Chapter 608: Blood Rain Blooming in the Sky

Chapter 608: Blood Rain Blooming in the Sky

Hundreds of gun barrels aimed from afar at the radar-marked zone.

With a flash of firelight, streaks of tracer rounds pierced the gray-green mist, howling toward the swarm of alien creatures flapping their wings.

Gahn, flying close to the ground, suddenly felt a chill at his nape, and a sense of alarm surged into his mind.

He jerked his head up, and before he could grasp what was happening, he saw blinding bursts of fire exploding in the air.

"Boom——!"

The dozen or so bat-winged men nearest to him bore the brunt, instantly torn to shreds by the tracer rounds as thick as pythons.

Those flying nearby did not escape either.

155mm fragmentation shells with proximity fuses detonated one after another, the flying shrapnel like the scythe of death, swirling wildly amid the bursting flames and dense smoke walls, reaping bloody lives.

For a moment, a rain of blood fell from the sky, the air filled with flying chunks of flesh and falling limbs.

"Scatter!!"

Remembering the saint's warning, Gahn roared at the top of his lungs, then flapped his wings, sidestepping the howling tracer rounds and chasing after the direction from which the shells came.

The sharp whistles brushed past him, kicking up rolling dust on the ground inches away, but did not harm him in the slightest.

The biomass armor granted to him by the Torch Church not only had exceptionally tough keratinous plating but also possessed remarkable self-repair capabilities.

Ordinary explosive fragments and 7mm rifle rounds could hardly wound him, and even if injured, he could quickly repair damaged tissue by absorbing biomass!

Gradually growing accustomed to the power of this biomass armor, Gahn, weaving through the hail of bullets, grew bolder, and the last trace of panic vanished without a trace.

Dodging a howling shell sideways, he looked up toward the direction it came from and let out an excited roar.

"You cowards who only dare to fire from afar, haven't you eaten enough? Hahaha, you think that's enough to bring me down? Dream on!"

The Steel Heart, over ten kilometers away, obviously could not hear the barking of a beast.

At that moment, the captain in the bridge was staring intently at the control terminal screen, watching the red dots rapidly vanishing and falling.

The staff member seated before the control terminal shouted loudly.

"Artillery hit! Damage confirmed effective!"

"Swarm numbers are decreasing rapidly!"

"They are scattering!"

"Ten kilometers remaining to us!"

"Radar marker zone corrected!"

The adjutant standing nearby clenched his fists, his heart a mix of joy and worry.

Joyful that they had indeed guessed the enemy's movements—it was not a decoy.

Yet worried because the number of enemies was simply too great!

Even now, they did not know what was attacking them, only seeing a vague scanning outline on the radar.

Looking at the captain, the adjutant said in a low voice.

"Still over eight thousand left; they can reach us in at most ten minutes... relying solely on anti-aircraft fire will hardly wipe them all out."

"We must not let them near the Steel Heart!"

The captain's face grew grim as he looked at the radar screen. After a moment's thought, he finally gave the order.

"Launch the carrier aircraft!"

Foggy weather, and at night, the interception efficiency of carrier aircraft was quite limited.

Even though visibility in the airspace around the Steel Heart was much higher than on the ground, it was still only about two hundred meters.

This meant the pilots' firing windows would be very brief, especially against irregularly maneuvering suspected alien targets. The chance to fire was essentially a split second; miss it, and they would have to circle back.

But even so.

It was still better than leaving the planes on the deck to fight those monsters with bayonets!

On the deck of the Steel Heart.

The players of the Goblin Corps had long been sitting in their cockpits, waiting.

Finally, the order to take off came. Luoyu pushed the throttle without a second word, gripped the control stick, and glided off the runway.

The planes behind him left the runway one after another, skirting the edge of the fire net and swooping toward the radar-marked airspace.

Fengqing, waiting in line, also taxied her plane onto the runway. She glanced around and muttered in confusion.

"Where's the commander?"

The voice of Guigui came through the comm channel.

"No idea... I was wondering about that too just now."

Such an exciting event, and he was missing.

It really didn't seem like Mosquito's style.

Then, Luoyu's voice came over the public channel.

"Brothers, that bastard Mosquito has dumped the command on me again... I don't know what the enemy is, but they've clearly picked the wrong opponent!"

With that, he imitated Mosquito's unique duck-like voice, closed his eyes, and shouted.

"Follow me! Hold them at all costs! Ooooh!"

Hearing the completely off-key imitation, Fengqing couldn't help but snicker, but seeing everyone else shouting with fervor, she too let out a spirited cry.

"Ooooh——!"

Ah——

Forgot to carve words on the cockpit.

But it probably didn't matter anymore.

The roar of propellers whipped up a howling gale across the deck, blowing the steep wings toward the fog-shrouded battlefield.

One by one, the diving planes were like lancers charging with raised spears, plunging from the clouds toward the surging beast horde flapping their wings.

The airflow at the wingtips whistled, her goggles burned with battle fervor, and her index finger already rested on the cannon trigger.

Heard there were tens of thousands of monsters.

Then let their blood finish writing this poem!

...

A total of fifty W-2 attack planes split into two combat formations, flanking the line left and right, like a red-hot pair of pincers, biting into the alien swarm charging at the Steel Heart.

But those aliens were no pushovers either.

After taking a few bursts of cannon fire, the swarm quickly split into over a dozen squads, lunging at the Alliance's propeller planes.

In terms of technological sophistication, the propeller planes were clearly inferior to these genetically engineered biological soldiers.

Yet these flapping beasts found it no easy task to catch up with fixed-wing aircraft; it took over a dozen of them working together to manage it.

After paying the price of over a dozen lives, one monster finally seized a gap as a W-2 pulled up to evade, folded its wings, dove in a glide, and plunged headlong into a player's cockpit.

"What the?! What is this thing?! So ugly!"

Startled by the sudden green-skinned monster with sharp teeth that burst in, Guigui immediately drew her pistol and pulled the trigger at its howling forehead.

Two bangs rang out, black blood splattered everywhere, frozen by the cold wind pouring into the cockpit onto the canopy.

The monster lost its breath on the spot, but its head got stuck on the nose, and its tail was tangled in the propeller.

Dimly, she saw black smoke seeping from the gap in the engine cowling.

At the same time, Fengqing's voice came through the comm channel.

"Guigui, what's going on over there?!"

While smashing the head that had crawled into the cockpit with the grip of her pistol, Guigui gripped the control stick, trying to save the out-of-control plane.

But the speed gauge spun faster and faster, the blood-stuck canopy completely blocked the view outside, and she was so frantic she felt like she'd crack.

"I—I—I broke the propeller! Damn it! Blood everywhere, can't see a thing outside—am I nose-down or tail-down?!"

"Maybe bail out—"

"Bail out my ass! I'd get chewed down to the bone!"

She didn't think the mutants would follow any Geneva Convention about not shooting parachuting pilots; she'd probably be snatched mid-air and devoured in a frenzy.

As she spoke, another monster charged up, its feet landing with a *Duang* on her belly, sending the already-unstable plane into a violent shudder.

The creature reached out, grabbed the wing, crawled toward the canopy, and let out a piercing howl at her sitting in the cockpit.

Staring at the gaping maw and two glowing green eyes inches away, she let out a helpless, bitter laugh and reached for the pull ring behind the side of the cockpit.

The W-2 attack plane had two escape mechanisms.

One was manually opening the canopy and parachuting out; the other was explosives attached to the fuselage battery.

The latter was the same model used by infantry, but because it was stuck to the battery, its power was much greater, with added incendiary damage.

"See you in three days!" Closing her eyes tight, Guigui unlocked the safety and yanked the fuse.

A wisp of white smoke quickly curled from the edge of the explosive.

With her last shred of consciousness, she saw that just as the sharp-toothed monster dragged her out of the cockpit, the plane beneath her instantly turned into a fireball, swallowing up all the monsters clinging to the plane in a tight cluster.

"Guigui!!"

Watching the plane consumed by the explosion, Fengqing cried out in grief and rage, quickly banking the nose toward where the fireball was falling.

The cannon spewing flames roared continuously, one by one the hit aberrations falling from the sky.

Until the last round was spent...

Fifty W-2 attack planes against nearly eight thousand flying aberrations was still a bit of a struggle,

Especially since neither the seasoned ace pilots nor the rookies with less than two thousand flight hours had combat experience against such "irregular maneuvering targets."

Add in the weather, and the kill effect was far from ideal; within minutes, the Goblin Corps had lost over half its numbers.

Still, even so, the Goblin Corps bought time for the gunners in the gun bays and Xiaoqi operating the anti-aircraft guns.

Those last few kilometers became an insurmountable chasm for the flapping beast horde.

Watching the ripples on the terminal screen draw closer, every officer on the bridge clenched their fists involuntarily.

The *Steel Heart* had already poured out tons of ammunition at full throttle, but the radar still showed nearly four thousand left!

Even the most optimistic estimate would see two to three thousand aberrations break into the *Steel Heart*'s firing blind spot and land on the deck.

It seemed a "boarding action" was unavoidable.

"Notify all crew to draw weapons and ammunition!"

Giving the order in a low voice, the captain without a word drew his own sidearm, chambered a round, and slapped it on the table before him, signaling his stance to stand or fall with the ship.

The others did the same.

No words were needed.

And just as the pitch-black beast tide burst from the misty edge, almost reflected on the bridge's floor-to-ceiling windows, a gray-white transport airship slowly drifted up from below to the front of the *Steel Heart*, blocking the gazes aimed straight at her.

The adjutant standing beside the captain froze, his face instantly changing as he blurted out.

"A transport?! What's that thing doing here?!"

The transport airship actively descended, charging straight at the aberration swarm; flickering flashes of fire seemed to indicate someone on board was shooting.

The captain was equally bewildered, quickly snapping back to reality and shouting at the communicator nearby.

"Tell it to move out of the way!!"

Flying an airship to engage aerial targets?!

Was the fool on board insane?!

But no sooner had his words fallen than a dignified voice came from behind the crowd.

"Let him go."

Having returned to the bridge at some point, bathed in a sea of gazes, Chu Guang walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and stopped.

Quietly gazing at the rain of fire outside and the planes vanishing one by one into the beast tide, he spoke slowly.

"They are true warriors."

"Do not let their resolve go to waste."

Silence fell over the bridge.

Guessing the intent of that airship, the captain's Adam's apple bobbed, and he took off his cap, cradling it in his arms.

Seeing this, the other officers also silently removed their caps, paying the highest tribute to the fallen pilots and the driver of that airship.

Just as the administrator had said.

They were all true warriors!

The battle was not over; the moment of silence on the bridge lasted only a few seconds.

And at the same time, unrestrained laughter echoed through the narrow corridor, reverberating in the empty passenger cabin of the transport airship.

"Hahaha! Ugly things, your Grandpa Mosquito is here!"

Staring at the surging monsters, a certain fellow just crowned with the name of warrior hugged a machine gun with a belt of ammunition, his face alight with excitement.

Smashing the cockpit glass with the gunstock, he mounted the machine gun in the center of the cockpit and sprayed wildly at the howling beast swarm outside.

The spitting tongue of fire in the hail of bullets was like a flickering candle flame; accuracy was out of the question, but it was enough to draw the monsters' aggro.

Spotting this bulky behemoth from afar, a flock of flapping aberrations had just broken through the cloud barrier when they howled and pounced.

In just a few breaths, nearly a hundred flapping aberrations had climbed onto the nearly fifty-meter-long airship, and the number kept growing.

They couldn't figure out what this bloated airship was, only taking it for a sibling of the big thing in the sky, so they opened their mouths and bit into the sturdy gasbag, trying to chew a hole to get in and kill the people hiding inside.

Watching the spinning pressure gauge and the engine power-loss warning, Mosquito in the cockpit was utterly unfazed, even struggling to hold back a laugh.

"Don't be polite, eat up... and if that's not enough, try this!"

Like a magician, he pulled a detonator from his pocket, a wicked grin spreading across his face as he gripped the switch in his hand.

Sparks instantly leaped from the detonators placed throughout the airship, racing like electric currents from bow to stern.

In that single moment, it wasn’t just the thousand kilograms of TNT that ignited, but also the tens of thousands of cubic meters of hydrogen!

The entire airship, nearly fifty meters long, turned into a lit oil drum, exploding into a fireball that expanded outward.

Mosquito, standing on the cockpit, was the first to be swallowed by the sea of flames, followed by the “big birds” that had already slammed against the cockpit glass.

“Boom—!”

The mutants clinging to the airship were like moths drawn to a flame, instantly consumed by the scorching fire and the blast wave of the explosion.

The shockwave even reached the edge of the airship’s deck, forcibly clearing a vacuum zone amidst the surging beast horde.

Mutants roasted to charcoal, their bodies steaming with white smoke and reeking of acrid burnt odor, fell from the sky like dumplings being dropped into a pot. Those chasing behind could only screech and dodge to the sides.

Witnessing the apocalyptic flames, Gahn’s eyes were bloodshot, his rage nearly turning into fire that burst from his nostrils.

Watching his minions plummet from the air, he felt no pity at first, but the thought that those bat-winged men were once children of his tribe struck him with a visceral pain, twisting his already ugly face further.

“Aaaaaah!”

“I’ll kill you all!!!”

Roaring, Gahn, blinded by fury, charged madly toward the deck.

As if sensing his anger, the bat-winged men flapped their wings even harder, their sharp fangs emitting shrill, mournful cries.

Meanwhile, far away in Jinhe City, Alzu’s face was dark with fury, veins bulging on his fists.

Though he couldn’t directly see the battlefield, he could sense through radar that in that instant, they had lost nearly five hundred bat-winged men!

And because the assault had stalled, the casualty count kept climbing!

“These useless fools!”

Beasts were beasts after all.

Armed with the best gear, they fought the dumbest battle!

If he had been commanding personally, they wouldn’t have lost over half their forces before even touching the airship’s edge!

Still, thankfully, over two thousand bat-winged men had managed to break through the Steel Heart’s fire net and reach the deck.

The Alliance’s main forces were all at the front lines now.

The combined numbers on the Steel Heart and the ground airport were probably less than a thousand.

A cold, pained smile crept onto Alzu’s face.

“…Enjoy the agony of being gutted!”

“Too bad I can’t hear your screams.”

……

At the same time Gahn led the remaining bat-winged men onto the deck, the Praetorian Guard, led by Lü Bei, had already engaged them in battle.

Though the Praetorian Guard wasn’t a frontline combat unit—mainly responsible for intelligence gathering and protecting the Administrator—only about three hundred were stationed on the airship. But like the players, they were Awakened, with formidable individual combat skills.

Joining the fight were also the ship’s aviation crew and some players who had respawned from save points.

The two sides clashed in close-quarters combat around the 400mm main gun and the ammunition elevator, the battle fiercely contested.

On a mountaintop nearly a hundred kilometers away, Yang Kai sat in a research vessel, staring at the screen, calmly sipping his coffee.

He was no expert in warfare, but instinct told him the Alliance’s situation was far from optimistic.

Still, he couldn’t blame them.

Flying mutants—he’d been startled when he first saw them. He hadn’t expected the Torch Church to have such a card up their sleeve, and so many of them!

This confirmed Dr. Conclusion’s speculation once again.

Those blue-skinned mutants with gills and scales along the coast of Cloud Province—they might well be the work of those fanatics.

But come to think of it, the Legion had lost the Steel Heart this way before, with Maclenn finally forced to flee in an escape pod.

History was repeating itself.

The Alliance, which had seized the Steel Heart like barbarians, was now having it taken from them in the same manner.

How ironic.

Yang Kai chuckled, figuring the time was about right, and tapped on the holographic screen.

Connecting to the communication channel the Administrator had left him, he cleared his throat and spoke in a casual tone.

“Contacting you now—hope I’m not interrupting. I can see you’ve done your best. Unfortunately, I can’t help much on the battlefield. But I can still sneak a few people out. If you need to retreat, just give me the word.”

Dr. Conclusion’s model included the possibility of an Alliance defeat, even if the probability was low.

If the worst happened, according to the plan, he needed to ensure the safety of the Alliance Administrator first, then the child carrying the antibody.

But Yang Kai was taken aback.

Faced with his lifeline, the voice from the comm channel replied with a blunt refusal.

“Don’t trouble yourselves.”

Raising an eyebrow, Yang Kai sat up from his chair.

“Are you sure? This isn’t the time to be stubborn.”

A undisguised sneer came through the channel.

“Which eye of yours sees me being stubborn?”

With that, the call ended.

Staring at the disconnected icon on the holographic window, Yang Kai clicked his tongue in irritation and leaned back in his chair.

“Hmph. Looks like I was being too considerate.”

……

At the same moment, two “Viper” transport planes burst through the dark clouds, flying above the Steel Heart’s deck.

Seeing the monsters crawling onto the deck and the continuous flashes of gunfire, Ye Shi’s eyes nearly bulged out.

“Holy shit… What the hell are those?!”

It was too dark to count exactly, but one glance told him they were outnumbered several times over.

The other players were similarly stunned.

But it was just surprise.

“A kind of winged beast,” Old Bai said, confirming the photos taken by the Goblin Corps on his VM. He shut the screen, racked the rifle hanging on his chest, and glanced around at the cabin. “Time to go.”

Without a hint of concern for the dense mutants, the men in the cabin roared with high spirits.

“Ooh!!!”

The two Vipers descended straight toward the Steel Heart’s deck, hovering with blue arcs of light at the northernmost edge.

From a height of over ten meters, players in exoskeletons lined up at the cabin door and jumped out one by one.

Jiang Xuezhou, slumped in her seat, was pale, her fingers gripping the seatbelt white-knuckled.

Seeing that Ye Shi was also about to jump down, she suddenly panicked and quickly spoke up.

“...Wait, you, you're just going down like that?”

Ye Shi, gripping the handrail by the hatch, grinned.

“Pfft, it's not the first time.”

Seeing the look of sheer terror on her face, he continued in a teasing tone.

“Just stay here, don't think about coming down to help.”

With her 'pet' not around, she was just a non-combatant; going down would only get in the way, better to stay on the plane.

But once this fight was over, he was going to mock her mercilessly.

After all, she had bragged plenty before about how awesome she was, yet now, before the battle even started, she was already terrified.

What a D-level researcher.

Nothing special!

Weakling!

Jiang Xuezhou's face was pale; she had no idea what this guy was thinking about her.

She didn't need him to tell her; she had no intention of going down. Besides, forget jumping out—just looking at this height made her dizzy... How could this guy not be afraid at all?

“C-can't we shoot from the plane?” Just because she felt embarrassed staying alone on the plane, she tried to persuade him to stay too.

“Shoot from the plane?” Ye Shi was taken aback, his expression odd. “Are you kidding? We're up in the sky, with this much wind—how could you possibly hit anything—”

Before his words could even fade, a premonition of danger crept into his heart, but he had no chance to react. A tremendous force slammed into the fuselage, and the unbalanced Viper spun and tumbled toward the edge of the deck.

“Ahhh—!”

Watching the world spin outside the cabin, Jiang Xuezhou, pressed against her seat, screamed in terror and nearly fainted.

Ye Shi had it even worse.

With one foot already out of the hatch, he was nearly thrown out entirely. His right hand clung to the handrail by the door, and only the brute strength of his exoskeleton kept him clinging to the outside of the plane.

Perhaps deflected by the shield, the spinning Viper seemed about to crash onto the deck, but at the last moment it scraped past the edge.

“Damn—!”

The pilot, gripping the controls, used every ounce of strength, nearly stomping the rudder through the floor, and finally managed to pull the out-of-control plane back.

But just then, a monster with fangs embedded in its jaws and withered muscles poked its head through the open hatch.

That face seemed to come straight from hell—

The moment her eyes met those green, glowing orbs, Jiang Xuezhou felt her limbs turn to ice. The frigid wind pouring through the hatch instantly choked her breath and stopped her heart.

“...Little, Little Wang.” She murmured the words with trembling lips, but quickly remembered she had left it behind in Jinhe City.

Despair slowly crept across Jiang Xuezhou's face.

At that critical moment, a cold gleam flashed in the darkness. A dagger flew like a javelin from the opposite hatch and thudded into the beast's forehead.

The blade seemed to have struck right into its eye socket. The monster let out a piercing shriek, released its claws, and tumbled out of the cabin.

Jiang Xuezhou blinked in surprise. Her eyes, misted with tears, turned in delight toward the opposite hatch from which the dagger had come.

He's alive!

But her joy came too soon. The roar that climbed into the cabin along with that guy instantly killed the fluttering hope in her heart.

“Why the hell don't you just press A?!!”