Chapter 268: Possessed?

Chapter 268: Possessed?

Lei Jie’s promise to Jin Zhong—to fly south, and if conditions allowed, to lob a missile at that whale‑shaped eel—was no idle boast.

That very afternoon, as Jin Zhong led the Guard Brigade toward Yanling, the base’s Mosquito fighter jet happened to lift off.

At the controls was Jiang Yu—more precisely, Jiang Yu and Lei Jie together.

Though the aircraft lacked a conventional pilot‑co‑pilot seat, Lei Jie, treating the bomber as a teaching platform, carved out enough room for two to fly side by side.

As co‑pilot, he could steer Jiang Yu’s inputs through a simple linked stick, granting a substantial safety margin.

The only drawback was that with two people at the helm the control stick grew heavier, demanding greater effort to maneuver.

—

Yet for Jiang Yu these were trivial matters.

The moment the plane left the ground, she whipped the stick skyward.

The exhilaration of her first flight erased all fear; even the weightlessness of a dive felt wondrously novel.

“Commander! Where are we headed?”

Jiang Yu shouted.

“Wherever you wish to go!”

Lei Jie stared at the rudimentary instrument panel integrated into his tactical visor and replied:

“Watch the airspeed and altimeter; they’re the only data on this plane you can trust for a safe judgment.”

“We lack sophisticated instruments; most information is fed through the helmet.”

“But this helmet is a makeshift FPV drone rig—far from reliable.”

“You must rely on instinct as much as possible—learn this aircraft inside out!”

“Understood!”

Jiang Yu answered again.

She had no notion of what a true cockpit should look like; she only knew she was piloting the machine, and she did so with effortless grace.

Gently pressing the stick, the aircraft yawed left.

Through the FPV helmet’s readouts, Jiang Yu saw the plane heading south.

“Altitude 1,100 m, airspeed 330, ground speed 310!”

“Commander, we’re flying steady!”

“I know.”

Lei Jie exhaled a sigh.

At that moment he finally grasped why Chen Jian had warned, “Don’t shout with your throat.”

The amplified thrum of the throat mic, even after smart noise‑cancellation, was terrifyingly loud.

“You don’t have to shout; I hear you perfectly.”

“Maintain heading, pull up, climb to 2,200.”

“Got it, climbing to 2,200!”

Jiang Yu eased the stick upward, and the aircraft rose smoothly.

Near the target altitude, without further orders, she gently pressed the stick down, leveling the plane.

To be frank, the maneuver surprised Lei Jie.

In his stereotyped view, most natives possessed only a shallow grasp of machinery.

During ground training, most recruits knew that pulling the stick lifted the plane and pushing it lowered it, yet they could not conceive the aircraft’s flight path.

It was akin to a novice driver who never finds the right moment to turn the wheel back.

Clearly, Jiang Yu was an exception.

She grasped the aircraft’s dynamics with ease, and within minutes of flight she had become proficient enough for Lei Jie to feel comfortable releasing his own stick.

Could she be the fabled “chosen one”?

Lei Jie glanced curiously at Jiang Yu, recalling her daring arrival at Base 011; he could not help but marvel that in this cut‑throat world a woman could command such respect among a settlement of hundreds—her own strength was no joke.

“So, what did you do before all this?”

Lei Jie asked, intrigued.

“Me? I’m a fisherman from Qiandao Lake Town.”

“I’m an orphan; my parents died long ago.”

“I’ve lived in Qiandao Lake Town all my life, just like everyone else.”

You’re not like everyone else.

Lei Jie studied her with a scrutinizing gaze, a thought flashing through his mind.

Orphan.

Could she be from beyond Qiandao Lake Town?

Extraordinary strength, uncanny adaptability, and unmistakably superior intellect.

Might she be one of the academy’s true third‑generation androids?

Perhaps only that answer could rationally explain her singularity.

With that in mind, Lei Jie asked:

“So, were you adopted by your parents, or did they move to Qiandao Lake Town after giving birth to you?”

“Huh?”

Jiang Yu blinked, carefully adjusting the stick against a sudden gust, and replied:

“My parents have always lived in Qiandao Lake Town—my grandfather passed away more recently, just two years ago.”

“Commander, why ask that?”

The answer caught Lei Jie off guard; he shook his head and said:

“Nothing.”

“I just thought you were far smarter than ordinary folk, so perhaps you have a special background.”

“There are plenty smarter than me.”

Jiang Yu replied nonchalantly:

“I’ve met many people stronger than me, and none of them have any special lineage.”

“I was simply lucky to survive.”

“.Understood.”

In that instant, Lei Jie realized the narrowness of his own perspective.

Indeed, among humanity, prodigies as plentiful as fish crossing a river have never been a scarce resource.

Yet the vast majority have been swallowed by the river of history.

The same holds for others, and for Jiang Yu as well.

Had the Huaxia army not found her, had they not rescued her, what would have become of her?

She would have perished in a monster attack, her name never even recorded.

Just like any other equally brilliant, equally powerful individual.

Lei Jie exhaled a long breath.

A phrase suddenly sprang to mind.

Do princes and ministers possess any innate virtue?

If, for every capable individual, one instinctively seeks to endow them with a special distinction, then one's own path has already strayed.

With that thought, Lei Jie smiled, a release of tension.

Then he spoke:

“That’s fine.”

“Your example will inspire many.”

“Let’s go, keep heading south.”

“If you spot the target we pre‑identified, hesitate not.”

“As I taught you, pull the stick low and charge at it.”

“Drop the bomb on its head and blow it to pieces!”

“Understood!”

Jiang Yu gently nudged the throttle, and the aircraft surged forward.

Amid the roar of the propeller, the “new recruit” who had never before taken to the sky felt her heart swell.

She did not yet know what dreadful foe she might face.

Yet she was already prepared to eliminate it.

“Target area thirty kilometres away; we have entered the danger zone, stay alert!”

Lei Jie issued the order, and as his words fell, Jiang Yu clutched the control stick tighter.

It was not her first encounter with a monster.

But it was her first time confronting one with the explicit purpose of annihilation.

A tangled web of emotions rose within her; she inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly, her gaze steady as she replied:

“Understood, entering the danger zone.” “Commander, I can’t see the ground clearly; should we lower altitude?”

“Not for now.”

Lei Jie shook his head:

“Continue southward; we’re still within the reconnaissance‑balloon detection range, I see no monster traces.”

Speaking, Lei Jie also scrutinized the high‑altitude imagery displayed on his smart visor.

Though they had already slipped beyond the cellular coverage of Base 011, the swarm of reconnaissance balloons they had released earlier still fed them visual data via transmission links.

Only, because of bandwidth limits, every image arrived with delay, and the coverage remained modest.

Nevertheless, it was sufficient.

He flicked through the pictures rapidly; when the most distant balloon’s image finally loaded onto his PDA, his eyes lit up.

Collapsed trees, exposed loess, a half‑caved mountain, and a gaping tunnel

Found it.

“Turn ten degrees east, maintain altitude and press on.”

“We’ve located it!”

“Copy that!”

As Lei Jie’s words faded, Jiang Yu yanked the stick to change course, while Lei Jie swiftly sent a maneuver command to the balloon, activating its tiny propellers to steer it along the monster’s trail.

Image after image streamed in, yet now the picture feed could not keep pace with the bomber’s speed.

The forty‑kilometre gap vanished in an instant; when the bomber hovered over the first anomaly, Lei Jie decisively ordered a “descend.”

The aircraft dropped to five hundred metres; the propeller’s roar startled the forest’s birds and beasts, and also the monsters lurking among the trees.

They lifted their heads toward the “iron bird” slicing the sky, and after a brief bewilderment seemed to recognise the aerial threat, they launched their own peculiar assaults on the plane.

Spines shot from behind, stones hurled, “apes” leapt from treetops, and torrents of poison gas erupted

Such attacks might fell a ground foe, but they could not reach a plane aloft.

“It feels like Indians shooting down a plane with bows and arrows,”

Lei Jie chuckled.

“Indians? What’s that?”

Jiang Yu asked, curious.

The nearer she drew to the target, the calmer she seemed.

One must admit, that was a rare talent.

“Just primitive people; when they see a plane they react that way.”

“But that’s irrelevant.”

“Fly around, bank the aircraft, keep an eye below.”

“The monster should be in this sector; we must find it!”

“Copy.”

Jiang Yu gave the stick a slight pull, tilting the plane to the right, granting Lei Jie a perfect field of view.

Lei Jie had no time to wonder how she had arrived at such instincts; he hurried to engage the telescopic module, scanning the ground for any trace.

Yet he found nothing.

The monster’s trail abruptly ended amid the woods, as if it had vanished entirely underground.

That made no sense.

From previous experience, the creature’s digging depth was never great.

After all, it was not a true tunnel‑boring machine; without structural support, a deep subterranean tunnel would collapse under its own weight.

Thus, whenever it began to dig, some sign should have remained on the surface.

But he saw none.

Strange indeed.

Leijie's brow furrowed as he was about to issue the order for Jiang Yu to turn, when, at that very moment, his eye caught an unusual depression in the ground.

A basin?

It doesn't seem like one.

Wait.

"Turn!"

Leijie shouted the command.

In the next heartbeat, the earth split open!

Immediately, the long‑hidden whale‑eel burst forth from the yielding soil!

It rose upright, its height astonishingly reaching thirty meters!

Its armor plates unfurled completely, and densely packed bladders emitted flickering arcs of electricity.

Less than six hundred meters away.

If a high‑voltage discharge pierced the air to strike the bomber above, the two of them would be doomed here instantly!

At that moment, the aircraft's heading was aimed straight at the creature's position.

Even if they pulled the stick the opposite way, by the time the plane truly changed course it would likely have already slammed into the charged zone!

Leijie instinctively reached for the control stick, only to find Jiang Yu moving even faster.

Instead of instinctively pulling the stick backward, Jiang Yu yanked it fully to the right, instantly raising the wing to a vertical stance.

The aircraft rolled, its nose pointing away from the beast.

Leijie watched, eyes wide, as Jiang Yu pulled the stick left, deftly turning the plane.

Behind the plane, a burst of electric light engulfed a radius of nearly three hundred meters around the monster!

Damn!

What a non‑coaxial roll??

Can this bomber even perform such a maneuver?!

Leijie stared in stunned silence at Jiang Yu beside him, who shouted nervously:

"We almost flipped, commander!"

"We made it out!"

"Should we go back?"

"...Go back, go back!"

Leijie forced his pounding heart to still, then said:

"It can't discharge continuously in such a short span; this is our chance!"

"Climb higher, loop wide, and push to maximum speed!"

"No more diving attacks; we’ll drop it level. When I say release, release!"

"Understood!"

Jiang Yu’s hands trembled; the harrowing maneuver had clearly frightened her.

Yet she quickly steadied herself, followed Leijie's orders to swing the plane into a wide circle, throttled to the maximum, and drove the aircraft to top speed.

As the distance closed inch by inch, Leijie saw the creature in the distance attempting to burrow back into the earth.

The opportunity was fleeting; they had to act swiftly!

"Aim at the monster!"

He shouted the order, counting silently in his mind.

3.

2.

1.

"Release!"

"Click!"

The pylon released, and the 500‑kg bomb fell with the momentum of the dive!

The bomb traced a graceful arc through the sky, then plummeted straight toward the depression where the monster lurked!

"Climb! Climb!"

Without waiting for Leijie's cue, Jiang Yu pulled the stick up, raising the nose.

Altitude surged, and beneath the wing a massive explosion roared.

"Boom!"

The hollow was instantly shrouded in a cloud of smoke and dust; the bomb's detonation point lay less than fifty meters from the creature.

It was an extraordinarily precise strike.

In theory, even if it didn't kill the beast, it would have dealt it a grievous wound!

But now, Leijie had no thought for the monster at all.

He looked at Jiang Yu, her complexion pale from the overload, inhaled deeply, and said:

"You damn kid. Who possessed you?"

(End of Chapter)