The J-15S rolled sideways through the air. Zhang Peng in the front seat had just begun to wake when the immense centrifugal force knocked him unconscious again. Liu Jun, meanwhile, was fully focused on the Triangle Aircraft ahead and failed to notice his instructor's condition.
The troublesome enemy behind them repeatedly pointed its nose toward them. Suspended in the air without speed, the Triangle Aircraft seemed to sense its impending doom, desperately twisting and maneuvering in an attempt to escape the enemy's attack envelope—or perhaps confuse them.
But reality was reality. Without speed, an aircraft had nothing.
Attacking the Triangle Aircraft hanging in midair was like shooting at a fixed target for Liu Jun. He easily saw through its disguise and accurately struck the location of its actual body.
Its glasslike fuselage could not withstand the 30mm cannon fire. The entire Triangle Aircraft was torn apart, countless fragments falling downward and reflecting rainbow-colored sunset light as they fell, like streaks of rainbows descending from the sky.
Having downed his target, Liu Jun did not dare relax. Another Triangle Aircraft was still fighting his comrades.
The PL10 had not downed the Triangle Aircraft as expected. The two J-15Ss had already entered a dogfight with it. Fortunately, they were flying in a two-aircraft formation: the lead aircraft handled the attacks while the wingman provided cover.
Despite having a two-on-one advantage, they had not fallen into a disadvantage—but neither could they do anything to the aircraft. The two sides were locked in a stalemate.
After expending its missiles, the lead J-15S latched onto the Triangle Aircraft's six o'clock. A ballistic trajectory appeared on the HUD, and after adjusting the nose position, the pilot opened fire.
The GSH-30-1 cannon unleashed a barrage, and a third of its 150 rounds vanished in an instant.
"What's going on, Old Gun?!"
The cannon fire he had unleashed had achieved nothing. The front-seat pilot had clearly seen the tracers strike where the Triangle Aircraft was, yet it looked completely unaffected.
"The cannon's ineffective?"
"Impossible! Fatty's side downed one!"
If the cannon had no effect, Fatty—Zhang Peng—would not have used it to shoot down an enemy aircraft.
"Keep trying! Maybe we didn't hit a critical damage point!"
"Understood!"
After a series of attacks failed to hit the target, the Triangle Aircraft rapidly pulled up, trying to climb. The J-15S followed closely behind. The enemy twisted into an aerial rolling maneuver, attempting to draw the aircraft behind it into a rolling scissors, but the J-15S was not fighting alone. It immediately pulled up and slowed down as well, ensuring it would not overshoot.
At that moment, the wingman rushed in from the Triangle Aircraft's rear hemisphere, where it was at an absolute disadvantage, and unleashed another barrage of cannon fire at the enemy. This time, the lead aircraft's pilot clearly saw the shells pass right through the Triangle Aircraft.
After firing, the wingman climbed, preparing for another attack.
"Something's wrong. I saw the cannon shells pass through it!"
"So did I!"
If the previous attack had missed the target, then this close-range firing had been clearly visible to both pilots in the lead aircraft.
"Try again!"
The two J-15Ss refused to believe it now, taking turns attacking the Triangle Aircraft. Their 30mm cannon ammunition dwindled rapidly, yet the enemy remained undamaged. Every attack simply passed through its fuselage.
"Something's wrong! It's an illusion!" Old Gun, the lead aircraft's pilot, said over the internal comms.
The Triangle Aircraft they were seeing was merely a projected illusion. They did not know how it had deceived their avionics, only that the target was fake.
"Where's the real body?!"
"Don't know!"
The pilots scanned the surrounding air with their naked eyes but found nothing unusual.
"Then how did Fatty find its real body?"
Old Gun muttered to himself. He had never expected that Fatty had so many tricks up his sleeve, but the communications channel was jammed, so they had no way to speak with him.
"Conserve ammunition. We don't have much left, and neither do they!"
The troublesome part was that even though they knew the Triangle Aircraft before them was an artificial illusion, much like the towed decoys carried by modern fighters—only far more advanced—how were they supposed to find its real body?
"Switch to IRST!"
"Understood!"
This was where the advantage of a two-seat aircraft showed itself. Old Gun in the front seat controlled the fighter and continued tailing the target, while the weapons officer in the rear began operating the IRST to scan the surroundings, trying to locate the real body's heat signature. In a single-seat fighter, a pilot handling both tasks would rapidly exhaust his focus and soon make clumsy maneuvers or mistakes.
"No good. The IRST can't find another heat source!"
Within the IRST's field of view, it could only detect the heat signature of the Triangle Aircraft ahead. There was no second heat source, yet the aircraft before them had already been confirmed as an illusion. So how had it deceived the IRST? As for the radar, it had completely failed once they approached the enemy.
However, those were not questions they needed to consider. They had only one task: find the enemy's real body and shoot it down!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The cannon fired a series of rounds at the left side of the Triangle Aircraft. That was where Fatty had downed the first Triangle Aircraft, but the attack hit nothing, and their remaining ammunition was running low.
"Where the hell is the real body?"
Just as Old Gun was growing irritated, a J-15S with low-visibility paint suddenly dove down from high altitude into his field of vision, flying straight toward the Triangle Aircraft ahead.
"Did Fatty take care of the second one?"
Had that fatty eaten his fill today? Why was he so fierce?!
Under Old Gun's astonished gaze, aircraft 139 dove down with its nose aimed slightly above the Triangle Aircraft, then opened fire!
The cannon shells struck the air as if they had hit something. The fragmentation rounds exploded, and the shattered Triangle Aircraft appeared at the point of impact. Half its fuselage had been blown apart, and it spiraled down toward the sea below.
With a howl, aircraft 139 passed through the two men's position and dove downward. During the dive, Liu Jun throttled back and deployed the airbrakes. Once his speed had dropped somewhat, he retracted them and used the dive's momentum to climb toward high altitude again.
Fuel insufficient. Fuel insufficient. Fuel insufficient.
AI Sister's prompt sounded beside Liu Jun's ear. He glanced at the fuel gauge; it had already entered the warning zone. Unless something unexpected happened, he would not make it back.
A crackling hiss sounded in his ears. With all three Triangle Aircraft shot down, the chaotic electromagnetic interference vanished, though some electromagnetic noise remained and slightly distorted communications.
At that moment, Zhang Peng in the front seat suddenly jolted awake. His memories were still stuck in the earlier battle. Just as he prepared to pull the stick and maneuver, he realized the enemies had vanished. Then Liu Jun's voice sounded beside his ear:
"Master, you're awake? The battle is over."
Before you continue