Chapter Fifty-Seven: Swords Drawn and Bows Bent

The route was already so familiar that Lei Dong’s return was even faster than when he had rushed to the statue of the Holy Emperor of Light. Ten minutes later, the Byrne 777 appeared before him.

No one in the team, apart from Wu Yun who kept waggling his eyebrows meaningfully, made any special comment about Lei Dong carrying Shui Yaoxian back on his back. Judging from the anxious look on their faces, they had no room for teasing.

Gently, without disturbing her in the slightest, he laid the meditating Shui Yaoxian—her eyes half-closed in concentration—on the spacious floor of the first-class cabin, where she could continue to absorb the medicine’s power undisturbed.

Already, Shui Yaoxian’s breathing had grown much steadier and stronger. It seemed that in just these ten minutes, the “Elixir of Life’s Genesis” was working wonders within her.

“If only she can recover quickly enough, she might still play a significant role in the coming battle,” Lei Dong thought, only to feel ashamed of himself the next moment—after all, she was still gravely injured, and a woman besides.

He shook his head, gave a lingering glance at Shui Yaoxian, who seemed oblivious to the world outside, then turned and walked into the business cabin. There, his comrades were still waiting for him, ready to finalize the battle plan together.

“What do you think?” Huang Xiwen asked, handing over the plan they had drafted.

The strategy was not complicated. Lei Dong studied it for several minutes, and when he reached the end, he looked up in surprise. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the strongest among us. Only you can bear this responsibility,” Huang Xiwen replied gravely. “Remember, our primary mission is to ensure the safety of the more than two hundred passengers—and to get the documents and intelligence we need most safely back to Hanjing. For this, we must give our all and fight at our very best.”

Lei Dong’s expression grew solemn. He lifted his head and answered loudly, “Yes! I guarantee to complete the mission!”

Huang Xiwen smiled with relief and clapped Lei Dong on the shoulder. “These two hundred people are counting on you.”

Lei Dong nodded silently. After a moment’s thought, a sly, cold smile suddenly appeared on his face. Wu Yun shivered involuntarily—he knew that look all too well. It used to appear only on Lang Tianyu’s face, but ever since Lei Dong had trained with Lang Tianyu as a sniper, that expression had become more and more common on Lei Dong as well.

And whenever Lei Dong wore that look, it meant someone was in for trouble.

Wu Yun felt a chill along his spine as Lei Dong spoke slowly, “However, I have a suggestion…”

—

In the ink-black night sky, a Minia Heracles transport plane sped toward the Island of the Holy Emperor of Light at an altitude of ten thousand meters.

Inside the cockpit, John Parkinson shivered uncontrollably as he wiped his forehead, mumbling, “Holy Emperor preserve us, Holy Emperor preserve us…”

That hellish storm just now had truly wrung a cold sweat from the burly, red-and-gold-bearded captain. Despite skirting the edge of the storm, the turbulent air currents had grown wild, and for more than half an hour, the plane shook and jolted like a leaf in a gale.

Had it not been for his experience and his copilot’s steady hands on the yoke, this thirty-meter-long, forty-three-meter-winged, thirty-four-ton, seven-thousand-kilometer-range transport, carrying over a hundred Poseidon commandos, might have been blown who knows where by the hurricane. And he and his whole company would have been off to meet the Holy Emperor themselves.

John Parkinson took a long breath, which did little to calm his nerves, checked the altimeter, verified their position with the GPS, and reached out with trembling fingers to prepare the jump signal.

The scene in the cabin, however, was very different.

The Heracles transport, a mid-twentieth-century military workhorse, had served the Minia Federation’s forces for over sixty years. After countless upgrades, it spawned a whole series of variants and remained the backbone of the transport fleet.

This particular craft, ferrying over a hundred Poseidon commandos from Beck’s company, was a model designed and built early this century—already more than twenty years in service, and showing its age. Like all Heracles transports, this latest old-timer had no windows apart from the cockpit. The air conditioning system struggled against the deafening drone of four turboprop engines, but the cabin was stuffy nonetheless.

At least, after taking off from their subtropical base, enduring the storm, and arriving in the chilly temperate seas, the stifling, sweaty heat had finally given way to cooler air.

This brought some relief to the fully armed commandos, who lounged on the wide, flat floor—most of them asleep. Since the moment they received the order to take off, encountered the storm and were called back, only to be redeployed before even landing—because the special squad from that ancient Red Republic had already reached the seas near the Holy Emperor’s island—they had barely had time for a quick midnight snack. The sweet pine-nut liquor had hardly touched their lips before they were ordered back onto the plane for another long, exhausting flight, and through the storm’s violent turbulence. They were worn out. Besides, resting up before battle was a cardinal rule—by now, it was second nature.

Only a handful of the most energetic, led by Captain Yark Bevin, were still wide awake, talking loudly and animatedly—as if the recent ordeal had been a shot of adrenaline, not a brush with death. Yet their raised voices and trembling hands betrayed their nerves.

“I hate flying in the Heracles—it feels like an old, airless train car. By the Holy Emperor, I can hardly breathe!” grumbled the burly radio operator, Sergeant Zavis.

“Hey, Sergeant Taylor, how long has it been since your gun saw some action? Are you going stir-crazy? Is it even working anymore?” a big black sergeant shouted at Taylor, who clutched a .50-caliber sniper rifle.

“May the Holy Emperor see you damned to hell, you bastard—my gun’s as lively as a python, loaded and ready to make you beg for mercy!” Taylor scoffed, shooting a look at the big sergeant. “But you, dear Sergeant Yasen, is your rear itching again?”

The cabin erupted in laughter as men of every complexion egged them on.

The big sergeant rolled his eyes and shouted, “You bastard, just try me—I’ll have you begging on your knees like your mother: ‘Oh Holy Emperor, come and get me—’” He pinched his voice to a shrill imitation, and the cabin dissolved into a raucous medley of whistles and laughter.

As the tension mounted between these perennial rivals, a platoon leader hurried to change the subject: “You two, cut it out. Better think about the fight ahead!”

It worked. Taylor and Yasen glared at each other, then both burst out laughing. Yasen spat contemptuously. “A fight? Do you really think there will be a fight? Aren’t we just facing a simple massacre?”

For once, Taylor agreed, tightening his grip on the rifle and sneering, “Those yellow-skinned monkeys? Lieutenant Morton, do you think those yellow-skinned monkeys will actually fight us? Those inferior mongrels—I could blast their asses all on my own!”

The noise and cursing grew only louder.

Throughout, Captain Yark Bevin had watched his men with a calm face, letting them roughhouse. But now his expression suddenly darkened, and he barked, “Quiet, all of you!”

Bevin was tall and powerfully built, with a ten-centimeter scar slashing across his bronzed face, making him look fierce. A veteran commando of more than ten years, he had fought in several wars and commanded great respect. As soon as he spoke, in that icy tone and with that thunderous look, the men fell silent at once.

“Yark…” Morton, the platoon leader and Bevin’s old comrade, tried to smooth things over, but Bevin, rarely so stern, ignored him. Instead, he swept his gaze over his men and said loudly, “Yasen, Taylor, and the rest of you—” He pointed at each in turn. “If you still don’t understand how formidable our enemy is—if you keep underestimating them—I suggest you jump out of this plane right now! At least then, I’ll have one less thing to worry about when I lead this company into battle!”

Morton was taken aback. “Yark, do you mean—”

Bevin’s right hand unconsciously touched the scar on his face. He stroked it and said quietly, “It’s been seven years. The enemy was an army special operations squad called ‘Tiger.’ We outnumbered them two to one, but in the end, only nine of our thirty men came back alive. They lost only two, with five wounded.” For a moment, fear flickered in Bevin’s eyes. “If Sinclair hadn’t fought like a madman to cover me, there wouldn’t be a Captain Bevin today…”

His voice wasn’t loud, but everyone drew a sharp breath. Facing an entire platoon of Poseidon commandos, outnumbered two to one, and nearly annihilating them at such little cost—what kind of squad was this?

In the stunned silence, several cried out, “Impossible!”