Battle Ends

J15S flipped a somersault horizontally in the air. Zhang Peng in the front seat was just about to wake up when the immense centrifugal force knocked him unconscious again. Liu Jun, meanwhile, was completely focused on the triangular aircraft ahead and didn't notice his instructor's condition.

The tenacious enemy behind them pointed its nose degree by degree toward them. The triangular aircraft, lacking speed in the air, seemed to sense its doom approaching, twisting desperately in an attempt to break free from the opponent's attack envelope, or perhaps trying to confuse them.

But reality was reality—without speed, an aircraft has nothing.

Liu Jun attacked the triangular aircraft hanging in the sky like shooting at a fixed target, easily seeing through its camouflage and precisely hitting its true position.

The glass-like fuselage couldn't withstand the 30mm cannon fire. The entire triangular aircraft was shredded, countless fragments falling downward, reflecting iridescent light in their descent like rainbows falling from the sky.

Having shot down his target, Liu Jun didn't dare relax at all, because another triangular aircraft was still engaging his comrade.

PL10 hadn't shot down the triangular aircraft as expected. Two J15S had already entered a dogfight with it. Fortunately, it was a two-ship formation—during the battle, the lead aircraft was responsible for attacking while the wingman provided cover.

In a two-versus-one situation, they weren't at a disadvantage, but they also couldn't do anything to this aircraft. Both sides were locked in a stalemate.

After expending its missiles, the lead J15S locked onto the triangular aircraft's six o'clock position. The HUD displayed the firing solution. The pilot adjusted the nose position and opened fire.

The GSH-30-1 cannon spat out a stream of tracers. The 150-round ammunition count dropped by a third in an instant.

"What's going on, Old Gun!"

His cannon fire had been ineffective. The front-seat pilot clearly saw the tracer rounds hit where the triangular aircraft was, but it acted as if nothing had happened.

"Cannon ineffective?"

"Impossible! Fatty shot one down over there!"

If the cannon were useless, Fatty (Zhang Peng) wouldn't have used it to down an enemy aircraft.

"Try again! Maybe we didn't hit a critical damage point!"

"Copy!"

After a series of attacks failed to hit the target, the triangular aircraft pulled up sharply, trying to climb. The J15S followed closely. The enemy twisted and rolled in the air, attempting to enter a rolling scissors maneuver with the pursuing aircraft, but the J15S wasn't fighting alone. It immediately pulled up and decelerated to avoid overshooting.

At that moment, the wingman surged in from the triangular aircraft's absolutely disadvantaged rear hemisphere, firing another burst of cannon rounds at the enemy. This time, the lead aircraft's pilot clearly saw the cannon rounds pass straight through the triangular aircraft.

After the cannon fire, the wingman pulled up to prepare for another attack.

"Something's wrong. I saw the rounds go right through!"

"Me too!"

If the previous attacks were because they missed the target, this close-range shot was clearly witnessed by both pilots in the lead aircraft.

"Try again!"

The two J15S refused to accept it. They took turns attacking the triangular aircraft. The 30mm cannon ammunition dropped rapidly, but the enemy still wasn't shot down. Every attack passed straight through its fuselage.

"Something's wrong! This is an illusion!" the lead aircraft's pilot, Old Gun, said over the internal comms.

The triangular aircraft they saw was just a projected illusion. How it deceived the avionics system, they didn't know. They only knew the target was fake!

"Where's the real one?!"

"No idea!"

The pilots scanned the surroundings with their naked eyes but found nothing unusual.

"How did Fatty find the real one?"

Old Gun muttered to himself, never imagining that Fatty had so many tricks up his sleeve. But the comm channel was jammed now, so they couldn't communicate with him.

"Conserve ammo. We don't have much left, and they're in the same boat!"

The tricky part now was that even knowing the triangular aircraft in front of them was a manufactured illusion—like a towed decoy on modern fighters, only more advanced—they still had to figure out how to find its real body.

"Switch to IRST!"

"Copy!"

This was where the advantage of a two-seater showed. Old Gun in the front seat controlled the fighter to continue tailing, while the weapon officer in the rear began scanning with IRST, trying to find the real body's heat source. On a single-seat fighter, the pilot handling both tasks would quickly drain their energy, leading to degraded performance or mistakes!

"No good. IRST can't find any other heat source!"

Within the IRST's field of view, only the triangular aircraft's heat signature was captured. There was no second heat source. And since they'd already confirmed the aircraft in front was an illusion, how was it fooling the IRST? As for radar, it had completely failed once they got close.

But these weren't their concerns. They only had one thing to do: find the real body and shoot it down!

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The cannon fired a burst to the left of the triangular aircraft—the same position where Fatty had shot down the first one. But the attack hit nothing, and their ammunition was running low.

"Where the hell is the real one?!"

Just as Old Gun was getting frustrated, a low-visibility J15S suddenly appeared in his field of view, diving from high altitude straight toward the triangular aircraft ahead.

"Did Fatty take down the second one?"

Was Fatty on fire today? How was he this good?!

In Old Gun's astonished gaze, the diving [139] aircraft pointed its nose slightly above the triangular aircraft and opened fire!

The cannon rounds hit the air as if striking something solid. Fragmentation shells exploded, and then the shattered triangular aircraft appeared at the point of impact. Half its fuselage was destroyed, spinning as it fell toward the sea below.

With a roar, [139] aircraft passed through their position and dove downward. During the dive, Liu Jun throttled back and deployed the airbrakes. Once his speed dropped enough, he retracted the airbrakes and used the momentum from the dive to climb back up into the sky.

[Insufficient fuel.]

[Insufficient fuel.]

[Insufficient fuel.]

The AI Sister's alert tone chimed in his ear. Liu Jun glanced at the fuel gauge—it had already entered the warning line. Barring any surprises, he wouldn't make it back flying.

A rustling static came through his earpiece. With the three delta-wing aircraft shot down, the chaotic electromagnetic interference had faded, but some residual electromagnetic noise remained, distorting the communication slightly.

Just then, Zhang Peng, sitting in the front seat, jolted awake. His memory was still stuck in the previous battle. He was about to pull the stick for a maneuver when he realized the enemies were gone. At that moment, Liu Jun's voice rang in his ear:

"Master, you're awake? The fight's over."