A Rain of Blood Blooming in the Sky

Hundreds of gun barrels locked onto the coordinates marked on the radar across the distance. As muzzle flashes flared in unison, streaks of tracer fire pierced the grayish-green fog, screeching toward the swarm of flapping mutants hurtling through the sky. Flying low just above the ground, Ga'en suddenly felt a chill at the back of his neck, followed immediately by an ominous alarm ringing in his skull. He snapped his head up. Before he could make sense of what was happening, blinding flashes of fire detonated across the sky. Boom—! A dozen Batwings closest to him bore the brunt of the onslaught, instantly shredded to pieces by streaks of tracer fire as thick as pythons. The creatures flying in the surrounding airspace fared no better. Proximity-fused 155mm fragmentation shells burst in sequence. The flying shrapnel swept through the bursting flames and dense walls of smoke like the Grim Reaper's scythe, wildly reaping mangled, bloody lives. For a moment, a rain of blood fell from the sky, accompanied by flying chunks of flesh and tumbling severed limbs. "Scatter!!" Remembering the Holy Son's warning, Ga'en roared at the top of his lungs. He beat his wings, banking hard to dodge a screeching streak of tracer fire, and accelerated in the direction from which the shells were originating. High-pitched shrieks brushed past him, churning up rolling clouds of dust on the ground just inches away, yet failing to harm him in the slightest. The biomass armor bestowed upon him by the Church of the Torch not only boasted an exceptionally tough chitinous shell, but also possessed tremendous self-repair capabilities. Ordinary explosive shrapnel and 7mm rifle rounds could barely scratch him, and even if he were injured, he could rapidly mend damaged tissue by absorbing biomass! Having grown familiar with the formidable power of this biomass armor, Ga'en grew bolder as he wove through the hail of bullets and artillery fire. Whatever trace of panic he had left vanished completely. Ducking past a screaming shell, he looked up toward the direction of fire and let out an exhilarating howl: "You cowards who only dare to shell from afar, did you not eat your fill?! Hahaha, you think this pathetic trick is enough to shoot me down?! Keep dreaming!" Over a dozen kilometers away, the Heart of Steel naturally could not hear the yapping of a beast. Inside the bridge, the captain stared fixedly at the console screen, watching the red dots rapidly disappear or tumble downward. The operators seated at the terminals shouted in succession: "Artillery hits confirmed! Damage is effective!" "Swarm numbers are declining rapidly!" "They're scattering!" "Ten kilometers to target!" "Updating radar fire coordinates!" Standing to the side, the adjutant clenched his fists, feelings mixed between relief and apprehension. The relief came from having accurately anticipated the enemy's movements—it wasn't a decoy. The dread, however, came from sheer numbers. There were far too many of them! Even now, they still had no idea what was attacking them; the radar showed only blurry scanned silhouettes. Turning to the captain, the adjutant spoke in a grave voice: "Over eight thousand remaining. They'll reach us in ten minutes at most... Anti-aircraft fire alone won't be enough to wipe them all out." "We cannot allow them near the Heart of Steel!" The captain stared grimly at the radar screen. After a moment's contemplation, he finally gave the order: "Scramble the carrier aircraft!" In misty conditions, and at night no less, the interception efficiency of the aircraft would be severely limited. Even though visibility in the airspace around the Heart of Steel was much better than near the ground, it was still only about two hundred meters. This meant the pilots' firing windows would be exceedingly narrow. Especially when facing suspected mutant targets engaged in erratic maneuvers, their window to shoot would last only a split second. If they missed, they would have to loop around for another pass. Yet even so, it was better than leaving the aircraft on the deck to fight monsters in hand-to-hand combat! On the flight deck of the Heart of Steel: The players of the Goblin Corps had long been waiting inside their cockpits. Having finally received the scramble order, Luo Yu threw the throttle forward without hesitation, gripping the stick as his plane rolled down the runway. The aircraft following him took off in rapid succession, skimming around the edge of the anti-aircraft barrage and surging toward the radar-designated airspace. Taxiing into line, Feng Qing rolled her plane onto the runway. Glancing left and right, she muttered in confusion: "Where's the corps commander?" Gui Gui's voice came through the comms: "No idea... I was just wondering where that guy disappeared to." Missing out on an event this thrilling was completely unlike Mosquito. Just then, Luo Yu's voice came over the public channel: "Brothers, Mosquito that troll has dumped the command on me yet again... I don't know what kind of crap the enemy is, but they picked the wrong damn target!" With that, he closed his eyes and yelled, imitating Mosquito's unmistakable raspy duck voice: "Follow me! Stall them at all costs! Awoo-awoo-awoo!" Hearing the terrible imitation, Feng Qing couldn't help snickering. But seeing everyone else roaring with fired-up enthusiasm, she joined in with a spirited shout: "Awoooo—!" Ah... She had forgotten to carve words on her cockpit. Well, didn't matter much anyway. The roar of propellers whipped up howling gusts across the flight deck, lifting swept-back wings toward the fog-shrouded battlefield. Plunging downward, the planes resembled lance-wielding lancers charging from above the clouds into the surging swarm of flapping beasts. Wind whistled past the wingtips. Battle lust burned behind her goggles, and her index finger rested on the autocannon's trigger. Rumor had it there were ten thousand monsters out there. Then she would finish this poetic stanza in their blood! ... A total of fifty W-2 attack aircraft split into two combat formations, taking up positions to the left and right like red-hot tongs clamping onto the swarm of mutants charging the Heart of Steel. Yet those mutants were clearly no pushovers. After enduring several bursts of autocannon fire, the swarm quickly split off a dozen detachments to latch onto the Alliance's propeller planes. In terms of technological sophistication, propeller aircraft were certainly no match for genetically engineered bio-soldiers. However, catching up to fixed-wing aircraft was far from easy for beasts flapping their wings; it required dozens coordinating together. At the cost of over a dozen lives, a monster finally seized the gap when a W-2 pulled up in evasive maneuvers. Folding its wings, it dove in a glide and plunged headfirst into a player's cockpit. "Holy crap?! What the hell is this?! It's so ugly!" Startled by the sharp-fanged, green-skinned creature barging in, Gui Gui immediately drew her pistol and pulled the trigger right into its screeching forehead. Two gunshots rang out—bang, bang. Black blood sprayed everywhere, instantly flash-frozen against the canopy by the freezing rush of wind. The beast stopped breathing on the spot, but its head remained wedged into the nose while its tail got tangled in the propeller. Through the haze, she spotted black smoke billowing from the seams of the engine cowling. At that moment, Feng Qing's voice came through the comm channel: "Gui Gui, what's your status?!" Bashing the head stuck in her cockpit with the butt of her pistol, Gui Gui wrestled with the control stick, trying to bring the spinning aircraft back under control. Yet the airspeed indicator was climbing faster and faster. The gore-smeared canopy completely blocked her view outside, driving her to the brink of insanity. "M-M-My prop is broken! Dammit! There's blood everywhere, I can't see shit outside! Am I upside down or right side up?!" "Maybe bail out—" "Bail out my ass! I'd get gnawed down to the bone before I hit the ground!" She hardly expected mutants to honor the Geneva Conventions by leaving parachuting pilots alone; she'd be devoured alive the moment she dangled in the sky. As she spoke, another monster crashed down onto the belly of her aircraft with a heavy thud, sending the already erratic plane into violent oscillations. The beast reached out, clutched the wing, and crawled toward the canopy, letting out an ear-piercing shriek at her through the glass. Staring at the gaping maw and two glowing green eyes inches away, she gave a wry, helpless sigh and reached for the pull ring behind her cockpit seat. The W-2 attack aircraft had two escape systems: One was manually jettisoning the canopy to parachute out. The other was an explosive charge strapped directly to the fuselage battery pack. The latter was the exact same model used by infantry, but because it sat flush against the battery, the resulting blast was vastly magnified and packed bonus incendiary damage. "See you guys in three days!" Squeezing her eyes shut, Gui Gui flipped the safety and yanked the fuse. A wisp of white smoke hissed from the explosive's edge. With her last shred of consciousness, just as the razor-toothed beast dragged her from the cockpit, she watched the aircraft beneath her burst into a fiery sphere, engulfing the cluster of monsters clinging to its hull. "Gui Gui!!" Watching the plane consumed by the explosion, Feng Qing let out a cry of grief and fury, wheeling her nose around to dive toward the falling fireball. Her spitting autocannons roared continuously, sending struck mutants tumbling from the sky one after another. Until she exhausted her very last round... Fifty W-2 attack aircraft against nearly eight thousand flying mutants was simply an overwhelming mismatch. Neither veteran aces nor rookies with under two thousand flight hours had any experience combating such "erratically maneuvering targets." Coupled with the adverse weather, their kill efficiency was far from ideal. Within minutes, the Goblin Corps had suffered over fifty percent casualties. Even so, the Goblin Corps bought invaluable target practice time for the gunners in the weapon bays and for Xiao Qi, who was operating the anti-aircraft batteries. These final few kilometers became an insurmountable chasm for the wing-flapping horde. Watching the ripples on the terminal screens draw closer and closer, every officer on the bridge involuntarily clenched their fists. The Heart of Steel had poured tons of ammunition into the sky at full capacity, yet the radar still indicated nearly four thousand remaining! Even the most optimistic estimate projected two to three thousand mutants breaching the Heart of Steel's firing blind spots and landing on the flight deck. A boarding action had become inevitable. "Order all crew aboard to draw weapons and ammunition!" Issuing the command in a grave tone, the captain unholstered his sidearm without a word, chambered a round, and slammed it onto the console before him, making his stance clear: he would live or die with the ship. Everyone else did the same. No words were necessary. Just as the dark swarm broke through the fringe of the cloud banks, their forms nearly reflected in the bridge's floor-to-ceiling windows, an off-white transport blimp drifted up from below, positioning itself right in front of the Heart of Steel and blocking the direct line of sight between the oncoming horde and the flagship. Standing beside the captain, the adjutant froze. His expression changed drastically, and he blurted out: "A transport blimp?! What is that thing doing here?!" The blimp actively descended in altitude, barreling straight toward the mutant swarm. Flickering muzzle flashes suggested someone aboard was firing away. The captain was equally dumbfounded. Snapping back to his senses, he barked at the communications officer: "Tell it to move out of the way, now!!" Intercepting airborne targets with an airship?! Had the fool piloting it lost his mind?! Yet before the words had finished leaving his mouth, a commanding voice sounded from behind them: "Let him be." Having returned to the bridge at some unknown moment, Chu Guang stepped forward under everyone's gaze, coming to a halt before the observation windows. Quietly watching the swirling rain of fire and the aircraft vanishing into the beast swarm outside, he spoke slowly: "They are true warriors." "Do not let their resolve go in vain." Silence fell over the bridge. Guessing the transport blimp's intention, the captain's throat bobbed. He took off his peaked cap and held it against his chest. Seeing this, the other officers silently removed their caps one by one, paying their highest respects to the fallen pilots and the pilot of that airship. Just as the Administrator said: They were all true warriors! The battle was not yet over, and the silent tribute on the bridge lasted only a few seconds. Meanwhile, boisterous laughter echoed down the narrow corridor and through the hollow passenger cabin of the transport blimp. "Hahaha! Ugly bastards, Grandpa Mosquito is here for you!" Gazing out at the surging monsters, the very individual who had just been lauded as a warrior was eagerly clutching a belt-fed machine gun. Having smashed the cockpit window with the gunstock, he propped the machine gun right in the center of the windshield and sprayed wildly into the screeching swarm outside. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat! Amidst the sweeping crossfire, his muzzle flash was like a flickering candle. Accuracy was entirely out of the question, but it was more than enough to draw the monsters' aggro. Having spotted this lumbering behemoth from far off, a horde of wing-flapping mutants broke through the clouds and lunged forward with bloodcurdling shrieks. Within mere breaths, nearly a hundred flapping mutants had latched onto the fifty-meter-long blimp, and their numbers were multiplying by the second. They had no idea what this bloated contraption was, assuming it was spawned from the same womb as the giant above. Snarling, they sank their fangs into the sturdy gas envelope, trying to rip a hole to crawl inside and slaughter everyone within. Watching the pressure gauges spin wildly and the engine stall alarms flash, Mosquito sat in the pilot seat without a shred of panic. In fact, he could barely suppress his laughter. "Help yourselves, take big bites... If that's not enough, have a taste of this!" Pulling a detonator from his pocket like a magic trick, he grinned wickedly and squeezed the trigger. Blasting caps planted throughout the blimp threw sparks instantly, flashing from bow to stern like a current of electricity. In that instant, what ignited was not just over a thousand kilograms of TNT, but tens of thousands of cubic meters of hydrogen! The fifty-meter blimp detonated like an ignited powder keg, bursting instantly into an expanding fireball. Mosquito, resting one foot on the instrument panel, was the first to be consumed by the inferno, followed closely by the "big birds" already clawing at the cockpit windshield. BOOM—! The mutants clinging to the airship were like moths to a flame, instantly engulfed by the searing heat and explosive shockwave. The blast wave swept all the way to the edge of the Heart of Steel's deck, blasting a clear vacuum right through the surging swarm. Charred mutants trailed white smoke, plunging from the sky like dumplings dropped into boiling water amidst a pungent stench of burnt flesh, while those following behind could only shriek and veer frantically to the sides. Witnessing that apocalyptic blaze, Ga'en's eyes turned bloodshot. Fury practically billowed from his nostrils like flame. Normally, he wouldn't care about dying minions, but the thought that these Batwings were once the children of his tribe struck an agonizing chord in his heart, twisting his hideous face into an even uglier contortion. "Aaaargh!" "I'll slaughter you all!!!" Howling with rage, Ga'en was blinded by wrath and charged madly toward the flight deck. As if sensing his fury, the flapping Batwings redoubled their efforts, shrieking shrilly through their razor-sharp fangs. Meanwhile, back in Jinhe City, Arzu's face was completely dark, veins bulging on his clenched fists. Though he could not directly observe the battlefield, his radar feedback showed that nearly five hundred Batwings had been wiped out in that single instant! And because of the disruption to their momentum, the casualty count was still climbing! "Incompetent trash!" Beasts were beasts after all. Given the finest equipment, yet fighting with the brain of a rock! Had he been commanding in person, they never would have lost over half their strength before even laying a claw on the airship's perimeter! Fortunately, over two thousand Batwings had managed to breach the Heart of Steel's anti-air screen and touch down on the deck. At this moment, the Alliance's main force was deployed at the front line. Between the Heart of Steel and the airfield on the ground, they likely had fewer than a thousand personnel combined. A cold sneer crossed Arzu's face, tinged with a twinge of lingering pain: "...Enjoy being disemboweled!" "A pity I won't be able to hear your screams." ... The moment Ga'en led the remaining Batwings onto the deck, the Guards Corps led by Lü Bei opened fire. Although the Guards Corps was not a frontline assault unit—mainly handling intelligence gathering and protecting the Administrator, with only around three hundred men stationed on the airship—they were Awakened just like the players, possessing formidable individual combat capabilities. In addition, the airship's flight crew and several players who had just respawned from the save point joined the fray. A brutal melee erupted around the 400mm main gun and the ammunition elevators, locked in a fierce, grueling stalemate. Nearly a hundred kilometers away, atop a mountain peak, Yang Kai sat inside the research vessel, sipping his coffee at leisure while observing the monitor feed. He was an amateur when it came to warfare, but his instincts told him that the Alliance's current situation was distinctly unfavorable. Still, one couldn't really blame them. Flying mutants had shocked him too when he first saw them. Who would have thought the Church of the Torch was holding such a trump card, and so many of them at that? Evidently, Doctor Conclusion's hypothesis had been validated once again. Those blue-skinned mutants with gills and scales along the coast of Yunjian Province had most likely been manufactured by those zealots as well. Then again, the Legion had lost the Heart of Steel under similar circumstances, with that MacLaren guy fleeing with his tail between his legs in an escape pod. Who could have thought history would repeat itself? The Alliance, which had claimed the Heart of Steel like barbarians, was now having it snatched away in the exact same manner. Quite ironic. Yang Kai gave a faint smile. Estimating the time was about right, he tapped the holographic screen. Connecting to the channel the Administrator had left for him, he cleared his throat and spoke in a casual tone: "I hope I'm not disturbing you at a time like this. It's clear you've done your best, and unfortunately, I can't be of much help on the battlefield. However, evacuating three to five people is no problem at all. If you want to withdraw, just say the word." The models Doctor Conclusion had calculated did include the possibility of an Alliance defeat, even if the probability was low. In the worst-case scenario, his operational contingency required him to secure the Alliance Administrator's safety first and foremost, followed by the child carrying the antibody. Yet to Yang Kai's surprise, the lifeline he offered was met with an unceremonious rejection over the comm channel: "Save your concern." Brows arching slightly, Yang Kai sat up straight. "Are you sure? Now is hardly the time to be stubborn." A blatant snort of derision answered through the channel: "Which of your eyes sees me being stubborn?" The comm line clicked off. Staring at the disconnected icon on the holographic window, Yang Kai clicked his tongue in annoyance and leaned back against his chair. "Heh, seems I was flattering myself." Meanwhile, two Viper transports broke through the pitch-black clouds, arriving directly above the flight deck of the Heart of Steel. Seeing monsters swarming the deck amidst the flickering gunfire, Ye Shi's eyes nearly popped out of his sockets. "Holy shit... What the hell are those?!" It was too dark to tell the exact numbers, but even a single glance made it obvious they outnumbered them several times over. The other players looked similarly taken aback. Yet it was merely surprise. "Winged beasts," Lao Bai said, having checked the photos taken by the Goblin Corps on his VM. Closing the screen, he chambered a round in the rifle slung across his chest and surveyed his brothers in the cabin, speaking concisely: "Get ready to drop." Paying no mind to the dense swarm of mutants, the crew in the cabin let out a spirited roar: "Ooh!!!" The two Vipers descended straight toward the deck of the Heart of Steel, venting eerie blue plasma arcs as they hovered over the northernmost end of the flight deck. From a height of a dozen meters, the exoskeleton-clad players queued by the cabin door and leapt out one after another. Leaning back against her seat, Jiang Xuezhou was pale as a ghost, her knuckles white where she gripped her harness. Seeing Ye Shi prepare to jump out after the others, she panicked and called out hurriedly: "...Wait, you—you're just dropping down like that?" Gripping the handrail by the hatch, Ye Shi grinned. "Ah, it's not our first rodeo." Noticing her scared-stiff expression, he teased: "Just stay right here. Don't even think about coming down to help." Without her "pet" around, she was just an ordinary non-combatant. Going down would only get in the way; she was much better off staying inside the aircraft. Once this battle wrapped up, though, he was definitely going to roast her mercilessly. After all, she hadn't bragged any small amount earlier about how capable she was, yet she was terrified before the shooting had even begun. Some D-rank researcher. Nothing special! Weakling! Jiang Xuezhou was pale, unaware of the insults he was throwing her way in his mind. Even without him saying so, she had no intention of going down. Besides, to say nothing of jumping out, just looking down from this height made her dizzy... Speaking of which, wasn't this guy scared at all? "C-Can't you shoot from inside the aircraft?" Simply embarrassed to be left alone on the plane, she tried to convince him to stay as well. "Shoot from the aircraft?" Ye Shi blinked, looking at her with a bizarre expression. "Are you kidding? We're way up in the air, and the wind is blowing like crazy. How could anyone hit anything—" Before he could finish, a premonition of danger gripped his chest. Before he could react, a colossal impact slammed into the hull. Thrown off balance, the spinning Viper tumbled toward the edge of the flight deck. "Aaaah—!" Watching the world outside spin violently, Jiang Xuezhou was pinned against her seat, screaming at the top of her lungs and nearly fainting from terror. Ye Shi had it even worse. Having already stepped halfway out of the cabin, the jolt nearly flung him out into the open sky. His right hand locked onto the grab handle beside the hatch, clinging to the outside of the aircraft through the sheer brute force of his exoskeleton. Perhaps cushioned slightly by the deflector shield, the spinning Viper looked poised to crash directly onto the deck, but ultimately skimmed right past the edge. "Fuck—!" Pouring every ounce of strength into the controls, the pilot stomped the rudder pedals nearly through the floorboards and finally wrestled the spinning aircraft back level. Just then, a creature with fangs jutting from its jaws and desiccated, corded muscle poked its head through the open hatch. That face looked straight out of hell— The moment her eyes met those glowing green irises, Jiang Xuezhou felt her hands and feet go ice cold. The bitter gale rushing through the hatch seemed to freeze her breath and heart in an instant. "...X-Xiao Wang," she stammered with trembling lips, only to remember a second later that she had left it back in Jinhe City. Despair steadily crept over Jiang Xuezhou's face. In that nick of time, a cold gleam flashed in the dark. A dagger hurled like a javelin from the hatch on the opposite side, slamming into the beast's forehead with a solid thud. The blade happened to lodge straight into its eye socket. Letting out a shrill screech, the monster lost its grip and tumbled out of the cabin. Jiang Xuezhou froze. Her tear-blurred eyes turned in pleasant surprise toward the opposite hatch where the dagger had flown from. He was alive! Yet her relief proved altogether premature. Along with the figure hauling himself back into the cabin came a furious roar that instantly snuffed out any fluttering in her chest: "Hit the damn thing with an auto-attack, you idiot!!!"