After Shangguan Bing Xue took the life of the Third Order goblin and shot down the zeppelin, she was immediately forced to engage the goblin aircraft fleet with no time to rest at all.
Explosions came and went, and the skies constantly lit up due to the activation of different magical skills or as a result of the clash between two powerful physical attacks. The magic cannons located on the sides of the large zeppelins fired with barely any intervals in between, causing powerful booms that rumbled through the dense clouds of mana where white lightning flashed with great power; enough to turn a First Order existence into ashes in a matter of seconds!
After twenty minutes of fighting with practically 0-second rest, even Shangguan Bing Xue began to experience problems.
If this battle was taking place on the ground then things might be different, however, in the sky where there was no place to run it was already a miracle that a Second Order existence was still alive after facing dozens of Second or Third Order existences, as well as the fierce magic cannons capable of threatening the lives of peak Second Order existences with ease.
BOOM!!!
“Ice Shield!”
The explosion of one of the magic cannons on the zeppelin closest to her boomed practically at the same time as Shangguan Bing Xue’s beautiful voice echoed through the clouds. She was in the middle of a jump making it impossible to do anything else!
BOOOM!!!
The ice shield managed to withstand the fierce shot for a few seconds before turning into small ice fragments that rained down everywhere. Fortunately, that time was more than enough for Shangguan Bing Xue to complete her trajectory.
“Lady Shaggnguan! Are you all right?!”
The combat helicopter pilot shouted hurriedly. His face was going anxious and serious as he performed evasive maneuvers, trying to get as far away from the magic cannons as possible and just like his companions launching missiles when the opportunity presented itself.
“Focus on your task!” Shangguan Bing Xue shouted in reply before kicking hard and jumping off the helicopter. She activated Ice Maker just in time, creating a platform of ice that she used as a thruster to kick with every drop of her power and launch herself towards the nearest goblin zeppelin.
The helicopter pilot gritted his teeth and kept moving. The explosions echoed one after the other and with limited vision due to the clouds of mana, it was difficult to dodge properly but at the same time, it made it easy to hide in the sky.
“Die!” The eyes of the goblin standing on top of the zeppelin Shangguan Bing Xue was heading towards widened and after letting out a ferocious roar he launched the bone arrow he had been charging for several seconds.
BANG!
The distance between Shangguan Bing Xue and the goblin was about 1000 meters but all she saw was a flash of yellow light before the arrow hit her. This was a really powerful skill launched by a Third Order existence!
BOOOM!!!
The surrounding clouds of mana were dispersed as the explosion mingled with the white lightning, creating chaos of astonishing magnitude in the skies.
The goblin sighed in relief when he saw that his attack hit the target correctly. His skill, Invisible Arrow, was named that way because the enemy would only be able to see the last flash of light just before its body was hit and unless the Agility difference between him and the enemy was too high, it was an attack that simply could not be avoided.
However, the goblin was a Third Order existence that focused on Agility since his job was related to archery. Therefore, he believed that there was no way his Agility was inferior to that human female’s! At the very least, the difference should not be big!
Just at that moment, just a split second after the attack hit something and the goblin relaxed, a silver flash shone in the creature’s line of sight.
“Kiol, be careful!”
The anxious roar of another goblin in the distance mingled with the crack of fierce thunder.
Despite the warning, the goblin called Kiol could no longer move with complete freedom…. Because the lower half of his body had at some moment been enveloped in thick layers of ice that would require 2-3 seconds to break apart.
Shangguan Bing Xue, who thanks to her great combat experience, as well as a bit of luck had used the second activation of Lightning Movement to create a clone of herself at the last moment and then used the momentum of the explosion to get closer to the goblin faster, appeared from behind the creature.
Her blue eyes were so cold that just looking at her could send chills down anyone’s spine. Her sword turned into a silver flash that lit up the skies when she activated Cosmic Sword.
Swoosh!
The silver light sliced and passed beyond Kiol before continuing to fly and cut a cloud of mana into two halves, crushing even the lightning in the process.
Kiol’s body was cut into two perfect halves from the bottom to the top. Blood splattered everywhere and the internal organs were quickly blown away by the strong winds.
Shangguan Bing Xue immediately picked up the green-colored orb and put it in her bag before stomping hard on the zeppelin to launch herself towards another attack helicopter that happened to be flying closer.
BOOOOOM!!!
It hadn’t even been a second since she’d been away from there when the goblin zeppelin from before exploded, turning into a huge fireball that slowly began to fall from the sky and picking up speed with every passing fraction of a second.
The skies lit up brightly and Shangguan Bing Xue winced as the shockwave resulting from the previous explosion mercilessly struck her back. Amidst the cataclysm occurring in the sky, an insignificant sound of pain slipped from her tightly closed lips as her body was sent flying out of control.
She quickly created an ice shield several meters ahead, and ignoring the pain she was suffering internally, she stomped hard in another direction.
BOOOOOOOOM!!!
Not long after, the shield was completely destroyed after receiving two cannon shots and three magic attacks at the same time; if Shangguan Bing Xue had taken just an instant, her body would have been reduced to ashes!
This had been the battlefield where Shangguan Bing Xue had been fighting with her life on the edge every second for over twenty minutes!
Because Shangguan Bing Xue was being attacked from all directions, she had no choice but to spend most of the time dodging and moving through the sky in search of the best opportunity before launching a “safe” attack. So far, Shangguan Bing Xue had managed to kill 4 Third Order and 10 Second Order enemies, she had also shot down a total of 7 zeppelins by herself. However, the number of zeppelins destroyed so far counted over 20.
There were some zeppelins that were shot down by the experienced pilots of the combat helicopters, at the end of the day, although the zeppelins were much more powerful than a combat helicopter built with the technology of the past, the goblins were not brilliant creatures, and did not have rich experience in the air like the pilots of the Chinese army. Therefore, after being hit by a couple of missiles at crucial points, there were two or three zeppelins that fell from the skies and crushed countless goblins on the ground.
As for the other part of destroyed zeppelins…. They were all destroyed by the goblins themselves!
The first time this happened, Shangguan Bing Xue was taken by surprise and suffered internal injuries when she was caught in the explosion of one of the zeppelins; had she not reacted at the last moment and covered herself with a thick layer of ice containing 1/3 of her total Mana, she would have died!
That was a reminder to Shangguan Bing Xue; she was not facing humans, they were monsters!
Goblins were cruel creatures regardless of whether it was Unranked or Third Order, these green creatures did not hesitate for a second to kill the goblins inside the allied zeppelins in an attempt to kill Shangguan Bing Xue or at least inflict wounds on her.
Due to all these reasons, Shangguan Bing Xue had no choice but to be very careful. Worst of all, she not only had to dodge, look for opportunities, attack, and protect herself… she also had to protect the combat helicopters!
If it weren’t for her, all the helicopters would have been destroyed and the pilots killed by now. However, even then, three of the combat helicopters had been shot down so far.
Five minutes later, another helicopter went down.
BOOM!!!
…. Seconds later, another helicopter was shot down.
Shangguan Bing Xue gritted her teeth and even with her first-rate education couldn’t help but curse softly but hatefully, “Damn it!”
The goblins had changed tactics.
Instead of focusing on Shangguan Bing Xue, which was clearly the greatest danger, the goblins began to target the combat helicopters. With Second and Third Order existences, as well as more than 35 zeppelins completely focusing their attacks on them, no matter how effective and brilliant the human pilots were, their fighter helicopters were simply deficient and they quickly began to fall.
Seconds later, another helicopter was shot down by a magical lightning bolt launched by a goblin that clearly focused on Magic more than any other statistic.
The goblins had discovered Shangguan Bing Xue’s weakness; the combat helicopters! She needed the combat helicopters as a foothold and without them, it would be a matter of time before her Mana would be depleted by creating constant ice platforms!
Without the helicopters as a foothold, Shangguan Bing Xue would have to use the zeppelins. But this would leave her open to suffer more injuries and attacks that would quickly drain her Stamina, and she might even die due to how risky it was to use her enemies’ territory as a foothold.
The worst part of all this was that Shangguan Bing Xue could not simply abandon this battlefield and head for the ground; this was because if she allowed the aerea goblin force and the powerhouses she was containing in the clouds to reach the ground, the humans would be wiped out and the base would suffer disastrous consequences.
To put it bluntly, Shangguan Bing Xue was in deep trouble right now and as a consequence the entire human base was.
“Ice Swords!”
“Ice Spears!”
“Ice Apocalypse!”
“Inferno!”
“Ice Shield!”
“Blizzard!”
“…”
Time continued to pass and Shangguan Bing Xue was forced to give her 200%. Unfortunately, it was not easy to face so many powerful enemies at the same time, let alone when those enemies were supported by advanced machinery; this was not counting the fact that Shangguan Bing Xue also needed to protect the combat helicopters!
Even though she gave it her all, in this kind of battlefield that did not favor her at all, the beautiful ice princess experienced for the first time in a long time that feeling of powerlessness that she hated so much.
All of her created ice weapons were shattered by the Third Order goblins even before they approached the zeppelins, all of her ice shields were destroyed with a single hit from the magic cannons so they only delayed the inevitable when the helicopters continued to be destroyed, her strongest skills with several minutes of cooldown time only served to eliminate 5 zeppelins and end the lives of 5 enemies.
In normal times, Inferno could easily destroy tens of thousands of enemies. But due to the distance from each zeppelin to each goblin, Shangguan Bing Xue had to use such a strong skill to kill a single enemy and take down a single zeppelin.
By the time there were only 3 combat helicopters left, Shangguan Bing Xue’s chest was rising and falling heavily. Her beautiful face was as pale as paper and her eyes were slightly exhausted. A thin trickle of blood fell from the corner of her lips and dripped onto the breastplate of her armor continuously.
She had really been doing her best, but she had not expected to face something like this.
For the first time, Shangguan Bing Xue felt that she could not win.
Ironies of life… She, who possessed all kinds of crowd control skills to buy time and fight for long periods against numerous enemies, had not even been able to persist for 30 minutes.
Even more ironic, however, this was the first serious battlefield she had fought on without Bai Zemin. And yet, here she was… taking a beating despite having so much power in her hands.
She had chosen the path she walked subconsciously, but now, Shangguan Bing Xue had realized that she needed another person whose fighting style and path were completely different from hers.
There was only one person who met such requirements, but that person was far away.
It had only been about 35 minutes since Shangguan Bing Xue had contacted Bai Zemin, and for him to arrive from the north would probably take 5-10 minutes more. She really had no hope it seemed.
BOOOM!!!
Another helicopter went down.
Just when there were only two allied helicopters left, just when Shangguan Bing Xue felt her heart sinking, the sky covered by purple clouds suddenly turned deep blue.
What sounded like a phoenix announcing its arrival resounded amidst the sky that was neither day nor night.
Shangguan Bing Xue raised her head to the sky and her eyes sparkled brightly. In her pupils, a deep but bright blue flash that moved too fast even for her broke from great heights, turning into something similar to a line that linked the heavens with the earth.
BOOOOOOOOM!!!
Under the shocked eyes of the goblins, one of the zeppelins was pierced from top to bottom by that line of deep blue light. The aircraft exploded and turned into a metal fireball plummeting to the ground, devouring the lives of the goblin pilots and the Second Order goblin standing on top.
However, that was only the beginning of the nightmare of the goblins and their war machines.
