Chapter 282: 281 Everything Proceeds Smoothly

"Puff"

A muffled sound rang out; suddenly, a small circular hole, the size of a fingernail, appeared on the metal ventilation window of the control room, and the operator inside who had been gazing at the passenger harbor collapsed without a sound.

"Perfect!"

After seeing the situation inside the control room through the specially reinforced glass, Li Ang couldn't help but praise it sincerely.

That bald female rebel, named after William's girlfriend, may be terrible in close combat, but her long-range skills are truly astonishing.

A lead pellet fired from nearly two kilometers away, with its force reduced to non-lethal levels, must fly through the air for nearly half a minute—during such a long time, anything could happen.

Yet she seemed to predict the operator's movements; at the exact moment the pellet pierced the vent, the operator—who had been constantly shifting position—stepped precisely onto the pellet's trajectory, as if deliberately placing his head beneath it, and collapsed without a single sound.

I wonder how long it'll take me to earn my shooting badge and reach her level.

As Li Ang thought this, he used the sheep's horn to observe the operator's soul, confirmed he had lost consciousness completely, then reached out and knocked on the bathroom door.

"Luke, your turn."

"Got it!"

With this brief exchange, Luke, seated in the bathroom stall, rolled his eyes and collapsed; meanwhile, the operator in the control room, who had fallen earlier, staggered to his feet, rubbed his head, walked to the window, and gave Li Ang and the others below a thumbs-up.

Good. Everything is going smoothly.

Watching the previously locked climbing ladder lower, Li Ang nodded in satisfaction, then picked up the water bottle containing Senior Pioni and led the eager rebels onto the maintenance passage, slowly ascending toward the secret harbor's steel framework.

"Boss."

Shaking the water bottle vigorously and hearing the indignant protest from inside, the burn-scarred man asked curiously:

"What's in this thing? Why do we have to bring up these heavy-ass bottles even after handing over all our weapons?"

"…."

Hearing the burn-scarred man Teg's question, Li Ang's lips twitched slightly.

Inside these bottles was, of course, Senior Pioni, divided into several portions.

To be honest, when I learned that "Little Silver" suffered from severe acrophobia, I'd planned not to bring him up at all—since the boarding tower had plenty of open steel frameworks, and on clear days you could see the ground directly below; someone with acrophobia would be useless up there, just a liability.

But after discussing it with the Red-haired Woman, she went to the neighboring Archives Bureau and got six or seven thermoses, removed their inner linings, split Senior Pioni into several pieces, and forcibly stuffed them inside, insisting I bring these thermoses up.

Her reasoning was that although Senior Pioni had acrophobia, he could still function normally in the enclosed environment of an airship—better than Senior Tang Mu, whose bladder control was only 60% effective, or Senior Jerry, whose combat power halved without his "friends."

Still, even though the Director's logic was sound, Li Ang's lips kept twitching at the memory of how she'd sliced Senior Pioni horizontally into seven or eight pieces and stuffed each one into a thermos…

…

"Inside… is our insurance for this mission."

After gathering his thoughts and shaking off that bizarre memory, Li Ang replied with a strange expression:

"If there's something insane aboard the Krook Kingdom's private airship, he's the one who'll guarantee our safety."

"I see."

Though still unsure what was inside the bottle, seeing Li Ang's seriousness, the burn-scarred man grew cautious, firmly shouldering the shockingly heavy bottle and following Li Ang down the ladder, then gazing at the private airship in the secret harbor and letting out a heartfelt exclamation:

"This thing… is really huge…"

Indeed.

Following the burn-scarred man's gaze, Li Ang looked at the airship docked in the secret harbor and nodded in agreement.

Unlike airplanes he was familiar with, airships rely on gasbags for lift, so the size of the gasbag directly determines their carrying capacity—most are over a hundred meters long.

The largest airships even carry gasbags exceeding five hundred meters in length; in actual length, they're likely more than ten times longer than a regular passenger plane. This private vessel isn't the largest model, but its total gasbag length still exceeds three hundred meters.

When such a colossal object, accompanied by the roar of its cross-shaped propeller array, slowly pushes into the city's smog-choked sky, the sheer visual impact is unimaginable to anyone who hasn't seen it firsthand.

"We'll admire it later—right now, we need to move fast."

Patting the burn-scarred man's sturdy back, Li Ang urged him, then gripped the handrail tightly against the gale and led the group along the steel bridge encircling the entire secret harbor toward the airship bearing the Krook Kingdom's emblem.

"Huh?"

As the group neared the climbing frame, the workers refueling the airship's gas furnace suddenly straightened up, startled to see several men in police uniforms approaching, and asked in confusion:

"Who are you? Why are you up here?"

"Inspection."

Not flustered by the unexpected encounter, Li Ang sniffed the thick, lingering odor of engine oil and whale blubber—even the gale hadn't dispersed it—and looked up at the fabric gasbag, then pointed at the massive auxiliary supports, thicker than an adult's waist, and frowned sharply:

"Such a glaring problem right above your heads—and you've all missed it?"

The gasbag is damaged?

The workers gasped in shock, immediately looked up along Li Ang's pointing finger… and then nothing happened.

"Alter their memories too. Teg, stay behind and take them back."

Using the power of the Holy Spirit Pendant, Li Ang struck the neural clusters in the workers' heads, knocking them all unconscious, then waved to Phoebe and Lucy behind him.

"The story: a sudden gust of wind forced them to retreat to the rest room for safety until the wind passed."

"Understood."

Lucy, whose appearance had recovered somewhat and now looked barely over sixty, nodded slightly and began altering the workers' memories one by one; the rest followed Li Ang up the climbing frame to the entrance hatch atop the private airship.

Now came the final step—once inside the airship, everything else would follow naturally!

Seeing his moment had come, the young man with spatial ability stepped forward, placed the water bottle on the ground and stepped on it, then took a deep breath, preparing to activate his ability and teleport everyone inside.

But at that instant, a warning rang out from behind him.

"Wait—something's wrong!"

What's wrong?

Before the young man could react, Li Ang had already used the Holy Spirit Pendant to yank him back from the hatch.

The instant he moved away, the pressure differential caused the two-meter-wide entrance hatch to burst open violently, sending the water bottle flying off the top.

Immediately after, a sniffing officer with a scar across his face and a cigarette dangling from his lips—presumably stepping out for a smoke—leaned his head out of the cabin, only to be met not by fresh air, but by the complex stares of the "police" crouched atop the hull.

(⊙⊙)(⊙⊙)(⊙⊙)

(｀Д)?!

In this silent, soundless moment, the high-altitude gale carried no other noise—only Li Ang's water bottle, still shaking furiously, transmitting wave after wave of frantic thoughts.

"Li Ang! What's going on outside?"

"Say something!"

"Where's my ass? Why is my ass gone?!"