Incredible Air Support

There were two main types of missiles.

Cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles excelled in flexibility, while ballistic missiles had the advantage in range.

Short-range ballistic missiles had a range of about a thousand kilometers.

Medium-range ballistic missiles could reach around three thousand kilometers.

The longest-range intercontinental missiles could even strike targets ten thousand kilometers away.

Unfortunately, Lin Ye had no way to let these people experience the appeal of intercontinental missiles for the time being. The Nation-Destroying Fleet was a carrier group and couldn't accommodate missiles of that caliber.

In fact, Lin Ye had largely lost interest in watching the rest of the instance unfold.

Clearly, these challengers couldn't even handle the Nation-Destroying Fleet, so how could they possibly clear the instance?

After all, the Nation-Destroying Fleet was only an elite monster in Raging Waves. It didn't even qualify as a minor boss...

Lin Ye stretched at length and left the instance livestream.

It was early morning, and he was planning to go downstairs for a run.

After all, designing instances was work that taxed both mind and body.

He needed to put the finishing touches on Raging Waves and start the preliminary designs for The Great Wall Watch and Winter Is Coming on the schedule.

Lin Ye had left, but the people in the instance still had to suffer.

On the blue waves, the challengers' fleet continued to pick up speed through the morning mist.

After the missile strike, fewer than fifty of the challengers' original seventy-odd warships remained.

In the command room, Itō Hidetaka's expression was as grim as could be.

He knew very well that their chances of completing the mission were slim.

As for the reason, he didn't think it was because the military might in Lin Ye's instance was particularly strong. He had simply fallen into Lin Ye's trap.

Lin Ye had been laying a trap for them from the very first mission in the instance.

He had lured them into using up their ammunition too early to complete an insignificant preliminary mission.

On top of that, Lin Ye's psychological warfare was nasty.

That kind of mission setup, giving people hope only to shatter it, could also easily sap the challengers' motivation.

All these factors had led to their current predicament!

But even now, Itō Hidetaka didn't believe the shells that had fallen from the sky earlier were the result of Lin Ye's technology.

He knew something about the technological capabilities of the various nations on Azure Star.

Even the Huaxia people didn't have shells with that kind of range, so there was even less chance Lin Ye had them.

The only explanation was a trick of the eye!

Lin Ye had to have other tricks and techniques up his sleeve in this instance.

"Lin Ye!" Itō Hidetaka clenched his fists tightly.

His heart was full of hatred.

He didn't care whether his other teammates lived or died, and even if they failed, the points deducted would barely sting a level-two challenger like him.

What he really cared about was his reputation.

After all, he was the chief commander for this instance. If they failed to clear it, his reputation as a genius would certainly suffer.

The important figures among the Great He Clan's upper ranks would surely denounce him.

Even if he couldn't clear the instance, he had to uncover Lin Ye's trump cards. At the very least, he had to find out how advanced the military technology in this Raging Waves instance was!

Otherwise, failing without even knowing why would be far too humiliating.

"Full speed ahead! We have to find out exactly what the Nation-Destroying Fleet is capable of!"

Itō Hidetaka issued another order to the fleet.

Beep, beep, beep, beep!

Suddenly, the Matsushima's radar system sounded a piercing alarm!

"It's here!"

Itō Hidetaka cried out and rushed back to the ship's instrument panel, only to discover that this time it was an air-raid warning.

"An air-raid warning? Could there be an air force in this instance too?"

Itō Hidetaka was astonished. The Firmament's earlier mission prompt had said the Nation-Destroying Fleet consisted of thirty vessels, with no mention of an air force at all.

The sudden air support had caught them completely off guard.

The roar of aircraft was already coming from the sky.

Itō Hidetaka hurriedly looked out through the skylight and saw dense, dark formations of aircraft filling the sky above the fleet.

The piercing shrieks of straight-wing fighters, the low rumble of dive bombers, and the distinctive vibrations of torpedo bombers intertwined into a breathtaking symphony.

In the sky, the silvery-white streaks left by wings slicing through the air were like lightning, illuminating the entire stretch of sea!

Machine-gun fire swept down as fiercely as a dense shower of rain, rockets exploded with deafening blasts, and torpedoes tumbled and tracked through the air like enormous silver serpents weaving through the ocean.

The entire fleet was engulfed in gunfire in an instant, and the smoke-filled sky looked as though it were raining meteors.

Boom!

A tremendous crash rang out.

The Matsushima was struck by a torpedo and cut clean in two. Itō Hidetaka and Singh leaped straight from the shattered command room into the water, barely escaping with their lives.

But the attack had still left them badly wounded and covered in blood.

Itō Hidetaka struggled on the icy surface for a while. Fortunately, he had put on a life jacket beforehand and wasn't drowned.

But the other challengers in the instance weren't so lucky.

The number of people in the instance plummeted. The five thousand who had remained were quickly reduced to fewer than a hundred.

Every warship had been destroyed, leaving the surface a sea of flames and wreckage.

"How is this possible? How is this possible?!"

Looking up at the sky, Itō Hidetaka couldn't stop trembling. He felt completely numb.

At least several hundred warplanes were roaming the skies above!

Their fleet simply couldn't withstand that kind of air power.

Had this air force attacked earlier, it could easily have wiped out all the challengers at the starting arsenal.

Azure Star's military development had already produced fighter aircraft, but as far as Itō Hidetaka knew, all the instances combined had only around a thousand.

And yet Lin Ye's one instance had hundreds of them?!

What was more, the planes in Raging Waves were all types Itō Hidetaka had never seen before.

The types of aircraft that already existed in this world were helicopters and biplane fighters.

And they were mainly used for reconnaissance in combat. Only a few could be used for reconnaissance and transport, and only a small number of advanced models could be used in combat.

The dazzling array of attack methods on display in this instance was beyond anything he would have dared imagine.

Even without understanding aircraft, Itō Hidetaka could plainly see that every plane overhead was advanced!

"Mr. Itō, I need an explanation!"

Singh flailed with all his might and slowly swam over to Itō Hidetaka, a trace of resentment in his voice.

"You were in command of this entire battle!"

"And this is how it turned out?"