Time to Snipe!

To be honest. The moment he crawled into the command room, Lin Yi was actually a bit apprehensive. After all, there were quite a few buttons before him—green, red, and blue, easily several dozen of them. If he accidentally pressed the wrong command while operating, the “fun” would be immense—immense enough that Lin Yi could go straight to meet Meileidi. So Lin Yi embraced the sole resolve of his life, planning to memorize the entire operation procedure without missing a word. He even steeled himself to secretly practice a few times on the side while the grand array could still hold out a while longer. As it turned out... You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, buddy—pressing just one button and it’s all done? “Nothing surprising about that, Comrade Lin Yi.” Apparently guessing Lin Yi’s thoughts, Chen Zhengze took the initiative to explain: “This red button isn’t a shortcut added for your convenience; it’s the master control built into the H-11. Press it, and all equipment will operate in sequence according to preset commands—it’s just that this time we additionally integrated a power-on command. As for the other buttons you see, they’re mostly for electronic warfare or friendly-module linkage, not closely tied to this final launch step.” Chen Zhengze really wasn’t trying to save face for Lin Yi. The H-11, at the launch stage, really was one-button, foolproof operation. After all, it was a terminal defense system, the last link in the entire interception chain. In actual combat, an advanced terminal air-defense missile needed only a few seconds from detecting the target to completing launch, and had to strike within half a minute. Put plainly, by the time this thing activated, the attacking object was practically right in your face. In that situation, if you still had to enter a mountain of complex commands, some micromanaging principal would probably find plenty of common ground with it. By contrast, long-range or ultra-long-range interception missiles could occasionally be manually intervened. Hum hum hum... While Chen Zhengze was explaining, the display screen before Lin Yi suddenly lit up, and the console emitted a slight vibration. Immediately after, a turret at a rear section of the H-11 automatically opened, raising a rotating platform carrying a radar. The radar wasn’t large, painted entirely green, looking like it had been coated with cheap paint from a shoddy renovation company—nothing like “high-end” or “technological feel.” But in reality, this simply painted radar was no small thing: the latest all-solid-state active phased array radar newly equipped by field forces, enough to make certain foreigners green with envy. After the radar extended— Whoosh— A drone on the ground flashed its indicator light and began flying upward. “Chief of Staff Chen,” Lin Yi said, syncing the information to Chen Zhengze even though no operation was needed. “The drone has taken off.” “Very good,” Chen Zhengze nodded, possibly worried Lin Yi had reservations, and added, “The drone and the command vehicle are linked via T03 and will automatically locate and track.” Lin Yi blinked. “T03? It sounds like some mysterious code like PZZ256...” “Mm, one of our tactical data links,” Chen Zhengze—unaware Lin Yi had gone off on a tangent—said. “You’ve heard of the air combats between India and Pakistan, right? The Link 17 used by Pakistan is actually our authorized T03.” Now Lin Yi understood. Bosom friends across the four seas—and at the ends of the earth, six to zero. After another while, the drone quickly rose to several hundred meters, hovered above Lin Yi’s head for over ten seconds, then flew toward a certain direction. Lin Yi’s brow immediately furrowed. That direction was all too familiar to him—it was none other than the entrance to the sect-protecting grand array, namely the location of the two Golden-Eyed Crimson-Scale Beasts! After another while, the drone reached the edge of the sect grand array. A flash of silver light, and it passed through. The Guihua Sect’s sect-protecting grand array was called the Small Three Talents Array. Although it was a low-level array, its cost-effectiveness was high, and even ordinary minor sects might not be able to buy one. To set it up, one first placed array stones at three specific locations, then set an array eye in a main hall; once formed, it could block passage on both sides. To enter and exit the grand array freely, one either refined the array jade that could activate the grand array, or possessed a transit seal issued by the controller of the array jade. Lin Yi had added a transit seal to the drone’s body the moment it took off, so naturally it passed through without obstruction. After passing through the grand array— Beep beep beep— A strange noise suddenly came from the drone’s fuselage, and its surface began flashing. Lin Yi initially thought the machine had malfunctioned, but after observing for a while with a cultivator’s hearing and sight, he discovered these sounds seemed to be actively made by the drone... However, just as Lin Yi was about to observe a while longer— Swish— A mass of faint-red breath shot rapidly up from the ground, precisely striking the drone’s fuselage. Bam! The drone instantly turned into a cluster of sparks. Lin Yi’s pupils instantly constricted, and he quickly shouted into his phone: “Chief of Staff Chen, the drone’s been shot down; it should be the breath spat out by the Golden-Eyed Crimson-Scale Beast!” “Don’t panic, Comrade Lin Yi,” Chen Zhengze’s tone carried no panic at all—steady as a fishing enthusiast who’d just bought fish from the market. “Everything is within the Think Tank’s plan; just wait.” Sure enough. No sooner had Chen Zhengze finished speaking than another drone rose into the sky from the ground. Again it circled, locked onto a direction, passed through the grand array, and began beeping and flashing. And Lin Yi noticed that this drone’s position in the air seemed a bit higher than the previous one. One minute later. Bam!! Another cluster of sparks fell from the sky. Then the third, the fourth... Cluster after cluster of sparks burst in the air, and their positions kept getting higher. Gradually, in the direction of the sect grand array, faint growls full of anger rang out, as if somewhat impatient with the drones’ frequent harassment. And so... When the eighth drone, blaring the Neon Emperor’s Surrender Recording, had been out of the grand array for not long— Swish— A strange beast with double wings, like a lion on Earth, roared as it rose into the sky, charging straight to the horizon. It was the Golden-Eyed Crimson-Scale Beast! At the same time— Beep beep beep beep— An urgent alert suddenly sounded on the console before Lin Yi. A blinking white dot suddenly appeared in the previously quiet main screen. Immediately after, the vehicle beneath Lin Yi trembled slightly. At the rear of the vehicle, one of the vertical launch cell covers suddenly sprang open with a bang, and large amounts of white steam began to gush from the launch silo. The next second— Boom— High-pressure gas instantly ejected a missile from the tube; the missile body dragged a brilliant-white tail flame, fiercely rushing toward the sky. At the same time, the banded active phased array radar also began operating frantically. Massive amounts of guidance information were repeatedly handed off via the T03 data link, tightly locking onto that distant figure. In the sky, the Golden-Eyed Crimson-Scale Beast seemed to sense something. It opened its huge mouth and let out a deafening roar, then suddenly flipped, abandoning the drone and darting at extreme speed to the other side. But it was already too late. At this distance, for an air-defense missile with a terminal speed over Mach 3, the time from locking onto the target to hitting it was almost measured in the blink of an eye. The warhead slightly adjusted its attitude and traced a beautiful collision course through the air, cutting toward the Golden-Eyed Crimson-Scale Beast. Then the proximity fuze on the warhead unlocked, and the warhead entered instantaneous detonation. Boom—!!!! A cluster of sparks more violent than any before suddenly burst into bloom in the air!