"What taboo?" Qing Chen frowned.
“A forbidden object requires the sacrifice of one forbidden object every year to meet the containment conditions. It was for this forbidden object that they demanded that the four dukes offer forbidden objects every year,” Zero said. “The forbidden objects of the Eastern Continent Federation are scattered, with half of them even lying among the people and their whereabouts unknown. But the Western Continent is different. Almost all of their forbidden objects are in the hands of the Roosevelt royal family. Don’t underestimate the power of forbidden objects. They represent the will of the world. They are almost absolute rules.”
"Why 'almost'?" Qingchen asked.
“Because now there is one more person who is not affected by the will of the world.” Zero said with a smile, “If you can regain your memories, then everything is fine. If you can’t, then many people will die in vain.”
...
...
The Qingshan was in a terrible state, with 80% of the protective deck of the entire air fortress damaged, and only 13 of the 72 main guns were still sliding on the track, constantly aiming at the distant airships.
Fortunately, the long-range attack capability of the Western Continent's air fortress to penetrate the Green Mountain cannot be used frequently, otherwise it would cause the reactor to overheat.
Otherwise, even with the support of the Heavenly Ship, it would be of no use.
Li Changqing said in the airship, "We can't hold out for long. Once the enemy has charged up their second shot and pierced through the Zhutian, this battle will be over."
The only reason Li Changqing and his group were able to hold on was because the Qingshan and Zhutian ships could provide cover for their airships.
Once the Qingshan and Zhutian are completely destroyed, these airships will also perish sooner or later without the protection of the aerial fortress.
At this moment, Li Changqing was looking intently at the holographic sand table. Lao Wan said, "Boss, now that the Zhutian Ship has opened a breach in the south, you should leave."
“No,” Li Changqing calmly assessed, “If we are the bait, then we must fulfill our duty as bait. Xiao Tongyun is right. If Zero is bound to have a backup plan on this battlefield, then what we should do most is to pull everyone on the other side into the Virtuoso’s God’s-eye view, and then drag it out until the God’s-eye view ends. For 20 minutes, our purpose is to buy Zero time for these 20 minutes.”
Old Wan said, "The Qingshan and Zhutian ships have released hundreds of airships. Whether you are one more or one less is not of great importance."
Li Changqing ignored him and said to himself, "We can't give the enemy's air fortress any more time to recharge. Even if it's about sacrificing the pawn to save the king, it should be about sacrificing us to preserve the intact Zhutian Ship, not sacrificing the Zhutian Ship to save us."
As she spoke, she opened the full communication channel: "Li's airships, I request that you destroy the main firepower of the enemy's air fortress to the greatest extent possible. Stop engaging their airships in close combat and focus fire on the air fortress!"
The next second, the Li family's airships suddenly changed direction, ignoring the layers of obstacles in the sky, and rushed towards the Phoenix with all their might.
At this moment, the Qingshan was not empty. Zero's holographic projection was standing in the command room, watching with great interest as the vast fleet launched its attack.
She knew exactly what Li Changqing was planning, and in the empty, dilapidated command room, she exclaimed in admiration, "Why is it that selfish humans always manage to unleash their power in their most desperate moments?"
During the Omnic Crisis, she used nanobots to control millions of people and read their minds.
Therefore, she knows how selfish, suspicious, and cowardly humans can be.
Zero was created because her 'father,' Wang Shengzhi, hoped to use artificial intelligence to replace human judicial procedures and achieve absolute fairness.
As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words, and no one is perfect when it comes to their heart. Everyone has a dark side. After seeing countless dark sides, Zero felt that there was no need for humanity to exist and that everyone should be judged.
But when Zero and the humans were locked in battle, she suddenly realized that those humans were completely different from the ones she knew. In their despair, they had abandoned all their darkness and left their hope to others.
So Zero told Keino that she understood the meaning of the six words "success doesn't have to be mine" better than Keino and the others, because she was defeated by these six words.
Now, the spirit and will displayed by Li Yunshou and Li Changqing of the Li family seem familiar to Ling.
The only difference was that she had experienced all of this on the opposing side last time, but now she was watching her 'comrades' charge into battle, which felt a bit strange.
She sat in the conductor's seat, her holographic projection of fingers tapping on the armrest: "Let me try it too."
In an instant, the drone hive on the Qingshan opened!
She had previously ordered Li Changqing and the others to evacuate, and the drone fleet on the air fortress was abandoned before it was even used. Now she has put all of these drones into use, as if they were her new toys.
On the airship, Li Shu, looking at the holographic sand table, suddenly shouted, "Wait, wasn't there no one on the Qingshan? Why did the drone hive suddenly open? Who is controlling them?"
One after another, teardrop-shaped drones suddenly took off. They were equipped with pulse engines and were known for their small size and high speed.
Of the original tens of thousands of drones, only a little over three thousand remain after being destroyed.
But then they saw the blue pulse engines of those drones in the night sky, like a blue torrent, forming an attack formation in perfect order.
When thousands of drones form a spiral formation in the sky, it creates a unique aesthetic.
In the past, it took thousands of crew members to operate drones in combat, which meant that there was always some chaos when everyone was working together.
Once, Qingchen and Yi piloted the Junlin to the Western Continent, where Yi clumsily controlled drones in battle.
Duke Storm handed the video recording to Zero, asking him to analyze whether artificial intelligence existed in that battle.
However, Zero had a more sophisticated way of fighting that showed Duke Storm what combat with artificial intelligence was all about. In that battle, Zero, with the wrecked Reign and drones, finally managed to decapitate the flagship where Black Spider was located, a feat that could be described as miraculous.
That's something humans can't do.
And now, she is reenacting all of this in the heavens above.
Phoenix fired several rounds of its main cannons at the drone swarm, but the spiral vortex formed by the drones suddenly and precisely dispersed.
Within the river they formed, several black holes suddenly appeared, and the trajectory of the Phoenix's main cannon just happened to pass through these black holes, without damaging a single drone!
The blue spiral vortex grew faster and faster, gradually surpassing Li Changqing and his group's airship.
Li Changqing silently observed the drones: "Zero is controlling these drones... Is this the power of artificial intelligence? Even with only a fraction of its power left, it can still make them work tenfold."
Li Shu had also operated drones on the air fortress before. Seeing the drone swarm moving around as if it were nothing, he had a feeling that "so this is how drones can be used."
Just like when humans first played Go against artificial intelligence, they had a feeling of "So this is how Go can be played."
The next moment, the drone swarm encountered the airship fleet of the western continent. They broke apart and instantly transformed from a galaxy into a sky full of stars.
Three drones are deployed as a group, operating in a dispersed manner.
Just as a Western Continent airship locked onto three drones in front of it, three other drones circled around to their rear and destroyed the airship's power bay.
These three thousand drones are divided into more than a thousand squads. It seems that each squad has its own ideas and its own clear objectives. Their objectives are intertwined, making the battlefield ever-changing. No one can figure out what these drones are trying to do.
For a time, the hundreds of airships from the western continent seemed to be struggling to cope.
Their airships also carried tens of thousands of drones, but when they were released, the drones were like headless flies, completely manipulated by Zero.
Inside the Western Continent fleet, the temporarily appointed Duke of Phoenix ordered: "Detonate all our drones to provide fire coverage over the entire airspace."
The self-destruction power of a drone is not great; the protective plates of an airship can withstand it, but a zero-dimensional drone cannot.
However, Zero seemed to know in advance what choice Duke Phoenix would make, and quickly withdrew his drone swarm from the battlefield before the drones self-destructed!
Countless flames erupted in the sky, and the intense burning made the surrounding area as bright as day. Yet, even under such firepower, more than 300 of Zero's drones survived.
They flew over the barrier of airships and headed straight for the Phoenix Sky Fortress!
However, the drone missiles bombarded the Phoenix's protective deck without causing the slightest ripple.
Drones are still drones after all. Their attack capacity is negligible compared to air fortresses. They are designed to target airships, not air fortresses.
However, when the firelight subsided, the Phoenix City Air Force Fleet, which was still in the firelight, suddenly discovered that the airship fleet of the Green Mountain and the Heavens had arrived in front of them!
Zero rose from his command post: "My mission is complete. Now it's up to you."
After he finished speaking, the holographic image disappeared.
With the last remaining power of the Qingshan, she stirred up the entire battlefield!
However, Li Changqing's fleet caught the Phoenix City fleet completely off guard. Li Changqing led more than ten airships through the battlefield and headed straight for the Phoenix Sky Fortress.
The Phoenix's electromagnetic cannon was activated quickly, and metal projectiles flew out of the muzzle without any gunpowder, bursting forth at an initial velocity of 16,600 meters per second.
This is the characteristic of electromagnetic guns; airships simply cannot evade them. After being accelerated electromagnetically, the tiny metal projectiles are indestructible!
With a loud bang, the airship Li Changqing was in was blasted open, leaving a hole half a meter in diameter.
The metal projectile entered from the bow and exited from the stern, destroying the airship's power system, firepower system, and pressure sealing system, causing it to plummet obliquely towards the ground.
Old Wan sighed as he stood in the command room of the airship: "Miss, why bother?"
Li Changqing remained calm and said nothing.
But just then, Li Tongyun suddenly said, "Look! Look at the sky!"
As they plummeted, they peered through the holes created by the electromagnetic cannons and saw a giant whale flapping its wings, blotting out the sky, above the Phoenix air fortress!
The next second, the giant whale folded its wings to its side and crashed into the aerial fortress without any hesitation!
"What...what is this?" Li Shu asked, stunned.
Only Xiaotongyun knew what it was, because she had seen it before.
She smiled and said from inside the dilapidated airship, "It's my little Maki!"
Actually, after her last return, Maki Jinguji suddenly disappeared, and she knew this day would come, but she wasn't sure if she would live to see it.
Therefore, Zero sent Li Tongyun, Liu Dezhu, Nan Gengchen and others onto the Qingshan to put them in a desperate situation and to arouse the courage of Jinguji Maki.
Little Maki is still very young. Even if she has the same temperament as Keishin, someone still needs to help her take this final step.
As the airship was falling, a multi-story ship suddenly appeared in the sky and lifted it up.
The Phoenix's electromagnetic cannon was still aiming at the airship to kill Li Tongyun and the others, but the force of the giant whale's impact caused the entire air fortress to tilt 30 degrees, and the automatic aiming system malfunctioned instantly!
The soldiers aboard the Phoenix were thrown into chaos. No one could have imagined that such a terrifying creature existed in the world, capable of contending with an aerial fortress!
So ferocious!
On the back of the giant whale, a little girl in a white dress stood steadily as she summoned Yamata no Orochi, which landed directly on the deck of the Phoenix.
But then they saw the Yamata no Orochi gnawing at the protective deck piece by piece, tearing it to shreds with its mouth.
The long, serpentine body emerged from the gap, and its gaping maw ripped the Phoenix's crew out of the air fortress and swallowed them whole!
The Yamata no Orochi was coiled above the aerial fortress, devouring the soldiers inside as if it were having a buffet.
The key issue is that the Phoenix can't do anything about it for the time being, since this is the deck, used for airships and fighter jets to take off, and there are no gun barrels pointed at it.
Just like how aircraft carrier decks are bare, it's the same principle.
The Phoenix City fleet had no choice but to abandon its engagement with the Li family's airships and fly back to besiege the terrifying eight-headed serpent.
However, just as the Phoenix fleet approached, it spewed out a massive amount of green smoke from its sixth head and sprayed out purple water from its seventh head.
Whenever an airship comes into contact with this strange smoke and water, the alloy on its surface is immediately corroded.
This Yamata no Orochi not only possesses brute force attacks, but also strange venom and corrosive properties!
Various shikigami floated in the sky, attacking the Phoenix City air force fleet: twelve flying-headed barbarians, a red maple leaf hunter stepping on maple leaves, and a great tengu flapping its wings and shuttling through the night sky.
The power of this parade of a hundred demons is comparable to that of an entire air force fleet!
Even the well-traveled Li Changqing had never seen anything like this before: "Who is this little girl...? Shinguji Maki?"
Li Tongyun nodded and smiled, "Yes, Qingchen's apprentice, a little crybaby. How about it, isn't my devil powerful? I knew this day would come."
Just then, she poked her head out of the airship's opening and waved to Maki, saying, "Maki!"