Chapter 3: Another World Behind the Door

　　Republic, Western Theater, a certain airbase.

　　Chu Zhongtian looked at the radar display screen above the constantly flashing points of light, frowning tightly, this is three minutes ago detected UFO, is 1100 meters of low altitude at a speed of 0.6 Mach flight.

　　And the other party's electromagnetic signal and infrared signal not only does not match the recorded flying objects and that is strong, like the sun in the sky.

　　Even the long retired seven in the RCS (radar scattering cross-section area) and infrared radiation signal is much smaller than it. It was almost as if the other party had no stealth design at all and had taken care to turn on the Lombard lenses (stealth airplanes are usually temporarily fitted with Lombard lenses during non-combat turnaround flights to make it easier for civil air traffic control radar to detect them.)

　　"It was detected three minutes ago, so why is it only being reported now?" Chu Zhongtian frowned and looked at the radar detector.

　　"Report! The first detection three minutes ago was screened out and transferred for manual processing because the other party's electromagnetic and infrared signals did not meet the warning conditions."

　　"Inquire with the Air Traffic Control Bureau if there are any civil aviation or large civil drones that have deviated from their routes." Chu Zhongtian thought for a moment and ordered towards a staff member with a headset.

　　Although the other party's electromagnetic signals were completely incompatible with registered civil aviation aircraft, a routine inquiry was necessary, or else there might be a heavenly joke like San shooting down his own off-route civil aviation.

　　After a moment, he added, "Are there any military optical satellites that can scan that area?"

　　"Report! ATC has sent a reply that there are no off-route civil aircraft, and there are no drones filed today that are flying in that airspace."

　　Due to the large number and variety of civil drones, it was impossible to record the electromagnetic and infrared signals of every one of them, so they all had to be filed with the local ATC before taking off.

　　Moreover, in the past ten years, more than ninety percent of the unidentified flying objects detected by military radar in various countries around the world were large civilian drones that flew out of the filed area or took off privately.

　　What the hell is this thing? Why did it suddenly appear? Chu Zhongtian frowned, a hint of a bad feeling surfaced in his mind.

　　"Report! The nearest optical satellite is still twenty-three minutes away from reaching the detectable range." A report interrupted Chu Zhongtian's contemplation at this moment.

　　He stood up from his seat, moved his shoulders, and ordered, "Report to the theater air force command, and at the same time list the fighters that are cruising at war readiness within a radius of five hundred kilometers."

　　A few moments later, a report came in, "Report, there is a group of J-10M three-plane formation at one hundred and ninety kilometers from the target, a group of J-20K three-plane formation at three hundred and fifty kilometers, as well as a group of J-40 two-plane formation at four hundred and fifty kilometers that is conducting night flight training, the J-10M and J-20K formations are both on alert cruising mount, and the J-40 is fully mounted. is fully mounted." (Non-war time alert cruise mounts are two close-range air-to-air missiles and two medium-range air-to-air missiles.)

　　"Contact the J-10M formation, terminate the battle-ready cruise mission, accompany and monitor the unidentified flying object, and grant permission to fire."

　　Chu Zhongtian sat back in his seat and ordered in an extremely serious voice, then immediately looked at the communication soldier and ordered again "Notify the air defense positions to directly shoot down the target after it enters the base's alert range or if it has any abnormal actions!"

In the cold and silent night sky, Irene's Ice Goddess was pulling the half-crippled Crimson Warrior Hime at a high speed, not realizing that they had already entered another world.

　　The body now had absolutely no strength left to hold up the windproof spell formation, so the two young girls could only endure the biting cold wind like knives at a height of 1,000 meters, and Kleya, who had already suffered an abdominal injury, was now pale, with greenish-purple lips trembling uncontrollably, and bean-sized beads of sweat slipping down on her white forehead, which were immediately blown away by the wind.

　　"Going on like this is not a solution!" Erin exclaimed to Kleya. "Your injuries can be dangerous if you don't take care of them! And I'm almost at the bottom of my God Machine's energy, we need to land!"

　　Erin looked at the wound on Kleya's waist that was bleeding and her purple lips, and could only pull Kleya behind her, using her own machine to shield her from some of the cold wind.

　　Kleya looked at the detector, thought for a while, and said, "Our airframe's performance exceeds the other side, and we can no longer see the other side on the detector, it should be that the other side isn't pursuing or has already ditched the other side, let's land on that dune in front of us."

　　"Report, the target craft is dropping in altitude, current altitude 770 meters and still dropping. Expected to land in the D2D3 area."

　　Chu Zhongtian breathed a sigh of relief after hearing the report, although he didn't know what exactly the target was. However, once a flying object landed on the ground, the threat was basically zero, even if it was a J-40 or FA/XX, these 6th generation aircraft were no exception.

　　"J-10M formation mission remains unchanged, go to the target landing area for reconnaissance, responsible for alerting and waiting for the base to take off the unmanned reconnaissance planes and ground troops to arrive."

　　Chu Zhongtian picked up the microphone and ordered towards the three J-10Ms that were speeding towards the target area.

　　At an army composite brigade less than thirty kilometers away from the airbase, the commander of the third battalion put down the documents in his hands, looked at the tall and straight figure in front of him, and opened his mouth, "Instructions have come from the higher-ups that there is a suspected hostile force's unmanned aerial vehicle crashed in the D2D3 area, and that we are ordered to conduct searches in the area, and within a radius of five kilometers."

　　The battalion commander stood up, walked over to Li Xue, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "This mission is assigned to the 1st Platoon and 2nd Platoon of your 2nd Company to carry out, and you will personally lead the team, and when you encounter any enemy agents that may have come to destroy the UAVs, you will first make an arrest, and if you are unable to carry it out, you may directly open fire."

　　After receiving the order, Li Xue quickly gathered his men and ten minutes later, three straight-30 heavy transport helicopters carrying the first platoon and the second platoon flew towards the target location amidst the loud roar of their engines.

　　"Na na na! Old Huang, this time, do you think it will be an old American aircraft, our brothers have participated in so many anti-terrorist battles, and we've killed a few terrorists, but we haven't beaten up any regular soldiers yet. I'm a bit excited!" Jiang Wen clapped his hand on Huang Xing's shoulder and said with an excited face.

　　Huang Xing slapped Jiang Wen's hand away and said nonchalantly, "What are you excited about! In our territory, how many people can he have! We have more than sixty people, or a clean land battle configuration of 'Quartet' single-person power armor, if we run slower, we might not even see anyone and the mission will already be over." Huang Xing said as he looked at the deflated Jiang Wen.

"But we can run faster! Maybe we'll really get caught." Plugging his beloved Gogol machete back into the sheath in front of his chest, Huang Xing continued.

　　The scimitar in front of Huang Xing's chest was the famous Gogol scimitar, also commonly known as the dog leg knife, except that it was not a traditional handmade knife made by a craftsman.

　　His was accidentally found some tank bearings to be pulled for scrap in a machine shop near the barracks, and spent a week building it with the equipment inside, and in a sense it could barely be considered hand-built.

　　The slender body of the blade flashed with a cold aura on top, and the blowing blade left no doubt that it could easily decapitate an enemy. Though on a modern battlefield, the blade could at best scratch the coating of one-man tactical armor and chop wood, but what man could resist a handsome cold weapon?

　　Kleya and Erin descended all the way down, stopping about twenty meters from the dune, and with a flash of red light from her left arm, the crimson warjack blasted a sand pit capable of holding two people on the side of the dune.

　　They had to hide under the sand, revealing a head at most, the thick sand could not only hide their figures, but also mask some odors to reduce the probability of being discovered.

　　On the Fars Desert, the four Florentine Empire Divine Machines that had chased after them looked at the gate that was slightly glowing blue in the air, and stopped in mid-air for a moment, no one daring to go in first.

　　"Captain, what to do? To chase or not to chase." A Nightmare's pilot looked at the Dark Blue God Machine and asked.

　　"This door appeared at an unknown time, the situation is unknown, this is beyond what our squad can handle." The Dark Blue God Machine spoke slowly after a moment of silence. "And we don't have much energy left, so we can return and report this matter to our superiors!"

　　"What!" Chu Zhongtian slammed the table, the enamel cup on the table printed with the five big red words "Serve the People" shook violently, the tea inside splashed out, the water inside kept on trembling, as if it was the same ups and downs as Chu Zhongtian's mood at this moment.

　　"You say it again! Are you sure!" Chu Zhongtian took a deep breath to calm down his inner agitation and ordered while holding the microphone.

　　"Report, our formation arrived at the target object's estimated crash point two minutes ago, and has completed a preliminary scan within a five kilometer radius, and the EODAS (Electro-Optical Distributed Aperture System), airborne photoelectric radar, EOTS (Electro-Optical Targeting System), as well as visual inspection have not detected any wreckage of the suspected object or any other large-scale mechanical wreckage, and in one minute we will be conducting an ultra-low altitude flight to conduct a secondary flight. One minute, we're going to make a second scan. Over."

　　Cutting off the communication with the leader of the J-10M formation codenamed "Tiger Spotted Cat", Chu Zhongtian's heart was in a state of shock.

　　What did it mean that the suspected hostile force's unmanned reconnaissance aircraft had not been found? Chu Zhongtian understood better than anyone else that it meant that that hostile force had already planned that the drone would land there, and had already made the appropriate arrangements there.

　　To be able to dispose of the target flying object and erase all traces of it in just ten minutes from the time the drone landed until the arrival of the J-10M formation was not something that a few people could do.

　　With the experience Chu Zhongtian had accumulated in his twenty years of air force career, to do all of this in a maximum of ten minutes, it would require at least thirty well-trained, well-coordinated professionals to be able to do all of this.

　　These people couldn't just pop up, there must be a stronghold of the other side in that neighborhood, and the number of people would not be less than fifty. Or even more!

Such a big stronghold was staying right in front of the entrance of his own airbase, did this mean that the most advanced J-10M, J-16N and even the highly classified J-40 in his base had been looked at by the other side?

　　And the other side exposed this stronghold for an unknown target, what exactly was in that drone to make the other side pay such a high price?

　　"Report, ultra-low altitude scanning over, no findings, over." Listening to the report coming from the headset, Chu Zhongtian forced himself to calm down and just said, "Reconnaissance again!" And hung up the communication.

　　This matter was no longer something he could handle as a colonel, he looked towards the red landline without buttons on his right hand side, which was an emergency phone directly connected to the theater command, took a deep breath, picked up the microphone, and said, "This is Chu Zhongtian, there's an emergency to report ..."

　　"Poof!" A slight sound came from the shadows of the dunes, a pair of small white hands reached out from the sand pile, sweeping the sand away from their heads, revealing a head topped with a blue chicken nest.

　　Looking at the direction where the three J-10Ms flew by, he patted the sand next to him and said, "Kreia, you can come out now, those three big birds have already passed."

　　Keleia revealed her head from the sand, coughed a few times, spat out the sand in her mouth, took a deep breath, and said hatefully, "If the three birds don't go away, old me will live to suffocate inside the dune."

　　Kleya stopped coughing, after suffocating under the sand for nearly five minutes, coupled with a bad injury, even her second-rank cultivation body was a bit overwhelmed.

　　"Say, what the hell is that thing? It looks like an artifact, it should be a constructed weapon similar to the Divine Machine, but as far as I know neither the Empire nor Frodo has this. When my God Machine is repaired, the next time I encounter them, let's see if I don't shoot it down!"

　　"Forget it for you!" Looking at Kreia who was flailing at the sky, Ayrin disliked her nonchalantly. "The flying speed of that big bird far exceeds that of a second-rank divine machine, you might even be shot down by someone without even being able to see their butt."

　　Ayrin coiled her long, disheveled blue hair on top of her head and continued, "Now it's better to think about what to do, right? We can't keep hiding here, and your injury can't be delayed any longer."

　　At this moment, the "tiger-spotted cat" that had already flown far away muttered, "Is someone scolding me? Why did I just get a chill all over my body?"

　　However, the "tiger-spotted cat" didn't care about these trivial matters, just a minute ago, he received a directive from the Western Theater Air Force Command, ordering him to return to the airport immediately and mount ground weapons. Due to the high level of the mission, the specific details would be conveyed by paper documents after returning to the base.

　　Amidst the loud roar of the engine, Huang Xing jumped out of the cabin holding his QBZ-35 type assault rifle and landed on the soft yellow sand, the huge weight of nearly two hundred kilograms left two deep footprints on the sand.

　　"Just now on the airplane Company Commander Li said it, I'll repeat it again!" Huang Xing looked at the team members who jumped out of the cabin one after another and said in the team channel, "Five people in a group, Li You, Wang Guangping, Tian Wu, Zhao Heng, the four of you will follow me, the rest will be led by Jiang Wen, report to me every five minutes. Depart." With that, he switched his tactical armor to desert mode and headed towards the sand dunes several hundred meters away.

　　The two of them, Kleya and Erin, who had just climbed out of the sand, saw the large transport helicopter, the Straight-30, falling from the sky, and immediately returned to the other side of the dune, burying themselves in the sand once again. At the same time, they put their long swords in my hands, ready to use the little energy left in the God Machine to forcefully break out.

　　"What the hell are those people, looking at how quickly and disciplined they move, they must be soldiers, only why is it that their armor, weapons and the flying machines they ride in I've never seen before?" Kleya said with a frown as she looked at those people who came in groups of five, searching slowly in one-two-two shapes, walking in very earthy painted, yellow and green mixed armor.

"Looking at the way they hold their weapons, that should be a shooting weapon similar to a magic guide gun. And although the armor on their bodies can't see the magic guide spells, but looking at the defense should be good, full coverage, almost no gaps, this kind of heavy armor is very troublesome to deal with. And judging from their formation, there is almost no visual dead space, if they are really coming at us, then with the God Machine half-crippled and lacking in energy, it's almost impossible to break out."

　　Listening to Kreia's analysis, Ayrin's small face pulled as if she was about to cry out. "Then what do you suggest to do! Is it hard to jump out and surrender? Jumping out and falling on the ground at once, holding her head and pouting her ass, she yelled, 'Gentlemen, ah! We're just passing through, we don't know anything! Can you please let us go? People won't believe it as long as their IQ is higher than the corner of the table! And what would happen if our two big beauties like flowers fall into the clutches of the devil ah! Then I might as well die!"

　　Kreia didn't pay attention to Erin's gag, but said with a serious face; "Erin, although my Crimson Battleship's propulsion array is damaged, it can still hold out for a while in land battles, so if it's discovered, I'll buy time for you, and you'll desperately rush out, and make sure to bring back the news from here!"

　　Seemingly knowing that Keleia would say this, Ayrin smiled faintly, stretching out her slender and white hand, gently caressing Keleia's long, ruddy-colored hair, and said softly, "My silly sister, ah! Is this the first day you've recognized me? I'm a warrior of the Hales family ah! Only people from my family cover the retreat of their comrades! If I leave you behind and escape on my own, can you imagine the feeling of abandoning your teammates and escaping alone, the regret? I don't want to suffer that kind of pain for the next hundred years of my life!"

　　Ayrin gently embraced Kleya into her arms and firmly said, "You have your dignity, I also have my pride, neither of us has to buy time for anyone, the only thing we have to do is to give each other a dignified relief when you or I are captured."

　　When she said this, Erin looked straight into Keleia's eyes, and it was as if flames were flowing from those beautiful ice blue eyes, the courage and determination that even if the road ahead was a road paved with flames and thorns, he would go up to it without hesitation.

　　Kleya looked at Ayrin's face and snorted out a laugh. "That timid and crybaby little girl from back then has now grown to the point where she can stand alone!"

　　Keleia took hold of Ayrin's hand and slowly said, "Then let's get out alive together! Or die here together, either way, with you by my side, I'm not afraid!"