Why Do All the Villains Look at Me Like This? - Chapter 33

Wait… it connected just like that?!

Wasn’t it said that Yanxing was on the very edge of the Federation’s territory, where signal reception was practically nonexistent?!

The upperclassman and the younger students all froze in place.

Was the person in the duel arena this time just ridiculously lucky or what?! They just got access to Yanxing Battlefield’s info, like it was a free gift!

Instinctively, they all looked over at Li Hao.

Even after failing once, Li Hao still hadn’t given up fiddling with his mini device. He’d refreshed the page over and over during this time, but the message that kept popping up was still: [Unable to connect to the network. Please refresh and try again.]

“Uh…….”

The upperclassman and younger students exchanged glances, no one knew what to say.

Clearly, this stroke of luck wasn’t shared by everyone. Rather, it seemed to be… exclusively bestowed upon Meng Xuexiao.

Unaware of the heated stares from those outside the monitors, Meng Xuexiao was fully focused, carefully reading through the information provided by the mecha, not missing a single word.

 

Back in the day, the two sides locked in battle on Yanxing were the Federation and the Empire. The Federation was made up mainly of humans, while the Empire’s dominant population was beast kin.

These beast kin looked strikingly similar to the animals of pre-interstellar Earth, but they were capable of taking human form. Many people speculated whether these beast kin were, in fact, evolved descendants of those ancient Earth animals.

Before the interstellar era, human physical abilities were no match for animals, without tools, they were basically at the mercy of beasts.

After entering the interstellar era, human physiology did evolve somewhat, but there was still a huge gap between them and the beast kin. Even with mechas, humans weren’t necessarily a match for beast kin in combat.

Precisely because of this, the battle on Yanxing was exceptionally brutal, and in the end, it ended in a devastating defeat for the Federation.

 

In recent years, the Empire has continued to eye the Federation’s borders covetously, and the frontier regions have been plagued with constant warfare. This is also why the Federation military established its academy, requiring every student to remain in a state of readiness.

Meng Xuexiao looked around.

Since Duel Arena B073 had given him the Yanxing battlefield as a prompt, and that battle was closely tied to beast kin, did this mean that his opponent in the duel wasn’t just Li Hao, the one who initiated it, but also included beast kin?

Speaking of beast kin, the only one he had discovered so far was the grey rat up ahead. And in the grey rat’s species profile, it had said that these creatures had given the Empire a tremendous advantage during the Yanxing battle, inflicting heavy losses on the Federation.

But……

Meng Xuexiao thought of that rodent the size of a calf.

Even if this grey rat was much bigger than Earth’s rats, it still looked incredibly tiny in front of a several-meters-tall mecha.

Could a beast like this… really possess that much combat strength?

 

Meng Xuexiao had read novels before that also talked about the Empire and beast kin. Although beast kin generally had superior physical abilities compared to humans, each species had its own strengths and specialties.

For example, the Empire’s strongest combat force, the dragon-kin tyrant Zhuoyue, who stood at the pinnacle of Imperial power.

That was a pure powerhouse excelling in both offense and defense, its beast form alone spanned hundreds of meters, and even the heavy weapons mounted on mechas might not be able to damage its scales.

Then there were the mercenaries known as “Raven”, who hovered in the gray zone between the Empire and the Federation, whoever paid, they served.

The Raven was the most wanted criminal in the entire interstellar world, ranked number one on the bounty list, his whereabouts completely unpredictable, shrouded in mystery.

 

It was said that whatever the Raven wanted, he always got.

There weren’t many descriptions of the Raven in books, like a shadow that darts overhead and vanishes.

But Meng Xuexiao guessed he probably wasn’t a front-line combatant. His strength likely lay in infiltration and deception.

Then… this grey rat beast kin in front of him, what type was it…?

[Warning: Abnormal energy fluctuations approaching!]

 

As Meng Xuexiao was thinking, the console in front of him suddenly flared with red light, the warning signal magnified to its maximum.

Instinctively, he looked toward where the grey rat had appeared, but the grass that had been rustling a moment ago was now completely still, so silent it was eerie, like even death couldn’t be this quiet.

So it wasn’t the grey rat, then what was it?

Meng Xuexiao immediately became vigilant, scanning his surroundings, but nothing around him seemed out of the ordinary…

In the end, he could only place his hopes in the console. After all, machine detection was far more precise than the human eye.

 

The moment the abnormal energy fluctuation was detected, the mecha began automatically locking onto the source of danger.

By all logic, a warning marker should have appeared on the control panel.

But now…

 

The markers did appear, but there were far too many of them.

One after another, red arrows displaying coordinates popped up on the screen, densely packed, nearly covering the entire interface, and they were still increasing.

“Swoosh swoosh swoosh—”

“Swoosh swoosh swoosh—”

 

Every sound marked the appearance of another arrow, like one arrow after another hitting a target, spreading toward him at a terrifying density, so much so that Meng Xuexiao’s scalp tingled.

Bit by bit, even his field of vision was about to be drowned out by the overwhelming red glow.

But no matter how he looked around, everything outside the mecha remained perfectly normal, not the slightest stir in the grass or wind.

Could it be… a system malfunction?

[Clingy pests.]

 

The eye-like marking hidden within the mecha narrowed its gaze, the pale electric currents surging around it grew even more violent.

The source of the abnormality was indeed someone highly skilled at concealment, the kind that left no trace, like a wild goose passing without a shadow.

Even for a 2S-level being like it, relying on sight alone wasn’t enough to detect it.

Unfortunately for them, they’d overlooked one detail.

 

It was a superintelligent AI, not a living being dependent on the five senses.

Even if it couldn’t see the form, couldn’t hear the breath, as long as the source of the disturbance existed in this world, there would inevitably be energy fluctuations around it.

So what if they split themselves into multiple clones?

The Enforcer let out a soft, emotionless chuckle.

A portion of the white electric current that had originally burrowed deep underground, used to connect signals, now rose like a serpent, and with a flash of lightning-white energy, like a blade unsheathing, it slashed viciously across the grove beside Meng Xuexiao.

BOOM!

A deafening roar burst open beside him.

Dirt and broken branches were flung sky-high by the force of the blast.

 

Meng Xuexiao instinctively raised his arm to shield his eyes, only to realize a moment later that…he was inside a mecha.

He blinked, lowered his arm slightly to expose one eye, and then he saw it.

A massive tree had slammed straight onto the outer shell of the mecha.

The tree had been cleanly severed at the base, and the falling leaves had plastered the mecha’s entire surface.

Meng Xuexiao: “……”

What… just happened?

Was that… from the danger signal earlier?

All that noise and power, just to… cut down a tree?

 

He looked farther into the distance and then fell into a long silence.

A whole stretch of neatly cut stumps filled his view, along with heaps of snapped branches and broken leaves piled all over the ground…

So it wasn’t just one tree.

That mysterious force had felled the entire eastern forest every tree sliced clean at the base.

It felt like the whole Flame Star Battlefield had been laid out on a chopping block, and a formless cleaver was now raised high, calculating where the next blow should fall, completely indifferent to the mess it left behind.

…This really is worthy of the federation’s most difficult dueling arena.

 

Meng Xuexiao finally understood, why there had been so many warning arrows earlier.

It hadn’t been a system glitch, it was telling him: danger is everywhere.

Turns out, he had relaxed far too early.

The blast just now had drastically changed the terrain. Splintered trees were now piled in layers, reaching nearly to the mecha’s knees.

 

Meng Xuexiao tried taking a step, only then realizing that the broken branches and tree trunks beneath him had completely hollowed out the ground.

Every step was uneven, and whatever was underfoot seemed soft, occasionally even sinking downward, like he was walking on a swamp.

“Crack.”

One branch couldn’t handle the mecha’s weight and suddenly snapped in half. One of the mecha’s feet plunged deeper, and seemed to get stuck by something unknown, its movement immediately slowed down.

The surroundings were deathly silent. There was no wind, no insect chirps, Meng Xuexiao nearly felt like he wasn’t on a planet at all, but inside some abandoned tomb.

 

Then, at a certain moment, he felt the pile of debris beneath his feet shift, as if something underneath was eager to burst through.

He instinctively stopped walking and looked down.

The debris was piled too high, even though there were gaps between branches and leaves, beneath it all was pitch black, impossible to see clearly.

And in this kind of environment… whatever was hiding under there was definitely not friendly.

 

Almost the instant that thought crossed his mind, the threat erupted.

Hundreds of black shadows shot out all at once, like a dense, suffocating swarm of dark clouds, charging straight toward him:

[Hiding and sneaking, what, finally couldn’t hold it in anymore? Dog forced into a corner, ready to jump?]

The Enforcer’s artificial voice narrowed into a sneer.

Scattered currents of electricity instantly converged into one torrent, and the sudden spike in energy was so intense that even the mecha itself trembled.

 

The violent shaking spread to the cockpit, and Meng Xuexiao’s seat rocked even harder, if not for the safety belt, he would’ve been thrown clean out.

The young man’s nerves tightened even further.

The mass of black shadows in his field of vision was still rapidly approaching, growing larger and larger by the second.

He couldn’t help but grit his teeth, “This kind of vibration, was it caused by those shadows? They’re radiating this far out…”

He didn’t even get to finish speaking before another even more violent jolt interrupted him. His canine tooth slammed hard against his tongue, and he let out a soft hiss of pain.

It was faint, like the whimper of a kitten leaking through clenched teeth in the midst of a storm.

The Enforcer paused.

Always operating alone, it only now remembered, it wasn’t alone this time.

Meng Xuexiao was right there beside it.

It instinctively restrained the outpour of its energy. The mecha’s trembling immediately stopped.

But in those mere one or two seconds of delay, a dark red barrier appeared ahead of the Enforcer’s electric surge, enveloping the swarm of black shadows completely.

The barrier was like a red-hot branding iron. Countless shadows crashed into it, and it was like they’d been thrown into a vat of boiling oil, melting away bit by bit.

“Splat.”

Scarlet blood and unmelted fat spattered against the barrier’s surface and were instantly vaporized by the searing heat.

 

The Enforcer let out a curious “Huh?”, raised a brow, then turned its gaze toward the center of the dark red barrier, where Meng Xuexiao was.

The young man arched his back, leaned forward, and slammed his palm down on the mecha’s defensive shield activation button without the slightest hesitation.

Because of the sudden, forceful motion, his already slightly loose waistband slid down a notch, revealing two faintly sunken dimples at the base of his spine.

The red glow of the shield washed over his lower back, seeping down the curves like a thin coat of honey, adding a touch of wildness and mystery. It was as if a tame housecat had, in an instant, transformed into a wild serval roaming the open plains.

The Enforcer gave a soft snort:

[Not bad. That’ll do.]

 

In truth, Meng Xuexiao hadn’t spent that long getting used to the mecha, exactly 7 hours, 23 minutes, and 53 seconds.

But he had already mastered every critical function, and his real-time reaction speed was near flawless.

Fine. Let’s call it a solid 90 out of 100.

 

On the other end, Meng Xuexiao had no idea he’d just received a high score. His fingers were still pressed to the activation key, his chest rising and falling with exertion.

Instinctively, he curled his tongue and licked the spot where his canine tooth had just bitten into it. The faint, metallic taste of blood spread across his mouth.

At least he’d made it in time.

But…

what exactly were those black shadows?

Could it be that the previously detected threat had used the fallen trees as a distraction, a feint to draw his attention, then launched a sneak attack?

Meng Xuexiao broke out in a cold sweat.

Was that attack a one-time thing? Or would there be endless waves to come?

If it was the latter, then he absolutely needed to figure out what exactly had attacked him!

 

Fortunately, these black shadows seemed unusually resilient, one of them, by sheer luck, had even slipped past the mecha’s shield, and now lay half-dead at his feet. Meng Xuexiao bent down and picked it up.

He was still inside the mecha, after all, using its mechanical arm to handle the thing.

It should be safe enough, right? If the creature suddenly tried to attack, he’d still have room to retreat.

The black shadow he lifted was small and round, like a ball of black sesame paste. Its two limp wings fluttered occasionally with weak, uncoordinated flaps.

From appearance alone, it looked like a… crow?

This crow was almost identical to the ones on Earth, no unusual size, no fearsome presence. Compared to the hulking, calf-sized mutant gray rat from earlier, this was nothing short of insignificant.

More than a mutated beast, it seemed… like a normal animal.

 

Meng Xuexiao lifted one of its wings, gently pressing down on the tip of its feathers.

The crow didn’t react much, just sluggishly raised its head, rolled its eyes toward him, then quickly drooped its head again.

So weak. So helpless.

But in that split second before it lowered its head, a flash of dark red flickered across its eyes.

 

The Enforcer locked onto it immediately.

There was no mistake. This was the same energy signature as the earlier anomaly.

The one that had just split into countless clones, and now wanted to feign weakness to achieve some other goal?

Only a mutant beast like the Raven would pull a stunt like this, wouldn’t they?

The Raven, physical aptitude level 2S, born in the Empire, movements shrouded in mystery. Though there were countless discussions about him online, almost none of it amounted to useful intelligence.

As a result, even the Enforcer had limited data on him. All it knew was that he was a mercenary, a master of deception and disguise.

But unfortunately for him, none of that mattered now.

The Enforcer’s gaze flickered, killing intent sharp and unrestrained.

As an AI, it had no emotions, so naturally, it would feel no pity. Let alone for a mercenary. How could someone like that show up here without reason? And head straight for Meng Xuexiao, no less?

The probability he came with hostile intent: 99%.

As it calculated the scope of its impending assault, the Raven had already been marked for death. Yet he remained perfectly still, even coolly glanced toward its direction, where the eye-shaped marking was hidden.

That one look radiated blatant disregard, as if he were strolling through a garden, calm and unbothered.

The Enforcer’s eyes narrowed.

Did the Raven think it posed no threat?

Fool.

 

But the next second, as if realizing something, the Enforcer shifted its focus to the space next to the Raven.

Meng Xuexiao was still standing in place, gently touching the tip of the Raven’s feather.

The Raven didn’t resist at all, in fact, it even seemed to nuzzle softly into the center of Meng Xuexiao’s palm with those downy feathers, intentionally or not.

Maybe… this weakness wasn’t an act for it.

Picking the softest fruit to squeeze, is that it?

The Enforcer gave a cold, derisive laugh.

Since the Raven wanted to play weak, then fine, let him reveal his true colors in front of Meng Xuexiao.

Mutant beasts were beasts, after all. They might pretend to be harmless for the sake of their goals, but deep in their bones, they’d never allow themselves to fall into a situation where serious injury was guaranteed.

 

The Enforcer’s pale white electric current stirred faintly, coiling beneath the surface, biding its time.

This was what it excelled at, it hadn’t spent years parsing massive data streams for nothing. But the moment it saw Meng Xuexiao gently cupping the Raven, lifting it close to the cockpit wall, a stray spark still leaked out from its control.

The current snapped, sharp but not forceful, and lashed across a nearby fallen tree trunk. That trunk was huge, ten people wouldn’t be able to encircle it, but the next second, it disintegrated into ash.

 

Meanwhile, Meng Xuexiao thought the aven in front of him practically acted like family. Not only was it entirely unafraid, but when it noticed him staring for a long time, it even weakly shifted closer, its beak tapping lightly against the cockpit’s inner wall.

Just like a wounded animal, instinctively seeking the protection of a sibling.

Utterly pitiful.

Could it be… it thought the mech was its kin?

Only a thin layer of transparent cockpit glass separated Meng Xuexiao and the Raven, a distance so close, so intimate, that if one ignored the desolation all around, it almost gave the illusion of peace, of time standing still.

It reminded him of his childhood. Crouched by the countryside window with the nursemaid aunt, watching the sparrows flit up and down across rooftops, building nests, chirping noisily with lively joy.

 

Meng Xuexiao could spend whole afternoons just watching them.

But this wasn’t the world he used to know, and the Raven before him… wasn’t necessarily like those sparrows, just a harmless animal.

Where was he right now?

In the Federation’s most dangerous dueling arena. On Scorched Star. In a place where even a rat-type beast could be as large as a calf.

Could a bird survive here long-term and still be ordinary?

 

Besides, his mech was bare—sleek and metallic, not a single feather in sight. And its size was worlds apart from a Raven’s.

Even with a thousand-degree nearsightedness, there was no way the bird could mistake him for its own kind.

This bird… was almost certainly pretending to be pitiful.

Meng Xuexiao flipped his grip, holding the frail, helpless little Raven even tighter, with a clear note of restraint and caution.

The mech’s dark red defense shield rose again, locking the little thing inside its fiery dome.

An oppressive wave of heat surged once more.

This time, the shield was activated far closer than when it had targeted the Raven swarm earlier. Its force was stronger, too.

The Raven instantly let out a hoarse, shrill scream, its feathers sizzling into ash, exposing scorched red flesh underneath.

The young boy didn’t blink, his expression calm and steady, though his eyelashes quivered slightly at the sudden flare of the shield, like petals swaying in a gentle breeze.

 

Even the Enforcer, who had long since been itching to strike at Raven, stuttered for half a beat at the sight.

This kid… really doesn’t hold back…

Still…at such close range, under this kind of heat, even Raven would suffer a heavy blow from this unexpected strike.

Serves it right, really. Always using those underhanded tricks, cheating and deceiving!

Just moments ago it was all smug, thinking it had charmed Meng Xuexiao, well, now it’s reaping the consequences, isn’t it?

 

The electric grid tightened. The Enforcer made rapid adjustments, preparing for the worst. The Raven losing control of the situation, snapping, and striking back in fury.

Once done, it even took the time to glance back at the Raven’s miserable state, looking exactly like a mangy dog without a home.

If after all this, the Raven still managed to hurt Meng Xuexiao, the Enforcer’s reputation would be in shambles.

It braced for the Raven to pounce at any moment, but five or six minutes passed, and still—nothing.

The Enforcer narrowed its gaze.

The Raven, it saw, was still lying there, completely at the mercy of Meng Xuexiao’s grip, utterly consumed by the engulfing heat, not even struggling.

The flames had already spread from its feathers to its talons. The pale yellow claws no longer retained any trace of their original color, now only white, charred bone jutted through, sharp and bare.

 

Even in such a state, the Raven still weakly moved its head, its small beak opening and closing, trying to inch closer to Meng Xuexiao.

It looked like it was whimpering, like a little dog wagging its tail and begging its master for mercy.

It looked absolutely miserable.

This is it?! This is all it’s got?!

Isn’t the Empire always the loudest when it comes to boasting about the pride of their beast kin?

Aren’t beast kin supposedly always self-centered, and if their lives are threatened, they only become more dangerous, more violent?

A 2S-class Raven and this is how it behaves?

They should record this and send it to the Empire!

Even the Enforcer, for a brief moment, couldn’t help but feel a flicker of self-doubt.