thefictionvixens 3. The most efficient creatures to hunt [2 in 1]
3. The most efficient creatures to hunt [2 in 1]
A vast sea of clouds covered the sky.
It surges like a raging torrent, unpredictable and ever-changing, exuding a mysterious aura that is both abundant and deadly.
The sea of clouds in the steam age was more than just the aggregation of water vapor.
The churning gray fog was mixed with murky industrial steam, floating airship sails, feathers shed by burning beasts, fragments of burst fish bladders, and even live seaweed.
And a massive shadow lurking beneath the clouds, waiting to ambush passing airships...
Piloting the Blue Dragonfly, dozens of miles away from the Sweet Wine Town Sky Island, Roya pierced the clouds at a 45-degree angle, emerging from the relatively dangerous cloud layer and leaving a long steam trail in the boundless blue sky.
The Blue Dragonfly flapping-wing aircraft is four meters long, with a biomimetic four-wing structure, an open cabin, and is equipped with ejection airbags.
The exhaust port is located at the rear, the machine gun and flamethrower are integrated in the abdomen, and the steam knife is folded diagonally on the spine.
Wearing goggles and a windproof vest, Luo Ya was securely fastened to the driver's seat by an all-around seatbelt.
He has no adventurous spirit and only seeks safety.
Even the ornithopter's paint scheme uses blue, the color best suited for stealth in the air.
Although, deep down he preferred the fiery red.
At this moment, the Blue Dragonfly is flying at full speed to Windmill Town, three thousand kilometers to the north.
He planned to seek refuge with Ms. Aurora, who had been widowed for many years, and continue his shady career as a mechanic.
Eighteen months ago, Ms. Aurora, who was over forty and still had a charming appearance, extended an olive branch to Roya, inviting him to become the chief mechanic of the Tulip Tavern.
But he was bewitched and chose the wealthy young woman who pretended to be obsessed with machines and lured him into joining the tavern—
Cynthia.
How foolish!
Thinking about everything that had happened today, Luo Ya felt a chill run down his spine.
"If Oliver had disregarded Cynthia's life from the beginning and had only wanted to kill me, the Death Barrel could have bombarded the area before it even hit the ground, and I might have already been killed in the crash."
He immediately checked his luggage and the remaining phlogiston in the ornithopter's fuel tank; there were more than ten liters, enough to get to Windmill Town.
"Once we've settled in, we need to quickly figure out all the armored vehicles in the Tulip Tavern, and ideally, we should tamper with the difference engines..."
Just as I was thinking!
A long-range harpoon cannon roared as it tore through the clouds, shooting out from below the nine o'clock position—
Shoot at Blue Dragonfly!
This scene could not escape the mechanical compound eyes of the Blue Dragonfly.
Luo Ya took the helm himself, rolling sideways towards the three o'clock position and easily avoiding the harpoon cannon.
Then, the second, the third, the fourth...
Dense artillery barrages wove together into a net above the sea of clouds.
A colossal object slowly emerged from the sea of clouds.
That was a 100-meter-long black-sailed airship!
The boiler output power of the 100-meter-class black sail airship is no lower than the third order!
Like a mobile fortress rising from the abyss, the hundred-meter-long black wooden hull has black sails billowing in the wind, and the bow is painted with the crossed gear insignia of the First Mechanical Regiment of Mevin County.
"Damn it, it's an airship from the Mayman County Recruiting Office!"
It seems Oliver had already figured out the blue dragonfly's flight characteristics and informed the recruiting office, which is why I was caught.
The Blue Dragonfly dodged, rolled, spun sharply, and even flew backwards... maneuvering and weaving through a dense barrage of harpoon cannon fire.
Suddenly, the price surged!
After circling briefly in the sky, it immediately turned and swooped down, plunging headlong into the vast sea of clouds.
Roya did this precisely to avoid being pursued by the multiple high-speed ornithopters released from the airship.
Sure enough, the hatches of the Black Sail airship burst open.
Two standard ornithopter aircraft painted in black, and two steel mechs spewing high-pressure steam from their joints, followed closely behind the Blue Dragonfly, roaring as they disappeared into the clouds.
Judging from the timbre and frequency of the steam roar, the output power of all four boilers is second-order!
Above the blue sky, the Blue Dragonfly's disadvantages in boiler power, firepower configuration, airframe defense, and speed will be magnified infinitely.
But in the turbid, surging sea of clouds, visibility is less than 500 meters, which is the Blue Dragonfly's home turf.
Roya's greatest skill is flying.
Or rather, his hand-crafted Blue Dragonfly, just like a real dragonfly, was born to fly.
The aircraft has four thin, scale-like wings, controlled by four independent small sub-furnaces, making it a true four-wheel drive.
It has a pair of mechanical compound eyes on its head, which integrate 24 tracking cameras and are controlled by a central differential machine to simulate the 30,000 ommatidia in the dragonfly's compound eyes.
In addition, the mechanical connection of the Roya allows for easy control.
This allows for hovering, braking, inverted flight, catapult takeoff, large-angle maneuvering, and quick turns and maneuvers, all at will.
Limited by the small output power of the steam boiler, the Blue Dragonfly's top speed is not fast, but its maneuverability is a game-changer compared to ordinary steam-powered aircraft.
In the eyes of the Blue Dragonfly, watching ordinary ornithopter planes and steam-powered flying armor is like watching a slow-motion special effect.
Deep in the clouds.
The intense artillery fire exploded like fireworks!
Like walking a dog, the Blue Dragonfly led two black ornithopters and two black mechs, weaving and circling back and forth in the surging clouds.
The vibrations of the biomimetic scales cutting through the airflow sound like a beautiful melody played on a violin.
In a daze, Roya heard it for the first time...
The sound of the wind.
Three minutes later.
The Blue Dragonfly suddenly flew backwards and plummeted.
Boom!
Two black ornithopters, flying up and chasing each other from different directions, were unable to avoid each other and collided violently in the clouds!
The two ornithopter aircraft disintegrated in mid-air.
Two spherical airbags instantly burst open, enveloping the astonished pilot, and slowly emerged from the clouds, awaiting rescue by the Black Sail airship.
Five minutes later.
The Blue Dragonfly, being pursued at high speed by a steam-powered flying machine, suddenly slowed down and made an unbelievable sharp turn and flew backwards.
The steam knife, folded on the back, popped out with a clang!
click-
A swift and deadly aerial slide tackle!
Precisely cut open the fragile wings of the steam-powered flying armor.
The steam-powered flying armor disintegrated in mid-air, scattering fragments everywhere.
The driver ejected and was trapped inside the spherical airbag.
Witnessing this horrifying scene, the pilot of the other ambushing steam-powered mech was stunned and completely abandoned the attack.
The steam boiler roared and sped away from the battlefield.
Fun fact from Roya's past life: Dragonflies are the most efficient hunters, bar none.
The same applies to the Blue Dragonfly.
Luo Ya strode away, disappearing into the vast sea of clouds like a blue lightning bolt.
The short pilot, back on the Black Sail airship, was ashen-faced, his eyes wide with terror, his teeth chattering, unable to explain to the commander what he had just witnessed.
Major Poeltl, the one-eyed commander dressed in a blue-black military uniform and with a cigar in his mouth, grabbed the driver by the collar with one hand and lifted him up into the air.
"Four second-order machines can't catch up with one first-order machine? You dare come back!"
"A monster...that Blue Dragonfly wasn't a machine, it was a living monster!"
The short driver, recalling his recent ordeal, no longer felt fear, even towards Major Poeltl, who was known for his fury and ferocity.
"Idiot! Only monsters are valuable... Go after them!"
Major Poeltl roared, but a barely perceptible glint of fear and greed flashed in his eyes.
……
The peaceful flight that Roya had hoped for did not last long.
Flying a hundred miles through the clouds, the blue dragonfly had completely shaken off the black-sailed airship and was about to emerge from the sea of clouds—
suddenly!
The clouds below suddenly exploded.
A long-dormant, colorful behemoth, carrying a massive siphon vortex, bursts forth from below!
The enormous mouth, covered with spiraling sharp teeth, opened to a suffocating angle, making its diameter exceed ten meters. Inside, a vortex of gray-black mist surged, emitting a fishy stench like that of a rotting sea.
It seemed to want to suck all living beings into the abyss.
"This is... a triangular-whiskered whale! Damn it, how can there be such a fiery beast in the shallow cloud sea?"
Burning beasts refer to the burning spirits of beasts.
Luo Ya's heart tightened, feeling that one bad thing after another was happening today, and it seemed like it would never end.
As the Blue Dragonfly's fuselage glided toward the center of the vortex, it suddenly curled up its tail joints and rolled over.
boom!
The steam outlet bursts forward, instantly releasing all the steam inside the furnace.
If hit by the giant hammer, the machine will be ejected backward and fly backward.
With a triple backflip, it narrowly escaped the whale's deadly suction, instantly creating a distance of 100 meters.
"call……"
Luo Ya was just about to breathe a sigh of relief.
Sudden--
A sword arc shot into the sky from the deepest part of the sea of clouds!
The surge of air instantly overturned the Blue Dragonfly, which had just regained its footing.
A long, drawn-out cry of sword energy.
The clouds parted.
Before the giant rainbow whale could close its massive jaws, its body and mouth were split in two, never to be closed again.
The blue blood, like splashed ink, stained the clouds.
Golden beams of light pierced through the clouds, adding a touch of brilliance to the blue canvas.
The wind stopped.
Luo Ya felt extremely uncomfortable, and his eyes lost their sparkle.
A tall, agile woman with a sword and gun at her waist sat in the narrow co-pilot's seat of the Blue Dragonfly, her cascading silver hair fluttering in the wind.
The golden pupils reflected the blue dragonfly's dial.
"I've seen countless amazing steam-powered aircraft, but this dragonfly cobbled together from junk is the best flapping-wing aircraft I've ever seen."
North Wendell tilted her head back and took a swig of rum, then handed her rum bag to Roya, who was sitting next to her in the driver's seat.
"...We meet again, Mr. Mechanic."
……
Gazing at the magnificent sea of clouds, stained with blue blood and resembling splashes of oil paint, the words "extraordinary" took on a concrete form before Luo Ya's eyes for the first time.
A triangular hyacinth whale, over fifty meters long and with a mouth diameter exceeding ten meters, was cleaved in two by a single sword strike...
The power of the extraordinary far exceeded Roja's imagination.
So much so that he instantly lost the will to escape.
The sword energy that tore through the clouds, combined with the unique wind-controlling structure of the steam-powered flying armor, the scene of the woman telekinetically maneuvering objects in the distillery tavern, and now her sudden appearance in the passenger seat—Roya was almost certain—
The silver-haired woman beside him was an extraordinary being who controlled the wind or the atmosphere.
The instant his fingertips touched the leather of the wine bag, his consciousness, through the mechanical connection, instantly covered the entire wine bag.
This time, the Blood Spirit Essence of extraordinary talent was not tested.
It's just regular rum, not even worthy of being called craft beer.
Roya took the brown leather wine bag, but did not drink it immediately; his expression was deliberately arrogant.
"Even without your help, I could have escaped on my own."
Rather than feigning composure, it's more like he's given up entirely, like a dead pig that's not afraid of boiling water. As long as the other party needs his mechanical abilities, he has room to bargain.
"The sky is right here, where can you run to?"
Wendell's tone was calm and even. His pupils, which had been surging with intense golden light like a furnace, gradually dimmed, settling into a calm golden hue like autumn wheat fields.
She wasn't wrong. The surface was overrun by gray fog and ferocious beasts. The sky islands were just isolated islands barely surviving. Larger sky islands even had conscription offices stationed there. Except for the sky...
Roya, there is nowhere to escape.
Wendell, meanwhile, was already quietly waiting for him in the sky above the churning sea of clouds and the gliding airships.
Roya could only accept his predetermined fate.
"Your abilities are sufficient to rule the skies and hunt all spirits, so why wait for me?"
Wendell glanced at Roya and suddenly realized he might have scared him.
She swept her silver hair upwards, revealing a smooth, moon-like forehead and a neat hairline, with a faint dark red burn mark visible on her forehead.
"You're too weak, you see everyone as a god. The truth is quite the opposite, my supernatural abilities are very weak, and this is my first time being a hunter, which is why I need your mechanical talent."
Luo Ya then realized that he had been being watched all along.
"So, you brought the brindle whale here?"
His silver, sword-like eyebrows furrowed slightly, resembling frost-covered mountain ridges.
Wendell doesn't remember having the ability to control beasts.
Her original plan was to rescue Roya from the black sail of the conscription office, but unexpectedly Roya shook off the black sail and escaped.
Having finally caught a baleen whale, they quickly made their move to prevent Roya from escaping its jaws again.
As a result, her sword was two seconds too slow... and failed to save the person in time.
She regretted not being able to save Roya's life, but was also excited about underestimating him.
"You are more patient and decisive than you appear. In order to avoid killing me in the future, I should give you the power of choice."
Luo Ya was startled, thinking that the other party was testing him.
"Do I even have a choice?"
"No, but I can grant you one request."
"Any conditions are acceptable?"
"If it is within my power, I will do my utmost."
Luo Ya's mind raced.
He decided to first propose a condition that the other party would never agree to, so that the other party would feel guilty after refusing.
Then, he would propose the conditions he truly wanted, even if they were a bit excessive, and the other party would most likely agree.
After a long silence, Luo Ya, with a sincere expression, suddenly spoke:
"Marry me...can you do that?"
After making that startling statement, Roya added in a serious tone:
"Considering the extremely high mortality rate of airship hunters, I don't want to end my lonely and pathetic life as a virgin with regret."
Wendell stared at Roya, his golden pupils frozen, his silver brows furrowed, and after a long moment of distraction, he finally managed to utter three words with difficulty—
"Change to another one."
The hesitation lasted so long that Roja almost thought Wendell was about to agree to this absurd marriage.
That's it.
If he had to be a dog, he would rather be a dog for his female boss who pays him a regular salary than a dog for his lover.
One can endure humiliation for money, but one should not belittle oneself for love.
So he immediately proposed another condition:
"In that case, can you guarantee that no matter what happens, you'll save me immediately and ensure my safety?"
Having witnessed Roya's ability to escape, Wendell did not think Roya needed her protection.
"If you can stay on an island as a mechanic and ensure your safety, you won't run away."
If we are truly in danger, I will do my best to save you, but I cannot guarantee that everything will be alright...
Let's talk about something else.
Luo Ya thought about it again and realized that it made sense.
If Wendell hadn't tipped him off beforehand, he probably wouldn't have escaped the conscription office's ground encirclement today.
After being rejected twice in a row, Luo Ya finally revealed his true colors, feigning slight annoyance and saying with a nonchalant look:
"You keep saying you'll grant me a request, but then you won't do this or that. How can you manage a team like that?"
A man's word is his bond... So, let me be the captain then!
Wendell took a sip of rum, his gaze indifferent, his posture languid and composed, seemingly unconcerned.
Her body was on the verge of losing control, her soul was no longer able to support meticulous thinking, and even her memories could not be maintained for long.
She just didn't expect that, after witnessing her abilities, Roya would still dare to offer to take on the position of captain.
So he nodded in agreement with Roya:
"As long as you share the same goal as me, you are the captain."
This...you just agreed?
Roya keenly sensed that Wendell might harbor an ultimate goal he was willing to achieve at all costs, to the point that he was indifferent to the process of achieving it.
"Your goal... is really to go to the Eastern Dragon Kingdom?"
Wendell nodded calmly.
"That's right. But before that, we need to form a hunter team, join the Hunter Association, head east, enter the Silver Dragon Route, and catch up with the Hunter Association's airship mothership, the Jingzhe."
Roya had heard of the Hunter Association, the organization that stood at the pinnacle of hunters, but he didn't know that there were airship motherships in this world.
Where is the Silver Dragon route?
Gradually, he began to feel an indescribable anticipation for the mysterious and distant Eastern Dragon Kingdom.
"The goal and route are fine, but the title 'team leader' means you must always follow my orders... Can you do that?"
Wendell thought about it carefully and nodded with absolute certainty:
"Of course, you're from the East, so you must also want to go home."
Luo Ya suddenly turned his head and stared at the profile of the woman with stunning features, a temperament that blended aloofness and languor, and occasional scars.
I could vaguely sense a defiled sacred aura.
He never expected that a powerful expert who could cleave a triangular rainbow whale in two with a single sword strike would be so easy to talk to.
With things having come to this point, Roya had no way out. He tilted his head back, took a sip of rum, and returned the rum bag.
"It's a pleasure working with you!"
He reached out and grasped Wendell's armored right hand tightly, attempting to forcibly reverse the unequal relationship between prisoner and captor into a fair cooperation.
The moment his palm touched the cold iron armor, Roya's consciousness spread like an electric current, covering the intricate internal mechanisms of the armor.
His pupils suddenly contracted!
His eyes flickered.
This armor was actually fused with Wendell's injured right hand, a shackle used to suppress his extraordinary power.
He couldn't even deduce Wendell's level of transcendence by sensing his blood pressure.
In other words, the true power Wendell was hiding was far more terrifying than he had witnessed firsthand.
Such a powerful individual easily relinquished command of the team...
Could it be that they are testing him?
Luo Ya's expression instantly became solemn and dignified, and his tone became extremely sincere:
"I, Luo, have wandered for half my life, only regretting that I have not met a wise ruler. Since we cannot be husband and wife, if you do not mind, I am willing to become your godmother!"
"ha?"
Wendell tilted his head.
Her usual aloofness seemed to have been extinguished by Luo Ya's shocking words.
I couldn't calm down for a long time.
Perhaps this is a unique form of etiquette for Eastern men.
But Roya couldn't stop talking about women...
Wendell suddenly realized that this yearning for intimacy might be a post-traumatic stress response to being betrayed by a woman.
In an instant, awakened by her maternal instincts, she comforted him:
Forget that woman. When you have the sky, your pain will turn into a gentle breeze.
Which woman?
At that moment, Roya only had Wendell in his eyes.
It felt like a gentle north wind, refreshing and soothing.
It took him a while to realize that Wendell was referring to his rumored ex-girlfriend, Cynthia.
"I can't forget how fragrant she was when she was ripe."