Chapter 941

NO. 64: Shock and Awe (Extra Chapter for 1000 Monthly Votes)

Indeed, the area above is a common blind spot in human thinking.

Just as stealth games always have guards who don't like to look up, the game's design is not arbitrary; the vast majority of people walking down the road indeed enjoy looking into the distance, but they don't casually look upward.

Even though humans today can build all kinds of iron birds to soar in the sky, when it comes to safety, people still favor the underground.

Even in the Holy Terra Federation, where aviation and space‑station construction technologies are mature, space elevators have been completed, and countless people can zip through the sky with pure source energy—still, some feel uneasy about the sky.

It's as if an ancient memory of keeping one's feet on the ground constantly cries out in the blood: anything hanging in the sky will eventually come down to plow the earth.

Especially the Heaven's Fall Incident of that year, which truly gave many longevity beings a deep and cruel lesson.

More than the global spiritual energy catalysis and technological innovation brought by the Heaven's Fall itself, we cannot forget the brutal ordeal of the tsunami, radiation, and crustal fracturing that followed.

Although Morrison is also such a longevity being, and even witnessed the world‑changing effects of the Heaven's Fall in his youth, he doesn't like to talk about those events.

Even when drunk, that vampire only boasts about the vigor he once showed in his past work, brags about the bizarre weapons he acquired back then, and chatters about the strange customers he's met.

But before him, the uncles and aunts at the orphanage often spoke of those harsh years when trying to scare the children.

Thus they constantly warned them to be wary of certain kinds of energy‑driven aircraft, teaching that it's best to become strong enough to navigate the skies, at least reaching a level where the stratosphere poses no obstacle.

Like certain children of superior bloodline, they were even nagged by their grandmothers to break through the atmosphere and face cosmic radiation.

By contrast, little Aomo, who has both half‑human and inconspicuous demon blood, clearly wasn't held to any expectations.

As for this aspect of education, it stops at—make sure to keep the survival manual handy, remember everyone's phone numbers, and in an emergency remember to call for help!

When Aomo was taken away by Morrison, they even added a special reminder: rely more on your foster father.

emmmmm……

Regardless of whether that vampire is reliable, the fact is they clearly intended to treat Aomo as an ordinary human child and give up on treating him.

Honestly, that's rather excessive.

Obviously the blood‑awakening ritual isn't that hard to perform, and adding some demonic education standards isn't a big deal, but this group of elders all acted as if they assumed he wouldn't awaken, which once made the young, sensitive, and thoughtful little Aomo doubt whether his demonic nature was real.

Perhaps it's all a misunderstanding—I might really just be an ordinary human child sent to the nursery… etc……

Before truly coming into contact with blood‑testing equipment, little Aomo fell into a brief period of racial delusion.

Only later did he learn that his wretched forefathers' demon family, besides being of mid‑low standing in the demon realm, also lacked a name—namely the most common type in the demon realm: unrecorded in the Seventy‑Two Solomon, unrecorded in the Bible, and unrecorded in any strange parchment, a nameless lineage that sprang from some obscure corner.

The family members' qualities varied greatly, enough for them to think that even if little Aomo truly awakened his bloodline, he wouldn't be worth expecting.

Given little Aomo's astonishing qualities, it's foreseeable that he could become a top figure in human society; not awakening would actually be better, letting him enjoy more comprehensive human civil rights, whereas engaging with the otherworldly realms… would inevitably bring more hardship.

But unfortunately, expectations not written into the contract remain just expectations.

The reality is that Aomo actively awakened his bloodline, becoming a true demon, and will also become a being that causes others to 'crash'.

Heaven's Authority Punishment Nigkalis, having instantly broken through the clouds, radar had already locked onto the symbol‑less monster at thirty thousand feet.

It's a high position, but that's not really anything special.

Nigkalis lacks huge wings, but its armor joints all over the body have visible exhaust ports.

When necessary, they become propulsion devices, and together with the massive black flames released from the elbows of both arms, they visually resemble a pair of iridescent‑wing‑membrane‑wrapped, ink‑black giant wings.

Countless moisture particles in the air shift, condense, and then turn into an interference‑based acceleration band under sudden pressure changes, allowing the unusually aerodynamically‑shapen Punishment Dragon to launch at an astonishing Mach 3 and break through to Mach 6 in one go.

I see it! Mx. Aomo!!

Despite the drag from the extreme‑speed ascent, Apon, whose state is synchronized with Nigkalis, still has the vigor to shout loudly.

At this moment he truly understood the meaning of Aomo's words 'to feel honored'; under normal circumstances, monster control obviously cannot provide such a straight‑up‑to‑the‑clouds experience.

This even differs from the fighter jet controlled by his other‑branch girlfriend, Nan Mengya.

This is achievable only after syncing with the monster's senses, a tremendous satisfaction akin to facing a hurricane's tear yet feeling as gentle as a breeze on the face.

I saw it too, but Apon, be careful not to lose yourself.

... I understand, thanks, thank you.

He almost fell back into that omnipotent feeling of seemingly controlling everything between heaven and earth; Ma Zhongpeng, like someone just freed from suffocation, gasped heavily.

Thus his dominance weakened a notch, and after Aomo uttered a blunt remark, he took over the functional interval that Apon had vacated, continuing Nigkalis's straight‑up ascent.

The atmosphere grew ever thinner, and Nigkalis still had room to increase its speed.

From Mach 6 to Mach 8, there is still considerable room for further improvement, but perhaps that would impose some burden on Nijikalis, more accurately, on Apon.

That wouldn't be worth it, and this trip isn't to measure speed, but to catch that……

Aomo's gaze narrowed; if Nijikalis's visual lock-on display wasn't mistaken, the other side seemed to be moving its wings.

"Aomo-san! It looks like it wants to run!"

"It can't run away."

Even Apon noticed the sliding of Bajak's metallic wings, and Aomo certainly wouldn't consider what he saw an illusion.

But frankly, that's meaningless.

Bajak, too slow.

From the moment it tried to move, it was only thirteen thousand feet away; for Nijikalis screaming in at Mach 8, that was merely an instant crossing.

In that near-miss at such extreme speed, the other party had no time to react and could only see the ink-rainbow-colored wings undergo a sudden expansion like a fleeting illusion.

That was a wingspan that suddenly expanded by more than double, enough to envelop the giant beast's entire body in two layers of the massive wing flame.

What should have been merely a continuous sheet of flame shaped like a dragon's wing instead acted like an extremely sharp blade, leaving only a smooth cut on the neck of that monster that is both formed and formless.

Swish——!

The mad dragon had already whooshed past, and only then did its clear ringing sound arrive, revealing the red-green circuit board nature beneath its body split in two.

Boom!

After a two-second delay, magnificent sparks finally burst forth from thirty thousand feet aloft, and as it traced an arc in that midair, the descending Nijikalis displayed its LED patterns flowing from inside out.

That light trail even extended through the space around Nijikalis, as if turning a corner of that space into part of the machinery.

At the same time, in that dark little room.

Hei Qie was facing the popup warnings that kept appearing on the screen.

He typed frantically, but even that could not withstand the anti‑intrusive computing power of Nijikalis that lingered in the signal pathway left by the surviving formless and formed monsters; all he could see was a massive claw tip suddenly tearing open the flickering space above the circuit, its dark‑red electronic eyes peering from that slit.

"Are you here? Miss Qie?"

"Ah!!!!"

Bang!

Compared to the other party's light tone, the utterly frightened Hei Qie instead slammed the termination‑procedure button, causing the slit to instantly seal and even shearing off half of Nijikalis's claw tip.

The metallic‑shimmering 'fingernail' fell freely, smashing half of the desk and screen; even though she quickly rolled back on her chair, the heavy tip still filled her entire field of vision.

That tip, seeming to flash with a cold light, was only two inches from her nose.

It almost made her hold her breath.

But in the next second it turned into nothingness and dissipated as black smoke.

"…" She instinctively raised a hand to cover her violently heaving chest; the no‑longer‑hysterical Hei Qie turned her head instinctively.

This time she saw Xin Tiao Qie, whose expression was tightly drawn, and Alexis Kailifu trembling on the wall.

"…" She remained silent.

She was thinking about how to break through the defenses of those monster models in order to silence them.