Chapter 64.1: Safe City War
Moonspirit had made her decision with astonishing speed.
Before the three Safe Cities could even react, she used herself as bait, triggering a Safe City War that locked all three of them into their current relocation and evacuation states.
In truth, if the three cities had acted decisively at that moment and immediately severed part of their territory, they still would have had a chance to escape.
But Blue Sea Safe City was only Tier 3.
If a Tier 4 city had descended, the three Safe Cities besieging Moonspirit would have fled without hesitation.
But a Tier 3?
Other than Mianyin, they were all Tier 3 themselves. Why should they be afraid?
As a result, the three cities did not retreat immediately.
“Let’s observe the situation first.”
Their territories were enormous. Spending three to five minutes assessing the situation wouldn’t make much difference.
It didn’t take long, however, for them to realize they had missed their last chance to escape without losses.
The people of Blue Sea could fly!
From the very beginning, Blue Sea had never intended to probe the enemy first before committing its forces.
Dark figures spread their wings and streaked across the sky.
In the blink of an eye, Blue Sea residents had appeared throughout every corner of the three enemy Safe Cities.
“Not good!”
The Lord of Dihai gritted her teeth.
[Dihai Safe City: They’re trying to occupy our territory as fast as possible so we won’t be able to cut off land and escape!]
[Mingxia Safe City: It’s no use! Those flying people are far too fast—we can’t stop them! Enemy forces have already occupied a third of my city’s territory!]
[Mianyin Safe City: That Safe City that suddenly appeared came prepared! My residents are no match for those people! If you have any trump cards, use them now! Forget about Moonspirit—she’s practically crippled already. If we don’t strike that Safe City immediately, it’ll be too late!]
The gap between Tier 2 and Tier 3 led Mianyin to believe that, as long as the equally Tier 3 Dihai and Mingxia joined forces, they would be able to suppress Blue Sea Safe City.
But the lords of Mingxia and Dihai understood far better just how difficult this battle was going to be.
Despite all being Tier 3 Safe Cities, why were Blue Sea’s residents each so incredibly powerful, as if every one of them were a superhuman?!
And why were there so many of them?!
How could they all be so strong in battle, so fearless? Were they a plundering civilization as well?!
Then there were those flying Blue Sea residents. They didn’t even need to fight.
All they had to do was fly toward the inner regions of the Safe Cities, find an open area, and land.
At this point, all three Safe Cities had effectively been pinned down.
If they fought head-on, defeat was inevitable. But if they tried to flee, the flying Blue Sea residents had already infiltrated vast portions of their territory.
Cutting away land now would be like carving flesh from their own bodies.
If they left now, their Safe Cities would likely be reduced to only a third of their original size.
How could anyone accept that?
The Lord of Dihai gritted her teeth.
“Archers! Loose your arrows! Shoot those flying rats out of the sky!”
Under their commander’s orders, the members of the Dihai civilization—who stood only about one meter tall on average—drew their bows in unison and aimed at the dark figures overhead.
Yet the Blue Sea residents remained utterly fearless.
As arrows rained up from below, they deftly shifted their black skeletal wings, raising a single wing as a shield.
The incoming arrows struck the bone wings as though hitting solid steel, producing nothing but a series of metallic clang, clang, clang sounds without inflicting the slightest damage.
The Skywing Dragons’ wings were indeed incredibly tough. Of course, if they were hit with modern heavy weapons—a missile, for example—they still wouldn’t be able to withstand it.
But on Dazzling Star, conventional heavy weapons couldn’t be used.
Just as the native inhabitants of Dazzling Star had once been powerless against the Skywing Dragons, the civilizations of the three Safe Cities were now equally helpless against the people of Blue Sea.
Naturally, however, a Tier 3 Safe City possessed more trump cards than the local civilizations.
“Cold weapons are useless!”
“Bring up the thermal weapons!”
Within Dihai Safe City, a squad of soldiers equipped with Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifles quickly arrived on the scene. Their equipment was clearly superior to that of the ordinary soldiers, marking them as elite troops with far greater combat strength.
The soldiers gripped bizarre-looking firearms shaped like oversized mushrooms and opened fire at the Blue Sea residents soaring overhead.
These weapons came from the Safe City Marketplace. Thanks to their unique design, they were unaffected by Dazzling Star’s extreme temperatures. The instant they fired, they generated a tiny isolation field that contained the kinetic energy, concentrating the weapon’s full destructive force into the projectile.
Aether quickly pulled up the Marketplace description for the Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle:
“Although it is a compact, portable firearm, it possesses tremendous firepower. Its effective range is 1,200–1,800 meters. It is capable of penetrating extremely hard materials while simultaneously inflicting high-temperature thermal damage.”
“The retail price is 1,555 crystals per rifle,” Aether continued. “By inserting a single crystal into the weapon, its internal shaping field extracts the crystal’s energy to generate twenty rounds of ammunition.”
“The projectiles do not possess target-tracking capabilities, but once they hit, their destructive power is immense. It is a precision weapon designed for eliminating single targets.”
Cheng Qisheng immediately forwarded Aether’s weapon profile to every Blue Sea resident flying above the battlefield.
The Blue Sea residents showed no fear.
Instead, the Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle’s impressive destructive power made their eyes light up.
This gun is that powerful?
Since ancient times, there had been one universally accepted rule on Blue Sea’s battlefields:
Whatever weapon you seized from the enemy during combat became your personal war trophy.
Boom!
Boom! Boom!
The Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifles fired.
But although the people of Blue Sea possessed Skywing Dragon wings, they were nothing like the flying snow beasts these rifles had been designed to hunt.
They had brains.
They knew how to dodge.
Since receiving their flight wings, they had trained relentlessly every single day. Now, that training finally had a chance to shine.
One after another, the Blue Sea warriors twisted into astonishingly difficult aerial maneuvers, evading the incoming thermal rounds before diving straight toward the ground.
“The enemy is diving at me! The enemy is—!”
The diminutive Dihai soldier, laden with expensive equipment, shouted at the top of his lungs while frantically firing at the Blue Sea warrior plunging toward him.
In theory, the other soldiers should have concentrated their fire on the diving Blue Sea warrior.
But none of them could spare the attention to do so.
Because every single soldier had drawn the attention of at least a dozen Blue Sea fighters.
The Blue Sea warriors twisted their bodies into contortions that should have been impossible for humans, weaving through one thermal round after another. It wasn’t until they were nearly upon them that the Dihai soldiers finally saw them clearly.
They were terrifyingly tall.
Their outstretched wings spanned nearly three meters, and their eyes shone with such intensity that they seemed almost luminous.
“Ah! Aaaah!!!”
The Dihai soldiers targeted by them screamed uncontrollably. It was the instinctive reaction of an intelligent being confronted with overwhelming terror.
Dihai was a plundering civilization.
It had fought wars against many other civilizations. Sometimes it won, sometimes it lost. But in most cases, Dihai had been the one to start the war.
Dihai had always been the predator.
Yet for the first time, its soldiers realized that they had become the prey.
Those people…
The way they looked at them…
What kind of gaze was that?
It burned with fanaticism, exhilaration, bloodlust…
And greed so intense it practically overflowed.
They were excited.
They were actually excited on the battlefield!
Monsters.
These are monsters!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Dihai soldier fired desperately until his Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle emitted a sharp click.
Click!
The nuclear crystal’s energy was depleted.
He was out of ammunition.
At this moment, he should have drawn the longsword at his waist and met the enemy head-on with courage.
But the instant he pulled it free, he realized that his hands were shaking.
He was afraid.
His legs had gone weak beneath him.
Only then did he understand.
He had been brave only when he was the plunderer.
Now that he was the weaker side, he was no different from the civilians of the conquered civilizations he had once mocked—
A coward with trembling legs.
The Dihai soldier looked up and saw the enormous shadow cast by the spread of black skeletal wings—
Relying purely on instinct, Qi Yi dodged one thermal round after another as he closed in on the soldier wielding the Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle.
Closer.
Closer.
Even closer!
He couldn’t help but break into a wide grin.
Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle. Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle. Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle. Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle!!
It’s mine! It’s mine!
Hahahahahaha!!!
Whoosh!
Another dark figure shot past.
The Dihai soldier collapsed.
The Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle that had been in his hands was now in someone else’s.
Qi Yi: “?”
The other Blue Sea warrior held the rifle while effortlessly dodging incoming thermal rounds. He flashed Qi Yi a sheepish grin.
“Sorry, brother. I was just a little faster.”
Qi Yi: “…”
He glared resentfully at the Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle in the other’s hands.
Damn it. I should’ve spent more time practicing my flying speed!
There was no time for regrets.
Blue Sea warriors never allowed themselves to be distracted for long on the battlefield.
Qi Yi immediately locked onto another Dihai soldier carrying a rifle and flew straight toward him, racing against several other Blue Sea warriors who had also chosen the same target.
In fact, it wasn’t just Qi Yi.
Nearly every Blue Sea resident in the skies above had the exact same thing looping through their minds:
Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle! Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle! Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle! Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle!!!
Mine! Mine! Mine!
The Dihai civilization quickly discovered that their powerful weapons hadn’t driven the Blue Sea warriors back.
If anything, they had only made them attack even more fiercely.
Before long, the soldiers realized that anyone carrying an Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle was far more likely to be swarmed by these terrifying enemies.
It was as if they knew no fear.
The more dangerous the weapon, the more these people concentrated their attacks on whoever wielded it.
They cared nothing for getting injured.
They paid no heed to the risks.
Instead, they charged forward with unsettling excitement written plainly across their faces.
They appeared and disappeared like ghosts.
They would suddenly swoop down from nowhere, attacking from every possible direction—sometimes from behind, sometimes from above. Sometimes all it took was a single turn of the head, and the soldier beside you had already vanished.
Some soldiers picked up the Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifles that had fallen to the ground.
But the instant they did…
It felt as though every black-winged warrior in the sky had turned to look at them.
They didn’t say a word.
Yet the soldiers knew.
They had just become the enemy’s next target.
It was inhuman.
It was terrifying.
The moment the first soldier threw away his Armor-Piercing Thermal Melt Rifle, the outcome of the battle had already been decided.
