I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution
Chapter 287 : Blown Down Like Stars Falling as RainThe two enormous beams of light that pierced through the Flying Fortresses illuminated the dark night sky above the harbor. They were followed by violent explosions, throwing the garrison defending the port into chaos as countless soldiers boarded troop trucks and rushed toward the docks.
However, halfway there, a loud buzzing suddenly echoed overhead.
A squadron of Challenger Helicopters shed the stealth panels beneath their fuselages and unleashed a torrent of rockets and twin 12.7 mm Gatling Guns upon the truck convoy advancing below.
Explosions and flames lit up every corner of the harbor throughout the night.
The reinforcement force had barely begun moving before it was crippled on the road by the helicopter squadron.
"Tell Team D to hurry with the extraction! We have ten minutes left at most."
Horst held down the firing button on the control grip as the twin Gatling Guns in his hands roared wildly. Dense streams of tracer rounds showered the top of a Heavy Tank, sending sparks flying before blasting its turret into the air.
By now, however, more and more low-altitude anti-aircraft guns nearby had begun firing at them.
It was obvious they could not remain much longer, or they would all end up trapped here as well.
"Team D has only picked up Team One. We still haven't found a signal from the other team."
"Five minutes! We wait another five minutes at most before pulling out, or none of us are getting away!"
Fifteen minutes earlier.
Tina gripped her saber and rushed out of the Matrix Control Room under the cover of darkness.
The moment she reached the doorway, a figure descended from the sky and punched her, sending her flying back inside.
"Pfft..."
She slammed into the room, crashing through three walls before finally coming to a stop in front of the destroyed Matrix Power Core.
Blood trickled from the vents in her helmet.
"What the hell is that?! Damn it! Where did this Saint Rank come from?!"
A burly man kicked through half a wall and strode angrily toward Tina, clearly enraged by the devastation before him.
Looking down at the twisted armor covering both of her arms and the saber that had shattered into several pieces and flown who knew where, Tina sighed helplessly.
"I'm finished. If there's no other way... just leave me behind."
"We can still fire one more shot... but whether it'll hit is another matter..."
Airi's weak voice came through the communicator.
The modified Sniper Cannon certainly possessed sufficient power.
But a Saint Rank expert's instinctive danger perception would never ignore such a threat.
Even ordinary soldiers had noticed the previous shot.
There was no way someone like him would simply stand there and take it.
He would dodge.
"...Then fire!"
"I'll handle the rest."
Glaire laid his sniper rifle flat and quickly removed every usable external component from Airi's weapon before attaching them to his own rifle.
He also replaced the barrel with a thicker one featuring a perfectly smooth inner bore.
Within moments, the rifle before him had grown nearly twice its original size.
The massive gun mount locked itself onto the parapet of the watchtower.
At the reserved energy interface along the weapon's body, Airi attached box after box of crystal magazines.
Strictly speaking, the modified Special Sniper Rifle could no longer be considered a technological weapon.
Multiple energy conduits simultaneously pressurized the projectile confined within the chamber.
Even though the barrel represented the Alliance's finest materials technology and was continuously protected by all of the wielder's magical power, the tremendous dual pressure released in an instant would still deform and destroy it after firing.
The magical protection existed not merely to allow the projectile to fire successfully.
Its greatest purpose was preventing the sniper from being killed by the enormous recoil and exploding fragments.
【Charging Time: 5 Seconds】
Hearing the countdown through her earpiece, Betty looked at the burly man approaching her.
A smoke grenade containing refined Magic Suppression Powder dropped from her thigh armor.
【4】
With a hiss, dense smoke rapidly engulfed her.
"Wasting your effort."
【3】
The burly man glanced at the smoke with obvious disdain.
With a casual wave of his hand, violent winds roared forth, instantly sweeping the smoke away.
Betty, still wearing her battered helmet, reappeared before him.
【2】
"Not necessarily."
Betty's voice remained light and cheerful.
It stood in stark contrast to her body, which trembled uncontrollably with involuntary spasms.
A faint radiance shone from her chest, illuminating the burly man.
A blurry figure materialized between them.
Its face remained indistinct.
Only a pair of majestic violet-gold eyes stood out with startling clarity.
【1】
The instant their eyes met, the burly man's body trembled violently.
The light vanished from his eyes.
A beam of light streaked toward him like a rainbow piercing the heavens.
Just before he awoke from his daze, it struck him squarely in the head.
The beam stalled briefly before continuing forward relentlessly, piercing through more than a dozen barriers before gradually fading.
"Bang!"
Only then did the deep report of the rifle echo across the battlefield.
Immediately afterward, an even greater explosion erupted in the distance.
A chain of detonations blasted shipping containers into the sky.
【Target eliminated... What the hell?! Get down!】
One of the massive harbor cranes was caught in the blast.
It collapsed like a toppled mountain, crashing toward the ground.
Containers all around erupted one after another as shattered metal fragments transformed into deadly high-speed shrapnel sweeping across the area.
The Allied Nations soldiers rushing in were decapitated or had their limbs severed by the fragments.
The scene was unimaginably bloody.
"Damn it! The radio unit's been destroyed! Communication range has been reduced by sixty-five percent!"
"A chain reaction! It must've detonated the ammunition stored inside! Carry the captain and fall back to Secondary Extraction Point immediately!"
Glaire gathered both sniper rifles together, tossed down a thermite incendiary grenade, and quickly slid down the tower with Airi.
Meanwhile, Betty had already been slung over one teammate's shoulder.
Among the supplies stored inside the harbor were newly arrived shipments of military ammunition awaiting unloading.
Those ammunition crates had been ignited, triggering an unstoppable chain reaction that engulfed half the harbor in flames.
The helicopter that had just picked up Team Two had barely lifted into the air when an immense blast wave struck it, causing the aircraft to shake violently.
Fortunately, its dual rigid rotors possessed exceptional resistance to shockwaves.
After swaying twice, the helicopter quickly regained stability.
Looking toward the towering flames in the distance, Team D's pilot ordered,
"Something must've gone wrong with Special Operations Team One."
"Team Two withdraws first."
The Challenger's coaxial pusher propeller at the tail accelerated dramatically.
The helicopter skimmed away at tremendous speed just above the ground.
With the Matrix Power Core destroyed, nearly all defensive emplacements powered by magic fell silent after exhausting their backup energy.
Only scattered low-altitude anti-aircraft autocannons continued firing.
However, their attacks could not keep up with the Challenger Helicopters, which easily exceeded 350 kilometers per hour while flying at extremely low altitude.
The anti-aircraft fire could do little more than chase after their exhaust.
Only after reaching the vicinity of the explosion's center did communications become reestablished.
"T11, we're heading toward Secondary Extraction Point. One critically wounded, four lightly wounded."
【T11 copies. All other units have completed extraction. You have five minutes remaining.】
"Understood!"
Three helicopters swept over the squad.
The two Armed Helicopters used their multi-barrel autocannons to eliminate every hostile firing position along the route, allowing the transport helicopter protected between them to hover vertically while waiting for the extraction team.
"They're here..."
Standing in the cabin doorway while lowering the "Fishing Cage," the crewman looked up into the night sky.
Countless flashing red lights had spread across the heavens like an endless crimson river of stars.
Behind the navigation lights of the Gringor Bombers, the bomb bay doors opened to both sides.
A long, slender bomb hung suspended beneath the aircraft.
Its mounting rack retracted.
The bomb dropped.
Its tail engine ignited, launching it forward.
The rotary ammunition rack turned once more.
The second bomb ignited.
Then the third.
Then the fourth...
After launching six bombs, the entire aircraft rapidly climbed skyward.
Hundreds of bombs released by more than a hundred bombers streaked diagonally toward the harbor.
Their fuses ignited in midair.
The initial charge shattered the outer casing, revealing dozens of elongated submunitions within.
Those submunitions detonated again.
Dozens of fiery trails blossomed across the night sky before raining down upon the harbor.
Suspended beneath the helicopter inside the cargo net as they sped away, Betty and the others watched the spectacle.
Airi could not help sighing.
"So beautiful..."
Blown down, like stars falling as rain.
The fireworks created by hundreds of bombs covered nearly the entire sky above the harbor.
Their dazzling brilliance illuminated the night.
Amid the relentless explosions came one earth-shattering detonation.
The entire harbor was instantly annihilated, transformed into an enormous fireball.
The violent shockwave caught up to the fleeing helicopter formation almost immediately.
It tossed all three helicopters violently through the air.
The one carrying the cargo net beneath its fuselage nearly plunged into the sea as the weight of the dangling net dragged it downward, provoking terrified screams from those inside.
"Damn it! Pull me up! If you can't fly, let me do it!"
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