Chapter 62: Code
The team Cillin and Knight were about to face was a little special. They came from the ten trade Sectors, and the kind of people who could stand out from the ten trade Sectors were definitely no weaker than those of military academies. Another peculiarity was that there was a non-average human in this team.
ID Eight Claws, Octopus human. Just like his ID suggested, he had four more arms when compared to the average human. Moreover, Octopus humans were normally stronger and considered to have both strength and speed. His performance in the previous matches were very eye-catching. However, Cillin’s attention was biased towards the other person of the team.
ID Coy Behind The Smile might have displayed his skills plenty of times in the previous battles, but his performance was a lot more low key than Eight Claws’. After watching the recordings of the previous matches, Cillin felt that this man was definitely not weaker than the Octopus human. He was an extremely low key person just like him.
Cillin thought that he would be able to verify this feeling when he stepped onto the Sector Championship platform battle ring again.
Coy Behind The Smile and Eight Claws entered the ring before Cillin and Knight. Eight Claws was warming up, and his six arms were very eye-catching. Moreover, Cillin also noticed that his six arms were incredibly flexible and had a very wide reach. It would actually be somewhat problematic to find an angle of attack from the back.
On the other hand, Coy Behind The Smile stood very quietly at his spot, and when he saw Cillin and Knight entering into the ring, he lifted his hand and made a greeting gesture. However, when Cillin saw Coy Behind The Smile’s gesture, he narrowed his eyes a little.
When Coy Behind The Smile lifted his arms, he had made some miniscule movements with his fingers that most people would not notice. Setting aside whether they could even capture the instantaneous movements, who would pay attention to the miniscule movements in a person’s fingers while he was greeting someone before the match had even begun? However, Cillin’s habit forbad him from overlooking every tiny bit of changes in his opponent, and especially their fingers. One must never overlook a Hunter’s fingers, for they could easily take a life without being discovered, even with just a finger.
Coy Behind The Smile’s finger movements was a Vanguard Sixth Squad code.
Therefore, Cillin replied with a ‘Hello’ hand gesture. Just the same, his fingers moved swiftly while he was raising his hand.
Coy Behind The Smile was taken by surprise for a second. Not bad, he found out this quickly. Originally, he did not think that Cillin could understand the meaning behind his hand gesture. No wonder the commander had placed such high expectations on him.
“You deal with Eight Claws. I’ll deal with the other one.” Cillin said towards Knight.
Knight lifted his eyebrows once. This wasn’t part of their prior arrangement, but since Cillin had given his word, Knight did not voice any objections whatsoever. He wondered what Lung’s reaction would be after the match.
Once both sides were ready, the system began counting down from ten to match start.
During this ten seconds, Coy Behind The Smile swung his arms about, and Shadow X too shuffled his hands and feet in activity. While looking like they were performing another warm up prior to the match, the duo had in fact exchanged codes with each other for more than ten times already. Their finger movements were so quick that they could form over hundreds of codes in an instant.
Vision, calculation and reaction. These were all qualities that must be fulfilled, or else a fracture would happen during the communication. The demand to capture the hundreds of codes the other party made during that one instant, convert them into information, process the information and come up with a reply greatly tested a person’s abilities.
However, when the match had officially begun, both sides stopped the exchange of codes. After all, once the match officially began, the monitoring on the Sector Championship platform would become a lot stricter and the match itself would be officially recorded. The warm ups prior to the match would not be recorded, which was why Coy Behind The Smile had chosen that moment to exchange codes with Cillin.
Knight immediately rushed forwards to battle against Eight Claws. There weren’t many Octopus human in the army at all, but since he ran into one here then naturally he could not let go of this excellent opportunity. This was a new challenge to him.
Knight was very excited by the battle, and Eight Claws was obviously more or less the same. They fought harder and harder, faster and faster.
Eight Claws truly was a capable fighter. When electrical sparks had appeared on both of Knight’s fists, Eight Claws still looked like he had some reserve strength to spare.
In comparison, while Shadow X and Coy Behind The Smile’s battle was very quick and intense on its own, they neither looked as gorgeous as the electricity flashing from Knight’s Thunderstorm Fist, nor were they as special as Eight Claw throwing six arms into the battle at once.
Coy Behind The Smile and Shadow X’s fight could not be called boring, and every one of their movements could be used in a class as teaching examples. And yet Boer and the others couldn’t help but feel that the whole thing was incredibly strange and awkward. It wasn’t what they imagined of Shadow X’s combat style.
Eight Claws was eventually worn out by Knight’s ferocious attacks, and after he was punched backwards by Knight, Eight Claws and Coy Behind The Smile chose to surrender the match.
For Knight, the battle obviously left much to be desired, and when he heard the system declaring the end of the match he was incredibly dissatisfied with the outcome. He could feel that that Eight Claws hadn’t reached his limit yet, and this shouldn’t be all of his abilities. He could sense Eight Claw’s muscle strength behind their clashes, and although Knight was confident that he could beat Eight Claws had the fight continued, that Eight Claws had surrendered just like that left him somewhat unwilling and reluctant. To put it shortly, he didn’t have enough yet.
Although this match appeared splendid and eye catching, they couldn’t help but feel like something was missing.
“Something’s wrong.” Comos frowned in front of the microcomputer.
Feng Haicao nodded, “It felt a little showy but lacking in substance. Although the battle was incredibly intense and impactful, it isn’t what we’re looking for.”
“Our expectations were too high, I guess.”
Regardless of the reactions to the match, Coy Behind The Smile and Eight Claws had completed their mission. They were the members of the Vanguard Sixth B Squadron, and because their age fitted the requirements, they had been sent by Shawton to universities to study. Normally speaking, a Hunter would not participate in such contests, but this time Shawton had ordered the duo the bring Cillin a very important news.
“Impending assassination. Red alert!”
“Impending assassination. Red alert!”
This was the news Coy Behind The Smile wanted to transmit to Cillin. They were neither interested nor caring about getting a place in the contest or scoring a victory.
After the match had ended, Cillin immediately received Lung’s complaints on his communicator. He had earned a lot less money this time due to the last-minute change of their battle plan. However, Lung did not question Cillin for a reason and continued to work on the analysis of the next match.
Knight felt like his hands were still itchy after the fight, and he went to the mech training ground again and challenged a couple of military academy people to a fight. Many of these people were his former classmates, and after they were finished watching and fighting their own matches, they gathered once more to pick their preferred model and armor. This was something the group had done quite often while they were still at high school. Now that they had all entered into higher institutes of learning, they had a lot less free time than before. The Sector Championship was a rare event, so naturally they needed to take this opportunity to enjoy themselves as much as possible. However, Knight did not reveal Shadow X’s true identity, and because of this, he was even ganged up upon by his friends on the mech training ground.
“Knight, I’m heading out for a walk and I’ll pass by the supermarket along the way. My cabinet’s out of stock. You wanna get something?” Cillin pushed open the door and asked.
“Just get me one of whatever you get… and more dried meat!” Knight yelled without even looking back at Cillin. He was in the middle of a heated fight against his military academy friends on the mech training ground. He absolutely must take revenge for their encirclement last time.
Cillin walked out of the accommodation. He was feeling a little stuffy today and came out to walk and get some fresh air. That was why he hadn’t ordered a takeout. It was nighttime, and there weren’t many people about. However, the supermarket was open for 24 hours a day.
But he hadn’t managed a few steps before his communicator rang. There were no images except a single, encrypted message: It was a line of text and a map.
The map marked a spot at the forest between Seven Lights commercial trade zone and the entertainment zone’s Sleepless City.
“We have Theresa. You have an hour.”