To safely enter the Secondary Hive City where the T'au were holed up, Li Qinwu chose to break through the atmosphere alone.
He first had the Shuttle carry him into low orbit above the Secondary Hive City, then jumped straight down.
Strapped to his back was a large disposable atmospheric-entry rocket. Once he entered the atmosphere, it would ignite, helping him adjust his posture and reduce his speed.
Once he had safely entered the atmosphere, his body detached from the disposable rocket, and he began plummeting rapidly.
With his solo atmospheric insertion and the anti-detection coating on his stealth armor, anti-aircraft weapons would have a hard time picking him up.
Li Qinwu dove headfirst at high speed. The enormous urban sprawl of the Secondary Hive City below grew larger and larger before him.
His helmet visor displayed his altitude. When he reached one kilometer, he immediately deployed his parachute.
Li Qinwu controlled the parachute and drifted toward the Hive City buildings below. There were many Gothic-style Spires here.
No humans were visible. They were all inside the Spires and other buildings; there was hardly anyone out in the open.
Li Qinwu hung beneath his parachute, drifting through the cluster of Spires.
After picking a Spire, he deliberately cut loose the parachute, and his body immediately lunged toward it.
The next moment, he clung flat against the Spire's marble wall like a gecko.
The next instant, he activated his invisibility cloak and vanished completely.
Just then, a human soldier passed through the adjacent Spire and looked up. Other than the parachute drifting away, he saw nothing.
Clinging to the wall, Li Qinwu looked around. He was currently on a gigantic Spire roughly four hundred meters tall and about one hundred meters long and wide.
Below him stood countless chimneys and high-rises.