Starting from the Planetary Governor

The intelligence level of that guy is not on the same scale as the other monsters. Although he was also charging with the main force, he always kept his body behind at least one Lizardman, never carelessly exposing himself to the firing line.

But... was this foolproof?

Lacroix had been watching him for a long time.

And now, there was an opportunity.

When he saw that the special forces soldiers had a chance to retreat, the creature seemed to grow anxious. It let out a long howl to the sky, calling on its subordinate Lizardmen to launch an even more fierce assault. They were now within arm's reach, and every human must be stopped from boarding the aircraft.

The Lizardmen, indeed, accelerated their advance as commanded.

However, in that instant, a very slight gap appeared between Lacroix and him.

And this gap was tightly seized by the Alliance Soldier King.

He pulled the trigger, and the overloaded, dark red laser beam shot past the ears of many Lizardmen, hitting its mark on the guy's head through that slight gap.

He, too, possessed some sort of Spiritual Energy protection, which was much stronger than that of ordinary Lizardmen. Even when hit by the laser, a yellow-green energy shield visibly appeared.

Even an overloaded shot couldn't immediately break through the Spiritual Energy protection.

But this was already within Lacroix's expectations.

What followed was a second shot, then a third.

After that, there were no more windows to shoot through.

But it didn't matter, those three shots were enough.

The second shot broke the yellow-green shield, and with the third shot, the creature's head was pierced through.

The remaining Lizardmen, suddenly leaderless, fell into chaos.

Taking this opportunity, the last soldier, besides Lacroix, had already boarded the Wind Falcon.

Even then, the Wind Falcon had begun to take off, already almost a meter from the ground.

It was at that moment that Lacroix finally stopped shooting.

He first tossed his overheated rifle, probably unusable without major repairs after this, onto the aircraft, then took a high jump, grabbing onto the edge of the open hatch. With the help of a comrade's hand, he heaved himself onto the plane.

Immediately afterward, he turned around, took the rifle handed to him by a comrade, connected it to his own energy crystal power supply, and leaned against the edge of the Wind Falcon's cabin, starting to shoot downward.

He hadn't forgotten that these Lizard creatures had a special ability. As they neared their target, the Spiritual Energy talent they possessed could cause a delay in the target's movements.

He wasn't sure about the range at which this ability could be triggered, nor could he guarantee that when multiple Lizardmen were present, their Spiritual Energy talents wouldn't resonate with each other, leading to a more pronounced effect.

For others, it might be fine, but if the pilot of the Wind Falcon they were boarding were to be delayed, with the servo-skull forced offline, they might truly be unable to fly.

After all, not everyone was on the level of Lieutenant Kuchi.

With this in mind, shooting downward to reduce the numbers of Lizard creatures was certainly a worthwhile endeavor.

Killing a few extra enemies was never a loss.

All things considered, things had been relatively smooth up to now. The Anti-Gravity Engine of the Wind Falcon roared as the aircraft began to accelerate for a vertical ascent. In a few more seconds, once they picked up speed, they could soar hundreds of meters above the ground in the blink of an eye.

At that height, they were almost out of danger.

Once the thrusters kicked in, they could reach, or even break, the sound barrier in an instant, flying off into the distance, leaving the enemy troops on the ground, no matter their number or capability, as no threat at all.

But just then, the fast attack craft they were on suddenly swayed violently.

The Wind Falcon was losing control!

"What's going on?!"

"Why won't the machine respond?!"

The pilot's cries of alarm kept coming.

Clearly, he had encountered a situation like Kuchi's before.

A mysterious force was throwing off the precision of mechanical controls. Each operation was exaggerated or diminished.

Even Kuchi, relying on manual control in such a situation, could barely keep the Wind Falcon from falling, not to mention the one Lacroix and the others were on now.

Lacroix's powerful arms gripped the side of the hatch, forcibly steadying his body. Continue reading at empire

At this moment, he felt incredibly calm.

Now, they were nearly a hundred meters above the ground. Falling from this height, relying on his exoskeleton, relying on his body's strength that had mysteriously become many times stronger recently, perhaps he himself could survive. But the others on the plane would probably suffer heavy losses.

What's worse, all the precious materials loaded onto the craft would no longer have a chance to be taken away again.

They had to solve the problem.

In the blink of an eye, he noticed a tiny figure slowly rising in the distance, nearly two thousand meters away.

To the average person, a target at this distance was just a dot. However, with his eyesight and the display inside his full-coverage tactical helmet, he could still make out that it seemed to be a bald man wearing a dark green robe.

The air around him was constantly distorting. Some magical power was emanating from his body.

Lacroix judged that this was very likely the culprit affecting both Wind Falcons.

In the split second, he raised his LR5 laser rifle to overload mode, a red beam streaked across the sky!

That shot hit dead center!

...

Ge Wajia lowered his head, looking at the penetrating wound that had appeared in his chest, astonishment showing on his indifferent face.

He could interfere with two Wind Falcons from a distance of two kilometers, thanks to the power of Spiritual Energy, a grace from the Benevolent Father. He, of course, also possessed the ability to protect himself with Spiritual Energy, which, if fully activated, wouldn't be so easily penetrated, even by an overloaded laser rifle.

However, he had not actively activated his Spiritual Energy defense earlier.

He was an old warrior, yet he hadn't personally experienced the battlefield and the threat of life and death for many years.

He never imagined that after throwing that adept pilot's Wind Falcon into turmoil, anything could still harm him.

But that soldier managed it.

A laser rifle in overload mode could maintain tremendous lethality over a distance of two kilometers, which was not surprising, but... how could he hit the target?

A distance of two thousand meters was something only a super sniper could achieve, wasn't it? It needed a fine weapon, a steady mind, ample time for calculation, aiming...

And yet that Alliance soldier, in the heat of the moment, on a wildly swaying plane, one hand on the hatch and the other aimed at Ge Wajia, took a shot from two kilometers away.

And he hit the target.

A stream of fresh blood coughed out from the corner of his mouth. He was floating about ten meters above the ground, but now he couldn't maintain his position and began to uncontrollably descend.

But it wasn't over yet.

After Lacroix's shot, both the Wind Falcons teetering on the edge of control regained stability. The Wind Falcon carrying the spoils and soldiers immediately started to climb, eager to avoid any further mishaps and get away quickly.

The other Wind Falcon, piloted by Kuchi, didn't just climb; it viciously turned its nose toward Ge Wajia and fired a dense barrage of bullets.

Kuchi had also seen Lacroix's shot.

Though he found it just as unbelievable, as soon as the plane returned to normal, he immediately understood that Lacroix had hit a critical target, saving everyone.

There was little else he could do at this time, but to lay into the beaten dog, to give it another vicious blow, was only right.

What if he wasn't dead?

If worse came to worst, they'd whip the corpse too.