Chapter 6: Airborne Fire Strikes

Li Xue cut off the communication with the command headquarters and shouted over the public command channel; "Squad 1,2 go and take down all the equipment on the helicopter! The helicopter took off. All personnel will establish a defense line at least two hundred meters away from the ice fortress in squads, and at the same time prepare for laser guidance! In fourteen minutes and thirty seconds there will be a precision strike on the target by the fighters."

Immediately after that, Li Xue entered the communication code that had just been sent from the command on the flexible keyboard on his arm, and connected the communication with the J-25.

　　"Nightingale, this is the commander of the search team, Li Xue, please reply when you receive it." "Nightingale here, communication is clear. Anything?"

　　An obviously electronically processed male voice came out from the headset, it seemed that even in their own territory, the secrecy of the pilot's identity was done extremely well, after all, the pilot's voiceprint information was one of the highest military secrets.

　　"Tell me your weapons." When performing a ground fire strike mission and the situation was unknown, the command of the fighter aircraft was temporarily handed over to the frontline commander, so Li Xue had the right to know the J-25's weapon mounts.

　　"I have a standard all-ground mount this time, two air-to-ground missiles, four two hundred and fifty kilogram laser-guided bombs, and two rocket nests."

　　Nightingale's voice paused and added, "Originally, there was also a J-10M formation that came along, but I don't know what happened, but just as it was about to depart, it was called off again, changed to an air-to-air mount, and I don't know what kind of mission it went on."

　　Hearing this news, Li Xue's heart was clear, it should have gone after the mysterious red-colored body that had grabbed Huang Xing without knowing where it was.

　　"Don't worry!" At this time, Nightingale's voice came back from the headset "Don't worry about the lack of firepower, a Boom-15 had already been pulled out of the hangar when I came here, and the two of us are carrying enough ammo to blow three armored battalions into the sky! If that's not enough, then you'll have to apply for the East Wind missions."

"Boom-15? Even this monster with a bomb load of 45 tons has been pulled out, it seems like the top is not going to stop until this thing is completely destroyed!"

　　Thinking of this, Li Xue cut off the communication, glanced at the 13-minute attack countdown left on the hovering information window, and said to Luo Tian, the deputy company commander who was setting up a blocking circle, "You continue to preside over the work, I'm going to go closer to scout out what that cold ice fortress really is."

　　After saying that, he also ignored the deputy company commander's discouragement, and with his rifle in hand, he walked towards the ice-cold fortress.

　　At this moment, inside that cold ice fortress, in the central hall, Ayrin had already put away the Ice Goddess, and was sitting on top of a piece of solid ice, gasping for air, and at the same time, she took out a bottle of potion from her spatial ring, opened the lid, and directly took a sip and poured it down.

　　"Which army are those soldiers outside, obviously there are only a few dozen of them, but they have such terrifying firepower that they actually forced me to use the life preserving cards that my family gave me!"

　　Saying that, Erin looked towards a pendant covered with gorgeous patterns that she was holding in her hand, which was inlaid with one gold and one blue gemstone, but the dark blue gemstone that was originally as deep as the sea was already covered with spiderweb-like cracks at this time.

It was a precious magic crystal that could permanently store fourth-order magic, and stored within it was this majestic ice castle-fourth-order ice defense spell-Eternal Star Palace.

And what was stored in that golden magic crystal that seemed to have an ocean of light inside was also defensive magic, fourth-order light defense magic-Sacred Wing Embrace.

　　"Alas! I don't know if Keleia has escaped yet, I'm here fighting to the death to help her buy time, if she hasn't escaped, then even if I turn into a pig in my next life, I'll still arch her to death!"

　　Speaking here, Irene simply closed her eyes and directly lay down, she had great confidence in this ice fortress, those people outside should not be able to come in for a while.

　　Outside, Li Xue carefully kept approaching the main gate of the Ice Cold Fortress at a very slow speed. As he approached with extreme caution, he carefully observed this mysterious Ice Cold Fortress through the optical zoom on his tactical armor.

　　Through the ultra-high-definition optical imaging, Li Xue could clearly see the ancient and complicated pattern on top of the castle gate. Although he could not understand whether the pattern had any special purpose or was simply a decoration, the pattern looked very beautiful to Li Xue.

　　This also confirmed his suspicion that this was not an alien castle, but a human product.

　　Although Li Xue couldn't tell whether the shape of this ice castle was an earthly architectural genre or not, it was very much in line with human aesthetics, whether it was from its overall shape or its decorations, this was undoubtedly an extremely beautiful building.

　　Moreover, according to the data feedback from the detector, the height of the steps leading to the gate of this ice palace was around one hundred and sixty millimeters, although slightly higher than the usual common steps, there was no doubt that these stairs were very much in line with the human body's design, created to allow a human being or a humanoid-type creature to walk on.

　　Moreover, the most important point, the one who just attacked Huang Xing was indeed a human, dozens of pairs of eyes and high-definition cameras were watching.

　　However, what made Li Xue even more perplexed was that if it was true that a certain power really had the technology to create a cold ice fortress out of thin air in the middle of this desert, then their level of technology was simply not something that the current humans could look up to. And why would they use such backward means of defense as ice balls and ice fortresses?

　　Although this ice fortress was very sturdy, it was only for a single weapon. And the fact that the rocket just hit it without a hitch also shows that this fortress has no active defense measures at all.

　　Under the firepower of modern warfare, unless your fortress could withstand nuclear weapons, it would be of little use. According to Li Xue's estimation, this ice fortress was able to withstand a 250-kilogram high-explosive bomb, which was not bad at all.

　　This fortress that was built with extremely high "technology" had no other highlights except that it was quite sturdy and beautiful, and this huge contradiction made Li Xue and those bigwigs who watched the battlefield footage through the drones and battlefield recorders fall into deep confusion!

　　"Drip drip drip!" Right at this moment, an alarm sounded, a reminder that it was less than 20 meters away from the Ice Castle, after all, no one dared to get too close in the face of such an unknown contraption.

　　When Li Xue heard this reminder, he immediately stopped, and then began to slowly circle around this ice fortress. The same over the battlefield recorder was constantly collecting all sorts of information on the details of this fortress.

　　"Arrived at the predetermined strike airspace, the first strike will take place in three minutes, please prepare friendly units to resist the impact, over."

The sound coming from the headset pulled Li Xue's mind back, hearing the body sound coming from the headset, Li Xue quickly carried the assault rifle to the weapon mount behind him, and with the help of the tactical armor, he almost darted at a speed of forty kilometers per hour to a small sandbag behind a hundred away. At the same time, the thirty-second countdown to the start of the strike was displayed on the information windows of all the team members.

　　The Nightingale, who was fifteen kilometers away and piloting a J-25, made sure that all friendly units were outside of his attack kill radius under the shared information from the battlefield situational awareness datalink, and said in the command channel, "Commencement of firepower drop."

　　He reached out his hand and tapped on the monitor in front of him, seeing the two missile icons below the wings of the fighter simulation on the monitor change from green to red, his thumb gently pressed the electric button, the fuselage gently shook, and the two air-to-ground missiles were detached from the weapon mounts under the wings.

　　After the missiles descended about tens of meters, the engine ignited and the tail nozzle pulled out two orange-red tail flames, just like a meteor that crossed the sky, speeding towards the target.

　　Reducing nearly three tons of weight, the J-25's fuselage shook for a while, but under the regulation of the intelligent power compensation system, the fuselage quickly stabilized.

　　The distance of fifteen kilometers was almost instantaneous under the high speed of Mach 2 of the air-to-ground missiles, and the missiles rushed towards the ice fortress almost in no particular order in the ear-splitting whistling sound.

　　Irene, who was in the ice fortress, closing her eyes to restore her strength, suddenly bounced up directly from the ground, a burst of blue light flashed, and almost instantly summoned the Ice Goddess. This was the emergency mode of the divine machine, after sensing a great crisis, it would surface directly from within the summoning space.

　　Sensing that life and death crisis, Ayrin almost didn't hesitate to invoke that remaining light defense magic. She didn't think that she could withstand that upcoming terrifying blow with just an Eternal Star Palace.

　　After all, the Eternal Star Palace was designed to be used as a fortification for a large number of soldiers on top of the battlefield, sacrificing defense in exchange for the prolonged existence of magic. Although it was also a fourth-order magic, the Holy Wings' Embrace was used for one-time defense, and its extremely short existence time was exchanged for a defensive power far beyond that of the Eternal Star Palace.

　　Under Li Xue's gaze, those two air-to-ground missiles were only a few seconds away from the Ice Cold Bastion when suddenly, a whole intense white-golden light filled the entire field of vision.

　　Only a blurry silhouette with six wings on its back emerged from that white-golden pillar of light. That silhouette was noble and holy, like a deity above the nine heavens. The six white feathered wings stretched forward like an impenetrable divine shield, wrapping around the ice fortress.

　　In the next instant, an even more intense light erupted, and two huge fireballs exploded from the shield wings, followed by a huge sound wave and a shockwave like a grade twelve typhoon that swept across everything in the surroundings, interspersed with countless debris and dirt clods that struck on top of Li Xue's tactical armor, emitting a clanging and clanging sound, as if it was a heavy metal orchestra that was forgetting about its music.

　　When the fire and smoke cleared, Li Xue looked towards the center of the explosion, and the huge white-gold figure had already disappeared. And although there were cracks all over the ice fortress, it still stood there firmly.