On the Peace Ark, the eagle-faced man, who had already gripped the gate lever and was about to pull it up, retracted his hand.
“Direction?”
“Nine degrees east, they’re heading towards the smoke plume!”
“Instructor, what should we do next?” the pilot asked, looking back.
Given the size of the God-made God, even moving would not avoid the aerial bombardment, especially since the magic barrier was already ineffective. A second Sun's Radiance strike near the Black Stone Pyramid had a significant chance of destroying the obelisk. Moreover, for the crew, this was also the safest course of action.
But he didn't board this aircraft for safety.
The pilots of both bombers were selected from the best students, with the instructor serving as captain – the purpose was clear. The former were the key to flying the plane well, while they were the guarantee of completing the mission.
A non-negligible success rate also meant a probability of failure.
And he wanted to eliminate the element of chance and maximize what he could control.
The possibility of the God-made God shifting its position between the two attacks, or even moving from the beginning, had been discussed many times by the staff. There was only one solution: to exchange altitude for accuracy until the enemy had nowhere to avoid.
“Drop altitude by two thousand, recalculate the bombing route,” the eagle-faced man ordered without hesitation, “Wherever they go, we follow!”
……
At this moment, the Terror Beasts had already “collided” with the diving air squadron.
Gude felt that the sky had darkened considerably, as if the just-emerging dawn had been swallowed by the night again. There were enemies everywhere, above, below, left, and right.
The gun ports of the Sky Fury sprayed out dazzling streams of light, the only thing that reassured him. Aim – or slightly align, then fire. Any Terror Beast blocking his path would be torn to pieces. Individual skill was insignificant in the face of such a large-scale battle. Even with eyes in the back of his head, it was impossible to spot every enemy coming at him.
If his teammates hadn't been covering him all the way, he guessed he would have been hit by the flying bone spears long ago.
After three rounds of long bursts, Gude felt a sudden brightness in front of him and realized that he had penetrated the Terror Beast swarm. Looking back, not a single enemy was biting at his tail.
“What are the devils doing? Their attention doesn't seem to be on us.” Finjin, who had been flanking him, also noticed this.
Gude pulled his plane away, and immediately felt a sense of foreboding. From a global perspective, only a small portion of the dense Terror Beasts in the sky were engaged in combat with the Sky Knights; the others were desperately climbing higher.
Logically, the devils shouldn't even be able to detect the bombers traveling above the clouds.
And the facts proved that they didn't find the target.
Although they were climbing, their routes were varied, giving a feeling of blindly crashing around.
“Damn it, the devils are looking for the Peace Ark!” Gude roared into the radio.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Finjin whistled. “At their flying speed, it’ll take a lot of effort to catch the bombers. We can also take the opportunity to take down a few more and ease His Highness's pressure.”
Despite these words, Gude still had a sense of unease.
“Another group of enemies is charging over!” his teammate reminded him. “Let's go to the cloud layer first; it's more suitable for attrition warfare there. When we pull our altitude above four thousand meters, the Terror Beasts will struggle to flap their wings, and we can shave off the leading ones layer by layer, like a barber.”
“That sounds like a good idea!”
“I'll climb up first!”
More than a dozen biplanes took off one after another, heading towards the high sky.
Gude didn't follow.
He tuned the radio to the squadron frequency and spoke to Finjin alone, “We’ll stay in this airspace.”
“What, stay here? If the enemy suddenly gives up searching, we'll be the first to get hit!” His old partner immediately questioned, "Besides, wouldn't others take all the credit if we don't take this opportunity to expand our victory?"
“None of that matters; what matters is the devils' actions!” Gude explained while staring at the battlefield. “Think about it, if they can guess the existence of the bombers, then wouldn't they realize that the previous attack actually came from an inconspicuous bomb?”
“No way… the devils don't know about the Sun's Radiance Project at all, and they didn't detect our attack in advance. From the bombing to the explosion, it was only a matter of minutes. How could they know so much?”
“I’m not sure, but I just feel that the Floating City's movement towards the smoke plume is not a coincidence,” Gude muttered. According to the average person’s thinking, that's a cloud of dust formed by an exploding object. They would avoid it if they could, so why would they actively approach it? If the devils are doing this on purpose, then the time during which the bomb fell would be the last chance for them to seize a counterattack.
“Okay,” Finjin replied helplessly after a long silence. “Since you've said so, I'll trust you this time. But if I lose out on battle merit because of this, you'll have to compensate me well.”
“How about a month's worth of Chaos Drinks?”
“No need, just introduce your sister to me.”
“Paji.” The sound of the communication being cut off came from the headset.
Finjin smiled and turned to fly towards Gude.
……
Damn, these guys – they're really troublesome!
Wu Wang frantically drove the flight magic stone, dodging the clusters of bullets fired at it. According to False Mask, being hit by this little thing was no different from taking a hammer blow head-on, and even the magic barrier couldn't withstand it for too long. Since the Silence Disaster had suffered the pain of human firearms, it naturally didn't intend to experience it personally.
Originally, with its abilities, interfering with the perception of ordinary humans was easy, even if the opponent wore a God's Punishment Stone, it could still more or less influence them. But the one targeting it was a witch.
What made Wu Wang even more uncomfortable was that the witch didn't seem to intend to decide the outcome with magic at all. She was piloting a blood-red iron bird and almost never approached within nine hundred feet of it. Although it was a hit-and-run tactic, the opponent was not only extremely agile but also accurate, immediately putting it in a passive situation where it couldn't catch up or shake her off.
For a magic possessor not to rely on their own magic and instead place their hopes on external objects was a disgrace in its eyes!
And there seemed to be more than one of these guys.
For example, the Godstone bullets that were shot down from the clouds from time to time were also obviously from the hands of witches – if it hadn't become particularly sensitive to hostility after its advancement, it would have been ambushed by the enemy long ago.
It was supposed to be chasing humans, but instead, it was being relentlessly pursued by the prey, putting it in a dilemma. Wu Wang had never been so annoyed. In the end, the only one who could be as agile in the air as on the ground was Heikesuode, the one who was called "Lord of the Sky Dome.” It had all its abilities, but now it could only rely on the flight magic stone to dodge left and right, all because of Nasoperre. If it had let the Wyvern army directly fight the enemy head-on, how could it have been chased so wantonly by this red iron bird?
What a main attacking force hidden in the high sky. It sounded like it had actually seen it.
Wu Wang dodged another round of strafing from the witch, resentfully looked at the top of its head, and then couldn't help but be stunned.
It saw a huge black iron bird sliding out of the smoke plume. Its body was thicker than the largest Boger Wyvern, and there were four propulsion devices hanging under a pair of wings. The other double-winged iron birds were insignificant in comparison!
There was no doubt that this was the “anomaly” that False Mask was referring to——
It had actually guessed correctly.
Other Wyvern units also noticed this and chased after the new target as instructed earlier. Although the humans tried to stop them, in the face of the absolute difference in numbers, the obstruction was only delaying the time. It was only a matter of time before this giant iron bird was shot down.
“Okay, I guess you were right,” Wu Wang transmitted with runes. “My troops have found your so-called main attacking force, and I believe they will be able to deal with it soon.”
However, False Mask’s voice didn't seem to relax at all. “What does it look like? Tell me quickly!”
Wu Wang frowned, but still said bluntly, "It looks like a bigger artificial iron bird."
“What about the bottom of its abdomen? Is there anything hanging on it?”
At this moment, the witch attacked again.
This is endless! After destroying that big one, it will be your turn soon! Wu Wang barely dodged, and then had the time to take a closer look——
“It……”
“There’s nothing?” False Mask repeated in a rare tone.
“That’s right,” Wu Wang said impatiently. “Apart from a big pit, I didn’t see anything.”