“Right, four o'clock direction... two of them!” The warning from his teammate mingled with the sound of machine gun fire, making it sound intermittent. “Watch out—javelins!”

Gud pushed the control stick hard to the left, and the biplane flipped over more than halfway, tilting downwards—

“Whoosh—!”

A bone javelin whistled past overhead, one of them piercing the upper wing, leaving a fist-sized hole in the skin.

Without even looking at the enemy, he continued to accelerate downwards, quickly reaching maximum speed.

This was the battle method that Princess Tilly had summarized since the aerial knights began engaging the enemy. At low speeds, Terror Beasts possessed a maneuverability that biplanes could not match. They could hover in the air and make turns and fly backwards in a very small radius. This made it difficult to shake off tailing in simulated combat using tactical maneuvers. At the same time, the rear gunner could hardly predict the target's trajectory within effective range. The combination of the two was extremely unfavorable for dogfighting.

However, Terror Beasts also had very obvious weaknesses: their only means of attack came from the javelins thrown by the rider on their back, and their flying and climbing speeds were inferior to those of the Skyfire. The Throwing Magic Stones, which could only be exerted twice in a row, were only threatening at close range, whether in terms of distance or power.

Therefore, when targeted by the enemy, the safest tactic was to face the enemy with the belly of the plane, while quickly increasing the distance between the two, and then climbing again, using the machine gun's longer effective range to kill the opponent. The biplane was equipped with protective plates in both cockpit positions, which could effectively protect the pilot from being directly pierced by javelins. The wide wings seemed to be extremely fragile targets, but as long as the main skeleton was not hit, a few holes in them would not cause fatal damage to the aircraft.

Today, a major improvement of the Skyfire compared to the training plane was the incorporation of wing rolling operations into the main control stick. The pilot could easily control the pitch and direction of the aircraft with just one hand.

Once full speed was reached, it would only take a few tens of seconds to shake off the enemy. During this time, a Mad Demon could throw bone javelins at most twice, and it was by no means easy to hit a fast-moving plane.

Multiple actual combats had also proven the effectiveness of this method. To date, the aerial knights had lost several aircraft, but no one had died on the battlefield.

Accompanied by the high-pitched roar of the engine, Gud flew hundreds of meters away in an instant. Even if the Mad Demons behind him wanted to throw javelins again at this time, they would have no chance to get close to him.

However, after pulling up the nose of the plane, he did not immediately turn around to find the two devils that had been targeting him. Instead, he focused his attention on another friendly plane that was being tailed.

As for the enemies behind him, Heinz was waiting for them.

Using the accumulated height and visibility advantage to attack the enemies that were closely pursuing their teammates, while giving their own tail to their teammates to protect, was the aerial knights' second major operational principle!

After two takeoffs and landings, Gud achieved his fourth victory.

The aerial knights began to gradually gain the upper hand on the battlefield.

Lightning and Maisie also joined the battlefield at this time—all the devils were horrified to discover that there was a giant, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, member of their own kind in the sky. It looked extremely mighty, but its target was themselves. Under the unexpected appearance of the blood basin, the Terror Beasts showed obvious fear. Even if the Mad Demons angrily pulled on the reins, their actions were not as good as before.

This chaos further exacerbated the devils' disadvantage. Lightning shuttled through the battlefield like a ghost. The short-range supersonic flight made it impossible for the Mad Demons to resist. Often, by the time they raised their bone javelins, Lightning's rotary gun was already against the back of their heads.

Every few minutes, a Terror Beast was shot down, and the sky seemed to be raining "devils."

The movement of these behemoths falling to the ground naturally caught the eye of Farina.

She watched as a two-winged monster covered in blood crashed into the snow not far from the road. The strong impact caused it to roll several times before stopping, while its wings and limbs were flung everywhere like rags.

What on earth was happening in the sky?

There was no doubt that the First Army was prepared for the enemy from the sky, but all she could think of was firearms specially used to deal with these devils—but even now, she still had not heard the sharp hiss of the machine guns from the rear of the carriage. On the contrary, a strange buzzing sound came from overhead from time to time, as if a fierce battle was breaking out there.

The problem was... in the sky?

Farina couldn't restrain her curiosity. Taking advantage of the opportunity when the convoy passed a straight section of road, she leaned out and glanced at the sky behind her.

And this one glance caused the blood in her whole body to boil!

“Gods...”

She couldn't help but murmur.

Beneath the low-lying clouds, silvery streamers flickered incessantly, like rays of dawn, and the source of the light was a group of uniquely shaped gray giant birds—unlike the abrupt and strange feeling that the Red Mist Skeleton gave her, Farina could clearly feel that the giant birds fighting the devils were all man-made.

It was symmetrical from left to right, balanced as a whole, square and upright, all revealing the beauty of a war weapon. But it was precisely this that shocked her even more.

Since when could humans fly into the sky like birds and set foot in the realm that belonged only to the gods?

"We"... can we do this too?

She couldn't help but think of a report she had read in the Graycastle Weekly—a black and white picture was published in a prominent position on the front page. The huge machine in the picture seemed to be exactly the same as these iron birds in the sky.

So, those are the Skyfires.

The report at the time used the words "a historic moment for mankind." She didn't pay much attention to it, after all, she had seen too much of this kind of self-aggrandizing talk before. But now Farina realized that even if those words were exaggerated ten times over, they couldn't describe her mood at the moment.

There was sighing, regret, ridiculousness, excitement... but most of all, there was pride.

For she was also a member of humanity—

And pride.

How much had she missed during the year she had shut herself away in Joe's house...

Farina's body trembled slightly, but her hand holding the steering wheel tightened even more.

Although she had missed a lot, she had turned back, hadn't she?

...

Sylvie clearly saw that the devils chasing in the air were on the verge of collapse. Under the crossfire of the aerial knights and Lightning and Maisie, the opponents were completely at a disadvantage. Several Terror Beasts were fleeing backwards out of the control of their riders, and this move would inevitably affect other members of their kind. However, they might not be able to escape Lightning's subsequent pursuit at this distance.

As for those devils that pounced on the convoy, they didn't gain any advantage either—a dozen or so Mad Demons, following past experience, jumped directly from the backs of their mounts when the Terror Beasts flew over the convoy, hoping to avoid the machine guns' range advantage. However, they were facing a group of God's Punishment Witches comparable to transcendents, and these witches were also holding forty-millimeter shotguns in their hands.

Their fate could almost be described as tragic.

Even Sylvie couldn't help but close her eyes when she saw the God's Punishment Witches tearing the enemy to pieces with almost fanatical grins.

At this point, the victory was a foregone conclusion.