Just as He Xi was reflecting on this, the battle below suddenly changed.
Qilin lay prone on the rooftop terrace of a high-rise, her gaze behind the scope calmly locked on a Taotie soldier strafing civilians below.
She pulled the trigger, and a God-Slaying Armor-Piercing Bullet burst from the barrel, passing through the Taotie soldier's skull and blasting the armor at the back of his head into fragments.
"Thirteen."
Qilin reported quietly, quickly working the bolt to chamber the next round.
But her position had been exposed.
A gun on the flank of a Taotie Warship slowly swiveled, locking onto the high-rise she occupied.
Qilin's pupils abruptly contracted, and she hurriedly rose to relocate.
The next second, a dark purple energy beam surged from the gun, striking precisely where she had just been.
The explosion blew the entire floor into fragments, flinging reinforced concrete away like scraps of paper.
The blast wave hurled Qilin through the air. Her helmet shattered on impact, and she fell from more than thirty stories up, slamming into the wreckage of a burned-out bus before rolling onto the ground.
Several gashes split her Dark Alloy Armor. She struggled to get up, but the moment she braced her right hand against the ground, her arm gave out.
The face exposed beneath her shattered helmet was covered in dust and blood, and her consciousness teetered between haziness and clarity.
"Qilin is out of action!"
Cheng Yaowen's voice came over the comms, carrying a restrained urgency.
"Qiangwei, go get her and hand her over to the Backup Medical Team!"
Rena's voice rang out over the channel, crisp and decisive.
Qiangwei was heading back from Ge Xiaolun's direction. Upon hearing the order, she immediately changed course, her Steel Wings tracing a sharp arc through the air as she dove