BATTLE FOR STARS

Lina had never imagined her opponent would be Ding Yufei.

The odds of something like this happening were practically zero.

Yet reality had placed them face to face anyway.

The instant she saw Ding Yufei, Lina immediately understood who her opponent was.

After all, nobody else would appear here at this moment.

But from another perspective...

Perhaps on Planet Boman, the person who posed the greatest threat to her now really was Ding Yufei.

Of course, neither Emperor Hogan, Balk, nor Lieutenant General Frederick knew that Ding Yufei had spent a long time practicing with mech simulators aboard the starship.

They also had no idea he had sparred against Lina before.

In their eyes, no matter how capable Ding Yufei might be, he was still merely one of Belina’s male intimate partners.

Now that Belina had run out of options, she was simply pushing him forward as a shield.

That way, even if she lost in the end, she wouldn’t completely lose face.

Ding Yufei didn’t greet Lina.

He didn’t even look in her direction.

Because once others realized the two were familiar with each other, objections might arise regardless of the outcome.

So instead, he walked directly toward Sade.

“Sade, these mechs are all fine, right?”

“No problems,” Sade replied. “I used the starship’s equipment to inspect them personally.”

Just to be safe, Sade had specifically transferred an entire inspection system over from the starship.

Fortunately, there was a nearby spaceport access point, so the process had been completed quickly.

Sade looked at Ding Yufei, opened his mouth slightly, then stopped himself from speaking.

Ding Yufei immediately understood what he meant.

Sade still didn’t fully trust him.

After all, they hadn’t known each other for long, and he had never witnessed the practice matches between him and Lina.

Ding Yufei walked over and patted Sade on the shoulder.

Then he climbed into one of the nearby mechs.

Since all the training models were identical, it made no difference which one he chose as long as the inspections were clear.

Soon afterward, Ding Yufei and the mech were transported toward the lift platform.

He and Lina would each ascend separately into the official arena through different elevator shafts.

All mech fighter combat units lacked anti-gravity systems.

Using lifts was the only way to enter the battlefield.

The robotic referee had already floated to the center of the arena and begun introducing both fighters.

Naturally, the audience was already extremely familiar with Lina’s background.

The only difference now was that she carried the additional title of mech fighting tournament champion.

As for the other contestant, Ding Yufei—

Almost nobody knew anything about him.

So the introduction remained vague:

A fighter sent by the Kramic Kingdom.

Naturally, the official announcers added plenty of embellishment as well—

Elite competitor.

Exceptional strength.

Outstanding combat ability.

The reason was simple.

The organizers wanted to make the match more attractive.

After all, massive betting pools were involved.

If the two fighters appeared too mismatched, there would be no gambling excitement at all.

Once the introduction ended, the robotic referee floated aside.

Both Ding Yufei and Lina entered their cockpits.

This time, Ding Yufei wore a combat suit.

Otherwise things would have felt rather awkward.

He still wasn’t accustomed to moving around completely naked in front of a crowd the way Lina did.

Ding Yufei had already operated training mechs before, so he quickly settled into the controls.

The moment he reopened his eyes, it felt as though he had entered a hyper-realistic game.

His body had become a mech.

Yet everything around him also felt strangely natural.

In some ways, it resembled the immersive virtual games released by the Kramic Kingdom.

But there was a fundamental difference.

Those games merely intercepted neural signals directly.

A player’s actual physical condition didn’t matter.

Even someone physically disabled could become a healthy, agile knight inside the game world.

But mech systems were different.

The neural network inside the mech didn’t merely read brain signals.

It also reflected the operator’s real-time muscular condition throughout the entire body.

Every subtle change within a mech fighter was transmitted directly into the machine.

That made mech responsiveness vastly superior to ordinary virtual games.

Of course, from another perspective, mech combat was essentially a real game played using one’s actual physical abilities.

Compared to so-called “virtual games,” the difficulty level was on an entirely different scale.

There was another crucial difference as well.

Modern hyper-realistic games had dramatically reduced the possibility of real harm to players.

Even if you “died” inside the game, the player themselves remained unharmed.

Mech fighter battles, however, were completely different.

Real damage was transmitted directly back to the operator.

Once both sides were ready, the match officially began.

But to everyone’s surprise, the two mechs approached each other and assumed completely identical stances.

Neither side launched an attack.

The audience members who had confidently bet on Lina were instantly confused.

Wasn’t that stance the exact posture Lina had used during her fiercest exchange against Julia?

It was precisely in that posture that Lina had endured Julia’s overwhelming storm of attacks and ultimately claimed victory.

And now—

Ding Yufei had adopted the exact same stance.

Other than Belina, nobody knew whether Ding Yufei had merely copied Lina’s posture or whether he genuinely understood the technique himself.

Even Emperor Hogan had already turned to look at Belina.

Yet her expression revealed nothing unusual.

Still, for the first time, a ripple of uncertainty finally appeared in the Emperor’s heart.

What had originally seemed like an absolutely certain outcome now suddenly carried a hint of unpredictability.

Naturally, Balk also felt a trace of suspicion rise inside him.

But he wasn’t worried yet.

After all, regardless of who won, the outcome still benefited him.

Lina, meanwhile, had her own reasons for refusing to attack first.

The moment she saw Ding Yufei, she knew this would not be an easy match.

After all—

He was the one who had taught her Tai Chi.

She herself had only trained for a few days, yet the results had already become terrifyingly effective.

For someone who had studied it far longer, the potential would naturally be even greater.

During their previous practice match, Lina had only managed to win because of the power of Phoenix Dance Across the Nine Heavens.

At the time, Ding Yufei lacked her physical conditioning and reaction speed, which ultimately led to his defeat.

But now engine bursts were prohibited.

That meant Phoenix Dance Across the Nine Heavens was unusable.

Under these conditions, even if Lina still surpassed Ding Yufei in experience and reaction speed, victory was no longer guaranteed.

So she chose the conservative approach.

Defense.

In her eyes, Tai Chi’s greatest strength lay not in attacking, but in defending.

If Ding Yufei took the initiative to attack, opportunities would eventually appear.

Lina didn’t know what this match truly represented.

But she understood one thing clearly—

If she lost this battle, she would have no future afterward.

So even though she didn’t understand why Ding Yufei had become her opponent...

She still had to win.

The two mechs slowly closed the distance in silence.

Each held a dagger in the right hand.

And despite its size, nobody underestimated the weapon.

Its operating principle was identical to a high-frequency blade.

A single hit to a critical area would decide the match instantly.

Although Ding Yufei lacked much real mech combat experience, he had spent enormous amounts of time using simulators.

The operation felt almost identical—

Only more realistic.

More responsive.

And after everything he had experienced over the past few years, his patience had become extraordinarily steady.

So he remained calm.

He refused to attack first.

He, too, intended to rely on Tai Chi for defense.