The Undying Mecha Emperor

I dare say that during those first few weeks of my enrolment, the National Mecha Pilot Academy wasn't truly ready to have me as one of their students.

And none of the "incidents" that happened because of me shone a light more clearly to that fact than the very first "incident" of all that took place during that Grand Melee.

True, Bruce and Jeanette knew about my power and Devour. The Ancestor probably knew much more about me than I did myself at that moment.

But none of them were truly prepared to deal with the true extent of what a reckless, angry ten year old boy with a metaphorical huge sledgehammer in his hands could do in a massive arena full of ten year olds in weak practice mechas.

They thought that I would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of mechas that I had to deal with. They thought that just because I wasn't allowed to "openly flaunt" my Devour, that I would be forced to take the hits sent my way and they thought that it would be enough to give me so much trouble that I would lose the Grand Melee. And even if, against all odds, I managed to win, I would do so with a lot of trouble.

Boy, they had never thought anything more wrongly.

That Jaden Rushblood had completely pissed me off. He had taken something of mine from me, and by all that was good and holy, I will smite him to the ground, even if I had to do so by climbing over a thousand corpses!

Four thousand, to be specific. And not corpses, but mechas.

Well technically, I didn't kill all four thousand myself. They did kill quite a number among themselves. But I doubt that the historians would bother to clarify that point. In fact, didn't one sensational-chaser even publish "ONE KID DESTROYS FIVE THOUSAND MECHAS!" as its headline?

Anyway, after failing my self-given mission to save the girl, I decided that I was a very dangerous lightning rod.

"Tes is better off fighting away from me." I thought. "I'll stay away from her so that she'll have a higher chance of making it through the Grand Melee."

And so, I found myself all alone, surrounded by hostile mechas.

What else could I do? I went absolutely nuts.

"DAMN YOU ALL! BUNCH OF WEAKLINGS! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU ARE ALL COWARDS! COWARDS! IF YOU WON'T EVEN COME AND ATTACK ME, HOW THE FREAKING HELL DO YOU THINK YOU CAN FACE YOUR MOTHERS AFTERWARDS? COWARDS! LOSERS! JUST GO HOME AND DRINK YOUR MOMMA'S MILK!" I remember shouting with all of my considerable strength.

Yes, that was the shout that revolutionized cursing in the Chinese Federation. "Go home and drink your momma's milk" became the ultimate form of provocation.

And it was also the reason why the whole cohort was so against me.

After my shout which reverberated throughout the arena, almost all of the mechas turned towards me. And almost as one, they surged in my direction!

Which was, of course, what I wanted.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

​ I swung my spear wildly and started to smash all the mechas that were beginning to surround me.

At first, I was making good progress. Two, five, then ten mechas quickly fell to my spear.

But as my massacre continued, I realized that the spear was becoming more and more of a hindrance!

I could only kill one or two mechas at once, and it required a relatively long time for me to reset and swing the spear around to kill another one.

"I guess the spear is not that useful in such situations!!" I thought grimly to myself as I flung my spear away, and waded into the entire crowd of mechas.

When completely surrounded and hemmed in by so many enemies, the best weapons are your own elbows, fists, knees, feet and head!

BAM! I punched a heavy mecha and immediately downed it.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

In the short moment when I punched the heavy mecha, four vicious weapon swings and countless rifle beams had already landed on me!

However, they didn't even cause a dent on my armor.

I had completely donned on my shameless cloak and had completely strengthened my mecha armor using a generous dose of white mecha particles.

I knew that as long as I didn't absorb other mechas, strengthening my own mecha could be easily explained by several high tech armor-enhancing items. Even if they couldn't perfectly pinpoint which technology I used, their energies would be spent researching on what sort of armor-enhancing item my backing had given me.

Their focus wouldn't be on Devour at all.

And so I didn't hold back on abusing my power.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

I swung my body and launched three rapid jabs at the nearest mechas within my attack range and downed them without much suspense!

I weaved my body and got into a good offensive rhythm.

Left hand: Jab! Jab! Jab!

Right hand: Hook!

Left foot: Kick! Kick! Kick! Step forward.

Right hand: Jab! Jab! Jab!

Left hand: Hook!

Right foot: Kick! Kick! Kick! Step forward.

Each hit downed a mecha, and there was no lack of mechas that delivered themselves to me.

As I mentioned before, the generation of Chinese kids I was in was completely filled with fearless dragons and phoenixes. But at that moment, they were still mostly fearless.

They were not yet dragons and phoenixes, and so their excess bravery inadvertently pushed them over the line and made them ridiculously dumb.

They literally hand delivered themselves to me and to my reputation!

Over a hundred kids fell during the first minute of my rampage.

Within ten minutes, a thousand.

The roar of excitement from the crowd that was so overwhelming mere minutes ago had turned completely silent.

It was not a Grand Melee at all.

It was turning out to be a Grand Massacre.

However at that point in time, after ten minutes and only a thousand downed mechas, it wasn't quite a massacre yet.

Not yet.

And as the crowd of mechas suddenly melted away from around me to give me and one particular mecha room for a one on one fight, that point hit me really hard.

The glow around the medium mecha was yellow. The pilot was within the top three pilots in the Grand Melee!

"You're pretty good." A familiar girly voice called out from the mecha.