Ever since learning to pilot a mecha, Duan Hengye had already traveled to quite a few places by himself in his mecha. As a person from the Earth Age, Duan Hengye was very enamored with this feeling. Although the mecha was essentially a weapon, whenever Duan Hengye drove it, he never regarded it as a cold and unfeeling dead thing, but rather as a familiar old friend.
But now was different. It was the first time that Duan Hengye had piloted a mecha at such a fast speed. After he entered the coordinates of the place where the w.ar broke out into the mecha and turned on the automatic fast-pilot mode, the scenery outside the window began to pass by quickly, and Duan Hengye’s gaze outside the window became abnormally cold.
The new-type mecha “Nan Wei” had all the highest technological achievements of the interstellar world condensed into it. Naturally, Duan Hengye also conquered several problems in a row, and finally chose the most powerful defense material in the universe as its shell. When Duan Hengye was driving the mecha to Meng Jinhuai’s location, his mind wasn’t idle, he had been calculating the temperature resistance and strength of the material Nan Wei had used, and then estimated the situation on the battlefield.
The location where this w.ar broke out wasn’t far from the military headquarters, and without flying for a long time, Duan Hengye saw a large number of mechas gathered in front – this was the military team that had retreated back after receiving Meng Jinhuai’s notification. Of course at the same time that Duan Hengye saw those mechas, the other party also discovered his arrival.
After a while, his mecha received a voice call request from Dongfang Hewen – although the nearby signals couldn’t be transmitted back, because of their close proximity to each other, there was still a proximity contact system that had been set up through other means. After clicking agree, Dongfang Hewen’s familiar voice appeared in Duan Hengye’s ears.
“Professor Duan, why are you here?” Although there was a lot of noise, it could still be heard, and unlike Dongfang Hewen’s usual calm and collected demeanor, his words were filled with worry and nervousness. It could be imagined that Duan Hengye’s sudden arrival at the battlefield must have startled him, after all, this place was already very close to the Stellar Explosion, and was considered to be the edge of the danger zone.
Similarly, because it was already close to the stellar explosion, Duan Hengye’s mecha’s flying speed also gradually slowed down. After a burst of Stellar Explosion reminders, Duan Hengye cut the mecha back to manual driving mode.
He said to Dongfang Hewen, “The map signal disappeared for a long time, but I was able to see the operation of Meng Jinhuai’s mecha here until just now.”
“…… What do you mean?” After hearing this, Dongfang Hewen’s tone took on a bit of hesitation.
Duan Hengye said, “At the moment before the mecha’s operational data disappeared, ‘Nanwei’ sent out an abnormal activity signal, and now I’m going to go over there and assist Meng Jinhuai in the rapid maintenance of the mecha’s system.”
Although just now after receiving the news that Duan Hengye had piloted the mecha close, Dongfang Hewen already had a feeling. But now that he heard Duan Hengye personally say this crazy idea, Dongfang Hewen still couldn’t help but fall silent for a moment. However, as an admiral who had been through a hundred battles, he knew that if it was really like what Duan Hengye had said, Meng Jinhuai’s mecha was starting to go out of control. Then now that the Stellar Explosion hadn’t shown the slightest sign of abating, there was indeed only one method that could turn the tide of battle, Duan Hengye personally traveling to Meng Jinhuai’s location.
Duan Hengye was able to arrive here, which proved that he had already weighed the price he might have to pay. After a moment of silence, Dongfang Hewen looked out the viewport window at the mecha that was gradually approaching the Stellar Edge Zone, and then couldn’t help but ask, “……You, have you really thought about it?”
This time, he didn’t answer Dongfang Hewen’s question through the communication device. All the retreating mechas that were in the edge area of the stellar explosion saw a huge silver-white mecha slowly approaching towards the ink-purple stellar explosion area. The speed of the mecha’s flight wasn’t fast, but its posture was elegant and determined.
Duan Hengye answered Dongfang Hewen’s question with his own actions, and he had already thought about it a long time ago.
The fringe area of the Stellar Explosion was different from Duan Hengye’s imagination – it was exceptionally calm, and Duan Hengye couldn’t see anything except for a purple patch of particles of some substance spread throughout the air. Nonetheless, he still didn’t dare to increase the mecha’s driving speed, but continued to run at a low speed, operating the mecha towards the place where “Nan Wei” had last sent out the coordinate signal.
During this process, Dongfang Hewen’s last sentence, “Have you really thought about it?” kept echoing in his ears. Of course Duan Hengye had thought about it, how could he not have thought about it?
Other than Duan Hengye himself, no one knew how much pressure he was carrying in his heart at this time. Just like the final battle in the book only erupted between the Ye Tian Empire and the Li Sheng Alliance, but this time it became a melee between multiple nations, the butterfly effect created by Duan Hengye’s travel into this book was far from stopping there.
The “Stellar Explosion” was a random natural phenomenon, and was also something that was never mentioned in the original book.
…… Duan Hengye didn’t dare to think deeply.
After thinking about this, the man who was driving the mecha towards the center of the stellar explosion couldn’t help but reach out his hand and gently touch the operation panel. Perhaps as a result of being an Earth era traveler, Duan Hengye wasn’t like the rest of the people that deeply understood and feared the stellar explosion, gradually close to the center of the area now, he calmed down.
In fact, he wasn’t confident that he would definitely succeed, he just wasn’t afraid of failure. As a person who had already died once, after encountering this kind of situation, Duan Hengye conversely didn’t fear death. Just …… he hoped that if he completely disappeared and if the heavens would send him to another world, it’d erase the memories of the past two years ah.
After thinking of this, Duan Hengye couldn’t help but shake his head, cutting his thoughts out of the strange imagination he had just had.
By this time, the mecha was already very close to the core area of the Stellar Explosion. Duan Hengye could see that the purple mist that had been wrapping itself in front of him had also begun to make irregular movements. Although it appeared to be just a “mist”, through the mecha detection system alerts that kept coming from his ears, Duan Hengye clearly knew that the mecha he was piloting at this time had already been burned by the light.
Although his mecha didn’t have any special features on the surface, after starting to drive it, Duan Hengye still made partial modifications to it. Now that he heard the prompts that kept coming from his ears, Duan Hengye began to be thankful for the new layer of special material that he had coated the mecha with some time ago.
The various data constantly flashing on top of the light screen told Duan Hengye that the mecha was currently suffering from an extremely strong assault. However, because of the presence of the new paint, the mecha currently didn’t have any major problems.
But despite this, Duan Hengye’s mood gradually became tense at this time. The environment that the mecha was in at this time was very complicated, not only were there all sorts of visible and invisible light shining all around, but it also generated a not-so-small force that was beginning to try and tear the mecha apart. However, this was still not the most serious problem, just like the purpose of Duan Hengye’s visit to the Core Area, the biggest impact on the mecha today came from the control system.
Although the location where he was now was much safer than the core area where Meng Jinhuai was trapped, his mecha had also begun to be affected, gradually becoming out of control. Therefore, just before Duan Hengye found Nan Wei, he began to carefully pilot his mecha while simultaneously correcting the affected control system.
Thanks to the fact that Duan Hengye hadn’t entered the Stellar Explosion for a long time, and the mecha was running at a very slow speed, even though he was doing two things at once, the current state of the mecha was still considered safe.
After a while, the silver-white mecha slowly flew past the back of a huge gray planet. The constantly flashing data above the light screen told Duan Hengye that he was now in a position around the area where Mecha Nan Wei had last sent out the signal!
And it was precisely at the moment when the mecha flew out of the shadow of the planet that Duan Hengye saw an incomparably large grayish-purple “tornado” appear in front of his eyes. Also because the mecha left the shadow of the planet just now, at the same time that he saw the “tornado”, Duan Hengye’s mecha finally began to sway and lurch uncontrollably – just like a small canoe on the surface of the sea.
Duan Hengye had prepared himself and clenched his teeth beforehand, or else he would have screamed the moment he saw the “tornado”. Because the amplitude of the shaking was too large, Duan Hengye’s vision was constantly shaking, and he even had some difficulty operating the mecha. However, after struggling to input the commands and seeing the content on the light screen, Duan Hengye still slightly relaxed – the shaking at this moment came from external forces rather than the system, and after a short period of maintenance, the control system was still able to continue to hold on for the time being.
Gently letting out a breath, Duan Hengye tried to sit up straight amidst the bumps, and then continued to fly towards the center of the stellar explosion.
The scene at this moment was crazy enough. Even though his mecha wasn’t small, under the contrast of the center of the stellar explosion, this mecha was simply like a speck of dust. At this moment, directly in front of Duan Hengye’s window was the purple fog that was constantly filling up, visibility was decreasing, and the cold white light from the mecha was also dyed purple, and then cast back onto Duan Hengye’s body. And behind him, because he was entering the danger zone, the various light screens within the mecha were flashing red.
These two colors of light intersected in front of the viewport, and Duan Hengye’s entire body was tightly covered in them.