Wu Tian pulled the nose up. The angle of descent changed from ninety degrees to forty-five, then to thirty.
Finally, in an ungainly belly-down plunge, the ship slammed into a crater on the lunar surface.
Dust billowed.
The Communicator still had a faint signal. Wu Tian lay in the mangled cockpit, unable to move.
His left arm was probably broken, and he had no idea how many ribs he had fractured.
"...Wu Tian here...alive..." He forced a few words into the Communicator.
Cheers erupted over the channel. Then Ye Chendong's voice drowned everyone out. "Any rescue teams nearby? We have the coordinates! Go get him!"
Twenty minutes later, a rescue team dragged Wu Tian out of the wreckage.
He lay on a stretcher, staring at the pitch-black space above him. Every breath tasted of blood.
A medic beside him administered a pain-relieving elixir, muttering, "You're lucky to be alive. The ship burned this badly, and you actually..."
"Save it," Wu Tian interrupted. "That Nirvana Stage one...was it new?"
The medic fell silent for a moment. "There's more than one. Forward reconnaissance reported at least three more Nirvana Stage energy sources deep within the Gold-Eater Clan's formation."
Wu Tian closed his eyes.
Three. Including the survivors from before, the Nirvana Stage Gold-Eaters facing the Lunar Defense Line now outnumbered their own high-level fighters.
This war was getting harder and harder to fight.
By the time the news reached Human Alliance headquarters, Chen Siyao had already received it.
In the command room, Chen Siyao, Xiao Wuwang, and Ao Yuan stood around the tactical table. The holographic projection displayed the distribution of Gold-Eaters outside the Lunar Defense Line, its dense red dots resembling a crimson sea.
Deep within that crimson sea, four new golden markers had appeared.
Nirvana level. Four of them.
Including