Cooperation (1)

Antonia looked at the silver-white mech in front of her, feeling somewhat aggrieved. "Let me go, and I won't bother you again," she replied.

"That reason isn't very convincing," Reno said coldly.

"My energy and ammunition are almost depleted. If you eliminate me, you'll only gain one point. Spare me, give me time to produce, and I can compensate you with ammunition or energy boxes equivalent to three points, at yesterday's price," Antonia proposed.

"Ten points," Reno countered.

"No way!" Antonia refused decisively. "That means twenty crates of ammunition or energy. Do you know how long it takes for me to produce them? I've only unlocked one layer, and the production capacity is painfully slow!"

"But it's better than being taken out now and ending the match. If I guess correctly, you probably don't have many points left. Adding an early elimination, retaining half..." Reno replied bluntly.

Antonia took a deep breath. "Three points. We can cooperate in hunting together. With both our strengths, we can defeat many enemies. And you're running low on ammunition now, aren't you?"

Reno thought for a moment. "Why should I trust you?"

"I swear in the name of my family, with all the audience as witnesses, that I, Antonia, will fight alongside you in this match!" Antonia declared.

However, Reno didn't immediately believe her. Although her words sounded nice, many people were capable of being shameless. They had their own logic, acting despicably but feeling entitled to do so. If you spared them, they would turn around and eliminate you, saying "It's just tactics, you're foolish to believe it."

This was also the difficulty of alliances.

In the dark forest law, nobody trusted anyone.

While this rule might not apply universally in the universe, it was certainly true in the survival challenge.

But if it came from nobles, it was more believable. It wasn't that their character was better; in fact, character had nothing to do with wealth. The key was that such people had a high social status and high costs of breach of contract. Reno didn't know what family Antonia came from, but he could tell she was from a prominent one.

Using her real name, she had her own unique pride. People like her shouldn't flip-flop over a league spot in front of hundreds of millions of viewers.

So after hesitating for a moment, Reno finally withdrew his energy sword.

He extended his hand to Antonia.

Seeing this gesture of friendship, Antonia snorted, operating the Crimson Widow to stand up by herself.

Once free, she regained her arrogance.

She glanced at Reno with a sideways look. "Your skills are mediocre, why do you have such good firepower?"

If Reno hadn't been superior to her in mech configuration and firepower, causing her to make a wrong judgment, Antonia believed she wouldn't have lost. Even if the situation from just now happened again, she would have won.

In terms of skill, Reno was far inferior to her.

Throughout the match, Reno only had a one in ten chance of winning against her. Yet, he managed to seize that one chance, which made Antonia particularly unwilling to accept defeat.

"You can watch the replay later for that question," Reno replied, uninterested in catering to her mood.

He opened the message receiver and checked it. Since the battle was so intense, other participants had already noticed and were heading this way.

"One from the west, two from the east, closing in," Reno said, glancing at Antonia. "What now?"

"What else can we do? Of course, we kill them!" Antonia answered proudly, crossing her arms. At this moment, she had regained her queenly demeanor, as if all men should bow at her feet.

"But..." Antonia's tone suddenly changed, saying, "I've exhausted my energy from the recent battle. I don't have much energy left to fight!"

Rolling his eyes helplessly, Reno took out an energy box from his reserve. "Here!"

Antonia took it, surprised. "How do you still have energy? How many layers of energy generators have you activated?"

"Five layers," Reno replied.

Antonia was thoroughly shocked. She couldn't imagine how this guy managed to activate five layers of energy generators even after obtaining such powerful firepower.

"Are you sure you're not cheating?"

After holding it in for so long, Antonia finally squeezed out this sentence. Reno just smiled, not paying attention to her accusation.

Cheating in front of hundreds of millions of viewers was itself more difficult than unlocking these firepower options.

Antonia also understood this. She was just instinctively unwilling to accept it. So, after saying this, she continued, "I've only unlocked two layers, so I won't be polite. Shall we deal with the fewer enemies first?"

"Up to you," Reno said.

Antonia liked this answer. She gave a sweet laugh and said, "Draw the firepower with your thick skin, and I'll flank them."

Saying that, she flew past from the side.

"Hey!" Reno shouted.

"What?" Antonia stopped and asked.

"...It's nothing." After thinking for a moment, Reno decided not to say anything.

Antonia turned and walked away. Watching her back, Reno muttered softly to himself, "You haven't given me any points yet."

Then he ran forward.

Soon, the figure of a mech appeared in their field of view.

They both spotted each other simultaneously. As soon as the mech saw Reno, it rolled to the side and fired a shot at him, its movements agile and fluid.

A face-to-face encounter undoubtedly tested personal strength and skill, and in this aspect, Reno was lacking.

Although Reno dodged at the fastest speed possible, he still couldn't completely avoid the blast area. The intense shockwave destabilized him, and just as he struggled to stabilize the mech, the opponent continued firing at him while charging forward, closing the distance between the two mechs. In its hand, an energy sword flickered, indicating its intent to weaken with heavy firepower first and then finish off with the energy sword, ensuring victory while minimizing costs.

It was evident that this was an experienced veteran in combat. Without Antonia, Reno might have lost this battle. But without Reno, Antonia might not have even dared to charge forward. There were too many possibilities, and no one could know the outcome of each choice. The only thing visible was the reality that had already occurred.

The Crimson Widow's silhouette appeared timely behind the battlefield, and a series of bullets formed brilliant arcs of light, striking the opponent.

The contestant was startled. He tried to dodge, but Reno had already rushed up, slashing at him with the energy sword, forcing the contestant to turn around to defend himself. Antonia took advantage of the opportunity to launch a strong attack. Her dual pistols were swift and accurate, not a single shot hitting Reno. Bullets on the opponent's mech erupted with radiant energy, rapidly and continuously depleting the opponent's energy.

The contestant quickly couldn't hold on anymore. He made a decisive move, retracting his energy sword and running away.

This undoubtedly exposed his back to the opponent. For the contestant, it was a gamble. If the opponent didn't have heavy firepower, he still had hope of escaping using his remaining energy shield.

But he was clearly wrong.

A magnificent flash of light struck the back of the mech, causing it to stagger and fall to the ground.

Reno holstered the positron cannon angrily and walked over, inserting the diversion tube into the mech while shouting at Antonia, "What were you doing? Why didn't you use the fusion cannon from the beginning? It's best to use high-powered weapons at the start of a surprise attack when the opponent isn't prepared. It's easy to take them out with one blow. Don't you understand this logic?"

Antonia snorted. "I didn't think it was necessary. Using guns is enough to solve the problem, and I didn't want to waste energy."

"But in reality, you didn't save any energy. My positron cannon consumes no less energy than yours, and you wasted even more energy consumed during the fight," Reno retorted.

"That's because you're stupid. You could have used heavy cannons or missiles to solve the problem," Antonia replied unceremoniously.

Reno shook his head. "Now we have to deplete his energy shield before we can defeat him. This means one: we won't gain any energy benefits from him. Two: we'll waste more time. And you seem to have forgotten that there are still two targets approaching us."

Antonia was stunned.

Reno had drained the energy, and he retrieved the remaining ammunition. "Originally, we could have quickly dealt with this one and then ambushed the other two over there. But now, it seems we have to go head-on."

Turning around, he saw the figures of the two mechs in the distance.

"Do you see? The enemy always arrives faster than you imagine. If we continue to delay, then we'll be the ones surrounded by enemies," Reno said as he strode forward.

Seeing him like this, Antonia snorted in annoyance. "What's with the arrogance?"

She controlled her mech and went to meet them.