Chapter 356: A Thousand Strikes in an Instant, Overwhelming Power, Ghostly Wails, The Return of a Fierce Ghost
With the super-high-power explosive thrust from the boosters on its back, Zero Gouki's body shot forward at high speed, leaving a series of wondrous afterimages as it rapidly approached the main brain, which was trying to flip itself over after having a significant portion of its overall mech swallowed by a miniature black hole, reducing its self-weight.
In the main brain's metallic human-face view, a massive, inverted shadow arrived in an instant, its two agile eyes now only containing an intense killing intent that even a biological computer could perceive.
But just as the main brain thought it was about to be struck, Zero Gouki's figure vanished... No! In an instant, Zero Gouki's body differentiated into countless "clones," both real and illusory, floating in mid-air with its back engines fully engaged, spreading out, and each Zero Gouki was staring at the main brain.
And in that instant, a massive "Soul" character appeared above the head of every Zero Gouki unit!
[Mental Command: Template Skill, Integrated Skill. A universal skill set for all Super Robot Wars pilot professions, capable of enhancing the unit in various aspects. Depending on each pilot's individual traits, one can possess a maximum of 6 different types of Mental Commands.
Your currently owned Mental Commands are — Focus, Sure Hit, Endure, Resolve, Guts, Soul.
Soul — The final damage multiplier of the unit you are piloting against the enemy changes to 2.2 times. It can only take effect once. Using this Mental Command will cause your Mental attribute to temporarily decrease by 45 points, and then slowly recover at a rate of 5 Mental points per hour. When you simultaneously use the Mental Command 'Hot Blood,' the effect of 'Soul' will trigger first.]
The massive "Soul" character, after appearing, merged into the body of each Zero Gouki.
At this moment, the main brain's alarm program had broken through the shielding mechanism, causing the nutrient fluid inside its brain-in-a-jar, which was in its proper position, to boil.
A shadow of Zero Gouki charged from the front, and the large drone swarm that had split off from the main brain almost instinctively chose to intercept it... But the impressively charging Zero Gouki, upon colliding with the drone swarm, directly transformed into a dissipating shadow.
And in the next second, the main brain's back was heavily struck!
However, when the main brain's mechanical arm, which had previously released the miniature black hole cannon and possessed self-repair capabilities, reached backward, a new Zero Gouki descended from the sky, its palm like a blade, slicing downward through space, instantly severing one of the main brain's tentacles.
From this point on, the main brain's defensive instincts became completely useless.
Amidst the interplay of light and shadow, countless Zero Gouki clones attacked simultaneously from all directions, using fists, palms, knees, elbows, feet, and other parts that could be transformed into deadly weapons!
Everyone only heard the sound, but could not see the figures.
When the incessant metallic hammering finally ceased, all that remained was a steel behemoth, hammered by countless fists and feet into a metallic sphere mixed with fragments of brain tissue and heart fragments.
And, a Zero Gouki with its back to the crowd.
The high-lighted "Tian" character on its back was slowly fading.
"I am! The one who seeks martial arts from the heavens!"
Almost instinctively, Cheng Tian, highly synchronized with an existence that was somehow built into the mech, possibly the spirit of someone long deceased but now reactivated as a mech spirit, spoke these words through Zero Gouki's mouth, a statement that deeply resonated with martial artists.
And as the "Tian" character on Zero Gouki's back completely disappeared, a series of damage numbers belatedly popped up from the main brain, which had been hammered into a metal lump, almost unrecognizable from its original form.
The first three damage numbers that appeared were 242 points, but from the fourth one onwards, they directly became 484 points.
Because from the fourth punch onwards, the "heart" within the main brain's mech was completely exposed, and this heart, belonging to the main brain, was a terrifying weak point even more fatal than its brain. From the moment it was exposed, every strike from Zero Gouki caused vibrations throughout its entire body, successfully affecting this heart, which was impaled by various metal tubes.
Ultimately, the damage count jumped 30 times, and the total damage was fixed at 13794.
Almost perfectly clearing the main brain's entire health bar.
[Zero-Style Shun Goku Satsu: Mech Skill, Active Skill. With deep respect for Gouki, Zero Gouki's designer, through in-depth research of documents and comprehensive investigation of Gouki's past lingering traces, poured all his efforts into replicating as much of Gouki as possible into "Zero Gouki." And for some unknown reason, with the intervention of outsiders and the awakening of the Steel Soul, the spirit of that supreme martial artist, long deceased, reappeared in this steel body in the form of a mech spirit.
When the pilot and Zero Gouki are at a high synchronization rate, and the pilot's Ki gauge is full, the supreme secret art of the Self-Taught Assassin's Fist, unique to the mech spirit Gouki in his lifetime—Zero-Style Shun Goku Satsu—can be used.
Zero-Style Shun Goku Satsu will randomly select a 『Shun Goku Satsu』 from all legitimately released fighting games featuring "Gouki" to deliver a fatal blow to the enemy; using Zero-Style Shun Goku Satsu will consume all of your current Ki gauge.
Your currently drawn 『Shun Goku Satsu』 blueprint is from "Street Fighter 6." Each of your effective strikes will deal 110 points of damage (sum of all raw attributes), and you can continuously attack the same target up to 30 times.]
[Additional Evaluation: A Thousand Strikes in an Instant, Overwhelming Power, Ghostly Wails, The Return of a Fierce Ghost.]
Through Zero Gouki's main camera eyes, Cheng Tian looked up slightly, somewhat lost in thought, at the ceiling dented by the Mammoth.
At this moment, he could clearly feel that a certain existence, one that had walked a lonely path in martial arts, had disconnected from him, retracting back into Zero Gouki.
Correspondingly, the Steel Soul that Cheng Tian had accumulated from killing a large number of mech units earlier was also completely depleted at this moment.
Cheng Tian felt as if he had grasped something, yet he couldn't quite put it into words.
And at this moment, feeling a slight emptiness, he refocused his gaze on the main brain, which could now only be described as "wreckage."
By combining Zero-Style Shun Goku Satsu's 30 HITS + Soul's 2.2x damage coefficient + the doubled damage calculation from the exposed heart weakness, Cheng Tian emptied the main brain's health bar from full in one round.
However, strictly speaking, Cheng Tian actually cleared 60% of the main brain's health bar, and this also included the main brain's self-destruct behavior.
Without the continuous penetration of the two sub-brains, the health would not have dropped to 40% of its original maximum.
If the main brain hadn't self-damaged by releasing the miniature black hole cannon, the heart that could double the final damage calculation would not have been easily exposed.
"Boss! Time to get to work!"
"Ah? Oh oh—"
Azrael, in a state of deep stupor inside the Warlock, only belatedly startled awake after hearing Cheng Tian's voice from within Zero Gouki. As he passed the sphere of flesh and metal, he couldn't help but glance at it twice before beginning to try and take over the entire spaceship.
Soon, the super-large base spaceship carrying a large number of Laiyans and Cheng Tian's group completely stopped ascending and began to slowly descend.
The moment the spaceship fully landed, the entire instance entered a static state.
The sky began to display Cheng's settlement screen.