The giant black orb pulsed like a heart. With each expansion and contraction, it rose and fell like breathing, its frequency gradually accelerating until it became violent.
Something moved.
Iron Sand?
Inside the cockpits, aided by the giant bees' high-precision scouting eyes, the pilots watched the real-time footage in ultra-high-speed slow motion. With their thoughts accelerated by their hyperfrequency nerves, their brains calculated furiously, and one after another, they caught those subtle anomalies.
"It's moving!"
"The Iron Sand is moving!"
In the mental communication channel, the message reached every member in less than a thousandth of a second.
"Danger!"
That was strange.
The Iron Sand had been moving before, too.
But previously, it had moved unconsciously, swaying with the current like seaweed.
Now, it was like a sea lily consciously writhing its long, slender tentacles.
"Step up the attack!"
"Fire!"
The flames' offensive had always been effective.
But there was simply too much Iron Sand.
Blazing flames sprayed from the mouthparts of the battle giant bees, while solidified burning grease scattered in all directions. The flames swept across the sky, and pillars of fire crisscrossed overhead. As the swarm flew and spun at hypervelocity, sparks danced and swayed amid the continuous explosive sounds of the Sound Barrier. The blood-red setting sun appeared even more demonic, while scorching waves rolled and churned. Wherever they passed, the Iron Sand turned into crimson molten iron.
Star-like points of light struck the swarm's shells. Amid the sparks thrown off by friction, the first things unable to hold out were the gradually perforated, cicada-wing-thin wings.
In the wild, a bee with broken wings was as good as dead, forever unable to fly again.
Mimi's swarm could regenerate damaged wings to a certain extent, but the broken wings still had to be discarded before new ones