CH 442

C442: Preemptive Strike

The fired four-element cannon strikes Elysia’s magicrafts group, whose shields have been rendered defenseless by Farma’s Arrow Rain. Armor peels off, limbs are ripped off, and the machines are cruelly destroyed.

The range of the four-element cannon’s attack is about 20-30% of the Elysian Imperial Army’s, but the whole army is clearly unnerved by the spectacular surprise attack. Furthermore, the morale of the allied forces exploded at once after they saw the spectacle of a successful first strike.

Although outnumbered, they were sure they could win in this atmosphere. The Elysian Empire was in a state of confusion, but it quickly regrouped and moved into an attack position, as it had a solid chain of command.

Ignoring the magicrafts of their fallen comrades, they resumed their advance toward the allied forces positioned in the mountain pass.

Something even more unexpected happened.

“Yuta! Look at that!”

Farma’s voice made me look ahead. It was an amazing sight. Nearly a hundred enemy magicrafts were flying in the sky, heading toward us. Flying magicrafts are rare and have not been seen in many battles, so we were under the illusion that we were the only ones who could fly, but there was no guarantee that flying was our specialty.

Oh no, we are trying to fight with the advantage of the high ground, but when the enemy has a unit like that, it weakens our advantage.

“We’re going to hit that flying squadron, Farma! If we let them make it to the pass, it’s going to be a problem.”

“Yeah.”

The plan was to join our allies and help them in the defense, but we could not ignore that flying squadron. We decided to leave the ground work to Nanami and Emina, and to give priority to the extermination of the flying squadron.

The enemy air force, perhaps feeling threatened by our powerful attack from the sky, was moving toward us in an effort to eliminate us as quickly as possible.

From the movement of the enemy’s flying magicrafts, it seemed that we had overwhelming flying ability. They were not very fast, and it did not seem to be very maneuverable. However, we cannot let our guard down. Above all, there were a lot of them, and the weapons they were carrying were eerie.

“Yuta, I’ve never seen weapons like the enemy magicrafts have, they look like the ones Emina has, but……”

The weapons the enemy flying units were equipped with were not swords or spears, but rather shaped like large, two-handed bow guns. However, I could not see any mechanism for loading arrows or other kinds of ammo, and could not imagine how they would attack.

But this mystery was soon revealed by the enemy’s behavior. As they approached us, they stopped a few dozen meters in front of us. Then, all at once, they raised their weapons toward us.

I had a bad premonition that the enemy magicrafts weapons looked like shotguns, like the ones you see in movie gun-action scenes.

”Farma! Emergency ascent!!!!”

Farma responds to my voice and flies Garuda II further up into the sky. At the same time, red light was emitted from the enemy’s weapons. The light extended in a straight line like a laser beam and came at us.

“It seems to be an optical weapon. It is a powerful weapon that can damage even the armor of Arleo-2 if it has a high output. I recommend avoiding it.”

Feri warned me but I was avoiding it before she said so because it looked dangerous.

Garuda II avoided the laser beam with its menacing upward acceleration and escaped far into the sky. Since the attack was designed to damage the super-hard armor of Arleo II, I shuddered just imagining what would have happened if it had hit Garuda II, whose armor was relatively weak.