Chapter 444 - 222: Return, Tier Four Realm King, Breakout Plan

Chapter 444: Chapter 222: Return, Tier Four Realm King, Breakout Plan

Lin Feng dove straight down at over Mach 4, leaving the mesosphere forty to fifty kilometers above.

He was falling so fast that the receding scenery blurred into streaks of light.

After a thirty-second dive, Lin Feng plummeted from the mesosphere into the relative safety of the stratosphere before plunging headfirst, without pause, into the turbulent airflow of the troposphere.

He was now less than six or seven thousand meters from the ground and could already see the faint, twinkling lights on the Northern Loess Plateau.

Only then did Lin Feng dare to look back and confirm that the dark shadow from outer space, high above the thermosphere, had not given chase.

But the crisis was far from over. He was currently falling at over a thousand meters per second. In five seconds, he would smash into the ground.

The force of impact at this speed would be lethal, even if he were to hit a body of water.

Besides, he couldn’t spot so much as a reservoir for dozens of kilometers in any direction.

’I have to slow down and stabilize my body—fast!’

In addition to his Membrane Wings, which were already vibrating to provide reverse thrust, Lin Feng raised his Ion Laser Cannon, switched it to Level 29 Armor-Piercing Cannon mode, aimed at the rapidly approaching ground below, and pulled the trigger.

The reverse thrust from his Membrane Wings was only enough to stop him from accelerating further, not enough to actually slow his descent.

If he actually hit the ground at a thousand meters per second, even with his Flying Tiger Armor and Tier Three Physique, he would be severely injured.

The Ion Laser Cannon fired a light beam with virtually zero recoil. While the Electromagnetic Cannon had some kickback, its slow Fire Rate and long charge time made it useless. That left the Armor-Piercing Cannon. He had to rely on its powerful recoil to generate the reverse thrust needed to slow his descent.

Lin Feng had no idea if this would actually work, but it was a desperate gamble he had to take.

Thankfully, the blast from the Armor-Piercing Cannon’s shell generated enough recoil to jolt his body upward. Although he was still plummeting, his velocity had clearly decreased.

’Using the Cannon’s recoil to slow down works!’

Lin Feng immediately fired several more shots in quick succession. Each blast slammed into him with over a ton of force, creating an intense feeling of weightlessness and drastically reducing his downward velocity.

Combined with the thrust from his Tier Two Orange Membrane Wings, his speed plummeted from Mach 3 and Mach 4 all the way to below Mach 1.

By the time Lin Feng was only two hundred meters from the ground, he had finally managed to stabilize his descent! ℴℴ𝘮

Below him, the desolate Loess Plateau was now scarred with several massive craters, each over ten meters in diameter and three to four meters deep, carved out by his Armor-Piercing Cannon.

The hot shockwaves from the explosions washed over his face.

And as a few notifications materialized before his eyes,

Lin Feng was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief:

[You have left the Tier Four Life Form’s Sensing range. Danger has been neutralized!]

[Your Level 29 Flying Tiger Armor’s Tier Two Orange Membrane Wings are severely damaged. Durability is below 30%. Consume Tier Two Upgrade Energy to initiate repairs?]

His heart still racing, Lin Feng glanced over his shoulder at the creaking Membrane Wings on his back. The high-speed dive had worn down many of the joints, and they were now groaning in protest.

The lift they provided was rapidly diminishing. Before long, they would fail completely, and he would lose his Flying Ability.

So, Lin Feng used the Tier Two Upgrade Energy he had plundered from killing the Tier Two Wind-winged Zergs to restore his battered Membrane Wings.

Golden Energy enveloped the Tier Two Membrane Wings, and in a matter of seconds, the repairs were complete. They were as good as new.

Feeling the tension leave his body, Lin Feng didn’t linger, flying directly toward the front-line base dozens of kilometers away.

「Two minutes later.」

Lin Feng, traveling at Mach 1, arrived at the outskirts of the front-line air base.

From a distance, he spotted several 20mm close-in weapon systems mounted on the base’s high walls, designed specifically to target fast-moving objects in the vicinity.

For this reason, Lin Feng landed several kilometers out and proceeded on foot.

By the time he followed the road to the main gate, he ran into Shen Jie, who was already there.

Shen Jie was holding two pairs of Tier Two Membrane Wings and was in the middle of a discussion with the guards flanking the gate.

Meanwhile, General Chen and his group had safely landed in the transport plane. After learning that Lin Feng and Shen Jie had jumped out mid-flight to intercept the pursuing Tier Two Wind-winged Zergs, the general realized they needed to send someone to retrieve them.

Thus, just as Lin Feng arrived, General Chen had already sent word to the guards to open the gates and let them through, hoping to prevent any further misunderstanding.

With General Chen’s explanation and orders, Lin Feng and Shen Jie passed through the checkpoint without any trouble and entered the air base.

The Federation’s air power had been decimated. All that remained of its air force were about a hundred fighter jets and a few dozen strategic bombers.

Low-altitude support helicopters were hit particularly hard. Harassed by tens of thousands of Tier One Cyan-winged Zergs since the beginning of the apocalypse, dozens were being shot down daily.

Even when the Zerg Race Mother Empress was on the surface directing her countless Swarms, she would command hundreds, even thousands, of Cyan-winged Zergs to lock down the surrounding airspace.

Fighter jets and missiles alike were unable to break through this thick, dense layer of Defense, as the Cyan-winged Zergs would simply block them with their bodies.

Furthermore, a patrol of a dozen or so Tier Two Wind-winged Zergs constantly circled thousands of meters higher up, ensuring that no human supersonic missile could ever reach the Mother Empress.

In the North, the Federation had once drawn up a plan for a decapitation strike using a Nuclear Bomb. The problem, however, was that neither fighter jets nor hypersonic missiles could penetrate the Zerg Race’s aerial blockade.