Chapter 249: Counterattack Begins!

At 10:47 a. m., Penglai appeared over the battlefield.

The moment the optical camouflage dropped, a 380‑meter‑long silver‑gray hull seemed to materialize, hovering 3,000 m above the Allied fleet.

Sunlight fell on the tiny lettering on the bow that read "Professional stage‑crashing, free guidance," which now seemed especially ironic.

"Radar detects… a space‑borne mother ship!" In the Eagle Country carrier's command room, the radar operator's voice changed tone.

"When did it arrive?!"

No one answered.

Because in the next second, the missile launch bays on Penglai's bow opened simultaneously.

All forty‑eight launch units lit their ready indicators at once.

"Kua Fu‑3, salvo mode," the acting captain of Penglai ordered calmly.

"Target: all enemy vessels of destroyer class or larger. Fire."

Hum—

Forty‑eight Kua Fu missiles were catapulted by electromagnetic launchers and ignited in mid‑air.

The thrusters' pale‑blue exhaust drew forty‑eight straight light trails across the sky.

Only when the missiles were nearly upon them did the Allied fleet react.

"Air defense! Activate all AA systems now!" Davis roared over the channel.

But it was already too late.

The Kua Fu missiles' flight paths utterly defied physics.

They leapt, shifted course, and snapped at the edge of the atmosphere, each maneuver without warning.

The old AA radar screens of the Allies were chaotic; the lock cursor caught up to a target just as it appeared elsewhere.

The first missile hit.

The target was an Eagle Country Ticonderoga‑class cruiser, a mainstay from thirty years ago, now rust‑spotted.

Before impact, the missile released an electromagnetic device that, ten meters above the hull, emitted a high‑density plasma cloud carried by the missile.

Zila—

A blinding electric flash streaked, and all the cruiser's electronic equipment overloaded instantly.

The radar screen went dark, communications cut, and even the engines sputtered out.

The hull lay on the sea like a dead fish, drifting with the waves.

Then the second, the third…

Within fifteen seconds, sixteen Allied capital ships were all disabled.

"Sinking countdown initiated," the weapons officer on Penglai's bridge said, watching the data screen.

"Based on damage, even the last one could hold… oh, that one has already sunk."

On screen, a clumsy‑chicken Jingang‑class destroyer was tilting rapidly.

A missile struck directly at its waterline; the breach was small but at a tricky spot, tearing open an old weld seam.

Seawater surged in wildly, and within three minutes the stern was submerged.

"Sank five, heavily damaged eleven," the acting captain nodded, "Not bad. The air units should now engage."

On Penglai's deck, twenty‑four Sword Immortal fighters were catapulted simultaneously.

The fighters leapt straight from the deck, their vector thrusters igniting instantly, accelerating from zero to Mach 3 in under five seconds.

"Sword Immortal Squadron, target the enemy carrier," the squadron leader ordered over the channel, "Use Bi Fang, open a window in their deck."

"Copy!"

The twenty‑four fighters spread out, diving from various altitudes and directions toward the two aging Nimitz‑class carriers.

The carriers' AA guns opened fire wildly, but the smoke from shells detonating in the air never reached the fighters.

The Sword Immortals' maneuverability was insane; they could execute a 90° turn in 0.3 seconds, hover, reverse‑fly—like a flock of steel birds defying physics.

The distance closed to fifty kilometers.

"Fire."

Twenty‑four Bi Fang stealth missiles detached from their racks.

The missiles' adaptive coating activated, constantly shifting colors in flight.

First blue sky and white clouds, then deep blue near the sea, and moments before impact the paint turned the gray‑black of the carrier's deck.

The AA systems failed to react at all.

The first missile struck the port‑side elevator.

A blazing white beam shot from the warhead, like a laser scalpel, melting a circular hole three meters across on the deck, its edges smooth as a mirror.

The hole pierced straight down to the lower hangar.

The second missile hit the island superstructure.

Then the third, the fourth…

When all twenty‑four missiles had struck, the carriers' decks resembled leaves gnawed by giant boring insects—full of holes.

Crucially, every melt‑through avoided the load‑bearing structure, so the carriers won't sink outright but can no longer launch or recover aircraft.

"Art," Wang Hao said in the Dragon Chant control room, grinning at the feed, "That's what we call a precision surgical strike."

"Don't get cocky," Chen Guang adjusted his glasses, "The ground battle has only just begun."

The waters near the Mingzhu Platform.

White Elephant's modular mech forces finally landed, if that can be called a landing.

Four hundred mechs rushed down from a transport ship, wading toward the platform.

The scene was so comical it made one want to cry; some mechs had their left leg jammed halfway and could only hop on the right.

Some control systems malfunctioned, spinning in place;

The worst one short-circuited outright, smoke billowing from the cockpit, and the pilot clumsily crawled out and jumped into the sea to escape.

What greeted them were twelve Responding Dragon heavy-armor mechs that leaped down from the Isle of the Immortals, descending from the sky.

Li Yang personally piloted the lead unit, its fifteen-meter-tall steel frame standing on the shallow beach, while the quadruple-mounted laser turret on its rear slowly rotated.

"Officer Li, one person against thirty-three—enough?" a teammate's voice came over the channel.

"We won't need that many." Li Yang looked at the cluster of jury-rigged mechs stumbling forward, his tone calm.

"Just watch; I'll warm up first."

He pushed the control stick.

The Responding Dragon strode forward with long strides, charging straight into the mech swarm.

One of the jury-rigged mechs raised its welded steel-plate mechanical arm and swung it down.

The Responding Dragon neither dodged nor blocked, lifting its left arm.

Clang! The impact deafened, the jury-rigged mech's arm deformed on the spot, while the Responding Dragon's armor showed not a single white mark.

Immediately, the Responding Dragon's right-arm chainsaw sword activated.

Whirr—

The high-speed spinning teeth easily cut into the opponent's chest, slicing the cockpit in half as easily as cutting butter.

As the pilot tried to jump out of the cockpit to escape, the mech exploded outright into a fireball that engulfed him.

"One." Li Yang counted.

Immediately, a second mech rushed in from the side, shouldering an old-fashioned rocket launcher.

The Responding Dragon's rear-mounted laser turret swiveled, locked on in 0.3 seconds, and fired.

The rocket launcher, together with the mech's right shoulder, vaporized.

"Two."

The two jury-rigged mechs glanced at each other left and right, then lunged simultaneously from both sides.

The Responding Dragon sidestepped, sweeping with its mechanical leg; the two mechs were kicked aside like bowling pins and disintegrated midair.

"Three, four."

The battle lasted seven minutes.

When Li Yang stopped, the surrounding sea surface was littered with mech wreckage. He pulled up the battle statistics:

【Destroyed: 27】

【Ammo expended: laser cannon 12 rounds, chainsaw sword 15 strikes】

【Self damage: armor surface scratched in three places, maximum depth 0.2 mm】

【Energy consumption: 0.7%】

The channel fell silent.

After a long while, a teammate whispered softly: "Officer Li... your warm-up just finished all our work."

"There are still over three hundred left." Li Yang gazed at the distant jury-rigged mechs still struggling forward. "You guys want to get some exercise too?"

Twelve Responding Dragons activated simultaneously and charged into the enemy formation.

The scene was like twelve ferocious tigers charging into a flock of sheep, slaughtering in all directions!

Deep sea, two hundred meters depth.

A Black Tortoise mech hovered silently behind a Japanese Black Tide-class submarine.

The submarine's active sonar didn't detect it at all; the Black Tortoise's sound-absorbing coating absorbed 99% of the active sonar waves, the remaining 1% blending into the ocean background noise, indistinguishable.

"Target locked." Pilot Xiao Zhou licked his lips, "the propeller."

The mechanical arm slowly extended, precisely clamping onto the submarine's seven-blade large side-slant propeller.

Then, a gentle twist.

Crack.

The sound of metal breaking transmitted through the water.

The propeller's blades were completely bent, the shaft deformed.

The submarine's engine was still turning, but its thruster was ruined, only able to spin in place, and a small opening at the stern kept flooding water in.

"Mission accomplished, the submarine is completely disabled." Xiao Zhou reported.

"If they're lucky they could still surface and surrender; if they can make it alive from this depth, heh, let this bunch of Japanese experience the terror of the deep sea."

The same scene played out simultaneously on another submarine.

Of the three submarines participating in the suicide ramming, the one with the impact strut exploded outright upon hitting the impact platform.

The remaining two, with only light damage from the impact and preparing to flee, were intercepted by the Black Tortoise, which disabled all their power, causing them to spin in place in the water, slowly sinking in the deep sea as they awaited death's arrival.