159: Can he jump over and slap me again?

Received a 'night lamp' reward for an explosive update release! * 1

Debt reaches 31.

The crowd flowed forward slowly.

The Protectorate Army was indeed very diligent. In the corner of White Shark's eye, even though their arms were almost dislocated by the jostling crowd, they still held them tightly linked, maintaining the most basic order in the crowd.

Children nearby were crying, the elderly were pleading, and a large number of bewildered people were swept up in the crowd, shouting—

No one expected that anyone would be crazy enough to launch an attack at a time like this!

The Followers on the stage were still shouting, hoping to calm the restless crowd, but White Shark seemed to hear something different:

"Vrrr, vrrr, vrrr——!!"

They came from afar, getting louder and louder, just like—the roar of engines.

A bad premonition rushed into White Shark's mind as he looked at the smoke screen in mid-air—

Sure enough, soon, a few small black shadows broke through the smoke screen, trailing long tails, looking quite aesthetically pleasing.

But in White Shark's eyes, there was no beauty at all—those black dots diving toward the crowd only gave him a feeling of encroaching death.

"Boom!!! Boom!!!"

Suddenly, two trails of white smoke flew out from beneath one of the black shadows, slamming directly onto the high platform, turning the sound from the broadcast into a harsh busy signal.

"Airstrike————!!!"

Panic-stricken and shrill shouts rang out, and the crowd immediately descended into chaos. The human wall formed by the Protectorate Army was finally broken, and the remaining order vanished completely.

The plane in the sky circled and dove toward the crowd. The alarm of death rang continuously in White Shark's heart.

Lie down? Crouch down? Don't even think about it, because you'd be trampled to death immediately.

Adrenaline surged faster and faster, and the ability to think calmly almost completely drained from White Shark's mind. Clones, immortality—everything was thrown to the back of his mind at this moment.

He followed his body's instinct—he grabbed Baili Ying tightly in his arms, then immediately lowered his body, trying his best to shield the person in his arms with his back.

If his brain could still think, it would definitely mock this behavior frantically—after all, under an Autocannon, no matter how many people are stacked together, they would all end up as scattered chunks. And the common sense he usually learned would also attack him, because the optimal choice right now was actually to keep moving with the crowd. But there were no "ifs" or "buts."

At this moment, he just wanted to hold onto this person in front of him, who wasn't particularly good at any job. He suddenly realized that, at some moment, he had long stopped treating this junior in front of him as his former shadow—her position in his heart seemed to have long risen to an indescribable level.

"Da da da da da da da da da..."

Immediately, the loud sound of an Autocannon rang out. In an instant, flesh, blood, and debris splattered everywhere, and wails and screams filled the air—the human world had completely turned into hell.

At this moment, in the near-equatorial region of this planet, a spectacular scene was unfolding:

"The sky is falling..."

At this moment, if an old farmer who had spent his whole life in a settlement saw this scene, he would surely let out such a sigh.

In the fiery red mid-air—burning, burning, burning. Big and small, long and flat, countless fragments were falling from the sky with raging flames, just like the moment Gonggong knocked down Mount Buzhou in mythology.

Such a spectacular scene naturally came at a heavy price—yes, the burning megastructure falling from the sky was exactly the local orbital space station and the space elevator.

"Do you see it? The symbol of a surface civilization heading into space—the space elevator. The people here probably spent decades or even a century building it, and we destroyed it in just an instant—the cost was merely two missiles that took less than a week of man-hours to produce."

Inside the Bridge of a gray Warship floating in the planet's orbit, a man wearing the uniform of an Imperial Navy Admiral looked at the megastructure that was disintegrating as it fell, sighing to the adjutant beside him.

The adjutant bowed slightly and said, "General, you are right, but we have been dormant for so long, logically speaking, we should be able to hold a stalemate with the Empire."

Kaims Hill turned his head, smiled at the adjutant, and said, "I know what you want to express, but what I actually want to say is that perhaps watching this scene from within the atmosphere would be even more spectacular."

The adjutant nodded slightly. "You are joking."

Kaims Hill shook his head and continued to follow his train of thought: "No, I am not joking. Do you know? What is the Empire best at? Undoubtedly, it is the ability to wage a war of attrition. It inherited a legacy second only to the Military Alliance, possessing the largest industrial system and the largest fleet. Its specialty is not killing in one strike, but dragging enemies at any level into a quagmire of the same level to roll around in—and then drowning the opponent with its massive lung capacity. And we don't even have the qualifications to make this behemoth bow its head. You think the fleet we've accumulated can hold a stalemate with them? No, they will only use more junk to consume our living strength, and then crush us like a steamroller."

Hearing Kaims Hill say this, the adjutant immediately bowed again and apologized directly: "I'm sorry, it was my lack of consideration."

Seeing the guy bowing in front of him, Kaims Hill nodded with satisfaction—although this assistant didn't know much, he was smart, willing to learn, and polite. He almost treated this guy as his own student to cultivate. He waved his hand and said, "It's okay, you need to look more and think more. Now, I will tell you what I really meant just now. I mean, our accumulation over this period, attempting to stand on the same level as the Empire, is incredibly overestimating our own capabilities. The Empire can easily wipe us out, just like we wiped them out. To climb to a position where we can negotiate, accumulating conventional forces like this is useless. Just like those planetary natives who want to threaten us now, they only have the option of surface-level over-specification—we are the same."

As he spoke, he raised his hand and pointed to the planet outside the Bridge— "For these decades, I have been looking for something. Something that can let us sit at the table. It is right here, just lying quietly, just covered beneath the face of time and years! And now, I! Have found it! A pre-era weapon-type megastructure!"

The crazy look on his face appeared incredibly hideous under the lights of the Bridge. And this was the first time his adjutant had seen his general, who was always gentle and elegant, show such an expression. He thought for a moment and said worriedly, "General, this seems to be the headquarters of the Saints, an agent force raised by the Imperial Military Department... Would it be bad for us to wipe them out directly? After all, repairing this megastructure should take time, and before that, we shouldn't really be in conflict with the Empire, right?"

Kaims Hill restrained the madness on his face, but he still couldn't suppress the smile in the corners of his eyes. "That's simple. Didn't the Empire recently newly appoint some Grand Duke Chu Xiluo? We'll find a way to pin the blame on him. This way, once the Empire alienates him, we can also tie him to our chariot—even if we take a step back, could he possibly air-drop onto my head and slap me?"

"General, you are brilliant."

Kaims Hill shook his head. "It's not brilliant, just a small idea. Let's go, it's time to welcome that megastructure that belongs to us. Have the Marine Corps prepare for landing!"

"Yes!"