Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 520 White Tiger
“That’s easy.” Sun Hang chuckled. “I have a way to guarantee we won’t be the unlucky ones.”

"You have a way?" Yang Qiaoxi looked at him, her eyes full of doubt.

“Kill people.” Sun Hang smirked. “Isn’t it said that the Death Sandstorm only hunts down the group with the highest total vitality? If we become the target, then kill the hunters in our team. If one isn’t enough, kill two. If two aren’t enough, kill three… If all else fails, we can kill them all.”

"Are you kidding me?" Yang Qiaoxi glanced nervously at the group of hunters not far away. "If anyone else hears what you said, we'll be attacked by everyone as soon as we leave the Jade Gate area."

“Of course it was a joke.” Sun Hang shrugged. “There was no need to kill anyone.”

“Just split up,” Zhulong continued. “Splitting one team into two, then those two into four… We can use this tactic, and other convoys can use it too. But during the time the Death Sandstorm is shifting targets, it will be enough for other convoys to create a safe distance.”

“As long as the target acquisition mechanism of the Death Sandstorm remains unchanged, we can keep the three convoys splitting and reuniting to pull the Death Sandstorm away without any losses.” Sun Hang raised his hand and rubbed his nose. “But the biggest problem with this approach is the level of coordination between the three convoys and the variables on the way to Nanhua Town. Once the scattered convoys cannot regroup, the three convoys will become more and more scattered, and the probability of getting lost and losing personnel will greatly increase.”

"Understanding... Heh." Yang Qiaoxi let out a cold laugh. "These people are all scheming. If you expect them to have any understanding, you might as well wait for the sun to rise in the west."

"That depends on the skill of the person leading the team," Zhulong said in a deep voice.

With only ten minutes left before departure, several guards of Spring Breeze suddenly drove the hunters and mercenaries standing in an open space to the side. Those who were driven away were about to curse, but the sudden tremor from underground silenced them. Several people who were closer to the open space quickly retreated, creating a large distance between themselves and the open space.

The once seamless ground suddenly cracked, and as the surface layer of soil crumbled and peeled away, a heavy metal gate opened completely, revealing a secret exit ten meters square.

"Could it be some kind of secret weapon?" Sun Hang looked at the suddenly appearing hole with great interest.

Amidst the ear-piercing screeching of pulleys, a colossal object shrouded in a dark gray tarpaulin rose from underground via an elevator.

With a loud "bang," dozens of metal pins popped out from the edge of the elevator platform after it was flush with the ground, firmly wedging the platform to the ground.

"Heavy mechs?" Sun Hang frowned slightly. "They seem to carry the aura of strange creatures... Are they monster-related devices?"

Amidst the whispers of the crowd, the waterproof sheet covering the mech was torn off, revealing a heavy mech with a gray and white color scheme and numerous black decorative stripes.

The crowd was suddenly in an uproar.

Even in a semi-crouching position, this mech already reaches a height of six meters. Its entire body is covered in blocky reactive armor, and its outer arms are equipped with a pair of exaggeratedly shaped beast claw-like blades. Two heavy railguns are mounted in grooves above the shoulder armor. As for the mech's main monitor, it is a huge tiger head—but unlike an ordinary tiger, this tiger head has three eyes embedded on each side. These are three lenses forming an all-around monitoring system. The slightly rotating lenses emit a faint red glow in the early morning before the sun is fully illuminating the scene, just like a six-eyed behemoth lurking in the morning mist.

"White Tiger? Why would a White Tiger appear here?" Zhulong's tone carried a hint of surprise. "The city defense forces of Dragon City shouldn't have been involved in this operation!"

"What White Tiger?" Sun Hang asked immediately.

“The guardian beasts of Dragon City are four top-notch war machines that incorporate the technology of strange creature memes,” Yang Qiaoxi said. “Or rather, four strange artifacts designed to kill, shaped like mechs. Their names correspond to the four divine beasts in the ancient myths and legends of Xiazhou Continent—Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise.”

“This machine is the White Tiger, one of the Four Divine Beasts… but it should be in the top-secret hangar in Dragon City right now. Why is it in Jade Gate?” Zhulong frowned. “Could it be that Dragon City is planning to participate in this under a private guise…? No, without the permission of the Heavenly Pivot Tower and the Federal Council, they couldn’t possibly activate the White Tiger…”

At this point, Zhulong looked directly at Sun Hang, clearly indicating that Sun Hang should ask the main AI, Baihu, why it was here.

"Could it be a replica? Or the mass-produced White Tiger II?" Sun Hang didn't ask the mainframe directly. Instead, he looked the heavy mech up and down, which was already imposing just by sitting there. He felt that there was a very familiar aura inside the mech.

"Who could be the pilot of this machine? It's so hard to guess..." Sun Hang muttered to himself.

“The Four Divine Beasts are all unique beings. Due to the limitations of the Mysterious Meme technology, there is no possibility of them being mass-produced.” Zhulong shook his head. “As for replicas… I saw the Four Divine Beasts at the military parade in Dragon City twelve years ago. I’m sure this machine is the White Tiger that I saw at the military parade back then.”

"Do you know who the White Tiger's pilot is?" Yang Qiaoxi couldn't help but ask.

“I don’t know.” Zhulong shook his head. “The pilots of the Four Divine Beasts, like Sun Hang’s detailed file, are top secrets of the Federation. However, some people say that the pilots of the Four Divine Beasts have long since merged with their mechs, becoming the mechs’ living CPUs, which is what is known as…”

Yang Qiaoxi: "Wet item?"

“Yes, wet parts.” Zhulong subconsciously glanced at Sun Hang again. He didn’t understand why Sun Hang was so calm at this moment. He could get the answer by simply asking the mainframe, but he seemed to be enjoying the process of solving a riddle… Or did he already know who was piloting the White Tiger?
Just then, Sun Hang and his team received a request to access the channel. The applicant's identification code was unfamiliar, but Zhu Long immediately recognized that the code belonged to the Dragon City Defense Army and that the access level was quite high.

"The pilot of the White Tiger?" Zhulong looked at Sun Hang with a questioning gaze, then put him into the communication channel.

"Everyone, are you a little surprised by the way I made my entrance?" Nagano Soya's voice rang out on the communication channel.

"Spring Breeze... Boss?" Yang Qiaoxi's eyes widened in surprise.

"Mr. Nagano?" Zhulong's expression was also somewhat surprised. "You're Baihu's... pilot?"

"Yes..." With a long sigh from Nagano Soya, the White Tiger stood up completely, its internal engines emitting low growls like tiger roars. "Although I haven't been in contact with my old buddy for many years... the feeling it gives me is still so familiar." "Why is the White Tiger at Yumen... Shouldn't the Four Divine Beasts' mission be to guard Dragon City?" Yang Qiaoxi asked the question that everyone most wanted answered.

“Because I’ve retired from the Dragon City garrison, but this old buddy doesn’t recognize anyone but me,” Nagano Soya said. “There was no other way, so I had to bring it to Yumen… In a sense, I’m still doing the same job I did back then, only the place I’m guarding has been moved more than a hundred kilometers forward.”

"So your old injury is because you had to pilot the White Tiger..."

“Mr. Zhulong, you’ve got the cause and effect backwards. I was chosen to be the pilot of the White Tiger because I had my limbs amputated and became a cripple,” Nagano Soya explained. “To pilot this machine, one must connect their own nervous system to the machine’s neural network. Even a normal person would have to have their limbs amputated and replaced with special connection plugs, and then have thousands of nerve signal guide plates implanted in their spine… I think I was already a cripple at that time, and the crystalline structure of my body caused by my old injuries made me a good candidate for biochemical modification surgery, so I decided to sign up to try it out. But I never expected that my synchronization rate would be the best among hundreds of test subjects… Haha, don’t you think this is just fate playing tricks on me?”

"The pilot of the White Tiger is actually the qualified user of this strange device... Apart from the Dragon City Defense Army, your file should belong to the No. 1 Research Institute under the Tian Shu Tower, right?" Zhu Long asked.

"You mean them? They send someone over every year to help me with my medical check-up," Nagano Soya said with a smile. "I'm still alive thanks to their help."

"But...shouldn't this kind of job be a lifetime service?" Yang Qiaoxi asked, puzzled. "How could they allow you...to 'retire'?"

"Haha, about this question... to use a popular term these days, piloting a mecha like the Four Divine Beasts requires the pilot to 'risk their life'... The pilots of the Four Divine Beasts are not only the living CPUs of the mecha, but also one of the most worn-out 'consumables' on the mecha," Nagano Soya said. "Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise have all had several pilots, but White Tiger is different. It has a rather strange temperament. It doesn't recognize anyone except me, and after I became a formal pilot, its synchronization rate with other testers dropped to zero... So, you can also understand it as White Tiger being my exclusive mecha until I die."

“Your current ‘balance’... shouldn’t be much left, right?” Sun Hang suddenly said.

“Yes, it’s precisely because my ‘remaining balance’ is so low that Tian Shu Tower and Dragon City allowed me to do some things that interest me in my final days,” Nagano Soya said with a smile. “Mr. Sun Hang, may I ask you for a favor?”

"You want to ask me to bring White Tiger back to Dragon City if you die in the no-man's land, right?"

“Talking to smart people is really effortless.” Nagano Soya laughed heartily, not at all like someone about to die.

"I'm just wondering... what are you after?" Yang Qiaoxi asked with a strange expression. "Just to catch a glimpse of what that treasure was?"

“This is my father’s last wish, and also my mother’s last wish,” Nagano Soya said in a low voice. “It is also my wish... My mother and I have always wanted to know what it is that made my father keep us in his heart for so many years after he had completely forgotten us, until the last moment of his life.”

Yang Qiaoxi pursed her lips, hesitating to speak.

“I’ve worked for the Tian Shu Tower for most of my life, and then served in Dragon City for fourteen years in the latter half. During all those years, I never had time to do what I wanted to do. But now, I can finally… phew.” Nagano Soya let out a long sigh. “It’s six o’clock. Time to go.”

The white tiger took a step forward, its massive mechanical claw landing on the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.

Sun Hang stood atop a building that had been cut in half, watching the back of a mecha disappear through the ruins. On the distant horizon, a huge red sun slowly rose, painting the sky on that side with a fiery crimson gold hue.

"set off!"

The hunters and mercenaries became restless, and many of them let out unintelligible howls—many recognized the White Tiger. Although they didn't know why one of the four divine beasts of Dragon City would appear at Jade Gate, the White Tiger's involvement in the operation undoubtedly gave everyone present a boost of confidence.

Even if one has never witnessed the White Tiger in battle, stories related to the Four Divine Beasts have been circulating in the Hexi Corridor region.

In some more exaggerated versions, the Four Divine Beasts are even capable of withstanding death sandstorms head-on.

The crowd boarded the vehicles one after another, and one vehicle after another followed closely behind the White Tiger mech, heading northwest along the main road of Yumen that had been cleared long ago.

"Let's go too."

Sun Hang jumped off the ruined building and landed lightly on the roof of the SUV—he suddenly understood why Old Wang always liked to land on the roof of the car. Putting everything else aside, the move was undeniably cool.

Zhulong slid down the tilted building wall, leaving a thin layer of ice behind where he passed, which shimmered with a faint golden light under the morning sun.

Compared to Sun Hang and Zhulong, Yang Qiaoxi's landing was much more normal—she landed on the ground using a grappling hook, dusted herself off, grabbed the helmet hanging on the motorcycle handlebars, and put it on her head.

"Which team are we with?" Yang Qiaoxi asked over the comms channel as she started her motorcycle.

“The one with the most people,” Sun Hang replied.

"you sure?"

"determine."

(End of this chapter)