Chapter 708
Chapter 708 - 694: Wrong Choices
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8 min read
Austin felt uncomfortable; high-altitude environments were never friendly to humans at any time... especially when his body was up in the sky like this.
As a 2-tier Tamer and professional scout, and as an ace pilot of the "King Vulture" squadron, he held the reins tightly, trying to hide his body inside the "cockpit" as much as possible.
But the biting cold wind and feeling of suffocation still lingered.
Generally speaking, there was no need for them to fly so high when carrying out their missions.
But this time, it was different...
"... More monkeys than expected."
With the help of his optical equipment, he could barely observe the situation below, thanks to his "Scout" ability.
Other Sky Knights without a scouting profession would have a hard time seeing things clearly even if they went up here... and their optical equipment was limited and required localization modification. However, career abilities and passive traits seemed to be almost always effective.
He carefully urged his "Two-headed Vulture Beast" to continue enduring the circling flight in midair.
Even with career abilities to strengthen him, this was still a very hard job. Without Beast Tamer abilities, he could only grit his teeth and communicate with the beast, luring it into obeying his commands with food.
"... I hope the Beast Tamer’s soul awakening is more reliable this time. This one has slightly higher intelligence than Jack’s; I don’t want to be dragged to the ground and killed directly..."
The Two-headed Vulture Beast may have mid-to-high-altitude flight and gliding abilities, but this four-limbed creature was indeed a "land-hunting beast." Its habits were to stay high up in trees, searching for prey and, when necessary, swooping down like a falcon to grab its prey and take it to the sky to be killed.
Its instinct was to attack "meat," and for the Sky Knights, the most important and most challenging task was not to make them take to the sky, but to find ways to stop their impulse to dive and attack.
If they were to land... there were a hundred ways for Eastern Country professionals to kill them.
Not long ago, Austin’s partner had just died, and his new one was a "rookie"... now he had to suppress his partner’s impulses and avoid the same fate.
Because of this, although the Aus people had developed several aerial and ground attack weapons, their practical effects were quite inadequate. These creatures were eventually prioritized as disposable aerial scouts, with combat responsibilities to be taken on by another, more powerful, type of tamed beast... However, it seemed that the scouts assigned to these Sky Knights were also very likely to become expendable goods.
As the longest-serving "ace pilot" in the team, who had survived two air accidents, seven uncontrolled mounts, and still lived, he confidently hovered in the sky, allowing his equipment to complete filming, and then bring the intelligence back...
Then, a sudden disruption of airflow caught him off guard.
He quickly looked back and saw a dazzling streak in the sky. It was the brilliance of a flame weapon.
This was the high altitude where the air was already thinning; was he being attacked?!
This time, the explosion was right in front of his eyes!
Before he could evade, the explosion-generated air currents made the unnamed vulture beast wobble in the raging wind, unable to maintain its posture.
What was even more deadly, however...
"Easy, easy, don’t be afraid, we’re safe, we’re safe, here’s your favorite wolf crab meat, eat it, eat it, it’s delicious..."
The past persuasive methods were now useless, as the Two-headed Vulture Beast fell into fear.
Although this creature’s combat capabilities were not strong and most of its fragile hollow bones were used for flight, its keen senses and innate high alertness made it more likely to avoid powerful opponents and combat, giving it an extremely timid and frightened nature.
"Whimpering!"
The once-arrogant cries turned into fearful whimpers, signaling that loss of control was inevitable.
"... No choice! Execution time!"
At this moment, Austin used his ability as a Tamer.
Spikes shot out from the triangular iron on the vulture beast’s head and the simple leather armor on its body. While the pain made the beast cry out, it also took away its control of its body.
The 17 "nails" worked, and the diving tamed beast floated up again at high speed.
Without hesitation, Austin drove the "fighter" to retreat. Soon his ability effect ended, and crashing was inevitable.
But in the last moment before leaving, he took a fierce look at the "monkeys" below, trying to remember what had attacked him...
But his head was hit too.
Blood splattered, and the head blossomed like a flower in mid-air. The liberated Two-headed Vulture Beast could not flap its fragile, injured wings, turning into a falling meteor.
When it...they hit the ground, within the camp, it left behind a pile of flesh and blood indistinguishable.
A man quickly jumped out, cheerfully holding a "Big Gun" in his hand, excitedly talking to his companion.
"Is there a camera we can use? Take a picture, take a picture quickly."
Lu Ping’an stepped on the head of the flying mount, carrying the "Super Big Gun" on his shoulder. He looked like an experienced hunter, showing off his recently hunted enormous prey.
"Lu Ping’an...give back the gun to someone else, don’t delay the important stuff!" The only person who could control him, Xia Qin, stood up helplessly again amidst the expectant eyes of others.
"...It’s my gun, after all. I requested it, asked people to design and make it."
"After you wasted more than thirty rounds without hitting even a bird, it wasn’t anymore...stop messing around and let the professional sniper do their job."
Hearing that, Lu Ping’an sighed helplessly, and threw the big gun to the waiting professional sniper.
"I’m sorry, actually I’m kind of blind, it’s not that I can’t aim well." Lu Ping’an pointed to his lifeless eyes, smiling.
"...I can tell." Finally, the clearly not good at talking sniper squeezed out a response.
But this Italian cannon... ahem, "Vortex Stone Anti-Air Sniper Cannon Type A", was indeed Lu Ping’an’s handiwork.
It’s just that when it really came out, other than finding out it had an amazing recoil, and that war professionals with less qi power couldn’t use it, basically no one wanted to use it.
The main thing is that the thing was a "fire to kinetic energy" type, a purely powerful flying brick series. Before there was more mature development technology, its accuracy was a mystery.
During Lu Ping’an’s previous test shooting of over thirty shots, the nearest error was probably several hundred meters, and most of them didn’t even know where they shot.
And its overly "outstanding" recoil could probably break the arm of a noob war-profession person.
If it wasn’t for the abundant talents in Wang Xier’s team, including a third-tier professional sniper (focused on sniping), who could use their Abnormal Ability to a certain extent to control bullets and use the "fixed-point explosion" ability to increase the killing range, that Sky Knight might have escaped successfully in the end.
"How did you know they would have flying troops?"
This was what Wang Xier was most puzzled about.
This "sniper cannon" was actually a temporary modification of the original fortress turret, which was the most powerful Vortex Stone weapon Lu Ping’an had seen along the way.
At that time, Lu Ping’an proposed to dismantle it and transform it into an anti-air handheld cannon.
Many people opposed the proposal at the time because the most valuable defensive weapon of that fortress was the turret. If it wasn’t for Lu Ping’an, it would be really hard to take it.
But Lu Ping’an insisted on his opinion and dismantled three of them, turning them into "toys"...that’s the team’s professional sniper’s evaluation of them.
"The power is great, but the accuracy is so poor. Using it for long-range sniping is a joke. And if given to professional snipers...there’s no need, they basically bring their own familiar weapons, mostly Demonized firearms. Forcing control of such a rough weapon is very mentally draining and not worthwhile."
Snipers aim for vital points and sudden attacks. This seemingly ultra-long range weapon was not favored by this veteran sniper named Ma Jiliang.
But now facts have proven that Lu Ping’an’s judgment was correct.
Although this thing is really hard to use, it indeed plays a crucial role at this key moment.
Wang Xier was very puzzled. She was a Saphire person with a good understanding, but to her knowledge, the Eastern Country people had a real lack of basic knowledge about air combat, and they wouldn’t think of going for anti-air.
When questioned, Lu Ping’an smiled very politely.
This was, in fact, a business secret, and of course, he wouldn’t say it.
"Can I tell you that our next target for the Beast Tamer team, which I personally proposed, is the Sky Knight program...Thank you, Aus people, for providing a fairly good candidate species."
But the next moment, looking at the shattered pieces of the vulture beast and its knight, he shook his head again.
"...Perhaps, eliminating a very tempting but wrong option."
— End of Chapter 708 —