Chapter 607.1: The Rain Of Blood

Chapter 607.1: The Rain Of Blood

Hundreds of gun barrels leveled at the radar-marked zone.

With flashes of fire, streams of tracer fire tore through the gray-green mist, whistling toward the swarming creatures that beat their wings as they approached.

Flying low over the ground, Gaen suddenly felt a chill on his neck, and then a surge of warning pricked at his skull.

He jerked his head up, before he could react to what was happening, blinding bursts of fire detonated in the sky.

Boom!

The nearest dozen bat-winged Mutant Humans were caught in the blast and shredded instantly by the tracer rounds thick as pythons.

The creatures flying nearby weren’t spared either.

The 155 mm fragmentation shells, fitted with proximity fuzes, went off in succession. Their shrapnel was like death’s scythe, ripping through fog in blazing fireballs and walls of smoke, harvesting lives left right and center.

For a moment, it rained blood. Chunks of flesh and mangled limbs fell from the sky.

“Scatter!”

Recalling the warning from the voice in his head, Gaen roared at the top of his lungs, then beat his wings and banked aside, dodging the whistling tracers and rushing straight toward the source of the artillery fire.

Screaming shells streaked past him and slammed into the ground, kicking up clouds of dirt. However, they failed to harm him in the slightest.

The Biotic Armor gifted by the Torch Church not only carried an incredibly tough carapace but also boasted powerful self-repair.

Ordinary shrapnel and 7mm rifle rounds could hardly hurt him. If he was barely wounded, he could devour biomass to rapidly heal.

As he grew accustomed to the Biotic Armor’s power, Gaen grew bolder. The last trace of panic in him dissolved as he weaved through the storm of bullets.

Dodging a screaming shell, he tilted back his head and bellowed with excitement toward the direction of the guns. “Cowards who only dare to fire from afar, have you even eaten? Why are you so weak? Hahaha! You think you can shoot me down with that? Keep dreaming!”

From more than 10 kilometers away, the Heart of Steel couldn’t hear the beast barking.

Inside the bridge, the captain stared unblinking at the control terminal, watching red dots vanish or plummet one by one.

“Direct hit!” the operator shouted. “Confirmed effective damage!”

“The swarm’s numbers are dropping rapidly!”

“They’re spreading out!”

“Distance remaining, 10 kilometers!”

“Adjusting radar targeting zone!”

The adjutant clenched his fists, torn between relief and worry.

He felt relieved because they had indeed predicted the enemy’s move. It wasn’t a decoy.

Worry came next because the enemy’s numbers were overwhelming.

Even though the red dots were disappearing, they didn’t know what exactly was attacking, only vague radar silhouettes.

Turning to the captain, the adjutant said gravely, “Over 8,000 of them left. At this rate, they’ll reach us in 10 minutes. Our AA firepower alone won’t be enough.”

“They must not reach the Heart of Steel!” The captain’s face was grim as he stared at the radar, thinking for a moment before issuing his order. “Launch the carrier aircraft!”

Due to the fog and it being night, their interceptors would be far less effective.

Even though visibility above the ship was better than the ground, it was only around 200 meters.

That gave pilots extremely short firing windows, especially against irregularly shaped, evasive creatures. They would get only an instant to fire. If they missed, they would have to circle back.

Still, it was better than leaving the planes parked on deck to be overrun in close quarters.

On the deck of the Heart of Steel,

The Goblin Corps’ players had long been waiting in their cockpits.

At last the order came. Falling Feather shoved the throttle forward without hesitation, gripping the stick as his plane roared off the runway.

The following planes rolled out in sequence, skirting the edge of the anti-air barrage and diving toward the radar-marked zone.

In his place in the lineup, Light Wind taxied onto the runway, glanced around, and muttered curiously, “Where’s the commander?”

Little Ghost’s voice rang in her ears. “No idea... I was wondering the same. Strange he isn’t here for something this intense.”

It was unlike Mosquito’s style to miss out on an epic battle like that.

Then Falling Feather’s voice came over the public channel. “Brothers, that bastard Mosquito dumped command on me again... I don’t know what these things are, but they’ve picked the wrong fight!”

He mimicked Mosquito’s ridiculous duck-like voice and shouted with his eyes closed, “Follow me! Hold them back at all costs! Awwooo!”

The imitation was terrible, and Light Wind snorted in laughter. But seeing everyone else shouting in high spirits, she added her own roar. “Awwooo!”

Ah... She forgot to carve something on the fuselage.

But maybe it didn’t matter anymore.

Propellers thundered, whipping a gale across the deck, sending straight wings slicing into the fog-shrouded battlefield.

The diving planes were like lancers charging with leveled spears, plunging from the clouds into the swarming winged beasts.

Wingtip vortices hissed, war-spirit burned in their goggles. Fingers pressed the triggers of cannons.

They said there were over 10,000 monsters out there!

Since she forgot to carve her poem earlier... She would carve it into the earth from the blood of her enemies!

...

Fifty W-2 attack planes split into two battle groups, one to each flank, like a red-hot pair of iron pincers snapping shut on the swarm.

However, the creatures weren’t defenseless.

After being fired on, a dozen detachments split off from the swarm, lunging toward the propeller planes.

In terms of technology, the New Alliance’s propeller planes were no match for bio-engineered soldiers.

But those winged beasts couldn’t easily catch fixed-wing craft either. It took a dozen swarming one together to take it down.

After several losses, one finally found its chance. As a W-2 climbed to evade, a monster folded its wings, dived, and crashed straight into a player’s cockpit.

“What the hell?!

Eew

! They are so ugly!” Little Ghost shrieked, terrified as a green-skinned, fanged brute forced its way in. She whipped out her pistol and fired point-blank into its screeching face.

Two shots cracked. Black blood sprayed, freezing on the canopy in the cold rush of air.

The monster died instantly, but its head jammed in the nose and its tail was chewed up by the propeller.

Black smoke leaked from the engine.

“Ghost, what’s going on?!” Light Wind’s voice blared over comms.

Still pounding the monster’s skull with her pistol grip, Little Ghost wrestled with the stick, desperate to regain control.

Shame, the speed gauge spun higher and the blood-smeared canopy blocked her view entirely. Panic tore through her.

“My propeller is gone! Shit! There’s blood everywhere, I can’t see a thing! Am I nose-down or ass-down right now?!”

“Eject!”

“Eject my ass! I’ll get chewed to bones before I hit the ground!”

She knew those green-skinned monsters weren’t going to follow the Geneva Convention. They would tear parachuting pilots to pieces.

As she spoke, another monster stomped onto her fuselage with a loud bang, rocking the plane violently. It gripped the wing, crawled toward the canopy, and screeched at her inside.

Facing the bloody maw and glowing green eyes inches away, she sighed bitterly and reached for the handle beside her seat.

The W-2 had two emergency options.

One was to open the canopy and eject. The other was a demolition charge fixed to the plane’s battery.

It was the same charge infantry used, but stronger in the plane and fused to the battery. It carried extra punch and fire damage.

“See you in three days!” Little Ghost cried, shut her eyes, armed the fuse, and yanked.

White smoke spurted from the charge.

Her last thought was seeing herself dragged from the cockpit by the monster’s jaws as her plane became a fireball, consuming all the creatures clinging to it.

“Ghost!” Light Wind cried in fury as her friend’s plane vanished in flame. In a fit of rage, she swung her nose down toward the heart of the inferno.

Cannons roared and they sprayed flames, tearing winged beasts from the air one after another until her last round was spent.

50 W-2s against nearly 8,000 flying mutants... It was too much.

Neither veteran aces nor newbies with fewer than 2,000 flight hours had ever fought creatures that could race about in mid air.

Fog and night worsened it. Kill rates were poor. In minutes, the Goblin Corps had lost over half its force.

But even so, they had bought time for the gunners in the batteries and for Little Seven who was configuring the anti-air guns.

Those final kilometers became a chasm the beasts could not easily cross.

Watching the blips creep closer, every officer on the bridge clenched their fists.

The Heart of Steel had unleashed tons of bullets, but their radar still showed nearly 4,000 enemies.

Even at best, 2,000 or 3,000 would break into the ship’s blind zone, landing on the deck.

A battle was inevitable.

“Arm the crew! Issue weapons and ammunition!” The captain chambered his sidearm, slammed it on the table, pledging to live or die with the airship.

The others followed. There were no words needed.

Just as the black swarm burst from the fog, filling the bridge’s windows, a gray-white transport airship drifted up in front of the Heart of Steel, blocking the beasts’ line of sight.

The staff officer beside the captain blinked in shock. “A transport airship? What the hell is it doing here?!”

The craft dropped lower, driving straight into the swarm. Muzzles flickered on its deck. It was obvious. Someone was firing at the creatures.

The captain gaped, then snapped to the communications officer. “Tell them to move aside!”

Charging flying targets with a transport airship... Were they insane?!

But before his words finished, a voice of authority sounded behind them. “Let them do whatever they want.”

At some point, Chu Guang had returned to the bridge. Under their gazes, he stepped to the window.

Watching the firestorm, the planes vanishing into the swarm, he spoke quietly.

“They are true warriors.”

“Do not waste their resolve.”