Chapter 245

Chapter 245

A mech registered as friendly wouldn’t trigger any alarms—not even near an engineering outpost, let alone the command center.

—From the experience of a certain mech pilot who had tried it.

Energy cannon—Loading Blade.

KABOOM!!!

A fireball erupted skyward!

Every United soldier who saw this was stunned, especially those in Command.

The hell just happened? When did Shoujun launch an attack on their engineering outpost? No alarms had sounded, no anomalies detected, and not a single surveillance feed showed anything flying through the air or any attack beams striking the base.

What the hell was going on?

United Command was completely lost.

Bai Xingshu’s orders were just to link up with another squad. He wasn’t a key player, so Command hadn’t bothered monitoring his feed.

Not until now.

Operators scrambled to review footage around the engineering outpost and immediately noticed Bai Xingshu’s mech loitering in the area.

Now the video feed finally switched over.

“Command to B15,” the controller radioed urgently. “Copy what went down at Engineer Outpost 9?”

Hearing the question, the raters in the monitoring room were dying to facepalm.

They’d seen everything. With no other attacks in the area, the only violent weapon on scene could only be the damn culprit!

But from the commander’s perspective, that angle never occurred to them.

On an actual battlefield, they might’ve considered whether the mech on-site was compromised—was it a spy? A traitor?

But this was the University League. Everyone’s performance affected their career. All teams were all-in, clearly divided into friend or foe.

So…

Bai Xingshu swallowed his snarky comeback.

He’d expected United Command to jump on him in a rage. He was ready to fire back and push their buttons, making them lose more control.

But…

They hadn’t figured it out yet.

He pretended to ponder for a moment, feigning confusion before replying:

“Negative visual on that…”

Command didn’t question his response. After all, they hadn’t seen anything either.

With that answer, they let it drop. Prioritizing squad safety, Command issued a stand-down order.

“B15, maintain position. B11 will extract you.”

The destruction of the nearby sapper position proved the area was no longer safe. Yi Lan was isolated and exposed—pressing forward risked walking into an enemy trap. At this point, sending in a full squad to extract him was the smartest and safest move.

Bai Xingshu could hear the concern for his classmate hidden beneath that calm command.

Glancing toward the concealed location where the real Yi Lan was hiding, Bai Xingshu’s eyes crinkled with amusement.

He loved this world—it was so full of human warmth!!

“Received.” But Bai Xingshu, who had no intention of acting human, responded.

Following orders, he really did stop in place for now, plotting how to devour the B11 squad when they arrived.

Once that was done, even United’s command, dense as they were, would finally catch on.

Then it would be time to bolt.

Bai Xingshu had planned well, but the United Command Center hadn’t stopped investigating the cause behind the sudden destruction of the sapper position. Without figuring it out, they’d be on edge.

They scrambled every available officer, calling back command staff off rotation to review all surveillance footage from around the time of the explosion.

Bai Xingshu’s attack had used surveillance blind spots—most camera angles had missed his mech’s movements.

But that didn’t mean the attack was flawless or untraceable.

With every camera angle and thirty seconds of pre-explosion footage, everyone pored over them obsessively. Within just three minutes, they traced the origin of the attack.

Cross-referencing earlier footage, they clearly knew what had been in that blind spot.

It was Yi Lan’s mech from B15 Squad.

When the commanders present saw this result, they froze.

Why would Yi Lan do something like this?

The question flashed through everyone's minds, but their training reminded them: curiosity could wait.

Immediately, the command center made its decision.

Neutralize the traitor—Yi Lan.

This time, they didn’t risk alerting Bai Xingshu by contacting him first. Instead, they patched the order straight through to the approaching B11 Squad.

B11 received three urgent commands about Yi Lan in quick succession, throwing them for a loop.

The first two seemed normal enough—but the last one? Elimination?

As fellow students from Combat Class B, the command center might not know Yi Lan well, but they did. The squad leader voiced immediate doubt: “Yi Lan wouldn’t betray us. Are you sure about this?”

The command center cut straight to the point: “Evidence is conclusive. Proceed as ordered.”

Orders were orders. Despite their confusion, B11 unquestionably chose to comply.

The command center had said Yi Lan didn’t know he’d been exposed yet, so they could fake the meetup and take him out with minimal losses.

When B11 spotted Bai Xingshu’s mech, they didn’t draw weapons. Holding formation like nothing was wrong, they closed in normally.

And this behavior was painfully obvious to Bai Xingshu...

He could clearly sense that the weapons of the five opposing mechs were all ready to switch and fire at any moment.

Some of the weapon barrels were even already aimed at his position, just not powered up yet.

He'd been made.

Bai Xingshu immediately realized this.

Without dwelling on how he had been exposed, he decisively raised his head and removed the United Military cap from his head, fully exposing his beautiful face to the surveillance cameras.

The United command center staff froze.

Every single person knew that face.

The lovely, poised, and surprisingly gentle Omega face they had seen just hours ago at the final tournament venue—belonging to the handsome officer from Shoujun.

Now, that beautiful face wore a brilliantly triumphant smile, like he owned the world.

The United command center fell into complete silence.

The overwhelming scene left them momentarily unable to react.

"Bye-bye~!" Utterly unaware of the shock he had caused, Bai Xingshu let out a wild laugh and flung the military cap in his hand, nailing the surveillance camera dead-on.

Instantly, the camera shattered, and the communication was severed.