Fourteen hours later.
On the western horizon, the optical lenses of a Demon Eye IV captured the first silhouettes of Flying Magical Beasts.
That roiling black cloud had officially entered the airspace six hundred kilometers from Zone 18.
Behind them, dots of red light continued to spread across the ground.
Farther still, the distance between the blue cursor of the Iron Star 6th Legion and the pillar of scarlet light had shrunk by another twenty kilometers.
「Ten thousand meters in the air.」
Seven groups of Storm Falcons were already in formation, their silver-gray fuselages glinting coldly above the clouds.
The first engagement was to be aerial combat.
The targets were a flock of giant-winged bats. With individual Magic Power fluctuations between 600 and 1,200, they weren't a major threat, but the three hundred-plus pairs of pitch-black wings blotted out half the sky.
'Too many. We can't let them cross the outer perimeter.'
"Begin the operation."
