My Weekly Refreshing Mentor Spirit-Chapter 377 - 311: Old Friends, I’m Back
Originally engaged in a mad firefight, both sides suddenly fell into a strange silence.
They separated, and the green indicator light on the screen turned blood-red in an instant, flashing a terrifying and captivating red glow.
At this moment, whether it was the Empire’s mechas or the Rebel Army’s mechas, explosions echoed in their hearts.
"Damn, there are bugs! Ha! Hah!!!!"
"Damn it, there are bugs, hiss, ha!!!"
In this regard, both sides simultaneously entered a state of shock and PTSD.
Each of them was a veteran who survived the war against the Insect Race, and each model of mecha had already been sacrificed multiple times in the fearless battles against the Insect Race, sharing the same model, the same origin of machine souls, and same kindred bodies.
On Colonization Star 3, the corpses of mechas and the swarms have been able to cover the entire surface of the planet, and because of the mechas’ scorched earth combat strategy, the surface remains like a thin layer of glass to this day.
Therefore, even now, the ecological environment of Colonization Star 3 has not recovered, and it might take hundreds of years to gradually return to normal before any relocation can happen after the mechas thoroughly sweep the area again.
To these mechas, born to eradicate the bugs, they’ve long ingrained this stress response and PTSD regarding the swarms into their code, consciousness, and the millennium war fought together on Colonization Star 3.
So when 5332 announced the presence of swarms, all the mechas went into shock, immediately abandoning their flamboyant weapons like the thermite blade and electromagnetic axe, swiftly shifting to equip flamethrowers capable of spewing temperatures of nearly ten thousand degrees for the scorched earth operation.
Yet soon they realized something was off, for 5332 was an unfamiliar model of a truck, and it’s been missing for nearly a year, its whereabouts unknown, amidst numerous posts set up in the Empire’s territory following the swarm war.
No bugs were found at any post!
"5332, where did you learn of the swarm?" yelled an Empire mecha first.
Though they held an absolute stance of annihilation toward the swarm, they needed evidence.
Without wasting words, 5332, equipped with a projector and computer, displayed the battle on Giant Beast Star before them, right in the fields.
...
A minute later...
"Ha!!!"
"Ha!!!"
All the mechas began emitting scorching gases, almost reflexively, due to overheating.
Even hundreds of years after the fearless war ended, these veterans would execute scorched earth tactics on encountering even a local arthropod the size of a cockroach.
Eagerly blasting apart every spot a cockroach skittered across with explosive bullet guns.
Yet upon suddenly seeing this overwhelming swarm, the swarm soldiers, even the Insect Race Queen.
The impact was as shocking as a failed art student discovering a loaf of bread priced at 50,000 Marks.
"9119, let’s set aside our grudges and disputes for now. I discovered a swarm invasion on another civilization’s planet. I want to help them..." 5332 firmly declared.
"Just like we once helped ourselves."
With those words, the battlefield fell silent, and the thermite blades and electromagnetic axes were tossed aside, ineffective against the swarm.
They needed to return to the arsenal to arm themselves with the old scorched earth flamethrowers and explosive bullet guns capable of leveling mountains.
The light armor wouldn’t suffice either, heavy armor was needed! Equip the 100,000-ton-class scorched earth heavy bodies!
"What do you intend to do, 5332?" the Empire mecha’s squad leader immediately asked this brother who returned from the Otherworld.
They were clueless about the Otherworld’s situation, even the sight of bugs triggered deep-rooted codes, yet they still didn’t know the circumstances, the state of war, or whether the civilization would fear the magical tech-crafted machine spirits...
In any case, all eyes turned toward this brother.
"9119, the Rebel Army and Empire will temporarily cease hostilities. I want to take a group of brothers willing to fight bugs with me and leave. We need to help other brothers, a truce for a year. A year later, we resume our war, how about it?" 5332 laid out his conditions.
and all the Rebel Army’s mechas fell silent.
The Empire side, however, stood proud, ready to march once more into battle against the swarm.
For some reason, they felt themselves shivering, despite the lack of such a function in their bodies, but merely thinking about fighting the swarm again evoked those complex emotions.
Was it excitement? Or fear? Or anger?
They didn’t know, being machines meant for nothing other than killing bugs.
All they were meant to do was incinerate every swarm they saw to scorched earth, this was their born mission and meaning.
Not engaging in prolonged internal battles in the Empire, using laughable thermite blades and electromagnetic axes in melee skirmishes.
In that moment, they seemed to find the meaning of life.
"Count me in! I want to go!" a mecha immediately chimed in.
"And me!"
"And me!"
"I’m in too."
"I can no longer tolerate the feeling of bugs meandering in front of me yet being unable to burn them away!"
"When I see bugs, I feel like there are cockroaches crawling on me."
