The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 786: Bombardment

Then Chen Ying took off her shoes and jumped onto Nainai’s back, standing beside the boxes and holding onto the bindings.

“Depart!”

Nainai yelled. Air rippled around her like the currents a helicopter would generate when taking off, sweeping and messing up everyone’s hair and clothes, making them close their eyes.

Nainai took flight stably and flew toward the entrance to the Union’s underground base.

“Whoa, is that...” Gao Xinxin’s twin tails were all messed up, and her lips parted in shock. “Transformer?”

In truth, Nainai had simply copied Can’s level 5 Gale with her Shapeshifter and took flight by manipulating wind. She only lay down to carry bombs. Her role in this mission was to be a fighter jet, and Chen Ying would be the pilot.

Reaching two hundred meters up in the air, Nainai quickly flew toward the small forest.

Holding onto the bindings with one hand and holding onto the remote control for the bombs with the other hand, Chen Ying shouted against the wind, “Nainai...”

“That’s Empress Nainai to you!”

“Empress Nainai, drop to fifty meters in the air when going past the forest and slow down a little. When I yell, ‘Run,’ speed up and flee up into the sky immediately.”

“How trivial. Like flipping a hand!” Nainai described it in her own words. “A rollercoaster going through a U curve, yeah?”

“Right on!” Chen Ying smiled. The girl was as immature as it came, but also as dependable as it came.

Soon, The Nainai Jet flew toward the forest and dove down quickly. Chen Ying timed it and made a strong kick to drop a box of bombs.

Once the bombs flew into the forest, Chen Ying eyed its fall and shouted, “Run!”

She pressed the detonation button.

...

Two seconds later, a terrifying explosion hit the heart of the forest. The resulting hemisphere of blinding red light spread in all directions with tremendous destructive power, instantly wiping out the entire forest.

Firelight threatened to reach heaven, blooming into giant irregularly shaped mushroom clouds.

While fleeing at maximum speed, Nainai sensed a flash behind her. It felt like an overwhelming wave of light was crashing into her. Then the night sky lit up like day. A few seconds later, the powerful shockwaves caught up to her, propelling her to fly away from the explosion at greater speed.

“Ah...”

Chen Ying held tightly onto the bindings to prevent herself from falling off Nainai’s back.

Two kilometers away from the site, Hong Xiaoxiao, Gao Xinxin, Zhang Wei, and Gregor saw the surging bright firelight in the distance. Even the dark clouds covering the night sky were cast in a dark red. Then they heard a loud boom. A slight tremor came from below their feet. Finally, the strong gust hit them in the face.

Thirty seconds later, the lingering power of the explosion settled down somewhat. Nainai was already at a safe distance. She headed back to the bombarded site.

As she looked down, what reflected in her sunglasses was no forest, but a giant charred crater with countless inflamed objects, at the center of which was a hole—the elevator shaft leading to the underground base.

That was only one box of bombs.

Level 4 Explosives Expert was in a different league compared to level 3.

When she saw the entrance to the base of her former organization destroyed, Chen Ying realized to her surprise that she felt no guilt at all. What overtook her heart instead was an excitement and satisfaction that made her shudder.

Chen Ying finally dared to think back to her companions on the third team, to Little Tian’s smile, to everyone’s voices and laughs. All those memories came together and condensed into sharp pain and hatred, finally morphing into an intangible utterance. It was so familiar. The words Captain Gao Yang had said.

“We avenge them.”

“Nainai, I saw the elevator shaft,” Chen Ying shouted. “Get closer and slow down. I’m throwing the bombs in!”

“Call me Empress!” Nainai loudly corrected as she dove down toward the crater again.

Once a box of bombs was thrown into the elevator shaft with precision, it would reach the base of the Ocean River Union directly. She could detonate the bombs from a thousand meters away, more than sufficient in this case. While being so far away would sharply decrease the buff the Talent could grant, the bombs themselves would bring about a great enough explosion.

Chen Ying took out a dagger and cut off a binding, lifting a box of bombs and waiting for Nainai to get close to the crater.

Soon, very soon.

Closer, just a little closer!

[Nine Frost: Mission aborted! Retreat now!]

Nine Frost suddenly warned in Chen Ying’s and Nainai’s heads.

Chen Ying started and looked down. A few seconds later, she spotted a familiar portal appearing on the edge of the crater, and about a dozen people emerged from the portal.

[Chen Ying: That’s Wandering Tune’s Portal. They’re making a move!]

[Nine Frost: Nainai! Take flight! Get away immediately!]

[Nainai: Call me Empress!]

While Nainai shot back through Telepathy, she sped up away from the crater without any delay.

Wandering Tune was assigned to Team Azure Dragon after the two organizations merged. His Talent was Portal, also known as Chaos Space, serial number 99, Time-Space-type.

As the name would suggest, he could create two portals and transport anything from one place to another. Of course, there was a limit to the size of objects he could transport.

With level 3 Portal, he could create gateways no greater than 300 meters apart, lasting only a minute. That wasn’t of much help.

Now that he had leveled up Portal to level 4 with former Qilin Guild’s Time-Space Rune Circuit, the Talent saw a substantial leap, and he could create portals 1000 meters apart and sustained them for 5 minutes.

And now, he brought everyone to the ground level with his portals.

In fact, he could’ve taken everyone to safety, but it was clear that the Ocean River Union had always planned to meet the enemies head-on.

The two-meter wide and three-meter tall portal stood on the charred wasteland, rippling with blue light.

Hum—hum—hum—

One by one, awakeners emerged from the portal. Leading the group was Elder Colorless, followed by Protector Amon, and then Canary, Jing Ke, Rewind, Lin Fu, Stubborn Weasel, Crimson Bee, Old Seven, Small Luo, and Veggie.

The entire Team Colorless moved out.

“Musashi!” Colorless shouted.

A middle-aged woman with wine-colored curls, thick makeup, overly pronounced curves, and an experienced air walked out of the crowd, lips curved into an alluring smile.

Arms widened, she declared in a bright, high-pitched voice, “Shooter Domain!”

Rumble.

A pink hemisphere of ten meters in diameter unfolded from Musashi, covering everyone like a red translucent bunker.

Shooter Domain, serial number 145, Support-type.

Within the domain, the range and damage of all ranged attacks made by awakeners were multiplied. Level 4 Shooter Domain tripled the attack range and doubled the damage.

Pew, pew, pew.

Old Seven raised his hands, shooting powerful air bullets from his ten carrot-thick fingers at the flying Nainai and Chen Ying.

Buffed by Shooter Domain, Old Seven felt like he wasn’t shooting a rifle, but an antiaircraft gun.