Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 199 - 023. Excellent matching mechanism in the Frost Plated Region

Chapter 199: 023. Excellent matching mechanism in the Frost Plated Region

Upon arriving in Grante, his first destination, Li Aozi didn’t head straight for the capital. Instead, as arranged by Sky Ring, he contacted the military attaché Ji Cilang from the Embassy of Sky Ring. The attaché quickly provided Li Aozi with information, instructing him to make contact with a resistance organization set up by the SCIA.

Li Aozi felt with his capability, the mission difficulty shouldn’t be high. Frost Plated’s recent policies and the plummeting of its reputation, along with the collapse of the Derby exchange rate, had incited much dissatisfaction among the populace. Particularly, the Grantians, as long-term victims of Frost Plated’s bloodsucking, were extremely angry due to the repeated and excessive appropriation of food supplies by Frost Plated.

In theory, the Grante Duchy was like a dilapidated house that would collapse at the merest kick.

However, when he actually found the Grante resistance organizations, Li Aozi realized that things were a little bit different from what he had expected.

The first problem was that there were quite a few resistance organizations in Grante: from over twenty thousand separatists, an astonishing count of 42 organizations had emerged, and there were even more than a dozen leaders of religious factions.

To expect such a group to achieve independence was unrealistic—even if they managed to do so, the new government would not just be shaky; it would at least be considered a dangerous structure.

But that wasn’t the main issue. The next problem arose when Li Aozi discussed with these Grantians—who couldn’t seem to agree on a representative leader—about how to execute a military coup. It was then that he truly understood what was meant by the excellent matching mechanism of the Frost Plated Region.

According to an armed leader by the name of Francois, the Duke held parties inside the palace every Thursday, and the guards from Sulut Palace would be drawn away to maintain order. "All we need to do," he explained, "is glide in from the sky with parachutes and open fire on the crowd to successfully assassinate the Duke. As long as the Duke and the surrounding officials are taken out, the coup will be successful."

Faced with this simplistic plan, Li Aozi casually asked a question:

"The artificial sun is at an altitude of 6000 meters; due to the barrier, the majority of the time, the flight altitude can’t exceed 4500 meters. Please tell me, what kind of aircraft can fly through the air at 4500 meters without being detected by people on the ground?"

As soon as he posed this question, there ensued an unexpected and deafening silence.

After Li Aozi took a nap and woke up, an independent arm named Bemudes finally proposed a modified plan: they would board a blimp used for advertising from a high altitude to solve the height issue, while ground troops would also launch a preemptive attack from the city, bombarding Sulut Palace.

This seemed a bit more plausible, but there was still one issue unresolved.

And that was, who would assassinate the Gamma Phase-powered Duke Gamos Luwenqi Grante?

Although Li Aozi knew that the Gamma Phase on Azure Star was somewhat unreliable—either drug-induced or reached by sheer fluke and he had no idea how to progress himself—the strength of Gamma Phase was still quite formidable. After all, you couldn’t use Cloud Bombs in the city center; doing so would outright give Frost Plated the excuse to intervene with military force.

——With these twenty thousand volunteers, no matter how brave and determined they were, when Frost Plated men arrived in their Mobile Armors, they would vividly demonstrate what is considered a first-world country.

Thus, choosing the assassin became rather awkward.

In the Grante Duchy with a population of 47 million, there were only thirteen Beta Rank individuals within the country itself, and on the day of the mission, one was studying overseas, six were Third Rule Agents for Frost Plated, leaving six remaining, of which one was the Duke’s son, Malis Gamos Grante.

So that left five, didn’t it?

Don’t be hasty—these five were the Duke of Grante’s personal bodyguards.

Li Aozi couldn’t hold back anymore.

Although he himself originated from Arlanca, a vassal state of the Red Arrow Empire, the matching mechanism in the Frost Plated Region was obviously not as competitive as that in the Red Arrow Region. Regardless of its circumstances, Arlanca had access to 200 heavy fighter jets, a standing force of 90 Beta Rank individuals, and even 12 units of Mobile Armor, which was considered lacking in martial virtue in the Red Arrow Region.

Originally thinking he was coming to fight an easy battle, Li Aozi found that The People of Sky Ring had called him over to babysit.

It seemed that the SCIA, too, seeing such a dire situation, didn’t want to invest more effort and thus had him come over to help.

Li Aozi pessimistically explained the situation to these people and seriously explained to them that Transcendents of Beta Rank facing ordinary human armies would result in a massacre. Even if only six Betas were present on the day of the incident, did your mere 200-person assault team really think they could complete the assassination?

But the Grantians truly didn’t understand the role of Transcendents; in their eyes, humans couldn’t outrun bullets—a shot could cripple, two shots would render one useless, and three shots would be famous last words. They believed their plan was already perfect. Although Li Aozi’s arrival boosted morale, as far as the Grantians were concerned, Li Aozi was, after all, a Frost Plated person who wasn’t familiar with the street layout in Grante. He just needed to be responsible for charging forward.

Actually, Transcendents didn’t need to run faster than bullets, just faster than the speed at which you pull the trigger, allowing them to advance while wearing a ton of armor, and squashing you into a pulp. And when facing a "Ranger" class firearms expert, you’d think you were in a gunfight with a person, but what comes out of their small handgun is akin to a cannon blast.

Li Aozi was speechless.

There was a moment when he understood why the Grantians had been colonized for so long: a resistance group without unified organization, without iron-fisted leadership, without a clear understanding of the disparity in combat power, cannot save a nation with just enthusiasm and justice.

Thus, Li Aozi decided to break away from the Grante resistance group and operate on his own.

Following the SCIA’s information, he planned to eliminate the Beta Rank powerhouses one by one to alleviate pressure on the members of the resistance group.

First and foremost were the Frost Plated Agents. Li Aozi activated Gravitational Arcane Energy’s "Mode Two: Distortion" and brazenly walked into the Third Rule office, found two Beta Ranks, and without much talk, used gravity to break their necks, incinerating their bodies without a trace, all in one fell swoop, without alarming anyone.

However, after that, it seemed like Li Aozi’s luck had run out. He scoured the entire night only to find the Frost Plated agents had returned to the Frost Plated Embassy to report—their hands were tied.

An embassy is equivalent to the territory of a nation, and Li Aozi did not want to provoke the Frost Plated’s mecha troops to crash into this land, so he had to look for another target.

Without alarming the guards, he sneaked into Sulut Palace, placed a bomb provided by the resistance group in the Duke’s office, only to have the Duke not work overtime that day, going straight home, leaving Li Aozi lying in wait for two hours without seeing anyone and ultimately abandoning the assassination of the Duke to turn his attention to the Duke’s eldest son, Malis Gamus Grante.

According to SCIA intelligence, Malis was a lecher who often went to a villa arranged by his subordinates for pleasure, playing with beautiful women for at least seven hours at a stretch.

However, after Li Aozi had lain in wait at the villa for three hours, an SCIA agent informed him: Today, Malis’ wife had returned, and as a strict wife-guarded man, Malis happily went home to accompany his wife. The couple was now shopping in the commercial district downtown.

What happened to the playboy they talked about? How did he transform into a devoted lover, a war god of pure love? Don’t be a coward—let your rake’s soul burn with passion.

After all the trouble Li Aozi went through, the SCIA, seeing his diligent work, invited him to dine at The Embassy of Sky Ring the afternoon before the action and discuss strategies.

While he and the SCIA were deep in conversation, a blast rang out on Sipeya Street. Li Aozi and the Sky Ring envoy looked at each other, completely baffled.

A few minutes later, the Sky Ring Ambassador awkwardly said to Li Aozi,

"It seems the resistance has got the date wrong; the original plan was to stage the coup on Thursday afternoon. Today, the guards were temporarily called away to maintain order at the square, so they decided to act early."

By the time Li Aozi could have made it there, it was already too late. Tanks and armored vehicles had taken to the streets, and the insurrectionists launched their attack at the wrong time, encountering not the high officials in Sulut Palace but General Mobius Korlintara, who had come to discuss national security with the Duke, and the General’s 29 Alpha Stage subordinates.

Thus, Li Aozi’s first assassination plan didn’t go as planned and ultimately ended in failure.