Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 642 - 171: Dive Attack

"I'll take the lead attack!" a distinctly spirited female voice rang out in the fighter jet formation's communication channel.

"Alright, Valkyrie 04 will lead the first dive attack, Harrier 02 and Sabre 03, you will be her wingmen." As the leader of this fighter jet formation, Goshawk 01 promptly assigned the tasks, "Remember not to get too close during the first wave of attack. Destroying those buds is secondary; the main goal is to determine the effective range of those steel needles!"

"Received!" Harrier 02 and Sabre 03 responded simultaneously.

Valkyrie 04 piloted a fourth-generation fighter. Though the aircraft model was somewhat old, it was the only one in the team equipped with eight machine guns, contrasting with the fifth and sixth-generation fighters that either come standard with two machine guns or have them removed entirely, making this fourth-generation fighter the most heavily armed in their fleet.

Meanwhile, Harrier 02 and Sabre 03 piloted fifth-generation heavy fighters, which not only had heavy armor but were also equipped with small energy shield generators, allowing them to act as a shield if needed, protecting Valkyrie 04 from the steel needle attacks.

"Action begins!"

Above the clouds, the three fighter jets lowered their noses, and with the thrusters a long tail flame, their blade-like wings sliced through the lead-gray clouds, diving into the rain curtains below.

"Target is in visual range!" Valkyrie 04 pushed the control stick to one side, making the fighter jet spiral downwards, while the assist computer immediately locked onto the preset target, marking it with a bright red frame on the windshield in front of the cockpit.

"Found six unopened 'buds'!" Valkyrie 04 shouted in the communication channel, "0203, you handle the two 'buds' at the three o'clock position, I'll take care of the four 'buds' at the nine o'clock position!"

Before the words finished, Valkyrie 04 pulled the trigger of the machine guns!

The four machine guns at the nose of the fighter jet couldn't adjust the shooting angle, similar to the coaxial machine guns on tanks, they could only attack targets along the flight path. While the four machine guns mounted at the wing roots had a turret capable of moving up, down, left, and right, providing a wide shooting range.

Valkyrie 04 selected two closely positioned buds as the main targets of attack, while the other two slightly distant buds were left to the four wing-root machine guns, aided by the assist computer for aiming.

Eight streams of fire spat out simultaneously from the fighter jet, accompanied by the rapid rotation of the gun barrels, a dense rain of bullets descended from the sky—modern fighter jets consider guns to be the least powerful weapon on the aircraft, but their impact can't be ignored.

The smallest caliber of the fighter-mounted guns began at twenty millimeters, while the four machine guns on Valkyrie 04's fighter reached a terrifying thirty-five-millimeter caliber... capable of easily piercing half a meter thick high-strength concrete bunkers.

The two buds directly ahead were instantly shredded by the dense rain of bullets, pale flesh scattered like rotten cotton, embedded with numerous steel needles of varying lengths... but these steel needles no longer had a chance to launch.

"Nice!" Valkyrie 04 shouted excitedly, quickly raising the nose and switching the fighter from a dive to level flight, observing the results of the other two targets through the camera beneath the fighter—those two buds also couldn't escape destruction, leaving only small stalks pierced like sieves, leaning slantingly.

Harrier 02 and Sabre 03 also successfully achieved their combat objectives—though their fighter jets were only equipped with two twenty-five millimeter machine guns, they each only had one bud to deal with... these buds seemed to be emergency organs temporarily spawned by Chimera 17, with weak defensive capabilities that the twenty-five millimeter machine gun rounds could easily tear apart.

"First wave of attacks complete, preparing to return above the clouds—" Valkyrie 04 hadn't finished her sentence when the cockpit alarm blared with sharp "beep beep beep" sounds!

"High-intensity energy reaction detected below! You are locked on! High-intensity energy reaction detected below! You are locked on!"

Without her brain processing, Valkyrie 04's body acted on muscle memory, executing a reflex-like response strategy—the fighter's engine instantly shut down, the fuselage tilted back into a free fall, and at the threshold of impending stall, the engines fired up once more, ramping to maximum output, driving the fighter in a sharp Z-shaped trajectory like lightning!

A blazing white energy beam shot past Valkyrie 04's wing closely, with alarm sounds blaring all over the cockpit.

"Left wing damaged!"

"Left auxiliary fuel tank on fire!"

"Weapon pylon unresponsive!"

"Altimeter malfunction! Thrust loss of 56% in vector 1, 27% in vector 2!"

Luckily, even though the aircraft sustained severe damage, the energy beam didn't directly strike Valkyrie 04, and while the components melted from the sudden heat caused a loss of over sixty percent combat capability, in any case... Valkyrie 04 had not yet crashed.