"Captain, I’m airborne and heading for the airspace over Wheat Field Three."

Zhang Hao’s voice came over the comms channel, tinged with an irrepressible excitement.

"Roger!"

"Stay safe, and take out every last one of those arsonist bastards for me!"

"Understood!"

Activating [Spiritual Vision], Han Feng’s view of the world instantly changed.

Below, the burning wheat fields were a sea of orange-red fire.

And in the sky at the edge of this fiery sea, five black-robed figures riding Flying Demon Beasts radiated a glaring, dark-red light.

They were exceptionally conspicuous in the night, their forms perfectly clear.

They were still circling arrogantly, occasionally tossing incendiaries down below.

’Found you.’

A cold glint flashed in Han Feng’s eyes as he rested his right index finger on the Machine Cannon’s firing button.

He didn’t charge straight at them. Instead, from an altitude of 1,500 meters, he aimed the nose of his plane at the most brazen of the targets.

Distance: 2,500 meters.

That Blood-Feeding Cultist had clearly spotted the lone target in the sky as well.

He even arrogantly steered his Winged Dragon Demon Beast into a taunting spiral in Han Feng’s direction.

In his eyes, a clumsy support craft was nothing more than a sitting duck.

He even pulled out a large-caliber pistol, aimed it at Han Feng from afar, and prepared to toy with the Pilot who had a death wish.

’Courting death.’

Han Feng snorted coldly.

He slammed the control stick forward, and the "Gray Donkey" went into a high-speed dive, its velocity surging!

Seeing this, the Cultist gave a strange laugh and yanked hard on the reins.

The Winged Dragon Demon Beast beneath him executed a beautiful barrel roll, trying to break Han Feng’s lock.

This was a trick they used against conventional fighter jets that had never failed them.

The next second, however, the smile on his face froze.

The clumsy aircraft, which should have been diving in a straight line, actually performed an unbelievable lateral fishtail in mid-air!

The massive airframe forcibly twisted its orientation.

The dark muzzles of the six-barreled Machine Cannon were still pointed right at him!

"Wh-What?!"

The Cultist’s mind instantly went blank.

Before he could react, he was met with a declaration of death.

THUMP!

THUMP!

THUMP!

Three muffled cannon reports.

Three shells, each wrapped in Spiral Force, followed three faintly visible red trajectories predicted by Han Feng’s [Spiritual Vision], cutting off all the man’s escape routes.

The Cultist discovered in terror that whether he dodged left, right, or up, a deadly shell was waiting for him.

SPLAT!

The first shell drilled into his back and exploded out of his chest, leaving a massive, bloody hole.

The second and third shells directly blasted the Winged Dragon Demon Beast beneath him into a shower of blood and gore.

Before a scream could even escape them, man and beast plummeted into the sea of fire below.

"Fifth Brother!"

"What happened?!"

The remaining four Cultists were startled, looking in astonishment toward the direction their comrade had fallen.

"He was killed! It was that plane!"

"Impossible! How could it have hit him!"

They instantly fell into disarray, hastily steering their Demon Beasts to scatter and put some distance between them.

’Trying to run now?’

Han Feng sneered, his hands a blur as they danced across the control stick and various instrument panels.

The clumsy "Gray Donkey" became incredibly agile in his hands.

He yanked the nose up, and the plane shot a hundred meters upward before executing a perfect Immelmann turn, aligning itself with a second fleeing target.

That target was desperately diving, trying to escape by flying low to the ground.

Without a word, Han Feng shoved the control stick forward.

The "Gray Donkey" screamed toward the earth in a vertical dive as the Machine Cannon roared once more.

Another precise burst of fire, and the second Cultist followed in his comrade’s footsteps, screaming in terror.

In the blink of an eye, Han Feng had sniped two of the five arsonist Cultists with his unbelievable maneuvers and marksmanship.

In the Command Tower, Zhou Ping watched two red dots on the tactical screen blink out and slammed his hand on the table in excitement.

"He got ’em!"

"He got another one! Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful!"

He snatched the communicator and yelled into Lei Zhen’s channel, "Director! Han Feng! It’s Han Feng! He’s already taken out two of the arsonists!"

In the cockpit of the [Black Bear], Lei Zhen, who had just sent a Tier Two Demon Beast flying with a punch, glanced at the image on his split-screen, a flash of approval in his single eye.

"Good work! Tell him to keep at it!"

The three remaining Evil Cultists were scared out of their wits.

They finally realized that the plane in the sky was no clumsy transport aircraft, but a terrifying aerial assassin!

"Retreat! Retreat now!"

"Inform the Deacon! The plan has changed! We’ve run into a real pro!"

One of them frantically pulled a shriveled Gu Insect from his robes and crushed it.

An invisible psychic wave instantly spread out.

After doing this, he urged his Demon Beast to flee for its life toward the deep mountains in the distance, not once looking back.

Han Feng didn’t chase the one who sent the message.

His eyes locked onto the remaining two targets.

’Not a single one of you is getting away.’

In the night sky, a merciless hunt began.

The "Gray Donkey" completely ignored the constraints of aerodynamics. It would sideslip, then brake suddenly, then fly backward, relentlessly hounding the two Cultists.

No matter what difficult maneuvers they performed, they couldn’t shake the fatal lock-on.

A few minutes later, as two blossoms of blood bloomed in succession in the night sky, all aerial threats were completely eliminated.

...

「Valley Altar.」

In the water basin before the black-robed elder, five pools of blood, representing the life force of his followers, were extinguished one after another in just a few short minutes.

He coughed up a mouthful of blood.

The elder’s eyes shot open, his face a mask of disbelief.

"How is this possible!"

He had sent out the sect’s best operatives, and their Flying Demon Beast mounts were hand-picked. How could they have been defeated so quickly, so utterly!

Just then, he received the final message sent by the Cultist before his death.

"Useless trash!!"

The elder kicked a nearby stone stool to pieces, his wizened face contorted with savage killing intent.

"You can’t even handle a single plane! What’s the point of raising a bunch of useless fools like you!"

He trembled with rage.

They couldn’t win in a direct confrontation, and their attempt to lure the tiger from the mountain had been thwarted by someone picking them off from the sky.

What now?

Reinforcements from East Sea City could arrive at any moment. They didn’t have much Time left.

This was the culmination of months of planning; they couldn’t give up!

’It’s too late...’

A crazed, determined glint flashed in the elder’s eyes.

"If we can’t sneak in, then we’ll just have to muddy the waters even further!"

"Everyone, to the altar!"

A dozen or so black-robed Cultists immediately gathered around, their expressions solemn.

"We need a thick fog."

"A blood-mist that can block all lines of sight and disrupt all Perception!"

the elder said, his voice hoarse.

He pointed in the direction of the farm.

"On that battlefield lie the corpses of tens of thousands of Demon Beasts."

"Their resentment, their vital essence—it’s enough for us to hold a grand ritual!"

"Relay my orders!"

He turned to two of his trusted subordinates.

"Xue Si! Once the blood-mist rises, immediately lead your swarm to attack the main farmhouse from underground. The bigger the commotion, the better. Draw all of their attention!"

"Long Nail! The blood-mist will be your veil, and Xue Si’s attack your war drum! Infiltrate the living quarters and bring me the [Nether Embryo], no matter the cost!"

"Yes, sir!"

The two black-robed figures accepted their orders, their forms instantly melting into the shadows and earth, disappearing from sight.