Chapter 130: Plane Crash!
The shuttle lurched violently, and Stelle stumbled, catching herself against a bulkhead. She steadied her footing and peered through the viewport at the dissipating energy ripples outside, her eyes instantly sharpening like knives.
A cold sneer, tinged with a mix of anger and burgeoning battle lust, curled her lips. "Heh! This 'welcome ceremony'... is certainly enthusiastic enough. Seems our hosts aren't exactly the friendly type."
"Hey, hey, strictly speaking, aren't we the ones intruding on their territory?" March 7th braced herself against the cabin wall, her complaint automatic. Despite her words, the air around her hand was already shimmering with a biting cold, and her eyes were just as vigilant as Stelle's.
"Don't let your guard down," Dan Heng's voice remained calm. He maintained the swirling barrier of wind protecting the shuttle, his gaze fixed on the pitch-black ground rushing up to meet them. "There might be more than one wave of attacks. This could just be a probe; the real danger may have only just begun."
"Understood," Stelle growled, the thrill of a fight boiling in her eyes.
With a mere thought, a crystalline sword materialized in her hand. It hummed with latent power as a scorching, golden energy began to rapidly gather and compress within its blade. She aimed the tip in the direction the attack had come from, poised and ready.
"Danger?" she scoffed, her voice carrying that fearless arrogance unique to her. She stared down into the boundless darkness below. "I am their danger. Come on, you sneaky bastards! If you've got the guts, show your faces again!"
The Astral Express shuttle continued its descent into the deep night of Amphoreus, the dark earth below seeming to open like a giant, waiting maw. Though the first clash had ended, the air was now thick with the scent of ozone and a killing intent far more intense than before.
The power coalescing in Stelle's crystalline sword was like a volcano on the verge of eruption. Her eyes were sharp, her battle intent soaring, waiting for the hidden attacker to reveal itself.
As if in direct response to her provocation, a surge of energy, far more violent and concentrated than the last, suddenly erupted from the depths of the darkness.
Bzzzzzt—!
The second attack tore through the night, rocketing skyward. It was faster, more terrifying, and more condensed than the first. This time, everyone saw its form clearly.
It wasn't a simple beam of energy. It was a gigantic, unimaginably large sword phantom forged from pure, golden power. The light it emitted was a destructive, thrilling gold, and wherever its edge passed, space itself seemed to tear with subtle, crackling fissures.
Carrying the might to sever mountains and cleave stars, the colossal phantom sword thrust fiercely toward the shuttle.
Before it even arrived, the terrifying pressure it exuded made the shuttle's metallic hull groan and strain.
"Hmph! Good timing!" Not a trace of fear showed in Stelle's eyes; instead, a more brilliant fire of battle ignited within them. This was exactly what she had been waiting for.
"March! Open the window!"
"You got it!" March 7th reacted in a flash. With a swipe of her finger across the control panel, a thick porthole on the side of the cabin slid open. A violent gale, mixed with the frigid air of the Amphorean night, immediately rushed into the cabin.
Just as the phantom sword was about to pierce their craft, the crystalline blade in Stelle's hand erupted with an unmatched, blinding golden light. A beam of sword qi, condensed to its absolute limit as if forged from the very core of a sun, shot out from the tip.
"Golden Light, Demon Subduing!"
A fierce roar echoed through the night sky.
The pillar of golden sword qi, radiating a purifying aura that seemed capable of cleansing all evil from the world, took the form of a raging golden dragon and slammed head-on into the giant sword phantom.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—!!!!
Two terrifyingly powerful forces collided violently in mid-air.
In that instant, the resulting shockwave surged out in all directions like a tangible tsunami, blasting away the thick clouds below and revealing an even larger expanse of the dark land.
The standoff lasted for only a moment.
CRACK!
A grating, teeth-aching sound of shattering echoed out. Under the full-power impact of Stelle's golden sword qi, the giant sword phantom, like fragile glass, began to splinter and crack from its tip.
Finally, it exploded into a sky full of glittering fragments, dissipating into the night.
"Beautiful!" March 7th couldn't help but cheer from inside the cabin.
But before her cheer could even fade, the situation changed again.
SCREEE—! SCREEE—! SCREEE—!
A tide of piercing, dense shrieks surged from all directions. In the night sky, still illuminated by the lingering golden light, countless shadowy figures had appeared as if from nowhere, swarming like a plague of locusts.
They were colossal, eagle-like monsters with feathers like black iron—Meteorite Iron Eagles. They swooped down in a black storm of death, a living cloud that blotted out the sky.
Clearly, having failed in a direct assault, the enemy had resorted to a war of attrition, attempting to overwhelm them with sheer numbers.
"Tsk, it never ends," Stelle frowned, raising her crystalline sword again, preparing to meet the surging tide of eagles.
But just as she began to concentrate her power—
"Ugh!" A sudden cry of pain escaped her lips. The golden light of the sword in her hand instantly dimmed.
She clutched her head, her body swaying uncontrollably as her face turned deathly pale. An intense, stabbing pain had struck her without any warning.
At the same time, a series of extremely blurry, rapidly flashing image fragments were forcibly squeezed into her mind: collapsing skyscrapers... countless desperate cries... and... a pink figure, standing tall above the ruins, emitting a soft, warm light...?
"Stelle!"
"What's wrong with you?!"
March 7th and Dan Heng's exclamations rang out simultaneously. March rushed forward in a single stride, supporting Stelle's swaying body. Without a moment's hesitation, she threw up her hand. "Shield deploy!"
A crystalline layer of Six-Phase Ice instantly enveloped both her and Stelle.
Dan Heng acted with even greater speed. A brilliant green light burst from his eyes as water vapor surged around him, and he instantly shifted into his Imbibitor Lunae form. The Cloud-Piercer spear in his hand transformed into a swimming dragon, wreathed in immense vapor and draconic might. It formed layers of spear shadows around the shuttle, creating a veritable meat grinder that slaughtered the fearless monsters lunging at them.
Even as he fought, he diverted his focus to reinforce the wind barrier around the shuttle, the pressure on him increasing sharply.
March 7th, seeing him engaged, immediately summoned her own power. A frigid aura permeated the air as she added another layer of her ice-crystal shield outside Dan Heng's spear shadows, providing extra protection for the craft.
However, the assault from below did not stop. The unseen enemy seemed utterly unconcerned by the loss of the Meteorite Iron Eagles—in fact, they seemed almost pleased by it.
The third wave of attacks followed closely on the heels of the last.
This time, it was a torrential rain of energy spears. Each spear carried a destructive aura that could pierce through anything, covering an extremely wide area. They shot indiscriminately at everything in the sky—including the very Meteorite Iron Eagles that were besieging the shuttle.
The energy spears easily tore through the iron eagles' bodies, causing chain reactions of explosions. At the same time, a deluge of them slammed fiercely into the shuttle's shields.
"Damn it!" Dan Heng's heart sank. He could feel the Astral Express's light-blue outer shield, already weakened from the first two attacks and the continuous impacts from the eagles, flickering like a candle in the wind.
Under the dense bombardment of energy spears, its light flickered violently, emitting a dying wail as it neared its breaking point.
The next moment—
HSSSSS—!
An exceptionally thick spear, a javelin of death, precisely seized the instant the shield vanished. It pierced straight through the engine at the rear of the shuttle.
BOOM!!!!
A violent explosion was accompanied by the piercing shriek of tearing metal.
The entire shuttle lost its main power. Belching thick smoke and flames, it began to plummet rapidly towards a towering mountain below.
"Hold on tight!" Dan Heng roared, fully activating his own power to envelop the damaged craft as much as possible, while simultaneously trying to guide their descent.
March 7th pushed her Six-Phase Ice Shield to its absolute limit, tightly protecting herself and the still-unconscious Stelle.
BOOOOOM!!!!
A deafening roar erupted from the mountaintop.
The shuttle slammed fiercely into the mountainside, the impact twisting it into a deformed wreck of smoldering metal.
Amidst the swirling dust, Dan Heng and March 7th, protecting Stelle between them, crawled out of a mangled doorway, disheveled but alive. Dan Heng immediately cast a protective barrier over them all, his eyes vigilantly scanning the dark, hostile surroundings.
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