Ambush

The artificial sky gradually brightened. The artificial moon and dark backdrop that signified night were slowly fading away, while Mist God Star's storms and atmospheric discharges once again dominated everything nearby.

A silver-white single-pilot fighter, covered in scars, suddenly tore through the sky. It forcibly carved a huge blank corridor through the torrential rain and dense clouds. The high-speed craft rubbed violently against the surrounding air, producing high-frequency sound waves sharp enough to kill an ordinary person. Even the curtain of rain hundreds of meters away rippled outward in rings, which linked together into a tube like corrugated piping, slanting down toward the military base at the bottom of the atmosphere.

Within the passage formed by energy barriers, the fighter slowly decelerated before finally landing steadily on a platform near the center of General City. From the moment it entered the final energy shield, white mist had begun pouring from its entire body. This was the nitrogen-helium-hydrogen atmosphere that had remained liquid under the high pressure outside the base, rapidly evaporating after entering the base's low-pressure interior. It made the fighter look as though it had just emerged from a steamer. Combined with the several shocking cracks across its armor and the blue sparks constantly bursting from within, it looked ready to explode at any moment.

The instant the craft landed, several servomechs rushed forward. These octopus-shaped machines floating in the air began expertly following their established procedures to salvage the fighter, which had nearly been torn in half. While repairing its wounds, they unhesitatingly ripped apart its severely deformed armor and dragged out the pilot inside, whose body was almost melted away on one side.

"Serial number e-658312-y-135. Private. Unit severely damaged. Memory core will be extracted. Please cease all input and output to the memory core to prevent