"Damn... what is that thing?"

Lightning, who had been circling not far from the God-Making God, was the first to notice the anomaly occurring on it.

"Goo... Did they dig up the stone pillars buried in the ground?" Maggie scrutinized it for a long while.

From high in the air, those dark things did indeed look like pillars standing upright, but only halfway up seemed too strange. What's more, they were arranged in a neat circle around the floating land, which didn't look like a random arrangement at all.

Lightning felt a surge of extreme unease.

She directly activated two sigils and said, "This is the exploration team! We've detected an abnormal situation on the floating land! Repeat, the target has an abnormal situation!"

"Phoenix received," Tilly quickly replied, "I've also noticed the dust rising above. Please continue to monitor, and I'll notify the Sky Knight Corps to be vigilant."

"This is Seagull," Andrea's voice came second, "Can you describe in detail what you're seeing?"

"Uh..." Lightning struggled to find the right words, "Some black pillars are rising from the edge of the land, seemingly similar to the towers in the devils' city. I don't know exactly what they are, but the volume is definitely not small—"

Just then, she suddenly froze.

She saw a stone pillar flashing with dazzling blue light, as if the light was emanating from within and illuminating its crystal-like outer wall—then something shot out of the stone pillar with lightning speed, flying straight towards the sky!

"The pillars are hollow, goo!" Maggie exclaimed.

"Huh? Hollow?" Andrea was still confused.

Lightning was already shouting at the top of her lungs, "Squadrons, disperse!"

The thing sped past them, falling in a long parabola into the battle zone—this time she saw it clearly: the thing being launched was also a stone pillar, identical in shape to the "pillar needles" fired by the spider-like grotesque beasts, but many times larger! At the same time, it was covered in obvious magical fluctuations, appearing like shimmering waves of light blown by the wind at high speed.

Faced with the sudden attack, both sides panicked for a moment, turning and diving, hoping to avoid the incoming object in the shortest amount of time.

In the wide sky, however, neither the Skyfires nor the Terror Beasts were more than insignificant dots. The ten-plus kilometers also prolonged the stone pillar's flight time. It pierced through the battlefield above, smashing a clearly injured Terror Beast whose speed had decreased to pieces, before plummeting towards the ground.

That's it? Lightning couldn't help but be stunned.

To launch a huge stone pillar from such a distance, neither exploding nor splitting into a rain of stone needles, could the enemy really be hoping to shoot down all the Skyfires with this one strike? What's the difference between this and swatting mosquitoes with a wooden stick?

However, before she could breathe a sigh of relief, Maggie on her head had already nudged her head with her paw towards the pillar's landing point.

"Look there, goo!"

When Lightning's gaze met the camouflage platform where the fortress gun model was placed, she suddenly understood.

The devils' target from the beginning was the artillery position!

The stone pillar slammed into the position, bursting into a dazzling blue light—its impact alone stirred up several meters of snow mist on the hilltop, and the muffled sound was no less than the roar of cannons. Due to its massive size, the stone pillar did not stop immediately, but rolled forward for nearly a hundred meters, crushing anything in its path into pieces.

In an instant, the position was a mess.

Lightning gasped.

If this was a blocking position, wouldn't things be dire?

"Lightning, respond quickly, is there danger?"

"No, the squadrons are safe for now, but you'd better not disturb her now." Lightning glanced at the aerial battlefield—after the stone pillar, both sides were reorganizing their formations, and the battle was clearly not over. Then she solemnly turned her gaze back to the camouflaged position and said in a deep voice, "It's the ground troops... they're probably in trouble next!"

That was no ordinary stone pillar.

In the swirling snow mist, the blue light grew dimmer and dimmer, finally disappearing completely. At the same time, pieces of the pillar's surface peeled away, revealing a flesh-like structure inside.

She vaguely saw something crawling out of it.

"Did you see that?" Lightning patted her head.

Maggie tilted her head, staring at the ground for a while, "Yes... spider devils, goo! Small spider devils, goo!"

...

Maotzhua and Youpi also witnessed the destruction of the camouflaged position—although their view was limited, and they didn't see exactly what fell from the sky, the accumulated snow rising from the opposite hilltop and the echoing rumble all indicated that the distance of eighteen kilometers was no longer safe in front of the mobile fortress. The devils could hit the decoy point, so they could also hit them.

"Captain, the enemy has entered firing range!" The observer's reminder sounded from the other end of the hidden fortifications, "No tendency for the floating land to turn has been observed, all three gun positions can fire directly!"

Maotzhua bit his lip and exchanged a glance with Youpi.

Choosing to fire now would undoubtedly involve great risk, but if they retreated directly, the Sky Knights' heroic struggle and the command's arrangement would become meaningless.

"Sometimes, what effect we can have is not something we need to consider," Youpi slowly nodded.

There's nothing wrong with being afraid.

The same goes for failure.

The most important thing is to fulfill their duties as soldiers.

And their duty was to sound the cannons.

Maotzhua took a deep breath, jumped out of the lookout point through the window, and blew the action whistle!

"Everyone, get into position immediately and complete the shooting before the enemy reacts! Hurry, move, let those Sky Knight guys see who the real aces are!"

A large number of people surged out of the deserted position in an instant, and the snow-white camouflage cloth was uncovered, revealing the cold-glowing gun barrels below. Unlike the wooden models, these war weapons cast in steel possessed an aggressive oppressiveness at all times.

Without Maotzhua's urging, everyone had completed the preparatory work such as loading and rope hanging. The entire process was smooth and flowing, a far cry from facing the Changge Knights a few years ago.

That's right, he wasn't the only one growing.

This army had become a force capable of influencing the fate of mankind.

"Report, gun positions one, two, and three are all ready!"

Maotzhua looked at the floating land, which was pressing down like a mountain in the distance, and spat fiercely.

"Fire!"

The deafening roar ignited the hilltop.

The firelight spewing from the muzzle became a dazzling star in the mountains!