48 Chapter 48

The giant octopus beast was still rampaging around the huge lake. Thanks to Xiao Huiqing's lead, the team managed to keep the beast at bay without continuing forward. Although the beast was a water beast, it wasn't impossible for it to walk on land. On the contrary, it would be pretty strange if this seemingly powerful beast couldn't.

Rain has started pouring down for a long while. It gave advantage to the beast, but not much so to the military. But even if the environment wasn't advantageous to them, they were already trained to adapt and handle every worst-case scenarios. So far, none of the mecha was hit.

They were split into two teams by Xiao Huiqing. One for offense and one for defense and support. They formed in a circle surrounding the beast, blocking its escape route with an inner and outer circle. The formation was tight and every time someone moved away to dodge an attack, they would quickly go back to their initial position.

This was the result of the heavy and extreme training regimen in Yi Xieyan's corps.

"Team one reporting, we successfully took out one tentacle." A soldier reported.

Just as he finished speaking, the beast roared angrily from losing one of its tentacles. Its mouth wasn't visible, and it was hard to determine from where it produced its sound.

"Nice work, assist the other teams. We have approximately 10 minutes before a big attack comes." Xiao Huiqing replied before continuing his attack.

For a beast as massive as this, it would be futile to attack in a scattered manner. The tentacles' range of attack was also wide so they couldn't position themselves recklessly. If they chose to attack its vital, it could easily protect it or block their attack. Not to mention, aside from lightning, as they guessed earlier, it could also control the water around them.

Based on the circumstances, Xiao Huiqing split them into 8 sub-teams with each team responsible to attack one tentacle. He wanted to neutralize its physical attack first. Furthermore, it was also to split the beast's attention to confuse it so it couldn't focus on attacking one particular point.

Their operator in the ship would calculate when the lightning attack would come. Fortunately, the beast couldn't use its lightning attack immediately. The tentacles and water cannons were already annoying enough.

2 other teams reported their success. Hearing it, the rest of the teams reported their progress, and the finished teams went to help them.

Everything was going smoothly when their operator notified them of an incoming heavy attack.

"Is it the lightning?"

"No, it's water and wind elemental energy activity." The operator answered.

Xiao Huiqing stopped his offense and looked around him. The rain was heavier than a few minutes ago, and the scenery outside was almost blurred by the water curtain. But when he studied the rain closely, he noticed, it seemed like it wasn't dropping vertically down. The wind suddenly howled strongly around them, and he immediately realized what attack it was going to be.

"Incoming water hurricanes!" he notified everybody.

The soldiers responded quickly and dispersed from their position. From where they were, 4 giant water hurricanes formed in a short period of time. They whirled around at a terrifying speed and uprooted what was left of the forest around the lake. Although their mecha could withstand such force, not to mention in addition to the light shield, they would still be thrown or hurled by the hurricane because they were in midair.

"The lightning attack is coming. Counting down in 5…" the operator alarmed them.

"All personnel set your light shield in active mode before the lightning strikes." Xiao Huiqing ordered while activating his own mecha's light shield.

The military's light shield was of course different than the exam participants'. It was several times thicker with enforced layers. The shape also coated the mecha's body rather than a sphere, so they could still attack conveniently. It couldn't be easily broken and most importantly, it isolated electricity.

Usually, it was set in auto mode where the system would control the shield's activation according to the danger heading towards them. But active mode would constantly put the shield on until it was returned back to auto or deactivate it manually.

All the soldiers complied and one by one, their light shield activated.

Not a moment later, bolts of lightning struck the hurricanes from the sky. The water hurricanes instantly crackled with crawling lightning, increasing the hurricanes' danger level.

"F*ck, a combination attack!" one of the soldiers cursed.

"This is definitely an intelligent level 4 beast." Another one chimed in.

"Is everything under control down there?"

Long San's face appeared on Xiao Huiqing's screen.

"The hurricanes are a bit troublesome, but we can still handle it." Xiao Huiqing responded.

"Understood. Be careful. Don't be reckless."

"Don't worry."

The call ended and Xiao Huiqing studied the data from the mecha in his screen while communicating with the operator. The hurricanes were fully under the beast's control. It moved around targeting the soldiers around it making them unable to get closer to the beast. While it kept its enemy away, it started moving forward.

"We can't take our time now that it's like this. We have to attack its vital. I'll link my mecha's visual to you."

"Receiving your visual. Starting the scan and analyze."

An alert appeared on his screen of an incoming hurricane. He quickly reacted and maneuvered his mecha away from the approaching hurricane from his left. The lightning in it seemed like snakes eager to catch and swallow him up.

Suddenly, something hit him from behind and when he tried to get away, it was too late. The tentacles wrapped around him and locked him in place.

Xiao Huiqing didn't panic and ordered his sub-team, "I'm caught. Try to cut it off while I keep it occupied."

His team dived down and swiftly executed his order. They didn't bother using guns and swooped in with their mecha's long, sharp laser blades for a quick result.

Just then, the operator contacted him back that he was ready.

"For all team aside for my team and team one until team three, attack its vital. The operator is going to guide you through the hurricanes and to its vital exact location. We're going to be the distraction."

Xiao Huiqing felt the tentacle was about to move and activated the mecha's booster facing the opposite direction. He put his mecha in auto-pilot and took off his safety belt.

He opened his mecha's hatch and the roaring winds immediately filled in his eardrums. He climbed out bearing the strong wind and torrential rain. His hair became damp in a short while as they danced behind him.

Through his communicator, he ordered his team to back down, "Handle another tentacle. I'll handle this one."

"Lieutenant-general?!" his team members saw him up above in disbelief.

"Go!"

"Y-Yes, sir!"

Xiao Huiqing took out two cylindrical metals from his space storage. He put his thumbs on a black plate on each of its grip and blades extended from them.

His mecha was keeping the tentacle stretched out and in place. He jumped down after making sure his position was on the smooth part of the tentacle. Before the wind could blow him away, he stabbed his blades into the tentacle right away.

There was no reaction from the beast. The blade was probably too small for it to feel anything.

Xiao Huiqing let go of one of the handles and flipped up his body before switching his grip on his blades. His position was now upside down with his face facing down. The tentacle's angle wasn't fully vertical, so his body could still hold his position.

He tensed his body and leg muscles before thrusting forward down. With the help of gravity and his weight, the blades smoothly traveled down, cutting the tentacle on its side. The beast finally felt the pain and roared. It let go of the mecha in its hand and tried to fling Xiao Huiqing from it.

He stopped and positioned his legs to hug the tentacle. While he was being swung here and there, he could see the situation on the other side. The main offense team was reaching the beast's vital, and the beast was also preoccupied with the 4 teams and him. The hurricanes became unstable because of it being overwhelmed.

They're going to succeed.

---

In the underground path, Mo Fan and Zemin finally defeated the Irregular. It wasn't just that one, one more crawler appeared when they were in the midst of dealing with it so they took more time than they thought they would.

They were about to go to Xiao Huiqing when they got another alert from their mecha.

"What now?!" Mo Fan was starting to get irritated.

The map popped out on their screen with a yellow triangle blinking on it. It was located somewhere in the underground path they were in.