Chapter 12 Aftermath

Having left the arena, Snow sped off on his motorcycle, scattering some "Spider Beacons" he'd prepared before the match along the way.

These beacons resembled mechanical spiders and could indeed crawl like them. They were extremely small and fast, making them difficult to spot even on bare concrete. In grassy or sandy areas... well, only special "vision" abilities could likely detect them.

This... was also one of the advantages of a Machinery specialization player; they could prepare small, permanent gadgets that could be brought into the match and used right away.

More on the function of these beacons later; for now, let's talk about Snow...

He drove for over ten kilometers, which, time-wise, was only about ten minutes.

Soon, he saw the battlefield "boundary."

The "Boundary Barrier" was transparent, but sunlight refracted off it, creating colorful halos that made the invisible wall visible from afar.

Before long, Snow reached the barrier, stopped his motorcycle, and reached out to touch the transparent force field, whereupon... he received the relevant system notification.

Having confirmed that he couldn't increase the distance any further, Snow wasted no time. He immediately dismounted and activated [Construction Summoning Art - Cybertronian Warrior].

As the name suggested, this skill could summon a Transformer.

At this point, you might think Optimus Prime or Megatron were about to make an appearance?

Anyone who thought that... was clearly too young.

Warriors of Optimus Prime or Shockwave's caliber required at least A-rank skills with specific conditions or significant costs to summon; and figures like Megatron or Sixshot definitely needed S-rank skills. As for Unicron or Primus... just think about it, don't get hung up on it.

Right now, Snow's skill was just a B-rank, dual-specialization skill. The so-called "Cybertronian Warrior" was actually just a randomly summoned Cybertronian warrior.

However, because he had the passive skill [Artisan's Spirit] equipped, the skill's effect was somewhat enhanced. Therefore, on rare occasions, he could randomly summon warriors of the level of Whip or Fireflight.

Squeak, clank, clatter—

Accompanied by a bizarre transforming sound, an ordinary Cybertronian warrior appeared before Snow. It seemed his luck was average today; he didn't summon a named character.

But that was fine; he hadn't planned to have this character fight anyway.

The advantage of these semi-mechanical, semi-summoned creations was that, unlike purely mechanical creations (like the motorcycle), they didn't require the caster to spend time and energy "building" them. They could be summoned immediately by using the consumables mentioned in the skill description.

As soon as the Cybertronian stood firm, Snow immediately issued a "dig a pit" command, while Snow himself... began to rummage through his bag for various materials.

The two worked in sync, and their efficiency was high. Before long, the tall Cybertronian warrior had dug a deep, vertical pit resembling a "well," and Snow had used the skills [Synthesis Art - General-Purpose Parts] and [Synthesis Art - Special Parts] to create some basic materials.

Next, Snow activated the skill [Armor Transformation].

[Name: Armor Transformation]

[Skill Card Attribute: Active Skill, Permanently Mastered]

[Skill Category: Machinery]

[Effect: Allows you to perform a cool armor transformation lasting twenty seconds (two-hour cooldown)]

[Cost: 200 Stamina, a pile of metal or Machinery specialization creations weighing no less than your own weight]

[Learning Conditions: General Specialization A, Machinery Specialization C]

[Note: After transformation, your strength, speed, and stamina will increase or decrease depending on the materials you use for the transformation; the duration of the transformation is theoretically infinite, unless you actively remove the armor or release any other transformation-type skill again.

Please note: This is not an animated show where a repetitive sequence can last a whole season. Your transformation process can be interrupted by any external force except yourself.]

After the skill was activated, BGM started playing from somewhere…

Then, Snow floated in place, waiting for the "armor components" that had changed shape in the white light to cover his body one by one. Each time a component "attached," a "ping" sound effect was emitted, and Snow's body involuntarily changed poses to accommodate the "transformation."

Snow's six teammates, who were watching in the spectator space (the rectangular spectator container focused on their team's members, and when a player moved away from the initial battle area, the container quickly teleported to be above them or in another suitable viewing position; at the same time, the enemy players' situation was displayed on a small split screen on one of the container's walls), were already numb to this.

After all, they had been playing with Snow for a month, and they were used to this embarrassing transformation.

However... the enemy team members were shocked.

The six brothers from the [Super Monster Team] watched Snow complete a transformation scene common in animated shows from the 1980s and 90s on the split screen in the spectator space. The sound effects and movements were awkward in every way, and the strangest thing was... after the transformation, Snow still had no intention of returning to the fight. Instead, he continued "construction" in this transformed state.

The transformation was just preparation. He got this armor for himself so he could work "underground." After completing it, he activated [Construction Art - Dream Machine] and began building a missile silo.

Like [Construction Art - King of the Mountain Road], this skill's special effects weren't necessarily overpowered, nor were they particularly weak, but its freedom and potential were great... in short, the user's intelligence determined the upper limit of its effectiveness.

Snow was clearly an imaginative user. His tactics were not only unexpected but also effective.

In his transformed state, he spent only five or six minutes setting up the basic infrastructure needed for launching, and then he activated the even stronger [Construction Art - Sub-God Machine] and began building missiles.

At the same time, Red King was still sitting in the arena...

Brother Red was also puzzled. He had been waiting for twenty minutes, and there was no movement around him. There was absolutely no sign that his opponent would come back to fight.

Logically, after so long, the opponent should have been judged as "passively playing" and started to receive various penalties, but... after all, this was a member of Hell's Frontline, and Red King felt uneasy.

After thinking about it, he decided... to leave.

Red King wasn't stupid. He wouldn't chase straight in the direction the opponent had fled. He already knew the opponent was a Machinery specialization player, and he didn't want to suddenly die from stepping on some explosive device halfway there.

Therefore, he chose a roundabout route, wanting to go around in a curve toward that direction.

In all fairness, his response wasn't problematic. At least from his perspective, it was well-considered.

Thus, Red King cautiously began a roundabout route toward the direction Snow had left, using a slow jogging pace that barely consumed any stamina; and this speed... undoubtedly couldn't escape Snow's "Spider Beacons."

After another ten minutes or so, Red King had run about two kilometers, but because he was going "roundabout" instead of running in a straight line toward Snow, the distance between the two had only shrunk by a little over one kilometer.

Just as Brother Red was considering speeding up a bit, he suddenly saw something...

In the bright sunlight of the sky, on the monotonous wasteland, a black dot suddenly appeared in mid-air and grew larger and larger... it was hard not to notice it.

"Hmm?" When Red King first saw the thing, he felt something was wrong, so he quickly stopped, raised the weapon in his hand defensively, and prepared to block. "Could it be a long-range hidden weapon?"

As the black dot gradually approached, his expression also slowly changed.

"Wait... wait..." After a few seconds, Brother Red couldn't help but mutter to himself, "Just how big is this thing?"

Before long, the black dot became a "black pillar," and its appearance details became clear.

"No way..." After seeing what was flying toward him, Red King hunched his back, stretched his neck forward slightly, and wore an expression as if he had just swallowed a mouthful of Coptis chinensis. He muttered, "This isn't scientific... it must be an illusion!"

This self-deceiving thought didn't last long, because the missile Snow launched landed a few seconds later.

Missiles weren't bows and arrows; they didn't need (and it was difficult) to hit the target directly, they only needed to ensure that the target was within their kill range when they exploded; and Red King... was undoubtedly within the missile's damage radius at this moment.

His real-time coordinates, movement route, and movement speed... had always been under Snow's surveillance. Combining this data with the missile's flight speed, it was easy to select a suitable drop range; and when the missile approached the area where Red King was located, the Spider Beacons could provide ground guidance, directing the missile as close to the target as possible to maximize its power.

In other words... even if Red King immediately realized that it was a missile upon seeing the black dot in the sky and tried to escape, at his speed... he probably still couldn't escape this attack.

Boom—

The explosion occurred.

[Construction Art - Sub-God Machine] was originally an A-rank skill that required a large amount of ordinary materials and a small amount of special materials to activate. Considering the time required for construction, the user's additional abilities, and other variable factors, the upper limit of this skill was terrifying.

Even if the real Red King (the first monster in the Ultraman series to be set as "especially strong") were standing here today, he would basically be taken out in one shot, let alone a player with a hidden score of just over seventy...

Thus, the vanguard battle of the first round of the S3 for Hell's Frontline ended with "a member of the enemy team not even making a single move, and being directly evaporated along with the surrounding hundreds of meters of soil by a single missile."