On the outer defensive perimeter of the Wasteland Town, soldiers who had just finished fighting had not yet fully relaxed when a piercing anti-aircraft alarm shattered the brief calm.
"Airborne threat! Radar detected a large number of high-speed targets approaching! It's Arasaka's carrier-based aircraft!" The urgent warning from a Wraiths anti-aircraft unit came through the communication channel.
All personnel immediately entered anti-aircraft mode, seeking cover or operating their limited portable anti-aircraft missiles, looking nervously at the sky.
The power armor of the Lazarus Mercenaries also lowered its stance, preparing to withstand a potential bombardment.
The Militech special envoy and members of the Kang Tao CN team also took cover, looking up at the black dots appearing on the distant horizon.
Soon, the roar of engines grew from distant to near, like a concerto of death.
The Arasaka aircraft formation rapidly enlarged in view, entering their attack trajectory in a well-trained manner.
"Missiles launched! Take evasive action!" The observer's voice was almost distorted.
Dozens of fighter jets simultaneously lit up with ignition flares, and air-to-ground missiles, trailing conspicuous smoke, swarmed down towards the Wasteland Town and its outer defenses.
At this moment, time seemed to slow, and many soldiers on the ground showed expressions of despair—under such a scale of saturation attack, the existing point defense systems were almost useless.
However, just as the first wave of missiles was about to fall within the Wasteland Town's perimeter, a sudden change occurred.
A faint, almost transparent blue halo expanded outwards from a point in the center of the Wasteland Town, instantly enveloping the entire Wasteland Town and its critical surrounding defensive areas like an inverted bowl.
The halo stabilized after expanding to its maximum, forming a visible, deep blue energy barrier with rippling, water-like waves.
The next second, the cluster of missiles launched by Arasaka violently slammed into this barrier.
There was no deafening explosion, only a series of dull "thudding" sounds, like heavy hammers striking tough leather.
The moment the missiles hit the barrier, their warheads failed to detonate as expected.
Instead, they seemed to crash into an extremely viscous and resilient invisible force field, their kinetic energy rapidly absorbed and dispersed, ultimately only stirring up circles of intensely spreading energy ripples on the barrier's surface, along with brief bursts of dazzling electric sparks.
Immediately, the missile bodies twisted and deformed under the erosion of energy, finally turning into ineffective fireworks mixed with metal debris and unexploded fuel, scattering downwards.
Subsequent missiles, as well as cannon shells from diving fighter jets, met the same fate.
No matter how Arasaka pilots adjusted their attack angles, or how they unleashed their ammunition, the deep blue barrier remained unmoving, like an absolute barrier from mythology separating the mortal world, blocking all aerial attacks.
The relentless bombardment lasted for several minutes, yet no tremor was felt within the Wasteland Town, as if the spectacle above was merely a holographic light show unrelated to them.
After exhausting their ground attack ammunition, the Arasaka aircraft formation could only circle fruitlessly outside the barrier, eventually turning around and returning, frustrated, under the reluctant command of the flight leader.
When the engine sound of the last enemy aircraft disappeared in the distance, silence returned to the sky above the Wasteland Town, leaving only the deep blue energy shield still stably glowing, silently proclaiming its existence.
The defensive line was eerily silent.
Then, various irrepressible exclamations and discussions surged like a tide.
Wraiths soldiers peered out from behind cover, incredulously touching the seemingly fragile yet unbreakable energy barrier, their faces filled with the dazed shock of having survived a catastrophe.
They were accustomed to bullets and explosions, but they had never imagined that war could be defended against in this manner.
"God... what the hell is this?" a Lazarus Mercenaries soldier exclaimed through his power armor's external speaker; his steel body seemed much smaller beneath the barrier.
The miniaturized kinetic energy shields they had recently been equipped with, urgently produced by Militech, were like a firefly compared to the moon when contrasted with this giant shield covering the sky.
The Militech special envoy was now staring intently at the shield's energy readings on his personal terminal; although he had no access to most critical data, the basic fluctuation indices were already startling enough.
He knew how many resources the company's Technical Department had invested in researching and reverse-engineering the shield technology provided by the "Archmagos."
However, the results were frustrating; at most, they could only strictly replicate according to the blueprints, and any attempts to optimize, reduce size, or expand coverage encountered insurmountable technical barriers.
Either the energy consumption soared exponentially, leading to instant system overload, or the shield field itself became extremely unstable, causing a sharp drop in defensive effectiveness.
Scaling up an energy shield was by no means a simple matter of stacking energy or connecting devices in parallel.
How to constrain such a vast energy field to remain stable, how to balance defensive strength with energy consumption, how to handle potential energy leakage and interference in different areas... these extremely complex systemic problems, Militech engineers had not even fully established theoretical models for.
Yet, the shield system before them, which effortlessly blocked the full attack of a standard Arasaka air wing, possessed a level of technology beyond their current understanding.
This was not merely "having it"; this was "overwhelmingly having it."
The special envoy felt his mouth go dry; he had to report this situation to headquarters immediately, and the importance of this report even surpassed the movements of Arasaka's power armor forces.
Members of the Kang Tao CN team, also remaining in the Wasteland Town for subsequent contact, stood at the entrance of their temporary residence, looking up at the dreamlike blue light curtain in the sky.
Although Li Wei, the captain, maintained a calm demeanor on the surface, his slightly constricted pupils betrayed the intense turmoil within him.
Kang Tao also had deep accumulations in energy weapons and defensive technology, but he was certain that the company could never produce such a large-scale, stable regional shield.
This was no longer "advanced"; it was almost "black technology."
He recalled the headquarters' directive to "establish friendly relations" and now felt that the meaning behind this directive might be far deeper than he had initially imagined.
The technological foundation held by this "Archmagos" was unfathomable.
Inside the workshop in the center of the Wasteland Town, Osiris' crimson optical lens calmly watched the real-time footage transmitted from external surveillance; the various parameters of the shield generator flowed steadily within his processing core, everything within the projected range.
For the factions of this world, it was an incomprehensible technological miracle; for him, it was merely a standardized regional defense deployment, realized based on tens of thousands of years of technological accumulation from another universe.
He did not care what kind of shock this shield brought to the outside world; he only cared about the data, and what subsequent measures Arasaka would take after its initial aerial attack was thwarted.
The war had only just begun.
And this blue barrier, spanning between heaven and earth, undoubtedly added a huge, disheartening variable for the attacking side in the coming full-scale conflict.
Yorinobu Arasaka stood on the bridge of the white whale, watching the transmitted footage of the completely ineffective attack; his face showed no expression, but deep within him, a ripple of something outside his plan quietly emerged.
This shield not only blocked Arasaka's missiles but might also, to some extent, change his original script.