From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 514: You are weak in slashing and poor in thrusting
For ordinary humans who do not need to sit in the HCP cockpit and endure the physical and mental pressure, the HCP duel in outer space - especially the 1V1 duel - looks very beautiful and elegant.

Pushing the throttle to the 'combat thrust' position, the long blue tail ejected by the plasma propulsion array makes the HCP speeding through the cold universe look like a comet.

And two such "comets", each drawing a huge arc trajectory against the background of the universe, intersecting, staggering, and then intersecting again, plus the beams of directed energy weapons flashing between them from time to time, are extremely spectacular for onlookers.

But for the pilots sitting in the HCP cockpit, fighting for their lives with the enemy, such a battle obviously has nothing to do with beauty and elegance.

Both sides are under high pressure that ordinary people cannot bear, and they try their best to deal with the opponent, hoping to deceive the opponent through their own tactical actions, and then obtain a better attack position through their own maneuvers - such as the back half of the enemy's HCP, and finally seize the opponent's flaws to defeat the enemy with one blow.

Unfortunately, pilots from both sides thought so, so for them, the duel between HCPs was a process of constantly trying to bite the other side's rear hemisphere.

However, compared with traditional air combat between tactical aircraft such as aerospace fighters in the atmosphere, HCP combat in a zero-gravity environment is obviously more complicated in terms of maneuverability.

Often you finally get your hands on the target's six points, and the long-range weapon in your hand also locks on the target as your pupils guide, but just when you are ready to fire, the opponent's body turns 180 degrees without changing its course, and the shield in front of you once again makes you miss the opportunity to attack.
As for the passionate knife fights that the public imagines? In most cases, it doesn't happen.

Although the plasma heavy sword also has a directional magnetic field to confine high-temperature plasma, the problem is the structural strength of this heavy sword. Even with the existence of a directional magnetic field, the result of the two heavy swords fighting each other will be that both swords will break after being swung several times.

Therefore, in hand-to-hand combat between HCPs, it is difficult to see a stalemate or a passionate knife fight, but the outcome will be decided at an unexpected speed.

The battle between Murat and Johnny Riding went basically in the same way.

However, in the latter's view, he was simply being teased by the opponent. His attacks could never find the correct direction, while the opponent's electromagnetic rifle's bursts of fire were like a thorn in the flesh, biting him hard.

The ghostly maneuverability of the white-board 'Holy Shield' also allowed Johnny Ridden to realize for the first time how powerful this world-class pilot is.

He could certainly perform this maneuver himself, but only if he was driving a fully equipped machine like he was doing now, with the help of the additional 'omnidirectional propulsion' component.

Although Johnny Riding knew that Major Murat had undergone human enhancement surgery, at this moment he felt that even if he was as good as him, he would not be able to drive a blank machine to this level.

He also realized that the saying "It is never the equipment but the people that determine the victory of a battle" was not just talk.

The 'genius pilot' quickly glanced at the multi-function display, and then found that his current situation was the same as that of Captain Stark whom he had fought before. Most of the weapons and equipment were judged to be in a 'damaged' state by the engagement system.

The electromagnetic rifle in the hands of the "Holy Shield" driven by Murat may not be able to cause effective damage to the body under the protection of the deflection field and heavy shield.

But in the process of taking advantage of every opportunity, the attack effectiveness of Johnny Ridden's machine is enough to achieve this by destroying the external weapons and equipment.

This also showed Johnny Riding intuitively how much experience this seemingly "careless" HCP commander had in long-range shooting.

After all, compared to the "speed of light" weapons such as charged particle cannons and high-energy lasers, the piercing rod fired by the HCP special electromagnetic rifle has a very slow attack speed. Johnny Riding never thought that he would fall into such a passive situation in the HCP battle, and such a one-sided attack without being able to fight back and even if he fought back, he would not be able to hit the opponent, which made him feel extremely aggrieved.

Not to mention, the pilot of the HCP on the opposite side, which was as slippery as a fish, kept saying garbage in the public channel such as "You can't even fly it, what's the point of talking about performance~"

This directly led to Johnny Riding quickly losing his mind.

"This is so fucking frustrating. Rather than being toyed with by the other party like this, I might as well rush forward and die a quick death!"

The fully-equipped 'Holy Shield' he was driving suddenly abandoned all its external devices, then pulled out the pre-powered and preheated plasma heavy sword from the weapons container that was about to float away, and rushed directly towards Murat.

"Roar, roar, roar~ Are you rushing towards me? Instead of running away, you choose to approach me. Do you want to decide the outcome in hand-to-hand combat?"

Murat's somewhat nasty voice once again sounded in the public channel, and the Atlas veterans watching the battle felt that Murat's verbal harassment was slowly reminiscent of Amber.
Johnny Riding, who was already somewhat demented, raised the heavy sword to his chest with red eyes after hearing this, with the tip of the sword pointing forward as if he was about to stab.

When the two "comets" intersected again, Amber, who had been planning to talk to Murat and the others about some matters, immediately rushed to the heavy cruiser after hearing that there was something exciting to watch.

The successive high-level visitors made the captain of the heavy cruiser, Thomas, feel overwhelmed by the sudden increase in the security pressure on the ship.

When Amber boarded the ship, his eyes went dark and he began to arrange security work in a hurry. After all, if something went wrong with this heavy cruiser, the "high-end combat power" of the Atlas Group would be wiped out.

Although with Amber's current strength, if there is any emergency, it is more likely that he will protect the security personnel instead.
When he walked into the hangar where a large number of onlookers gathered, he happened to hear Murat's "sharp comments" during the battle on the public channel.

"Your slashing is weak, your thrusts are not accurate, your body posture is loose, your reactions are slow, and none of your movements are decent. How dare you say you are 'as good as any so-called ace'? Dream on!!!"

Following Murat's last sentence, which was already filled with anger, a dazzling blue light suddenly burst out from behind the white board 'Holy Shield' that he controlled.

Under the mapping of the control operating system, the machine completed a simple, clean and neat horizontal slash in an extremely neat and natural posture at the moment when the two sides crossed at a dangerous distance and high speed.

The combat system also immediately determined that the sword directly cut off Johnny Ridden before he had time to make any defensive moves.

Soon, the two HCPs whose control was taken over by the engagement system returned to the hangar of the heavy cruiser through the return channel, and a team of small autonomous robots also left the ship and flew towards the area where the two had just fought.

They are responsible for picking up the weapons and equipment that Johnny Ridden had just abandoned. After all, although this machine was temporarily assigned to Johnny Ridden, it still belongs to Atlas' corporate assets.

Therefore, this 'genius pilot' had better pray that these recovery robots can find the things back, otherwise he will have to pay 'equipment loss compensation' to the Renaissance Alliance before he even finishes his training.

(End of this chapter)