Valerie's breathing was exceptionally clear within the sealed cockpit as she stared intently at three rapidly approaching red dots on the tactical interface.
The auxiliary AI's voice remained steady, but the information it provided was far from optimistic: "Target locked. Enemy units one and three are equipped with heavy rotary machine guns. Unit two's left arm is an armor-piercing rocket launcher. Estimated contact time: fifteen seconds. Recommendation: Prioritize evasion of unit two's initial volley."
Almost as soon as the AI finished speaking, a flash of fire flickered in the distance—a rocket trailing white smoke shrieked from the shoulder of unit two's oni power armor!
Valerie instinctively wanted to maneuver the power armor into a tactical roll, but the machine's response was a half-beat slow; that sticky feeling resurfaced.
"Attitude adjustment assist activated. Shield energy focused on frontal impact point." The AI's prompt was almost simultaneous with the action.
The massive body of the red power armor did not make an exaggerated evasive maneuver. Instead, its legs bent slightly, and multiple attitude control thrusters on its soles and the sides of its legs suddenly erupted with short, powerful blue flames, propelling the machine into a seemingly clumsy, yet incredibly precise, sideways slide, moving half a body length away.
At the same time, the previously uniformly distributed light blue shield glow in front instantly became dense and substantive in the direction of the incoming rocket!
"Boom!"
The rocket exploded almost grazing the edge of the shield. The shockwave caused the massive machine to sway, ripples intensely spread across the shield's surface, and the energy reading instantly dropped a small notch, but the structure remained intact.
"Shield effectiveness decreased by 7.3%. Threat not neutralized." The AI reported calmly.
The other two oni power armors had already seized the opportunity to flank from the left and right. Their heavy rotary machine guns began to roar wildly, bullets pouring onto the red power armor's shield like a metal storm, creating an unbroken series of energy ripples.
"Shield overload risk increasing. Recommendation: Engage in close combat to dismantle the enemy's numerical advantage." The AI proposed a new tactic.
Valerie gritted her teeth and pushed the control stick forward: "Approved! Lock onto the right target!"
The red power armor once again displayed "efficient" maneuverability, calculated precisely by the AI, belying its cumbersome appearance.
It didn't try to compete with the opponent in a shooting match. Instead, enduring the hail of bullets from the enemy on its left, its leg thrusters flared again, and its massive body suddenly surged forward, heading straight for the oni power armor on the right that was firing frantically.
The pilot of that oni power armor clearly hadn't expected the opponent to charge so directly, and at such rapidly increasing speed!
He instinctively stopped firing, attempting to retreat and raise his mechanical arm to block. Simultaneously, his slightly startled shout came through the channel: "It's coming straight for me! Cover me!"
But it was too late.
As the distance between the two rapidly closed to less than ten meters, the AI's prompt sounded again: "Right arm power gauntlet activated. Target: Enemy unit's chest armor core area."
Valerie felt a unique, deep, and powerful vibrational feedback from the right arm control stick, as if the mechanical prosthetic she held wasn't a control stick, but some living force eager to be unleashed.
She saw on the display that, on the surface of her power armor's right fist, a barely perceptible, space-distorting force field instantly generated.
Without hesitation, she pushed the control stick forward with all her might, following the guidance trajectory on the auxiliary interface!
The red power armor's right fist, with an unstoppable momentum, directly smashed into the oni power armor's hastily raised blocking arm and the chest cavity behind it!
There was no deafening impact, no sparks flying from tearing metal.
Instead, there was a more eerie, teeth-grinding crunch, as if a thousand pieces of glass and metal were simultaneously pulverized by some invisible force.
The disintegrating force field on the power gauntlet, upon contact, was like a hot knife cutting through butter, or perhaps more like an eraser wiping away a pencil mark.
The oni power armor's blocking arm, forged from high-strength alloy, instantly disintegrated from the point of contact, turning into a rapidly spreading cloud of metallic dust shimmering with faint electrical sparks!
Immediately following were its chest armor, internal skeleton, intricate wiring, and even the cockpit itself... all matter within the power gauntlet's coverage was utterly pulverized and annihilated from a molecular level in an instant!
The upper torso of that oni power armor looked as if a giant, invisible beast had taken a huge bite out of it, leaving a massive void with irregularly melted and pulverized edges.
Through the void, one could even see the barren ground behind.
The wreckage, having lost its core structure and power, swayed once, then heavily crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The battlefield, which moments ago had been filled with gunfire, fell into a momentary silence.
In the channel, only the last half-gasp of the destroyed oni power armor pilot, abruptly cut off, and the crackling of electrical shorts remained.
Valerie herself was stunned. She watched as one enemy unit signal on her display instantly extinguished, and then, through the optical sensors, saw the shocking, massive void in the oni power armor's chest, and the metallic dust still floating around, not yet fully settled.
She instinctively moved her mechanical right hand, feeling the gradually subsiding vibration transmitted through the control stick.
The power of this punch far exceeded her imagination, even sending a chill down her spine.
"Target one, confirmed eliminated." The AI's voice broke the brief silence, as if it had merely completed a routine data log.
At the same time, at the Wraiths' position, Colonel Hansen suddenly lowered his binoculars, his face filled with shock and excitement.
"My God... did you see that?" He turned to his adjutant beside him, his voice slightly raised with excitement, "That punch... it directly vaporized more than half of the oni power armor's chest! Not pierced, but completely disintegrated!"
The adjutant, equally unable to hide his shock, nodded repeatedly: "There are absolutely no conventional damage marks... this destruction mechanism is unheard of. The weapon the Archmagos brought out this time has completely exceeded our cognitive scope."
Hansen stroked his chin, a glint in his single eye: "Immediately encrypt and transmit this combat record back to headquarters. If our fangs could also be equipped with this kind of weapon..." He didn't finish his sentence, but his gaze said it all.
At Lazarus' squad's defensive position, "Butcher" gazed at the dark red power armor in the distance through his faceplate, his fingers on the control stick unconsciously tightening. Unlike the shock of others, his weathered face showed an almost obsessive expression.
"A perfect close-combat solution..." He murmured in the squad's encrypted channel, his voice filled with an unsuppressed longing, "No armor penetration needed, ignores defenses, one-hit kill. This is the power a power armor should have."
He stared intently at the lingering energy ripples on the red machine's right arm, as if admiring a peerless work of art.
"If our squad could be equipped with this gear..." he mumbled to himself, then ordered in the channel, "All personnel, pay attention. Record all combat data. Especially the details of that power gauntlet's use. I want the most complete analysis report."
As a battle-hardened mercenary, he knew too well the value of such a weapon in close combat. This was not just a new piece of equipment, but a revolutionary weapon capable of changing the rules of the battlefield.