Chapter 187 A Change of Plans

The hatch opened, and the intense suction of the vacuum suddenly whipped up a gale, trying to drag him out of the spaceship.

Han Xiao used his machinery force to stimulate the compression orbs. Nanoparticles flowed out like black sand, covering his whole body. They rapidly transformed into the enhanced version of the Mountain Ape mechanical suit.

He stretched his limbs and jumped out of the spaceship. The thrusters spat out blue tail flames, turning him into a meteor heading straight for the rear.

The expeditionary force was caught in a pincer attack, simultaneously engaging with the reinforcements from the war realm and the enemy's ambush force, splitting into two battle lines.

The deputy took over the commander's duties, ordering the rear guard to resist the ambush force while the vanguard continued to attack the stargate. Destroying the stargate was still the key to winning the battle.

Han Xiao's goal was to deal with the high-level combat power of the ambush force. After so many failed assassinations, he had proven how troublesome he was. If the enemy didn't have a reliable tactic, they wouldn't try to assassinate him. He was also curious to see what new assassination package the enemy had prepared for him, and he was even a little expectant.

The interstellar battlefield was crisscrossed with light cannons. Han Xiao weaved and dodged at high speed, avoiding the ion cannon rays with ease. Before long, he arrived at the edge of the ambush force. A stream of light flew out from the enemy formation, none other than Hadaway, who was clamoring for a challenge.

Hadaway was an old opponent who didn't like trash talk. He didn't want to give Han Xiao time to release his mechanical legion. As soon as he saw Han Xiao's figure, he didn't stand on ceremony and accelerated head-on, like a miniature meteorite.

Unafraid of a face-to-face confrontation, Han Xiao transformed his hands into gun barrels and fired waves of mysterious blue psionic cannons that trailed light as they attacked Hadaway.

Hadaway didn't dodge, allowing the psionic cannons to explode on his body in balls of blue light, unharmed.

Having fought many times, Han Xiao knew Hadaway's abilities very well and didn't expect to injure him. He only wanted to slow down Hadaway's charge. Taking advantage of the brief time, he remotely activated the barracks boxes. The space around him rippled as the barracks boxes warped in one after another. The box doors banged open, and countless compression orbs rapidly expanded into a mechanical torrent, filling this small area almost instantly.

The dense mechanical legion numbered three million!

In the past three years, the Black Star Army had earned a fortune. With ample funds, Han Xiao repeatedly strengthened and expanded his mechanical legion. Now, even the most ordinary cannon fodder mechanical soldier used advanced alloy materials. The armor value and defense were greatly improved compared to three years ago, and the increase in base numbers made the effects of various enhancement abilities even more considerable.

Through repeated war missions, Han Xiao had accumulated a large amount of contribution points from the Purple Crystal Civilization and exchanged them for more cutting-edge knowledge. One of them was the armed branch's [Controllable Annihilation Weapon].

Annihilation weapons were a higher level of conventional weapons than energy weapons. Because they were a technological innovation, their power far exceeded ordinary energy weapons, and they required the cutting-edge knowledge [Exotic Energy] as a prerequisite. Basically, only psionic energy or antimatter energy could be used to manufacture annihilation weapons.

Han Xiao possessed both of these cutting-edge knowledge and had replaced the weapons of most of his mechanical soldiers with annihilation weapons. Coupled with specialties such as [Legendary Combat Technique], his attack power had significantly increased.

In the past three years, Han Xiao had not yet completed his class advancement mission. If he had changed to another class, his strength would not have improved much. However, the advantage of the Mechanic class was that as long as you had money to burn, you could steadily improve your combat power even if your own strength had reached a bottleneck!

Han Xiao had never stopped building his mechanical legion in these three years. He discovered that in addition to having money, he had another huge advantage: he had far more time than the players.

And the Mechanic class happened to be a class that needed time to build various equipment.

As long as he had money and the willingness to grind, improving his strength was as simple as drinking water. Among the five major superpowers, only the Mage class could compare with the Mechanic class in this regard.

With Han Xiao's current strength, basically any ordinary Calamity Grade would die if they came. Repeated assassinations that resulted in more loss than gain had led the various forces in the Shattered Star Ring to reach this consensus. Those organizations that were secretly plotting assassinations would no longer easily send high-level combatants to their deaths.

Therefore, the only enemy Han Xiao was facing at this time was Hadaway. This guy was a Super-A Grade seed and happened to be outside the category of "ordinary Calamity Grade," and his abilities happened to be the type that gave Han Xiao a headache.

Hadaway was an esper whose ability was "Physical Hardening." This was a common esper ability, but he was exceptionally talented and had developed this ability to a perverted degree. His defense was extremely amazing, and he had a body full of template specialties. He was a Boss-level character.

First of all, Hadaway had the template specialty "Low-Intensity Attack Immunity." He was a meat shield, and as long as the attack didn't exceed a certain standard value, the attack would deal zero damage. This standard value depended on his own defense, and his esper ability was a "Hardening" ability that greatly increased his defense, so focused fire tactics were almost ineffective against him.

The second thing that made Han Xiao's balls ache was that Hadaway also had a "True Damage Immunity" type of template specialty. Super-A Grade seeds were all gifted individuals, the heroes among Bosses. It was not surprising that a super meat shield like Hadaway had this specialty, which prevented [Legendary Combat Technique] from working on him.

Poor focused fire effect, ineffective true damage. Han Xiao's two trump cards couldn't threaten Hadaway. All that was left was to slowly grind down his health.

Every time he fought Hadaway, it was a process of two big meat balls rubbing against each other. Neither could do anything to the other.

Han Xiao had defeated Hadaway many times, but he had never killed him. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but he simply couldn't kill this guy before he ran away. On the contrary, Hadaway seemed to enjoy being beaten and never tired of challenging him.

A year ago, Hadaway suddenly ran over to spar with him. Han Xiao had no grudges against him and felt that this must be the result of enemy forces pushing him from behind. They understood how to fight poison with poison:

——You're a meat shield, right? I'll find an even meatier one to disgust you!

What goes around comes around. In the past, the war realm wanted to vomit every time they saw him. Now, Han Xiao wanted to vomit every time he saw Hadaway.

With no other hostile Calamity Grades taking action, he only had one opponent. With no other constraints, a portion of the mechanical legion fought Hadaway according to the set combat mode. These little darlings were enough to hold him back. Han Xiao was only responsible for providing machinery force enhancement—he didn't want to engage in melee combat with Hadaway at all. It was a waste of effort.

At the same time, Han Xiao turned his head and controlled another part of the mechanical legion to attack the surrounding enemy fleet. Dense, deep blue annihilation rays pierced the shields of the spaceships, leaving strange patches of energy erosion around the holes in the shields. One warship after another lost its protection. The outer armor was disintegrated and torn apart, and countless metal fragments floated.

Raging fire snakes spewed out of the holes in the spaceships, rushing into the vacuum with the airflow, turning into writhing fire dragons. They lasted for a moment before exhausting the oxygen and extinguishing.

With the energy furnaces out of balance, the warships expanded from the inside. Dazzling flames tore through the hulls, causing violent explosions. One spaceship after another turned into fireworks in the universe, equally fleeting.

With the mechanical legion's current combat power, participating in interstellar warfare was no problem, and they gradually helped the friendly fleet stabilize the situation.

After fighting for a long time, the enemy's forces were already showing signs of decline. The war realm's reinforcements could only linger on, and it was only a matter of time before the stargate was destroyed.

Hadaway also seemed to have the intention to retreat. He began to shake off the entanglement of the mechanical legion and began to retreat. However, he didn't escape in the direction of the ambush force. Instead, he rushed directly into the formation of Han Xiao's fleet, wanting to pass through and take advantage of the fact that Han Xiao's fleet hadn't completely blown up the war realm's defenses to try to escape from the stargate.

"He's running away already?" In his mechanical helmet, Han Xiao raised his eyebrows in surprise.

He thought that this assassination would have some new tricks, but he didn't expect it to be such a bluff, all bark and no bite. Even the previous assassinations were much bigger than this one.

"It's definitely not that simple. I wonder what he's up to." Han Xiao narrowed his eyes, thought for a moment, and turned to chase Hadaway.

His own fleet was in Hadaway's path, and Han Xiao wouldn't sit idly by and watch him rush into his fleet. If Hadaway wanted to do something, no one else could stop him.

The two chased each other, and Han Xiao gradually closed the distance between them. Behind him followed millions of mechanical soldiers, like millions of meteors, a mighty force.

They arrived at the front line, at the edge of the battlefield where the fleet was fighting the war realm's reinforcements. Han Xiao caught up with Hadaway and stopped, not intending to continue chasing after seeing that Hadaway had already passed through his fleet.

At this time, Hadaway stopped running and suddenly turned around, charging back at Han Xiao, wanting to break through his defense with a fierce barrage of attacks.

"Something's not right." Han Xiao became vigilant. Just as he was about to dodge, the radar of his mechanical suit suddenly issued an alarm, displaying thirty high-energy reaction sources!

He saw thirty A-Grade powerhouses suddenly appear in the war realm's reinforcement fleet and rush toward Han Xiao. Han Xiao even saw Frozis and the other eight vanguards. They had followed the reinforcement fleet through the stargate and had not attacked the Black Star Army's Calamity Grades, biding their time, waiting for this opportunity!

The attacks of thirty Calamity Grades came from all directions, bringing overwhelming pressure. Han Xiao hurriedly controlled his mechanical legion to resist, but Hadaway found an opening. This iron-headed brute smashed through the mechanical soldiers in his path and collided with Han Xiao head-on.

Han Xiao's waist tightened, and he realized that Hadaway had wrapped his arms tightly around his body, unable to break free. Hadaway hugged him and rushed toward the stargate.

The thirty Calamity Grades, ignoring their own safety, desperately slammed their attacks on Hadaway, frantically accelerating him.

The surrounding war realm fleet abandoned all offensive actions, desperately resisting the attacks of Han Xiao's fleet and protecting the stargate.

Seeing this, Han Xiao's brain raced, and he immediately understood the other party's entire plan.

"This is to have Hadaway pretend to ambush me, forcing me to fight, then pretend to retreat, luring me near the stargate, while the other dozens of Calamity Grades quietly returned to the Sorcerous Star Cluster from the three border star systems, waiting in the reinforcement force. The war realm knew that I would attack the last logistics transit station, and this was a trap they deliberately exposed. The goal was to have these Calamity Grades follow the reinforcement force through the stargate to this battlefield. Their goal wasn't to kill me, but to take action at this time, helping Hadaway restrain me and wanting to send me into the stargate!"

The other end of the stargate was the Sorcerous Star Cluster, the main camp of the Klent Empire and the war realm!

"Ha, I get it. You want to abduct me to your territory so that I'll be isolated and helpless. Then you can slowly torture me. Even if you can't kill me, you can easily capture me alive."

Han Xiao felt a pain in his balls. These little rascals really had imagination. Were they trying to elope with him?!

Hadaway's physique could easily withstand the successive bombardments. His flight speed was getting faster and faster. The warships of the war realm along the way gave way, and the blue vortex in the center of the stargate rapidly expanded in Han Xiao's vision, getting closer and closer.

Seeing that the tactic was about to succeed, Hadaway couldn't help but send a voice message to Han Xiao, who was close at hand.

"When we get to the Sorcerous Star Cluster, let's have a good fight. By the way, do you want me to have them bring your mechanical legion over? That way, we can fight to our heart's content," Hadaway said sincerely.

Han Xiao's mouth twitched. "You're pretty sincere. You like fighting with me so much. If you have the guts, let me go. As long as you don't run away, I'll fight you as much as you want."

"No, fighting is fighting. I don't want to die."

Hadaway shook his head, increased the strength in his arms, and hugged Han Xiao's waist tightly, stubbornly taking Han Xiao on a double flight.

"You think too highly of me..."

Han Xiao was speechless.

Honestly, he didn't have any hatred for Hadaway. Hadaway had no interest in the secret war and just wanted to fight him. As the saying goes, no discord, no concord. The two had fought each other so many times, and they were both Super-A Grade seeds. They even had a bit of mutual appreciation. Sometimes, they could even chat while fighting...

However, this little bit of friendship didn't affect Han Xiao's determination to get rid of this turd.

Hu Die Lan