Book 10: Chapter 23: Encirclement and Annihilation

After transforming into beast form, perhaps because he had grasped the swift talent of the Shadow Gale Panther, the “Seventeenth Fallen Angel” increased its speed by another thirty percent without increasing the energy conversion rate, quickly closing in on the “Napatha” swarm ahead.

Once he got close enough, Qin Lun had the “Seventeenth Fallen Angel” shut down its Particle Furnace to avoid alerting the Napatha with radiation waves spilling outside, relying only on inertia to drift closer.

The Napatha was over thirty meters long, with a wingspan of more than forty meters. Its huge compound eyes were like spherical radar domes covered in hexagonal crystal lenses. It had a ferocious, slender, needle-like mouthpart and not weak intelligence.

If this were any other Quest World, these Napatha in front of Qin Lun, even without the Forbidden Spell ability of Legendary Creatures to destroy cities, would be more than enough to compare with sub-legendary creatures. However, in this Gospel World, Napatha were merely scout workers of a cosmic Insectoid race.

The existence of the Gospel World seemed to overturn Qin Lun’s usual impressions of the Star Void. Because of the uniqueness of the Gospel World, he had once asked his other companions why this world was not a High-Magic World but only a Mid-Magic World.

Most companions, who knew little about the secrets of the Star Void, shook their heads with a bitter smile. In the end, it was the beautiful Leader, who often hung out with the Lost higher-ups, who gave an ambiguous answer.

According to Robin’s analysis, the Star Void’s criteria for classifying Quest Worlds from low-magic to high-magic were very complex, not as simple as Qin Lun had originally thought. It wasn’t just related to the technological and magical power of the native inhabitants but also connected to the World Law and the quest area the Apostles entered.

The reason the Gospel World wasn’t classified as a High-Magic World might be related to its unique World Law and the Angel Clones the Apostles inhabited.

After all, in this world, Apostles fought in the form of Bingren, greatly reducing the individual gap between cosmic creatures and Apostles. They couldn’t be compared to those Legendary Creatures at the top of the food chain.

Putting aside thoughts unrelated to the fight, Qin Lun refocused his attention on the present.

By now, he was very close to the Napatha, even less than one light-second away. Although one light-second is close to three hundred thousand kilometers, in the vacuum of space without an atmosphere, the inertia from acceleration does not decay, and kilometers here aren’t much different from meters on the ground.

However, although the more a spacecraft accelerates, the faster it goes, there is still a limit. The speed of light is one such limit point, similar to encountering the sound barrier in the atmosphere. Small spacecraft generally only approach the speed of light and cannot directly break through it.

Qin Lun’s Seventeenth Fallen Angel could break the light barrier, but it would put a great load on the mecha, even affecting combat moves. So, unless for long-distance raids, most Bingren would not enter combat at superluminal speeds.

At such close proximity, even though the Seventeenth Fallen Angel possessed the stealth ability of the Shadow Gale Panther, the sensitive Insectoid workers still sensed a hidden threat. The swarm became restless and began to stir uneasily. The leading Napatha’s compound eyes flashed with menace, and its antennae twitched constantly, trying to locate the source of the threatening feeling.

Qin Lun vaguely felt that if he got any closer, these big bugs would surely detect him. Although the Napatha still couldn’t pinpoint his location, relying on their excellent Insectoid instincts, they began to turn and fly away from Qin Lun.

“Now!”

The Seventeenth Fallen Angel’s eyes burst with bloodthirsty red light. A ripple like water waves spread through the Star Void, and a sleek black panther wreathed in blazing light suddenly emerged from the void. It ran on all fours as if on solid ground, pouncing towards the insect swarm with lightning speed.

“Hiss!” The Napatha closest to Qin Lun, upon suddenly seeing the black panther mecha, raised its colorful fur all over its body like a hedgehog. Its needle-like mouthpart violently expelled a burst of air, actually producing a sharp, shockwave-like hiss in the vacuum environment.

“Too late!” The black panther mecha’s face showed a human-like ferocious expression as it instantly arrived above the Napatha’s head.

With a powerful stomp from its strong hind claws, the high-flying Napatha plummeted like a cannonball. At the moment of contact, the soft, unarmored insect head exploded like a rotten watermelon. Dark green insect blood splattered in all directions through the void like shrapnel from a bomb.

Meanwhile, using the force from that stomp, the black panther mecha veered like lightning towards another nearby Napatha.

Although this Napatha was startled by the death hiss of its companion, it was still in a dazed state, looking back with a confused expression. In the stereoscopic view of its compound eyes, the black panther mecha’s terrifying figure was already close at hand, like a demon god.

“One, two, three…”

Qin Lun’s black panther mecha shot through the void like a black bolt of lightning. It changed direction twice in quick succession, shattering three Napatha one after another.

However, by the time it reached the third Napatha, this target was fully awake. It barely managed to dodge the sneak attack by tilting its head. The black panther’s sharp claws only carved three deep gashes into its large abdomen and tore off the wing on its right side, leaving it severely wounded but not dead.

“Hiss…” The insect swarm finally reacted, hissing as they gathered together. The leading Napatha, which was slightly larger, charged madly towards the black panther. Its needle-like mouthpart reflected a dark sheen like a spear.

“Their Agility truly is high!” Qin Lun felt slightly disappointed that his sneak attack had only resulted in two dead and one injured.

However, he had no intention of tangling with these bugs. The blazing light around him flared intensely, and he turned to flee. The beast-form Seventeenth Fallen Angel only had close-combat modes. He didn’t possess the real Shadow Gale Panther’s Wind Blade talent. Fighting the other five Napatha in a melee was clearly not a good idea.

As he fled, Qin Lun sneakily glanced back. Seeing that the bugs weren’t scared off by him but were instead chasing him fiercely, a trace of mockery appeared on his face.

Even including the severely wounded one, only six bugs remained. He and Frank’s Full-Bio-Mechanisms could handle two, while the other eight mechas dealt with four. With a two-on-one situation, once they entered the trap, even with their high mobility, the Napatha would have no chance to escape.

Although the Napatha possessed the fierce nature of the Insectoid, compared to other Insectoids, they were, after all, cunning scout workers. After chasing Qin Lun for a while, the leading Napatha hissed, slowing down with its fellow bugs. Their flickering compound eyes clearly showed a trace of doubt.

Qin Lun’s expression tightened. Just as he was about to turn back and provoke them again, he saw over a dozen bright beams crisscross from the void, weaving a net of light. Meanwhile, from directly behind the insect swarm, a yellowish-brown light flare shot forth.

Qin Lun smiled knowingly and immediately slowed his pace, pressing steadily towards the five Napatha ahead. At the same time, the surface of the black panther mecha writhed once more, transforming from panther form back into a humanoid mecha. His reinforcements had arrived; there was no need for close combat with the insect swarm anymore.

Realizing they had fallen into an enemy trap, the Napatha swarm, however, did not panic further. They quickly clustered together, closing the distance between themselves.

The leading Napatha’s compound eyes flashed with cunning light. It shot a hateful glance back at Qin Lun, then, without hesitation, led the other bugs to turn and charge towards the yellowish-brown light flare coming from directly behind them.

“They really do have high intelligence!” Seeing this, Qin Lun’s eyes instead lit up.

Causing two deaths and one injury with just one sneak attack, it was clear to the bugs that he was not to be trifled with. Choosing not to break through in other directions, the swarm obviously realized the gaps left by the light net were small and that the enemy outnumbered them. In just that instant of judgment, they concluded they had to break through directly from the rear.

“What a pity!” Qin Lun smiled meaningfully. Among their team, besides Qin Lun himself, there was only one other person whose Bingren Mecha could emit full-body light flames. The yellowish-brown light flare directly behind the insect swarm was none other than the hunchbacked servant, Frank.

Frank was the weakest among their ten Apostles. However, the special combat rules of the Gospel World largely leveled this disparity. Even though all Apostle Skills were sealed, an MT was still an MT. The bugs were probably about to learn what it meant to hit a wall.

The first bug to encounter Frank was the one Qin Lun had severely wounded, lagging behind. The yellowish-brown light flare hardly slowed at all, crashing into the bug with a savage posture.

“Bam!” Although sound couldn’t travel through the vacuum like the bug’s hiss, witnessing the scene before them—like a rotten orange smashed by a bat—an appropriate onomatopoeia still arose in everyone’s minds.

After blasting that Napatha into a cloud of debris, Frank’s charging momentum slowed slightly, revealing the full form of the mecha enveloped in the light flare.

The tall Bingren held a strangely shaped shield. Unlike the enhanced APB super-tech shield Huobiao used in drills, the shield in Frank’s hand was a biological weapon custom-made just for him.

This shield was a full size larger than Frank’s Bingren and extremely thick. Held in the Bingren’s hands, it looked less like a shield and more like a city wall.

It contained no technological components; it was purely solid. It wasn’t made of metal composite material but from the skeleton of a cosmic creature called Qiongqi.

Qiongqi, as a cosmic creature, had only one characteristic: its bone density was extremely high. Apart from lacking radioactivity, its bone density and mass were comparable to the white dwarf material used as fuel for the Bingren Mecha’s Particle Furnace.

This characteristic also made its skeletal structure very difficult to reshape. The two open rib sections looked like the gaping maw of a ferocious beast. The white breastbone connecting the ribs was originally pitted and uneven, but later, the Ordnance Officer in charge of Frank filled it with other high-density materials, making it exceptionally sturdy.

When Huobiao, also an MT, first saw this thing, he felt envious. Unfortunately, the MT abilities he exchanged for weren’t suitable for this shield, so it was given to Frank, who had extremely high strength attributes.

Being hit head-on by this thing, not to mention the physically weak Napatha, even the heavily armored Black Crab they encountered in previous drills would be smashed to pulp. Even Qin Lun’s black panther mecha wouldn’t dare collide with Frank now. Combined with the impact force of the Full-Bio-Mechanism, anything that touched this would shatter without exception.

Holding this menacing-looking weapon, Frank’s Bingren was now smeared with dark green insect fluid, looking like a demon from hell. There was no trace left of the hunchbacked servant’s originally kind, simple, and honest image.