On Monday, October 28, at five in the afternoon, the sky had already begun to darken.
Zhang Yingying had waited at Xia City Airport for nearly three hours before the Intercontinental Airship she was expecting finally descended through a plume of black smoke. She could not see any further details from where she stood, but an hour earlier, she had seen several fire engines and ambulances arrive. They had likely gone up to the Helipad. The chaos there was easy enough to imagine.
It was not unusual for an intercontinental Armored Airship to encounter an Aberrant Species attack during operation. There were dozens, even hundreds, of such incidents every year. Major disasters causing heavy casualties occurred, on average, once every two or three years.
This was the Aberration Era.
In the VIP passageway, passengers disembarking from other airships wore relieved expressions that practically said, "I got lucky."
Some were still talking about the Armored Airship that had just flown in from Los Angeles. Apparently, it had nearly plunged straight down, and there had even been a fire inside.
Zhang Yingying had done all her worrying long ago. She had also just spoken with Bai Xinyan on the phone, so she was fairly calm now. Still, she could not help frowning. She stepped aside and called Bamboo Pole. "I suggest adding the clearing of air routes around Xia City to our exercise objectives. We should deploy on land, sea, and air at once and see if we can bring down the aberration index."
"Tsk, you're starting to sound like Boss Ronan." Bamboo Pole casually teased her before continuing, "As long as the costs are covered, or we don't have to make up any overruns ourselves, I have no objections at all. But why not consider doing more?"
"Consider what?"
"Now that