Chapter 162. Aerial Battle
A colossal boulder smashing into the ground from such a significant height created an earthquake. The thatched shelters in the vicinity collapsed, and without any shelter to shade them from the lethal rays, those who couldn't flee in time fell face-down into an eternal slumber.
Charles looked up. He saw a familiar false star twinkling overhead through the blinding rays.
The star's light vanished.
Moments later, a massive boulder landed on the island.
Charles soared into the air and screeched, "Everyone, follow me!! Those monsters up there know that we're planning an assault! They possess significant intelligence. We need to stop them now!"
With a powerful flap of his bat wings, Charles ascended toward the rift. The fleet of airships and helicopters trailed closely behind him.
As he drew closer to the rift, Charles could see the false stars for what they truly were. The mantises clung to the rocky terrain in a flower-like formation. Their abdomen radiated a flickering, luminescent light.
As their glow pulsed faster, it abruptly dimmed, and the area they encircled broke free from the terrain. The massive chunk of rock then thundered toward the island.
The scattered mantises gathered once more in an attempt to drop another boulder, but there was no way Charles would allow them another free shot.
A massive bat swooped under the mantises and opened its monstrous maw to let out a piercing screech.
The sound interrupted the mantises' actions as they hurriedly shielded their glowing abdomens with their carapaces. Brandishing their razor-sharp scythe-like forelimbs, they lunged at Charles.
Charles immediately ceased his beastly cry and retreated. However, the mantises moved much faster than him. Just as they were about to close in on him, a barrage of bullets sprayed from below.
Dadadadada!
Sparks flew incessantly as the helicopters aimed their guns at the gigantic insects and unleashed a rain of bullets in their direction.
Despite their agile speed, several mantises didn't manage to dodge the projectile assault and were struck. The minigun's firepower far surpassed that of any hand-held pistol, its bullets ripping through the insects and leaving a gruesome aftermath.
With the sound of a breaking twig, Charles sank his razor-sharp fangs into the last surviving mantis and swiftly ripped its head off.
"Continue!" Charles commanded as he hung upside-down from the rocky terrain and gestured toward the crevice with a wing. The airships and helicopters adjusted their courses and moved toward the direction he indicated.
Clearly, the mantises wouldn't stand by and allow the humans' ascent. They emerged from the rift like hornets bursting out of a hive and charged at Charles and his group.
As they broke through the line of machine-gun fire, the first aerial battle in the history of the Subterranean Sea kickstarted over the expanse of Hope Island.
A helicopter fired a hail of bullets at an incoming mantis and successfully tore through the insect's exoskeleton.
Just as it seemed victorious, a dark shadow abruptly loomed behind the aircraft. With a swift glint of cold light, the steel machinery was cleaved into two halves as effortlessly as ripping a sheet of paper.
Before the mantis could even savor its successful ambush, a solid projectile shot out from the cannon of a nearby airship and blasted more than half of its body away.
With the air overhead turned into a battlefield, fallen and wounded creatures rained down to the earth below. Chaos reigned; a symphony of gunshots, anguished cries, artillery explosions and the buzzing of helicopter blades filled the air. It was a brutal interspecies conflict of epic proportions.
Nonetheless, when it came to the final battle over numbers, the humans held a slight advantage; the appearance of new mantises from the rift started to dwindle.
With ecstasy painting his beastly visage, Charles led the last of the aerial fleet toward the rift. Just when they arrived right at the rift's entrance, the piercing light suddenly dimmed out.
Charles looked up just in time to see a boulder as large as a house hurtling directly toward him. The force of the impact sent him spiraling toward the waters below.
Ignoring the pain from the collision, he used his sharp claws to propel himself away from the gravitational pull of the boulder and soared back into the air.
The others weren't so lucky.
Shrieks echoed as the cacophony of splintering wood and screeching metal accompanied the descending boulder. The rock and the doomed vessels, along with their crew, crashed into the waters.
Charles managed to grab one of the fallen humans with his hind claws and dodged to the side. When he ascended toward the terrain overhead once more, he looked down to realize that the man's head was caved in—he was beyond salvation.
Left with no choice, Charles released his grip and let the lifeless body drop toward the waters. He then turned his gaze onto the crevice once more.
Neither the airships nor the helicopters had a viable solution against the onslaught of falling rocks. The mantises held the high ground. Coupled with the glaring sunlight, cannons and miniguns were practically ineffective at targeting the insects.
Charles cautiously crawled his way toward the edge of the crevice. Poking his head out, he peered upward through the amber tint of his protective glasses.
The rift opened up to a tunnel spanning forty meters in diameter. Hundreds of mantises surrounded the other end of the passageway in a near-perfect circle.
Launching an attack from the bottom was a mountainous challenge. Also, they couldn't afford to prolong the battle. The airships could hover, but the helicopters would run out of fuel.
"Hold your positions. The moment you hear an explosion, that's the cue to move in. Understood?" Charles barked as he hung upside down with barrels of explosives in hand.
Seeing the affirmative nods, Charles gripped the barrels of explosives and matches between his teeth and started to scale the rocky crevice in an inverted position.
Stopping briefly at the entrance, he took a deep breath and counted in his heart. At the count of three, his muscles tensed up. Adrenaline pumped through his veins as he began his ascent.
The mantises noticed Charles. Boulders of various sizes started raining down from above. With uncanny agility, Charles leaped from one cliff face to another as he avoided the falling rocks. Initially, he could still dodge the rocks with ease.
However, the higher he climbed, the more treacherous the journey became.
With a thunderous boom, a table-sized slab of rock grazed the cliffside and crashed against Charles' right shoulder. A sharp pain shot through him, and he felt his right claw go limp from the impact.
"No one—nothing—can stop me from returning to the surface!" Charles let out a primal roar of conviction as he struck a match against the rocky cliff.
Staring at the mantises looming just barely twenty meters above him, he lit the explosives, and with a kick, he propelled himself off the cliff face and soared upward.
Boulders rained down on him as he ascended, but in a final gambit, he hurled the ignited explosives upward with all the strength he could muster in his right paw.
Just as Charles fell out of the crevice alongside the falling rocks, a deafening explosion roared overheard.
With almost half of the bones in his body shattered from the ordeal, Charles barely managed to catch onto an ascending airship with one hand.
A Divine Light Order disciple approached to help Charles climb overboard.
However, the moment the disciple was within reach, Charles opened his mouth and sank his fangs into the man's neck, fervently feeding on the latter's blood.
With the ingestion of fresh blood, Charles' injuries and wounds started healing at a remarkable speed. He released the now pallid disciple from his grasp, and with blood dripping from his lips, he turned to the four other humans before him.
"I need one more," Charles commented with his eyes glowing red.
The four disciples aboard exchanged glances before a brawny man stepped forward and volunteered himself as tribute.
Upon returning to full health and soaring back up through the crevice once more, Charles saw that the mantises were close to being defeated; their formation was in tatters, and they were battling in a last-ditch effort.
Without any geographical advantage to aid their smaller numbers, the humans rapidly finished them off.
Charles' eyes landed on the barely visible patch of blue at the end of the tunnel; a terrifying smile surfaced on his black, furry face.
However, his smile was swiftly wiped away as an unknown living entity gradually obscured the hue of blue.
As the light overhead slowly dimmed, those aboard the helicopters widened their eyes in disbelief. Some even began to tremble uncontrollably at the appearance of a new opponent.
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