126: Chapter 126 A Chance Encounter

What the orcs didn't know was that under the cover of the violent explosion and thick smoke, two overlapping figures were falling toward the bottomless sea of clouds below.

"Cough... cough, cough..."

The gale, mixed with cold mist, poured into her nasal cavity. Sheila coughed violently and struggled to open her eyes.

She was still alive. In that earth-shattering explosion, it was Captain Ivy who had used her own body and wings to block the vast majority of the shockwave and lethal shrapnel for her.

But at this moment, Ivy looked absolutely miserable.

Most of her brilliant golden hair had been scorched, and her pristine white wings were in tatters, with fresh blood dripping down from the feathers. She had already fallen into a deep coma.

Sheila endured the excruciating pain of her bones feeling like they were falling apart and grabbed Ivy's arm in the middle of their fall.

In her other hand, she clutched an energy core that was still flickering with a faint cyan light.

This was something she had desperately clawed out from under the control panel a second before the fighter jet exploded.

In this cruel world, this core was their only capital for survival.

She tucked the core away and then shouted:

"Captain... Captain, wake up!"

Sheila's voice carried an uncontrollable tremor and a sob. She spread her own pair of relatively intact pure white wings, forcibly stabilizing her body in the gale.

The massive pulling force made Sheila groan in pain, but she gritted her teeth and held the severely injured Ivy tightly with both hands.

She dared not fly too high, fearing being captured by the orcs' radar again, so she could only skim the dangerous low-altitude thunderstorm layer, relying on her survival instinct to flap her wings desperately forward without a destination.

Fly... she could only keep flying forward.

Her arms were already numb and had lost all sensation, and every beat of her wings was accompanied by the excruciating pain of tearing muscles.

Sheila didn't know how long she had been flying, until her vision began to blur and her stamina was on the verge of absolute exhaustion.

Just as she was about to give up and fall into the clouds with her captain.

The thick clouds ahead were suddenly dispersed by a strange wind. An island emitting a faint purple light, like a lighthouse on a pitch-black sea, abruptly appeared in her field of vision.

Sheila had no energy to ponder whether this island emitting psionic fluctuations had an owner, nor did she notice that the moment she broke into the ten-kilometer radius of the island, several micro-reconnaissance swarms equipped with optical stealth coatings had already transmitted their images to the main control screen of Cloud Top Fortress in real-time.

"Bang!"

Holding Ivy, Sheila crashed into the soft purple crystal grassland on the edge of the island like two broken kites. The momentum caused them to roll for several meters before they finally stopped.

"Huff... huff..."

Sheila lay on her back on the purple grass, her chest heaving violently like a broken bellows, greedily breathing in the rich psionic air of this place.

But she couldn't afford to rest. After only a few seconds of gasping, she scrambled over to Ivy's side.

"Captain... don't scare me, Captain Ivy..."

Sheila tremblingly fished out hemostatic gel from her spatial storage, clumsily applying it to Ivy's deep, bone-visible wounds.

Looking at her captain's bloodless face and the eerily silent purple jungle around them, an unprecedented sense of fear finally shattered the psychological defenses of this seventeen-year-old girl.

"Waa..."

Large tears fell from Sheila's eyes.

The night wind blew, and the purple crystal leaves made a crisp sound like wind chimes.

And in the shadows, those cold mechanical eyes were watching this alien girl crying in despair.

While crying, Sheila frantically swiped her blood- and mud-stained hands in the air, pulling up the Winged Race's internal encrypted channel.

"This is pilot Sheila of the Third Squad! Captain Ivy is critically injured! We made an emergency landing on a nearby island! Is anyone nearby? Please, help save the captain..."

The message was sent, but it was like a stone sinking into the sea. The few messages that occasionally flashed in the channel were all distress signals from other squads. Sheila's heart sank little by little, as if falling into an ice cellar.

...

Meanwhile, in the gravity training room at the bottom of Cloud Top Fortress.

Zhou An was shirtless, his toned muscles covered in a fine layer of sweat.

He was performing high-intensity one-handed handstand push-ups in a five-times gravity environment. With every movement, the muscle groups on his back bulged like fully drawn bowstrings, containing terrifying explosive power.

[Alert! Illegal biological intrusion detected on the southern edge of the island!]

EVA's cold voice suddenly interrupted Zhou An's training. Immediately after, real-time surveillance footage transmitted by several stealth drones popped up on the holographic screen of the training room.

In the footage, two alien females with wings on their backs were lying on the purple grass.

One was seriously injured and unconscious, and the other was crying desperately at the system panel.

"Winged Race?"

Zhou An stopped his movements and casually grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat off his body.

"How did these winged ones end up on my turf?"

He put on a black tactical jacket and strode toward the hangar.

"Luo Ning, guard the house, I'm going out."

Zhou An gave instructions over the comms and jumped directly into the cockpit of the carrier aircraft.

"EVA, mobilize the southern guard swarm and surround them for me first."

"Command received, the swarm has closed the net."

...

On the edge of the island.

Sheila was desperately guarding Ivy when suddenly, a scalp-tingling "buzzing" sound came from the quiet purple jungle around them.

"Swish, swish, swish—!"

Dozens of pitch-black combat drones appeared out of thin air from optical stealth, hovering densely in mid-air.

Those cold red guidance lasers, like the eyes of countless reapers, were locked tightly onto the two Winged Race girls on the ground.

Sheila stiffened, her pupils shrinking.

She abruptly pulled out the only remaining energy pistol at her waist, shielding her severely injured captain behind her, and watched her surroundings vigilantly like a young beast driven into a desperate situation.

"Buzz—"

A deep voice came from the loudspeaker of the lead drone:

"Uninvited guests. State your name and purpose."

Hearing this standard common language, Sheila suppressed her inner fear, her hand holding the gun trembling slightly, and shouted loudly: "We... we are the Winged Race! We just encountered a pursuit by the Blood Moon Guild of the orcs and made an emergency landing here! We have no malice, we just want to borrow a place to heal!"

After a moment of silence, a violent engine scream came from the sky.

A pitch-black small fighter jet swooped down from the clouds and hovered steadily less than half a meter above the ground.

The cockpit cover popped open, and Zhou An propped himself up on the cabin with one hand and leaped nimbly to the ground.

Sheila looked at the man in front of her.

This seemed to be an extremely "ordinary" looking human youth.

He was wearing a black casual tactical suit, his figure toned and well-proportioned, without those exaggerated muscle bulges.

However, when Sheila's gaze met the human youth's pitch-black eyes, the hair on her body instantly stood on end!

Her intuition was screaming warnings at her. Dangerous! Extremely dangerous!

Meanwhile, Zhou An was also sizing up the two uninvited guests in front of him.

"Tsk, quite pretty."

This was the first time Zhou An had seen the legendary Winged Race in reality. Although the two were in a sorry state, their appearances were indeed extremely stunning.

The unconscious one had brilliant golden hair and a mature, beautiful face. Her pair of large, pure white wings behind her, though stained with blood, still exuded a sense of holiness.

And the girl holding the gun looked only seventeen or eighteen years old, with a young and stubborn face, but the prototype of a beauty was already beginning to emerge.

Zhou An withdrew his gaze, put his hands in his pockets, and walked toward Sheila.

"Stop! Don't come over!"

Sheila looked at the approaching Zhou An, her nerves instantly stretched to the limit, her hands gripping the pistol tightly, aiming the muzzle at Zhou An's forehead.

"We'll only stay for one night and then leave! If you come any closer, I'll shoot!"

Zhou An didn't even pause his steps, only slightly raising his eyelids.

"Shoot?"

Before the words fell, Sheila felt a blur before her eyes.

There was no warning, not even a phantom image was captured! The human youth who was ten steps away a second ago had disappeared from the spot like a teleportation.

"What..."

The shock in Sheila's mind hadn't even fully formed when she felt her hands suddenly lighten; the energy pistol she had been gripping tightly had actually disappeared into thin air!

The next second, a cold sensation came from the back of her head. It was the feeling of a gun barrel pressing against her skin.

Zhou An was already standing behind Sheila like a ghost. He held the pistol he had snatched from Sheila in one hand, the muzzle ruthlessly pressed against the girl's back of the head, and he lowered his head slightly, his warm breath hitting the edge of the girl's fluffy white wings.

"Didn't anyone teach you..."

Zhou An's voice rang out faintly in Sheila's ear:

"That you need to behave yourself when you're on someone else's turf?"