was being chased. If you hadn't taken down the Expedition, I might have been eliminated in the first round."

"Well, if you had recognized me from the beginning, would you have gone easy on me or even deliberately lost to me?" Reno asked.

The young man paused for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I wouldn't have done that. I'm sorry, I wouldn't have given up because of that."

"Well, then this goodwill is of no use," Reno chuckled.

The young man's face turned red with embarrassment.

Noticing his discomfort, Reno said, "Hey, don't worry about it. I just wanted to know if I still had any advantages to exploit."

The young man hurriedly said, "I wouldn't give up because of this, but if my points were enough, and I had the upper hand, I might spare you... I mean, if I could defeat you."

"Is that so..." Reno pondered for a moment, then nodded. "Thank you for the reminder."

Having collected the spoils of war by now and seeing the shuttle coming to pick up the defeated players in the distance, Reno departed.

This battle didn't bring Reno any benefits; the costs and gains were basically at a one-to-one ratio. But at least it was much better than fighting the Blue Rampage Ape. With a production factory already in hand, maintaining balance was a victory in itself.

Since he couldn't refuse his opponents, he chose them himself—at least for now, the organizers couldn't force him to fight opponents. Otherwise, it wouldn't be for the sake of entertainment but intentional harassment.

Continuing his forward momentum, Reno encountered several other participants along the way. Those he could quickly deal with, Reno simply eliminated them with overwhelming firepower. If the opponent demonstrated formidable strength, he couldn't win, or he felt that the cost of victory would be too high, he would use the speed from the full-power engine to escape the battlefield, sometimes without even firing a shot—why waste firepower if he didn't intend to defeat the opponent?

With firepower as his priority, very few participants at this stage had fully unlocked their engine power, so Reno was still far ahead in terms of speed.

The participants who attempted to ambush him but ended up being outmaneuvered by Reno's flying speed were left dumbfounded. Some even cursed, "Damn it, increasing engine power without increasing firepower. Is this guy here just to be a rabbit?"

Speed became Reno's important reliance for completing tasks. After about four hours of travel, Reno finally arrived at the northern end of the island, very close to the laboratory. Standing on a high point, he could even see the white roofs of the buildings.

"Phew!" Reno let out a long breath.

Finally, he could relax a little here. Calculating the time, he had only used up half of it, which meant that if nothing unexpected happened next, he should be able to complete the task ahead of schedule.

But things obviously wouldn't go so smoothly. Just as Reno breathed a sigh of relief, a fiery red mech flew over from the distance.

It flew over!