Fourteen hours later.

On the western horizon, the optical lenses of a Demon Eye IV captured the first silhouettes of Flying Magical Beasts.

That roiling black cloud had officially entered the airspace six hundred kilometers from Zone 18.

Behind them, dots of red light continued to spread across the ground.

Farther still, the distance between the blue cursor of the Iron Star 6th Legion and the pillar of scarlet light had shrunk by another twenty kilometers.

「Ten thousand meters in the air.」

Seven groups of Storm Falcons were already in formation, their silver-gray fuselages glinting coldly above the clouds.

The first engagement was to be aerial combat.

The targets were a flock of giant-winged bats. With individual Magic Power fluctuations between 600 and 1,200, they weren’t a major threat, but the three hundred-plus pairs of pitch-black wings blotted out half the sky.

’Too many. We can’t let them cross the outer perimeter.’

"Begin the operation."

With the order, eighty-four silver streaks of lightning instantly pierced the sea of clouds.

All seven groups pressed the attack, forming a staggered, high-low kill formation and diving in with terrifying kinetic energy.

Fire!

One hundred and sixty-eight high-energy rays tore through the sky, leaving a massive grid of light against the dark backdrop.

The giant-winged bats never even saw their attackers. Dozens at the front of the swarm were instantly skewered by the rays.

The intense heat vaporized their blood instantly; even their screams were incinerated in their throats.

The swarm instinctively tried to scatter and flank, but against the sheer speed of the Storm Falcons, their movements seemed to be in slow motion.

A few larger, mutated giant-winged bats tried to accelerate for a ramming attack. A Storm Falcon pulled up sharply, executing a tight turn that seemed to defy the laws of physics. Its ray gun swept across, blowing the bat’s head apart.

They maintained a decisive range advantage, using their superior mobility to strafe the swarm’s periphery at high speed while keeping a safe distance.

The medium "Judgement" Magic Guide Ray Guns were shockingly efficient in a dense target environment. Wherever the beams swept, the swarm was mowed down like wheat before a scythe.

It was a slaughter, executed without contact!!

A gruesome black rain fell from the sky. Charred wing fragments, shredded chunks of flesh, and scorched organs rained down like hail upon the barren gobi below.

In less than five minutes, the flock of three hundred giant-winged bats was more than halved. The survivors finally broke formation, scattering in every direction.

Ten minutes later, only a few dozen giant-winged bats had managed to escape in the chaos. Zero friendly casualties.

With the first battle won, the Storm Falcon squadrons immediately returned to re-energize and re-arm with aerial bombs.

The first large wave of Flying Magical Beasts had been cleared. The next phase was airspace patrol and ground-attack missions.

This was a war of attrition; the Storm Falcons would attack in shifts.

"Group One re-arming complete, airborne now. Group Two, prepare for takeoff in fifteen minutes," Jarvis reported in real time.

The twelve Storm Falcons of Group One ascended once more, re-entering the battlefield and receiving real-time coordinate data transmitted from a Demon Eye IV at an altitude of twenty thousand meters.

On the ground, a scattered cluster centered around fifty-odd Crystal Shell Giant Scorpions was tagged.

[TARGET LOCKED. MAGIC POWER FLUCTUATION: 2340. THREAT LEVEL: ORANGE (TOUGH NUT).]

"Proceed with the predetermined tactical plan," ordered Allen’s fifth thread, which was responsible for executing and supervising beyond-visual-range strike tactics.

Six Storm Falcons broke from the formation, their ventral hardpoints snapping open.

Six conventional aerial bombs whistled sharply as they plummeted.

BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!

A chain of explosions erupted on the swarm’s periphery, sending pillars of fire soaring into the sky. Shrapnel and intense heat instantly shredded the weaker scorpions on the outskirts. Mangled limbs and dirt were blasted into the air, leaving six deep craters, each several meters in diameter, gouged into the earth.

The shockwave from the explosions brought the Scorpion King to a halt. It raised its massive pincers, let out an enraged screech, and began to gather a ball of emerald light, trying to locate its aerial attackers.

But it was never given a chance to charge its attack. The true killing blow was already on its way.

Three more Storm Falcons streaked over the thick smoke. Three heavy Crystal Armor-Piercing Bullets detached from their hardpoints and plummeted straight down toward the Scorpion King.

The first scored a direct hit on the center of its carapace.

A sickening crunch echoed as crystallizing radiation erupted on impact. White crystals spread wildly from the cracks in its armor. A third of the Scorpion King’s back turned white.

The Scorpion King thrashed wildly, its massive pincers shattering the rocks below as it tried to escape the kill zone.

But the second bullet arrived an instant later, striking the exact same spot.

The crystallization spread across its entire back. Under the dual effect, the once-indestructible carapace became as fragile as glass.

Two seconds later, the third bullet plunged through from directly above.

KRAAACK—

A sharp crack echoed across the battlefield. The Scorpion King’s carapace was shattered completely, and the crystallizing warhead detonated inside its body.

Its enormous body collapsed, shattering into a pile of white crystal fragments. Only a few broken, segmented legs still twitched from lingering nerve impulses.

From target lock to kill, the entire process took only twenty seconds.

[CONSUMED: Crystal Armor-Piercing Bullets x3, Conventional Aerial Bombs x6.]

[KILLS: Tough Nut-class target x1, Fodder-class targets x31.]

’Cost-effective. The production lines can churn out fifteen armor-piercing bullets a day, so this is a profitable exchange.’ Allen was very pleased with the outcome.

’Next. Second target group.’

The twelve Storm Falcons carved elegant arcs through the sky as they dove toward the next red dot.

「For the next twelve hours.」

The Storm Falcons’ seven attack waves became the most precise and merciless gears of war, slicing back and forth through the airspace between two hundred and six hundred kilometers out.

Approach, release payload, pull up, return to base.

It was slaughter on an assembly line.

The Demon Eye reconnaissance chain continuously relayed successful engagement reports. Over thirty Magical Beast swarms were broken on sight.

[12-HOUR COMBAT SUMMARY: KILLED: 32 ’Tough Nut’ targets. COLLATERAL KILLS: 342 fodder targets.]

[AMMUNITION EXPENDED: Crystal Armor-Piercing Bullets x98, Conventional Aerial Bombs x165.]

’Total inventory of Crystal Armor-Piercing Bullets: 1,556. We’ve used 98 in 12 hours. At this rate, we can last for half a month, no problem. There will be fewer Tough Nuts later, and it doesn’t matter if we burn through conventional bombs. Ground forces have more than enough firepower for any fodder that gets through.’

"Jarvis, what’s the current daily production rate for the Crystal Armor-Piercing Bullet line?"

[Daily output is 15 units. Production is limited by the daily output ceiling for Seeds of Crystallization and cannot be accelerated further.]

Allen was silent for two seconds.

"Adjust the rules of engagement. Cap the number of armor-piercing bullets deployed per Orange-level target to three. A severe wound is acceptable if it’s not a kill. The AP rounds are only for cracking their armor; let follow-up units secure the kill."

"Furthermore, the sortie frequency is too high. We can optimize efficiency further. Change the interval between each group’s deployment to forty minutes."

[Parameters updated.]

"Maintain the rhythm. Group Six, prepare for takeoff..."

Allen’s fifth thread hadn’t finished giving the command when an alarm suddenly blared in his Sea of Spirit.

[WARNING! DEMON EYE IV NODE 07 SIGNAL LOST!]

[WARNING! DEMON EYE IV NODE 08 SIGNAL LOST!]

Allen’s gaze sharpened instantly. ’The Demon Eyes are deployed at twenty thousand meters. What could possibly knock out two nodes at once?’

"Bring up the last visual feed."

A video feed appeared on the screen.

The feed was from a location six hundred fifty kilometers from Zone 18, still outside the Storm Falcons’ combat radius.

A dot of light, originally tagged as a Red-level (Problematic) target, had suddenly stopped moving.

The view zoomed in on a monster the likes of which Allen had never seen in any bestiary. Its Magic Power fluctuation was a staggering 4,800.

It resembled a giant snail carrying a heavy shell, but that shell was covered in a dense, skin-crawling array of compound eyes. At its apex was a single, enormous scarlet eye.

The monster was currently opening its abyss-like maw, voraciously devouring the corpses of the Magical Beasts killed by the bombardment.

As it fed, its carapace and those bizarre compound eyes began to emit an eerie glow.

[TARGET’S MAGIC POWER FLUCTUATION SURGING... 5,000... 5,200... 5,500!]

In the final moment, the frame froze.

That enormous scarlet eye fixed its gaze on the Demon Eye twenty thousand meters above.

Then, a pillar of dark purple light, suffused with an aura of utter destruction, shot upward from the ground, piercing the heavens!