The explosion was terrifyingly powerful, but it did not appear to have completely destroyed the entire BETA Hive.
It looked as if the Hive had been left half-collapsed.
"All units, lower altitude. Prepare to intercept BETA!"
The warning came from the captain.
The anti-BETA radar had detected vibrations and acoustic signatures. BETA were about to surge out onto the surface.
The order to lower altitude was meant to guard against Laser-class irradiation.
Five seconds after the warning, Cui Yifei noticed BETA crawling out from several drift tunnels that led to the surface.
In the span of a single breath, more began crawling out from additional openings.
The scene looked like someone had stuffed a firecracker into a termite nest and set it off. The nest had not been fully destroyed, so the surviving termites inside were enraged and came swarming out onto the surface.
"All units, this is the retreat route. Once we reach this area, the fleet offshore will support us with covering fire and provide cov-"
The captain's voice cut off before she could finish saying "cover."
It was not because she had been hit by a Laser-class. The scene before them was simply confusing.
The BETA did not seem to intend to attack them. Instead, they seemed to be wandering aimlessly. That phenomenon left everyone puzzled.
"Captain, what's going on?"
"I don't know."
The captain sounded helpless. Did this Cui Yifei think she was an encyclopedia?
There seemed to be many BETA surging onto the surface, but in reality, for the scale of an entire Hive, more than half of them were already gone.
Clearly, the previous explosion had eliminated nearly seventy percent of the BETA.
The captain found that deeply regrettable. If her country could obtain technology from a machine like that, then there would be hope of reclaiming their lost territory. Many of their citizens would no longer have to live under other people's roofs.
After all, only a TSF with that kind of power could...
Yifei froze, almost unable to believe what she was seeing.
After the Heavy Laser-class fired, the beam was actually scattered and reflected away.
It was like a beam of light striking an irregular mirror, then being broken into countless scattered rays.
This was different from the way he had intercepted laser irradiation before.
When the beam ended, the figure was revealed.
It was...
"What the hell is that?!"
Exactly as she said. What was that thing?
It looked like a TSF, but on closer inspection, the material that made up its armor was not any metal they recognized. It looked like the same material as the Hive structures that protruded above the surface.
The difference was that this material was much smoother and looked extremely close to metal.
Or rather, it looked as if the surface had been plated with a smooth layer of crystal, giving it a metallic texture.
In addition, there was material resembling the Mohs-hardness shell of a Destroyer-class, forming the thing's main armor, leg armor, knee armor, elbow armor, and shoulder armor.
That too looked polished, giving it a metallic sheen.
Every seemingly important joint was protected by this kind of armor.
Especially the hands. The fingers looked like claws, or like the pincers of a Grappler-class BETA, polished to the same glossy finish.
There were also gaps not covered by armor. For example, along the outer thighs, she could see a segmented structure like that of a Fortress-class. That structure existed so the Fortress-class's scorpionlike tail could bend freely.
Its head was unusual too, especially the mouth. It could actually split open, and at this moment, faint vapor was being exhaled from it.
Then, at the eye region, the eyes suddenly lit up.
In the next instant, two beams fired out and tore apart the Heavy Laser-class's body.
The sight immediately sent a chill down their spines, because those eye-mounted beams had no laser emitter like a human weapon would. The beams had been fired from crystal, making them extremely similar to the attack pattern of a Laser-class.
"S-Sis, what... what is that?"
A trembling voice rang out in the cockpit of an Su-37UB Terminator third-generation TSF. Because it was a tandem-seat model, it had two pilots.
Sitting inside were a pair of sisters, and the younger sister was extremely young. Calling her a little girl would not be much of an exaggeration.
From their angle, they could see half of the alien thing's back. On that back were three eerie pairs of wings.
They resembled beetle wings in structure. The hard outer shell-wings did not beat. Instead, another layer of soft wings inside provided the power.
The wings were not large, so they probably could not be seen from the front.
There was another difference as well. These were not beetlelike rounded covers. They had a shape closer to aircraft wings.
No. The wings were not only on its back. They were also on its head, wrists, and the sides of its ankles.
Because those parts were relatively small, they did not look like wings. They looked more like feathers.
And feathers were different from wings.
Looking closely, those feathers and wings were slightly distorted and drifting. It felt like a long-haired woman standing before a fierce current of wind, her hair blown straight backward, yet still trembling faintly like a flag in the wind.
The surrounding space was also faintly distorted. The scan results suggested that the interior was releasing high-speed heat currents, warping the air while generating lift that allowed the thing to float.
But that still was not the strangest part.
The hornlike armor protruding from its shoulders suddenly split open.
It felt like an upside-down mouth opening.
The next second, hundreds upon thousands of wirelike things shot out at supersonic speed.
They did not only shoot toward the sisters' side. They also fired forward, stabbing into the BETA of all sizes around that thing.
This was extremely strange, because judging visually, if so many BETA at those distances were stabbed, then the total volume of "wires" required would be far more than that machine could possibly contain.
No way.
"S-Sis!"
The younger sister's voice became even more terrified. As the older sister, fear began growing in her heart as well, but she could not show it. She could not increase her sister's unease.
Because those were not wires.
They looked like the same thing as a Fortress-class's tail, only now miniaturized to an absurd degree, with terrifying stretchability like rubber bands.
And one had to remember that a Fortress-class tail was only fifty meters long. Even if it could stretch like rubber, at most it could extend by another few dozen meters.
How far had the longest one in front of them extended?
One kilometer.
After being stretched that far, they naturally became extremely thin, giving the impression that they could be snapped with the slightest tug.
As for the BETA that had been stabbed, they instantly stopped attacking that thing.
The next second, those BETA turned around and lunged at their own kind.
A scene of BETA slaughtering one another unfolded before their eyes.
But it brought no sense of surprise. Only horror.
Because an incredible new BETA strain might have been born.
A Tactical Surface Fighter-class BETA.
(End of Chapter)
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