113: Using someone else to do the dirty work! Sixteen missiles launched simultaneously! Using your own weapons to slap yourself in the face!

It looked so unremarkable, with a displacement of only a few thousand tons, not even half the size of the Zhenhai.

But its pitch-black hull, with a sinister design that looked as if it had just been fished out of a tar pit...

...and the black nanite swarms that were currently like tentacles, not yet fully retracted into the body, made it look like something other than a human creation.

It was like a black tick perched on the corpse of a giant, greedily sucking blood.

"These damned mutant bastards..."

A raging fire instantly ignited in the captain's eyes.

This was an insult to the Ark.

It was the shame of a regular army being slaughtered by a group of barbarians wielding crude weapons.

"All units, pay attention. Target confirmed."

The captain's voice returned to a cold, mechanical texture as his finger quickly flipped open the red safety cover on the joystick:

"No need to call for surrender, no need for warnings."

"Fire control radar locked."

"Let these gutter rats understand that the sky will always belong to the Ark."

As the fire control system's lock-on tone turned into a rapid beep, the four 'Thor' attack aircraft lowered their noses simultaneously.

Like a flock of diving falcons.

Beneath the wings, heavy pylons released.

"Fire."

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Four massive eagle strike heavy supersonic anti-ship missiles detached from their pylons, their rocket engines igniting instantly.

White pillars of smoke traced four shrill trajectories in the sky.

These reapers, capable of skimming the sea at Mach 3, carried warheads powerful enough to shatter an aircraft carrier.

They howled toward the black target still 'feeding' on the sea surface... "Warning! Hypersonic target entry detected!

Quantity: four! Terminal dive in progress!"

The sea star radar's alarm, which had been a rapid pulse, now became a heart-stopping, continuous long wail.

The four red trajectory lines on the screen were like four whips swung by the Grim Reaper.

At a counter-intuitive, terrifying speed, they crossed a distance of dozens of kilometers in an instant.

"Mach three... My god, that's a Mach three diving speed!"

Su Qingyu watched the frantically jumping speed readings, her voice nearly cracking as she shouted:

"One kilometer per second! They're arriving even before the sound!"

"Contact countdown: fifteen seconds!"

Fifteen seconds.

For an average person, this might just be enough time to take a sip of water.

But for those four eagle strike missiles loaded with semi-armor-piercing high-explosive warheads, it was enough to decide life or death.

"Shields! Boss! Hurry and turn on the shields!"

Old Chen watched the four white smoke trails already visible to the naked eye beneath the clouds, slapping the armrest in despair.

"I can't! Insufficient energy!"

Jiang Ran's fingers blurred across the control panel.

But the energy bar representing shield strength remained at a pitiful single red segment:

"The Bio-engine has been overextended for the devouring evolution just now.

The current shield strength can't even stop a heavy machine gun, let alone these big guys specifically designed to blow up carriers!"

"What about the main gun?! Use the Electromagnetic Cannon to shoot them down!"

"Can't hit them!"

Jiang Ran slammed the joystick forward, trying to make the black iron perform an evasive maneuver.

But the massive hull, still undergoing microscopic restructuring, was like a rhinoceros stuck in a swamp, its reaction time agonizingly slow.

"The Electromagnetic Cannon is for hitting ships! Its elevation angle isn't enough!

The fire control can't keep up with high-speed diving targets directly overhead!"

This was the fatal weakness of pirate ships. In the naval battles of the wasteland, everyone was used to blasting each other on the sea level.

Modified crude cannons, flat-firing rockets—everything was designed for horizontal slaughter.

Once a threat came from overhead, from that damned sky, this place became an exposed slaughterhouse.

"It's over... we're going to die..."

Looking at the four reapers growing larger and larger, their white paint even visible on the missile bodies, Old Chen completely broke down.

He clutched his head, slumped to the floor, and let out a desperate roar:

"There are no anti-aircraft guns! We don't have a Close-In Weapon System!

We can't defend overhead!!"

This sense of powerlessness...

It was like a martial arts master with a blade facing a soldier setting up a machine gun dozens of meters away.

No matter how fast your blade, no matter how hard your hull, in the face of technological suppression from a higher dimension, you were just a sitting duck.

Rumble—

The thunderous sonic boom finally reached them, making the portholes vibrate. It was the roar of the missiles breaking the sound barrier.

Death was only five seconds away from their heads.

"Who said we're using cannons for air defense?"

Amidst Old Chen's near-desperate roar, Jiang Ran's voice was as calm as if he were stating a simple fact.

He didn't touch the heavy navigation joystick, nor did he bother with the overheated main gun firing button.

He simply leaned back in his chair, almost languidly.

His slender fingers lightly swiped across the brand-new fire control screen that had just been upgraded, still emitting a faint blue light.

"Old Chen, open your eyes and look."

A cold curve hooked at the corner of Jiang Ran's mouth, his eyes reflecting an arrogance that came from total control:

"Five minutes ago, we were indeed a barbaric pirate ship that only knew how to ram and blast with cannons."

"But now..."

As his finger lightly tapped on the four red light dots on the screen...

...green locking boxes instantly framed the four reapers diving at Mach 3.

"Beep! Target locked.

Firing parameters set."

The system's feedback was incredibly fast.

This was the power of the 'Aegis' fire control algorithm.

It didn't even need zero to perform complex ballistic calculations.

The moment those four missiles entered the engagement range, it had already planned four perfect interception curves.

Click—Boom!!

On the black iron's aft deck...

...two rows of black vertical launch system covers, which had just grown out of the flesh and hadn't fully cooled yet, suddenly snapped open to the sides.

Revealing sixteen dark vertical launch cells within, exuding the scent of death.

Lying quietly inside was the legacy just plundered from the corpse of the Zhenhai.

"A shield just stolen happens to be perfect for testing against its original owner."

Jiang Ran looked at the 'Clear to Fire' button on the screen, which had turned red, and pressed it down hard without any hesitation.

"Full salvo."

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Four dazzling pillars of fire instantly erupted from the spine of the black iron.

They were no longer clumsy cannons that needed their muzzles adjusted and were limited by firing arcs.

They were four sea red flag air defense missiles that originally belonged to the Ark fleet.

They soared into the sky under the ejection of the cold-launch system.

Then they ignited mid-air.

Trailing milky-white smoke, they instantly completed an incredible ninety-degree turn under the control of vector nozzles.

They didn't need to aim.

They were like four venomous snakes that had caught the scent of prey.

They raised their heads and crashed resolutely into the four eagle strike missiles falling from the sky.

Violence against violence.

At this moment, the old era of 'only cannons' came to an end.