Homo Sapiens

Fan Yunfeng nodded.

”I agree with this plan, but we don’t have any personnel specialized in hydroelectric plant construction. It would be best to have headquarters send some experts over from Hongsawaddy.”

”Mm, it’s settled then. I’ll report to headquarters in a few days.”

「8:00 PM.」

The small mountain village was deep in the quiet of the night.

Only a single streetlamp at the village entrance stubbornly cast a faint glimmer of light.

But deep beneath the small village, bathed in the glow of bioluminescent lichen, everything was brightly lit. An artificial ecosystem, almost entirely independent of the surface, had formed here.

In the base’s small auditorium, the vast majority of its more than seven hundred members were sitting ramrod straight in their seats.

Seka’s voice wasn’t loud. Instead, it was transmitted through synchronized earpieces.

”Colleagues! On behalf of the main company, I am now conveying the latest directive. Project Mountain Torrent is officially underway. All departments are to commence operations according to the original plan.”

Being underground, everyone was accustomed to speaking softly, mainly to reduce the intensity of sound vibrations through the rock strata.

The Xilong base entered a state of emergency, and everyone busied themselves with combat preparations.

The logistics team prepared combat supplies for everyone, while the communications and intelligence teams fully coordinated with nearby sleeper agents.

The special combat group consisted of about 500 combatants, divided into five squadrons.

「3:00 AM.」

Inside the air force base near Xilong.

A few drowsy sentries were idly chatting.

Suddenly, their bodies felt heavy. Before they could even raise an alarm, they were taken down by New Human soldiers hiding in the shadows.

The pheromone signal to commence the operation spread throughout the entire air force base.

Under the command of Battalion Commander Xiong Zhen, several hundred infiltrated New Human security officers moved like midnight ghosts.

Aside from the sentries on duty tonight,

the airport control tower, radar station, and communications station—all staffed by the night shift—were the first areas to be captured.

Air Force Lieutenant General Mike was still carousing with a few subordinates. It was his birthday, so he had thrown a party in the base’s mess hall. All the officers on base were there.

The heavily drunk Mike suddenly pitched forward and collapsed onto a sofa.

The other officers had also been drinking to varying degrees, so no one immediately noticed anything amiss. It wasn’t until more and more people started collapsing that a few of the more sober officers finally realized something was wrong.

”Something’s wrong! Xiaoxingge!” Big Beard subconsciously reached for his belt. Grasping only air, he cursed inwardly. ’Shit! I don’t have my gun!’

His nephew, Xiaoxingge, was about to shout for help when he found a hand clamped over his mouth. His eyes widened as he struggled, feeling his body grow heavier and heavier.

In less than five minutes, all the officers in the mess hall were lying on the floor.

Xiong Zhen led his subordinates, effortlessly taking the hangars, armory, maintenance yard, and pilots’ dormitories before converging in the base’s underground air defense command center.

[What’s the situation?]

[Report! Squadron 2 has completed its mission...]

[Report! Squadron 3...]

After listening to the reports from each squadron leader, Xiong Zhen nodded in satisfaction and issued his next order over the pheromone communication channel:

[Begin phase two of the mission.]

[Roger.]

Understanding that speed is paramount in war, Xiong Zhen and the tech team personnel quickly began modifying the entire Xilong Military Airport.

Squadron 2 rounded up and detained all the Tianzhu soldiers and officers.

Squadron 3, in coordination with the tech team, began a complete wipe of all electronic equipment inside the airbase.

Squadron 4 was modifying the airport’s anti-aircraft weapons.

Squadron 5 was sorting the weapons and ammunition in the armory.

Meanwhile, Squadron 1 was modifying the aircraft. The Assam Branch actually had no intention of using Tianzhu’s jets as their own fighters.

Even the presence of 30 Su-30s didn’t tempt them in the slightest. The reason was that Tianzhu’s aircraft maintenance departments were utter trash. The accident rate for any jet serviced by those guys would skyrocket.

Therefore, Xiong Zhen’s modification plan was very simple.

He would simply recycle the junk. The planes would be used as consumables. After being fully refueled, they would all be fitted with special biological autopilot computers to replace human pilots.

「Three hours later.」

The sky was still dark.

With the assistance of ground crews, all the fighter jets at Xilong Airport took off one after another. They were divided into seven waves, heading for various Tianzhu air force bases.

Because they had long since gathered internal intelligence on Xilong Airport, they easily faked the Tianzhu Air Force’s bi-hourly security check-ins.

At Abad, the closest Tianzhu air force base to Xilong Airport, radar operators saw six Su-30s rapidly approaching.

The ground controller in the tower flipped through the internal flight plans but found no record of this flight. He immediately had someone fetch his supervisor while hailing the aircraft.

”This is Abad, flight S67, please state your flight mission...”

”...HSSS... This is flight S67. Mission codename: Blue Sky...”

”...” The controller was completely baffled. He couldn’t find anything related to that on the mission list. He asked again and got the same response.

Just then, the drowsy supervisor walked unhappily into the control tower.

”What’s going on?”

”Six Su-30 fighter jets from Xilong Airport are planning to land here, but I can’t find any record of their flight mission...”

The supervisor frowned. ”Did you get a clear answer?”

”I asked twice. Both times they said the codename was Blue Sky,” the controller replied, his expression saying, ’It’s your call now.’

The supervisor glanced at the radar. The six planes were already within 60 kilometers of the airport. He then checked the time—it was only 6:43 AM. His own superior was probably still asleep, and calling at this hour would just be asking for trouble.

He waved his hand dismissively. ”It’s probably a classified mission. Guide them in for a landing. We’ll figure it out then.”

”No problem.” The controller quickly notified the six Su-30s in the air, instructing them to follow the tower’s guidance and prepare for landing.

However, they never could have imagined that the moment the six Su-30s flew over the airport would be the beginning of their nightmare.

A dozen air-to-ground missiles shot out.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM...

Fierce explosions engulfed the airport’s hangars, radar station, communications station, and maintenance yard. In an instant, flames shot to the sky and thick smoke billowed upwards.

The supervisor in the control tower was already consumed by the sea of fire.

A shrill air-raid siren instantly blared across the entire base.

But the six Su-30s had already launched more than half of their carried munitions.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM...

The explosions further devastated the entire airport.

Then, the six Su-30s quickly flew away, heading for another alternate military airfield nearby.

Because their flight times and speeds were coordinated, around the same time Abad Airport was being destroyed, several other air force bases and airports also came under heavy attack.

Of the more than five hundred primary aircraft in active service with the Tianzhu Air Force, over 80% were lost in this surprise attack.

Meanwhile, the ”Assam” air force, which had the element of surprise, lost only 17 aircraft to anti-aircraft missiles.

As for the unmanned flight systems installed in the cockpits, the moment a plane was destroyed, the autopilot device would be ejected. Then, the thermite charge encasing the biological computer and its connection hardware would ignite.

Under the intense heat, the biological computer and its auxiliary equipment, which had little protection to begin with, were completely incinerated.

The fighter jets that successfully returned did not rest.

They underwent a simple inspection, refueled, were re-armed with munitions, and took off again to provide support across various locations in Assam.