Chapter Sixty-Two: Dragoon Floating Cannons

Just as she burst through the gap, her speed in ninth gear had not yet built up, and the fiends ahead were already beginning to close in. Frowning slightly, Zhuang Xiaoyuan gritted her teeth, opened her status panel, and removed the gear restriction altogether. Instantly, her propulsion force surged.

Without the gear limit, control would be much more difficult, and it was easy to veer off course. But faced with the current situation, she had no choice but to accelerate as quickly as possible. Besides, her flying skills had been honed extensively during weapon manipulation simulations. There shouldn't be a problem... or so she hoped.

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than the sudden burst of speed sent her crashing straight into a lieutenant-class fiend. By the time she realized what had happened, the tremendous thrust had already propelled her, ramming the lieutenant-class fiend forward several hundred meters. She swung her arms, and before the fiend could respond to attack, she broke away. As she spun around, the jet flames from her propulsion left a scorched black mark on the fiend's body.

A thunderous tumult erupted; chaos broke out among the fiends. Unaccustomed to the unrestricted speed, Zhuang Xiaoyuan darted left and right through their ranks. Each time she collided with a fiend, she escaped before it could retaliate, thus avoiding injury. Yet, the repeated impacts left her body faintly aching. Still, the body of a mechanized girl was remarkably resilient—crashing into fiends at such velocity had not caused her any serious harm.

With every collision, she gradually adapted to her current speed. The learning ability of a mechanized girl was truly peerless. As she grew accustomed to the pace, the collisions lessened, but fiends were already closing in around the breach she had just opened. If they fully surrounded her, her movements would be restricted.

If her movement was hampered, she would be forced to take to the sky to escape the encirclement. But the sky might not be any safer—in fact, it could be even more perilous.

During her training at the military academy, her instructors had emphasized that, when facing a fiend beast tide, one should never fly too high thinking it would put them out of reach. Few who did had a good outcome, for high-flying targets became prey for artillery-class fiends.

If among a hundred soldier-class fiends, one lieutenant-class fiend was born, and among a hundred lieutenant-class fiends, one tank-class fiend emerged, then an artillery-class fiend only appeared from among a hundred tank-class fiends—a true upper echelon threat.

Unlike the tank-class fiends, famed for their head-shields and formidable defense, artillery-class fiends were extremely fragile—so much so that even an ordinary human pistol could potentially kill one with a well-placed shot. Yet this did nothing to diminish their fearsome reputation among humans.

Artillery-class fiends typically only appeared amid massive fiend beast tides, and they always remained deep in the rear of fiend forces, never venturing close enough to the front lines for humans to attack them. But from the rear, they could strike at humans without warning.

Slender and small, they resembled oversized ants, but with an enormous turret on their backs—something no ant would ever possess. Their attacks came from these turrets, firing green laser beams at remarkable range and speed. Once they locked onto a target, escape was nearly impossible.

The only way to counter them was to keep low and stay out of their line of sight. If they couldn't locate a target, they couldn't attack. This was the sole means of defense. Of course, advanced Divine Armored Warriors might withstand their assault, but expending divine power solely on defense was never a winning strategy.

When Zhuang Xiaoyuan first witnessed the scale of fiend attacks in this world, she suspected that such a large-scale invasion would likely see artillery-class fiends holding the line. The fact that the mecha girls of the Seventh Squad, despite their long attack range, didn’t climb to higher altitudes but instead laid down a web of fire within the fiends’ attack range, strongly suggested the presence of artillery-class fiends among the enemy.

“Dragoon System, I’m counting on you now.” Having gradually mastered the speed with no gear restriction, and with the fiends beginning to close in, Zhuang Xiaoyuan finally deployed her trump card—the weapon that gave her the confidence to charge into the fiend horde.

With a thought, she summoned the Dragoon System’s eight spindle-shaped floating cannons, which began to orbit her as she flew. Even at her unrestricted speed, the Dragoon System kept pace, a testament to the advanced technology crafted for mechanized girls.

At her mental command, the eight floating cannons left her side and began attacking the fiends converging around her. Under her control, crimson lasers shot out from the floating weapons.

A single shot bored a hole through a lieutenant-class fiend. As the fiend began to regenerate and its crimson core crystal emerged, another floating cannon fired with precision, striking the core. With a crack, the crystal shattered, and the lieutenant-class fiend crumbled to dust and vanished.

As she advanced rapidly, the Dragoon floating cannons fired one shot after another, and not a single fiend could halt her progress. Mechanized girls were truly formidable—far superior to ordinary humans. Surely every mecha girl possessed at least the combat strength of a Divine Armored Warrior in descent mode.

She compared the fighting power of humans and mechanized girls while surging through the fiend horde. Relying on the Dragoon System’s multi-directional, agile attacks, the soldier and lieutenant-class fiends fell one after another before her floating cannons.

A savage howl erupted. A tank-class fiend barreled out from the ranks, smashing several soldier-class fiends aside as it charged straight for Zhuang Xiaoyuan.

Her eyes narrowed at the sight. Her expression grew grave. Though she felt that her current state was slightly stronger than her transformed self, facing a tank-class fiend—a foe that once had forced her to resort to self-sacrificing techniques—she could not help but feel the pressure.

She had no time to worry about the lesser fiends around her. Under her mental command, all eight floating cannons targeted the tank-class fiend. Simultaneously, she accessed her personal armory and drew out a massive gatling gun.

In truth, against fiends, solid projectiles were not as effective as lasers. But this gatling was no ordinary firearm—that storm of whirling metal unleashed in a deluge would make even fiends wonder if they could withstand it.

Hoisting the heavy gatling with both hands, Zhuang Xiaoyuan slowed for a split second, then accelerated back to full speed as the weapon began to spin up and heat. A look of fierce resolve crossed her face—'Let me return the favor for your previous hospitality'—as she charged toward the tank-class fiend.