Chapter 689

Chapter 689: The Wolf Is Coming

Although this batch of participants in the Death Team Battle included some pilots from the novice tier who hadn’t yet experienced enough combat to advance, assessing their skills through non-live mock battles was a reliable method to gauge each pilot’s true abilities.

If luck was on their side, they might even discover one or two pilots who appeared to be novices but actually possessed the strength of high-tier elite fighters.

Should they find a special tier pilot, their luck would be amazing, and they could look forward to utterly dominating the competition.

Just like Lin Mo, Yuri concluded after a few rounds of battle that he was at least a middle-tier fighter, so he deliberately tried to recruit him before the promotion. Now, the truth proved how correct Yuri’s judgment was.

In the Death Team Battle, having an additional strong ally in the same team was more valuable than a life itself.

After all, not all participants started from scratch; they all had their unique backgrounds before entering the competition. Even pilots claiming to be of humble beginnings might possess hidden talents. By seizing the time for intensive training and teaching some killer moves, they could ultimately yield some benefits.

Even the weakest pilots would not be easily discarded. Every pilot had their own value, and those who could participate in such events were often already unafraid of sacrifice.

At such times, the relatively scarce high-tier and special tier pilots couldn’t afford to hold back; even a special tier pilot could go mad facing a simultaneous launch of 16 air-to-air missiles. Being unbeatable in a one-on-one battle didn’t mean they could handle such a barrage of missiles alone.

The personal impact on the battlefield was quite limited. Even when countries deployed special tier pilots, they couldn’t use them like ordinary pilots. If one were to face a hundred foes, it would be akin to murder.

The randomness and unpredictability within the novice and intermediate tiers made the Abyss Nirvana international pilot death match so intriguing and would boost excitement during betting.

If a few underdogs or dark horses emerged, all the bettors would be thrilled.

…

On the parking area in the waiting zone, Yuri and the Monkey eagerly awaited, standing on either side of the X-1 forward-swept wing fighter jet being towed to the runway.

In the cockpit, Lin Mo gestured to Yuri on the left and the Monkey on the right.

Yuri responded with a thumbs-up, revving the engines to start the fighter jet’s heating process.

Simultaneously, the Iranian pilot, Monkey, initiated the roar of his modified F-14, filling the air with a tremendous roar.

The air force base’s runway was alive with action, as various fighter jets took off and landed while the engines were warming up.

The ground tower began reporting the weather conditions and communication channel assignments to all pilots preparing for takeoff.

The organizers of the Abyss Nirvana had designated a training airspace for the sixteen participants in this Death Team Battle and had provided free training fuel for each fighter jet, a special treatment for this event that saved a substantial amount of their points.

Unlike the ground troops, which only required a few hundred square kilometers of land, fighter jets could easily cover distances of over ten miles with a simple push of the throttle. The aerial battlefield often had a three-dimensional nature, and finding a suitable area for air combat wasn’t an easy task.

Apart from the open seas and outer space, locating suitable land within a planet’s atmosphere was challenging. After all, not every fighter jet was a sixth-generation fighter or aerospace fighter capable of in-depth ocean operations or dueling in the vastness of space.

The southeastern region of Syria, known for its desolation and sparse population, made it an ideal location for the competition, ensuring no destruction of natural resources, no innocent casualties, and that the flames of war wouldn’t spread to densely populated towns.

It was indeed fortunate that the organizers had managed to stockpile such aviation fuel and resources in war-torn Syria, ensuring that every plane could take off without concerns over fuel shortages.

“I’ll head to the runway and wait for you!”

A few minutes later, Lin Mo’s forward-swept wing fighter jet vibrated as it completed its warm-up, slowly increasing engine power and using strong, hot airflow to slide toward the runway.

“Wow, that’s quick!”

Yuri and the Monkey exclaimed in unison from the cockpit, astonished at how swiftly the fighter jet reached optimal takeoff status.

Attempting to take off without proper warming would result in uneven heat distribution causing stress within the engine’s components and severely impact its longevity.

Yuri and the Monkey could only slightly increase the throttle to boost engine output and shorten the warm-up time, with the turbofan jet engine’s roar growing stronger and more powerful.

Lin Mo waited momentarily at the start of the runway until Yuri and the Monkey’s jets quickly caught up.

The combined power output of the six engines from the three fighter jets surged from static warm-up to takeoff speed, unleashing a tremendous roar that could severely impact anyone without protection within a 30-meter radius, even more damaging than a supersonic pass at low altitude.

At the end of the formation, turbulent air swirled violently, distorting the refracted light. High-temperature, high-pressure gas gushed from the jet’s exhaust, resembling streams of water and forming six translucent giant cones. The grass at the end of the runway remained flattened by the powerful airflow.

As Lin Mo and the others accelerated down the runway, they continuously exchanged their flight parameters over the radio. With their close cooperation, the three differently designed fighter jets almost simultaneously lifted their noses toward the sky.

There was no need for further adjustments; as soon as the three jets took off, they formed a perfect triangular attack formation. Leading the formation was the X-1, and neither Yuri nor Raccoon objected to Lin Mo taking the prime position.

Everyone in their small group who had watched Lin Mo’s battle videos no longer questioned his aggressive air combat skills, which even surpassed those of the mid-tier level five Canadian pilot, Raccoon. Even the British near-high tier pilot, Belong, had been taken out mid-air, making Lin Mo a standout in the intermediate tier.

Such a skilled pilot was the perfect choice to be the primary attacker in the triangular formation. Six thin white trails of condensed water vapor stretched out between the three aircraft as they shot into the blue sky, quickly disappearing. Only under specific temperature and humidity conditions could fighter jets produce such visually striking physical effects.

“Target spotted! Two o’clock!”

Not long after takeoff, Lin Mo activated the Light Mirror Technique, rapidly scanning the sky within a 100-kilometer radius. He saw what he needed and reported the location of the special tier pilot so his two wingmen could prepare ahead of time. After all, the holy knight had revealed his initial coordinates before the takeoff, allowing the Light Mirror Technique to effortlessly lock onto him.

The best way to test strength was to engage in a fight first. In dogfights, differences in tactical thinking, battle awareness, and aircraft performance would all be exposed.

“What? Where?!”

The two wingmen suddenly acted as if startled, performing rapid rolls to the left and right, quickly scattering their formation. The two pilots in the cockpit scanned their surroundings anxiously, looking around as if facing a formidable enemy.

Yuri and Raccoon saw nothing related to the holy knight on their radar screens, aside from other unrelated fighter signals. This was typical; the radar screen in the X-1 cockpit showed nothing as well.

After searching unsuccessfully for a while, the two wingmen noticed Lin Mo still maintained his flight posture, calmly keeping the same altitude and heading without making any evasive maneuvers.

Yuri and Raccoon felt exasperated, thinking that Lin Mo might launch a missile any moment while remaining so relaxed.

Starting in the intermediate tier, many pilots had accumulated points and stockpiled medium to long-range air-to-air missiles after several victories to prevent being downed by an opponent’s beyond-visual-range tactics. Most high-tier fighter jets were entirely stealth fighters.

Getting the signals of high-tier and special tier aircraft to appear on radar was not an easy task. However, it seemed that Number 13 did not take this lightly; his quick detection of the holy knight was astonishing.

“Where is he? I can’t see him!”

Yuri felt an urge to jump into the other pilot’s cockpit and demand answers. This was not the time for fables like "The Wolf Is Coming."

Raccoon seemed to share this impulse, but Yuri beat him to it, remaining silent to hear Lin Mo’s explanation.

"Don’t panic; the holy knight is still out of visual range, about 39 kilometers away from us, and he hasn’t noticed us."

Lin Mo’s words eased the tension among the two wingmen, though it still shocked them. They thought the special tier pilot had suddenly launched an ambush. The confusing Number 13 couldn’t add more confusion, could he?

“Two o’clock, altitude 1200 meters, distance 38 kilometers; the target is flying towards the northwest, the same direction as us.”

In response to his teammates’ doubts, Lin Mo repeated the location of the holy knight. For the Dragon Knight, who wielded light element magic, this was nearly effortless.

The Light Mirror Technique was more effective for targeting individual objectives than radar, but it could not completely replace it. Radar could quickly filter and identify targets that met certain conditions using predefined algorithms, making it better for rapid searches than the somewhat messy Light Mirror Technique, which needed the user to discern and filter.

In close range, especially in dogfights, the advantage of the Light Mirror Technique could fully overshadow radar capabilities.