125: Chapter 125 Ivy

The brutal, one-sided slaughter exploded at this very moment.

The sky instantly transformed into a ruthless meat grinder.

The Orcs' heavy warships were like bulldozers charging recklessly, barbarically crushing the clouds in their path, as their main cannons, secondary batteries, and anti-aircraft machine guns wove an airtight web of death.

The Winged Race fleet's firepower was clearly inferior to the Orc fleet's, and with their engines also being jammed, the Winged Race fleet had almost lost the ability to resist.

The light of the explosions dyed the pristine sea of clouds a shocking dark red, while charred wreckage, burning feathers, and the desperate screams of the Winged Race wove together into a hellish elegy.

"Captain! Ship Three has gone down! Ship Four's energy core is completely depleted, and its shields have shattered... We can't stop them at all!"

The shrill wailing of her kin constantly came through the communicator, each sound stabbing at her heart like a knife.

On the bridge of the Dawn, Captain Ivy was gripping the violently shaking command console with all her might.

She had dazzling golden hair that cascaded like a waterfall, and her originally pristine white wings were trembling uneasily behind her.

In her gem-like azure eyes, the calmness and elegance of the past were now completely replaced by deep despair and hatred.

"All remaining ships, listen to my command... Engage engine overload mode and break out in different directions!"

The Winged Race was already small in population, with an extremely low birth rate and a long growth cycle; the sacrifice of every tribesman was a heart-wrenching pain that the entire race could not bear.

However, before this group of heavily armed beasts, staying meant total annihilation, while fleeing was equally a bottomless nightmare.

"Want to run? Did you ask me first? Launch all the chains!"

The Orc commander sneered. Following his order, the armor plates on the sides of the Orc warships abruptly opened, revealing rows of hideous launchers.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Accompanied by ear-piercing roars, hundreds of heavy alloy chains with massive bloodletting barbs, like black vipers dancing across the sky, instantly tore through the air and shot precisely and viciously at the Winged Race members who were desperately flapping their wings and fleeing in all directions after losing the protection of their warships.

"Ahhh!!!"

A young Winged Race girl who couldn't dodge in time had her pair of white wings pierced directly from behind by a thick, heavy grappling hook.

The blood-stained barb cruelly burst out from her chest, and her shrill scream instantly tore through the sky. The mechanical winch at the other end of the chain began to spin frantically, ignoring the girl's wails, and dragged her whole body toward the Orc warship like a newly captured prey.

Ivy stood before the porthole, her eyes splitting with rage as she watched a dozen of her young kin being forcibly dragged away from mid-air by those barbed chains.

They struggled desperately in mid-air, and the terror and despair in their eyes made Ivy's heart ache as if it were being cut by knives.

She knew all too well what kind of fate worse than death these kin would face once they were dragged into the Blood Moon Guild's warships.

Their wings would be cruelly broken, they would be leashed like dogs with spiked black iron collars, and they would become tragic playthings for those barbaric Orcs to vent their beastly desires and flaunt their power.

"Run... Captain, run! Don't look back!!"

Several Winged Race warriors, tightly bound by grappling hooks and knowing they were doomed, used their last ounce of strength to roar desperately toward the direction of the warship.

Ivy bit her lip so hard that she didn't even notice the blood dripping down her chin from the excessive force.

Forcing herself to endure the bleeding pain in her heart, she piloted the heavily damaged warship, pushed the power to the limit, and with the only two or three remaining scarred small ships, dived headfirst into the thick cumulonimbus cloud layer below without looking back.

Behind them, the Blood Moon fleet pursued relentlessly, like mad wolves that had caught the scent of blood.

"Chase them! That golden-haired Winged Race captain is a rare prize; Master Finn will definitely love her! Whoever can capture her alive, I'll reward them with ten thousand units of Level 5 materials!"

The Orc commander excitedly licked the blood from the corner of his mouth and ordered the entire fleet to pursue at full capacity.

Under the cruel dark laws of the Cangyun Airspace, even if a weak fleet was lucky enough to occupy a treasure island, they were merely a group of pathetic "misers," just "keeping" resources and people for the truly strong. An innocent man is innocent, but his treasure is his crime.

Looking at the holographic radar screen, Ivy saw those dozen scarlet dots ignoring the interference of the cumulonimbus layer and clinging tightly to their trail; her gaze was desperate and lost.

"Boom—crack!!!"

There was no time left for her to think.

The Orcs' firepower covered the entire sky; Ivy maneuvered the warship to dodge as much as possible, but a lethal armor-piercing explosive shell still accurately struck the rear engine room of the Dawn.

Immediately after, countless energy cannons and high-explosive armor-piercing shells rained down; in this scale of airspace combat, the most common tactic was firepower suppression—if you have a problem, tell it to my bombardment matrix.

Under the continuous heavy damage, this speed-type warship finally met its complete disintegration.

Accompanied by the deafening sound of metal tearing, half of the hull snapped off with a crash.

The entire warship completely lost its lift.

"Abandon ship! Everyone, abandon ship immediately! Quick!"

Ivy wiped the blood from her forehead, and in that critical moment, she leaped into a streamlined micro-fighter in the ejection pod at the bottom of the flagship.

In the pilot's seat sat Hila, a Winged Race girl who looked only seventeen or eighteen years old.

Although she was young, she was the most capable scout under Ivy.

This LV3 micro-warship of hers, the [Wind Blade], had almost all heavy armor, life support systems, and weapon modules removed in pursuit of extreme, almost perverse maneuverability, with all the saved payload added to the huge engine at the rear.

"Captain, fasten your seatbelt, hold on tight!"

Hila's face, still bearing a hint of childishness, was tense to the extreme. She stared fixedly at the airspace ahead and slammed the throttle lever all the way to the end.

"Boom!"

The engine at the rear of the [Wind Blade] instantly emitted an extremely sharp shriek, bursting forth with a blinding cyan aura.

"Bang!!!"

A visible, massive white sonic boom cloud exploded in mid-air.

This LV3 small fighter, like a cyan blade cutting through the sky, instantly broke the physical limit of ten times the speed of sound in an extremely short time.

It turned into a cyan afterimage so fast that even radar could hardly track it, and with an extreme trajectory, it forcibly tore open a path of survival through the gap in the Orc fleet's closing encirclement!

"Think you can run under my nose? Keep dreaming!"

Seeing this, the Orc commander in the rear sneered coldly and waved his large, black-haired hand down abruptly: "Supersonic guided missile swarm, activate! Shoot down that fastest-flying bird for me!"

In an instant, the vertical missile silos on the back of the Orc warships fully opened.

Dozens of supersonic guided tracking missiles, trailing scarlet exhaust, soared into the sky, mixed with dense, rain-like high-energy anti-aircraft lasers, like an overwhelming net of death, crazily pouncing toward the cyan afterimage that had just broken out of the encirclement.

Hila gripped the control stick tightly with both hands, performing various unconventional evasive maneuvers within the dense web of fire. However, in the face of absolute firepower coverage, such an unarmored fighter still appeared too fragile.

[Warning! Left wing damaged! Rear engine affected by shell explosion!]

[Missile locked—Countdown: 3, 2...]

"We can't dodge it! Abandon the craft!"

Just as several missiles were about to bite into the tail of the fighter, Ivy pulled Hila from the pilot's seat and shielded her tightly underneath herself, while simultaneously wrapping them both securely with her large, pure white wings.

"Rumble—!!!"

In the night sky, the LV3 assault craft was hit directly by the dense swarm of missiles, turning into a brilliant and blindingly huge fireball, with countless burning metal fragments falling like a meteor shower into the depths of the thunderstorm cloud layer.

"Tch, so fragile."

The Orc commander watched the energy signal completely disappear from the radar and spat contemptuously.

"And I thought they could run. Pass the order: the entire fleet is to stop the pursuit and return to the island to collect those living spoils! Tonight, I'm going to have a good time!"

The massive Orc fleet, filled with wild laughter and greed, slowly turned its bows and returned to the occupied island.