Chapter 225: Fly Past Them Right in Their Face!

"Next stop, Europa."

Li Yang pulled up the navigation chart on the bridge of the Penglai, a red dashed line stretching from the Pacific, crossing North America, and reaching the western European coast.

"Navigation notices have been sent to the countries along the route," the communications officer reported.

"But so far, only the Bear and the Balkans have formally replied with consent. Gaul, Hans, Yuehan Niu and other nations have not responded."

Wang Hao chewed gum: "No response means tacit approval. We've already complied with international law and gave advance notice; if they stay silent, we take it as consent."

"The reasoning is sound," Chen Guang's voice came from the ground.

"But Torch Dragon detected that the air forces of Europa and other nations have entered Level‑3 alert, with all air‑defense radars fully activated."

"Then let them take a good look," Feng Yan decided in the Dragon Chant control room.

"Fly straight at low altitude, three thousand meters high, giving them the best view so they can see clearly."

Seven hours later, the western coast of Europa.

Gaul's newest Stormwind fighters were patrolling the border airspace.

Pilot Pierre stared at the radar screen and suddenly saw a light dot rapidly approaching from the Atlantic direction.

"Unidentified aerial object detected! Speed… 1.5 Mach? Wait, it's decelerating."

The dot grew clearer on the radar, its reflective area absurdly large—bigger than a transport plane—yet its speed was as fast as a fighter.

"Command, request visual identification!"

"Approved."

Pierre pushed the control stick, steering the Stormwind toward the target.

Soon, he saw the target.

Then he was stunned.

"Whoa, fuck!"

"Am I watching a sci‑fi movie?"

The silver‑gray hull glimmered with metallic sheen in the sunlight, over three hundred meters long, with massive wing surfaces folded on both sides.

It sliced through the sky with elegant grace.

"My God…" Pierre muttered, "Weren't they saying it was fake news? How did they actually build it?"

He reported immediately: "Visual confirmation—it's Longguo's space‑naval mother ship Penglai. Wait—it's vanished from the radar!"

The moment he spoke, wave‑like patterns rippled across Penglai's hull surface.

The entire ship suddenly turned into a speck of clutter on the radar, visible only to optical sensors.

"Optical camouflage! They've activated optical camouflage!"

In Gaul's air‑defense command center, technicians stared at the screen, bewildered.

"Radar failure! Infrared failure! Only the optical sensors can still see!"

"How is this possible…"

"Their stealth technology… has reached this level?"

Wang Hao watched the Stormwind circling high behind, unwilling to approach, delighted: "Did you see? They still try to lock onto us, but they can't even scan us."

Li Yang operated calmly: "Maintain current altitude, prepare to enter Hans' airspace. Chen Guang, what's the response over there?"

"Hans' air force has successively launched six more Stormwinds, now waiting at the border," Chen Guang marked the real‑time air situation.

"They may attempt escort flight."

"Then let them escort," Feng Yan's voice came, "and show off our speed in the process."

Penglai had just entered Hans' airspace.

Six Stormwinds immediately swarmed, maintaining a five‑kilometer distance for escort.

From the public channel, a Hans pilot's voice came: "Unidentified aerial object, state your intent."

"Longguo's Penglai, just on routine patrol," Li Yang replied, "We gave advance notice."

"Maintain current flight path."

"Understood."

The escort lasted ten minutes.

Then Li Yang suddenly ordered: "Accelerate to Mach 3, climb to twenty thousand meters, complete within five seconds."

The thruster array nozzles adjusted, and a pale‑blue tail flame flared briefly.

Penglai surged forward instantly, as if a massive invisible hand had thrust it.

The escorting Stormwinds hadn't reacted yet when the target vanished from radar, moving so fast the radar couldn't keep up.

A Hans pilot shouted on the channel: "Target speed is already… Mach 3! Altitude twenty thousand! We can't keep up at all!"

"Retreat! Return to base!"

Six Stormwinds slipped away and turned back.

Above the English Channel.

In the Yuehan Niu Royal Air Force command, a group of officers stared at the satellite feed, their faces ashen.

"From Hans' border to us took only eight minutes," a colonel said, his voice hoarse.

"At this speed, even our surface‑to‑air missiles can't catch up."

"What's scarier is their stealth capability," the technical officer displayed the data.

"Gaul's radars are completely dead, Hans' lock‑on systems are lost, if our Stormwinds engage…"

He didn't finish, but everyone understood.

The command room fell silent.

At that moment, a young officer suddenly pointed at the screen: "Wait, what is it doing?"

The view zooms in.

Penglai is flying low over London, its altitude dropped to 2,500 meters; at this height, the ground can see the ship's details with a telescope.

On the ship's side, a line of freshly painted small characters glints in the sun:

"Afternoon tea time, recommend red tea with scones."

"…"

All the officers wear complex expressions.

What is this? Politeness? Mockery? Or... pure aggravation?

This is pure aggravation!!!

On social media, Eagle Country netizens have already exploded.

Gaolu netizen: "Our formation wind doesn't even dare to chase? It's a disgrace!"

Hans netizen: "At least we took off! Your radars didn't lock on!"

Yuehan Niu netizen: "When they flew over London they posted a message recommending red tea with scones... Is this cultural export?"

Yidai Li netizen: "Can this spacecraft come to us for tourism? How much is the ticket? I want to go up and see!"

The discussion gradually goes off‑topic.

Some start analyzing Penglai's technical specs, some worry the military balance is broken, and others seriously debate whether to spread butter or jam on the scones first.

Deep in the dark web, in an encrypted chatroom, core members of the Confluence organization hold an emergency meeting.

The Confluence leader codenamed 'Professor' says: "The technology Penglai displayed is at least two generations ahead of the data we stole, and more."

"Laser‑absorbing coating, optical camouflage, 3‑Mach cruise... none of these exist in our intel."

"Did the Longguo people give us false intel?"

"But we have verified those data; the lab reproductions match them."

The Professor remains silent for a long time, then slowly says: "There's only one possibility: what they gave us is indeed real, but it's technology already obsolete for them."

"And we have become their technology‑testing guinea pigs."

The chatroom falls into dead silence.

At Longyin Control Center, Chen Guang looks at the Confluence chat log on the screen, pushes his glasses and says: "Only now doubting? Isn't that a bit late?"

He switches the view.

On another screen, Torch Dragon-3's progress bar jumps to 98%.

The quantum fusion system is attempting to decode deep‑space signals, those non‑human signals from beyond Mars orbit.

After three days of computation, the signal is finally parsed into a repeating geometric pattern.

"It looks like some kind of schematic," Zhao Kaiyuan leans over to look.

"Wait, the symmetry of this pattern is very similar to a quantum superposition model."

He pulls up the quantum field simulation of the Xuanwu Fusion Core, compares the two; although not identical, the mathematical structures are highly similar.

"Could it be..." Zhao Kaiyuan's eyes brighten.

"These signals describe some kind of quantum energy technology?"

"Uncertain," Chen Guang shakes his head.

"But it is certain that the civilization sending the signals has a technological level at least above ours."

"They can span hundreds of millions of kilometers to send stable signals, while we can't even reply now."

Torch Dragon-3's computing power continues to increase.

The progress bar climbs slowly: 98.1%, 98.2%...

At dusk, Penglai reaches the eastern edge of Eagle Country continent, about to enter Middle East airspace.

Li Yang watches the desert outline emerging below, adjusts the course: "Prepare to enter the Middle East. Chen Guang, what's the situation over there?"

Chen cursored out the hotspot map.

"There are three conflict zones still in firefight, and additionally, Torch Dragon detected three suspicious missile launch devices, possibly all targeting us."

"Targeting us?" Wang Hao raises an eyebrow, "Can they hit up to 20,000 meters?"

"The latest air defense missiles might be able to, but..." Chen Guang pauses.

"Our Dragon Scale Space II's impact‑resistance data is eight times those missile design specs."

"Then let them try," Li Yang says calmly, "It's a good chance to field‑test our defense system."

Penglai begins descending, from 20,000 meters to 15,000, then to 10,000; at this altitude, most air defense missiles can already reach.

The ship's surface laser defense array slowly rotates, entering standby mode.

Wang Hao whistles, "Actively becoming the target, this job is exciting."

The operator at the lower radar station stares at the increasingly close light point on the screen, hand trembling slightly.

He turns to the officer: "The target has descended to 10,000 meters, speed 1.2 Mach, has entered our air defense identification zone. Officer... do we fire?"

The officer looks at the screen, silent for a long time.

He asks slowly, "What is our missile's maximum range?"

"The latest Eagle Country missiles we acquired have a publicly announced theoretical range of 12,000 meters."

"And the target's altitude?"

"It has already descended to 10,000 meters."

The officer falls silent again.

The operator waits for orders, palms sweating, wondering whether to fire.

Finally, the officer sighs, picks up the communicator: "All units, maintain monitoring status, do not fire."

"W‑Why?"

The officer looked out the window; the silhouette of the silver‑gray warship was already visible to the naked eye.

It moved with the bearing of a ruler, slowly gliding over the desert sky, sunlight as if plating the hull with a thin gold layer.

"Because..." the officer said softly.

"Our missiles, even if we fired them, would just be tickling them; since they dare to lower their altitude, they clearly don't regard our missiles at all."

He put down the communicator and added:

"Besides, we might not even be able to hit them, those Eagle Country swindlers; the weapon data they sold us is a bit off—that's completely normal."