062. Aerial Dogfight

  "Knowing full well I have the speed advantage, yet still charging headlong into me—iing."

  Li Aozi temporarily lost sight of one of the targets, but it didn't matter. His 【True Eye】 had only a 7-sed cooldown, and he could s again soon.

  In the meahe oppo charging directly at him—Magath—demanded more attention.

  Magath increased his speed to five times the speed of sound, leaving a clear Mach ring in his wake. Although slower than Li Aozi, the jet had a signifit range advantage over him.

  Magath fired two high-speed, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles. The javelin-like projectiles, carrying the jet's initial velocity, coasted for a while befniting, aiming for Li Aozi from two different, sharp angles.

  Li Aozi didn’t slow dowwisted his body mid-air like a spinning bullet, fluidly rolling as bustible gel seeped from his palms. 【Natural Ignition】 ig, and he flung the bziowards the ining missiles.

  Boom! Boom!

  The missiles, mistaking the heat of the fireballs for a jet’s exhaust, locked on and exploded violently. While perf his barrel roll, twelve drones rapidly closed in on Li Aozi.

  "Take him down, eaglets!"

  Magath's thoughts transmitted through the data link to the drones, which immediately scattered like petals, accelerating at impossibly high Gs, spraying sers and weaving a twisted web of light in front of Li Aozi.

  "Eaglet-css ser loyal drones? Didn't expect those to be deployed in this era. Seems they’re saving the TLS for me."

  Li Aozi uood their pn. He deliberately refrained from using gravity to bend the ser beams, instead relying on his high agility aioo create the impression of 'desperately dodging.'

  Blue Star wasn’t an ielr civilizatioheir jets relied on drones for fire suppression rather than floating turrets.

  Typically, drones pyed a fnking role, managironic warfare and trolling the unmanned crafts, while the mai acted as the primary batant.

  "Good job, eaglets!"

  Seeing Li Aozi pinned down, Magath felt a surge of joy but remained cautious.

  "This guy was ramming pnes with his body before. The drone footage shows his armor is pretty strong—he could be luring us into close bat."

  "Leave it to me."

  Yelivov eased off the throttle, allowing his 'Vulture' to unfold its forward-swept wings, dropping to subsonic speeds for maximum maneuverability and stealth. This enabled him to silently slip past the high-speed Li Aozi, positioning himself right behind the target, almost h, perfectly setting up a pitack with Magath.

  "Prepare tactical ser!"

  Like an assassin lying in wait, Yelivov readied the ser on. Behind his cockpit, the prism-shaped ser on slowly charged up with energy.

  Yelivov manually disabled the eleic targeting systems, switg to meical sights to keep Li Aozi in the crosshairs, maintaining plete stealth.

  Purple energy surged in his eyes, and all of his ki flowed into the fighter. His pupils tracted to a single point as he locked onto Li Aozi's figure.

  【Absolute Focus】

  【Burst Loading】

  【Lo Target】

  Three advanced 【Ranger】 skills activated simultaneously, pg Yelivov under immerain. But his Beta-tier body could withstand it. He gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger:

  "Fire!"

  Whoosh!

  A red-and-white ser beam shot through hundreds of kilometers of sky, sht it was visible even from the ground.

  "I've been waiting for this!"

  Li Aozi had been monit Yelivov’s movements with 【True Eye】. The moment Yelivov stalled his pne, Li Aozi’s golden eyes widened. He stopped his high-speed flight and smmed his fists together in front of his chest.

  Gravity Disruption!

  The ser beam hit Li Aozi, but it was like a raging wave crashing against a circur isnd. In Yelivov and Magath's astonished eyes, the beam bent around Li Aozi and refracted into the distance.

  Not just the tactical ser—all the ons fired by the loyal drones scattered at that moment, dispersing in all dires. One of the drones was everoyed on the spot.

  "What the hell is that?!"

  Magath was horrified. He smmed oerburners, ung a salvo of ground-attack multi-warhead rockets to box Li Aozi into the drowork. Then, catg a gap, he fired the tactical ser himself.

  Whoosh!

  Li Aozi deliberately stopped in mid-air, floating as he flicked his hand, causing the ser to deflect upward into the sky.

  "Shit!" Magath cursed, mentally shaken by the blow.

  "Magic Stowo, this guy isn’t affected by optical ons! He lured us into using the ser!"

  The TLS was an incredibly sophisticated and power-hungry on. Each sortie only allowed for a single shot—using it again would overload and crash the jet’s avionics.

  "We've been tricked—this guy knows our on systems too well."

  Yelivov realized Li Aozi's ploy and disabled his optical camoufge, joining Magath in the chase. The two pilots coordinated crossfire, stantly limiting Li Aozi's airspace.

  "Increase maneuverability, exhaust his energy with tactical maneuvers!"

  Yelivov’s and came just as Li Aozi suddenly braked, dropping from Mach 6 to a dead stop. Both jets zoomed past him, exposing their vulnerable rear positions.

  "Eaglets!" Magath quickly ordered, and the eleven remaining drones swarmed back toward Li Aozi.

  "That trick won’t work on me anymore!"

  Li Aozi’s body ignited in fmes as his flesh rapidly regeed. He charged straight into the drowork.

  【Gravity ? tact】—Stack

  【Immortal Blood】—Stack

  【Natural Ignition】—Stack

  "Trinity—Heaven-Drawn Phoenix Bomb!"

  Li Aozi spread his arms wide like a fming phoenix, crashing into the drowork. The intense heat first disrupted the drones' signals—Blue Star didn't possess advanced quantum w teology yet, so Magath could only watch as his drones overheated and shut down. Their batteries exploded in a of fireballs.

  Whoosh—

  Li Aozi’s high-speed flight extinguished the fmes on his body as he reappeared owo pilots' radar.

  "Damn it! He’s on our tail!" Magath shuddered. "Was this guy an angel in his past life? This whole sky belongs to him!"

  "Perform veaneuvers, release heat fres!" Yelivov had no time for banter. He ied himself with anti-overload drugs, grimag at the bitter taste in his mouth. He fought through the nausea and endured a 78G turn, yanking the jet’s nose around.

  "Huff, huff, huff—"

  The intense overload nearly knocked Yelivov out. Even as a Beta-tier, enduring such high G-forces for five to six seds almost killed him. His vision bcked out momentarily, but the pressure suit activated in time to squeeze the blood bato his brain.

  Puff, puff, puff—

  The two Vultures released a barrage of heat fres, white smoke blooming like feathers in the sky.

  "It won’t help."

  Li Aozi’s eyes fred with runes again.

  FAL