Zhao Chen fell fast in free fall toward the ground.
He gripped the light-blade's hilt and, in the way his mind held, drove his will into it, and the blade of light appeared.
The next second, a light-blade a full thirty meters and more in length sprang out.
Beside this huge blade of light, Zhao Chen looked very small indeed.
Then, holding this giant light-blade, Zhao Chen drove straight down at the grade-five alien creature below!
With the meeting of the two,
the giant light-blade cut this grade-five alien in two, head to tail!
As smoothly as slicing a fish.
The grade-five alien that had so plagued the flight squadron's best, beyond their power to deal with, was destroyed just so, and with such ease.
Zhao Chen put away the light-blade in his hand.
He was rather startled himself at the huge blade that had appeared.
Though the knowledge of light-blades held that a blade's power and shape varied with the user's will,
who would have thought the variation could be so great?
Could it be because he had been injected with the T6 super-soldier serum, which had strengthened his spirit and will as well?
Was that what had brought this about?
Zhao Chen could not settle the question now.
For he was not yet out of danger.
He was still in free fall.
Below, a great swarm of aliens could be seen.
Fall into that, and however strong Zhao Chen was, he would be nothing but food.
Fortunately, this had been in Zhao Chen's reckoning before.
The Dragon-Fang fighter, its engines shut down and canopy open, was now in free fall not far from Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen spread his limbs and steered his fall in the air.
The distance between him and the Dragon-Fang fighter grew shorter and shorter.
At last he reached the Dragon-Fang fighter, caught the top of the canopy, and swung himself over.
Zhao Chen was safely back in the cockpit.
Without a word he started the engines again and closed the canopy.
Hah, hah, hah…
Zhao Chen steadied his breathing.
That had been a hair-raising maneuver ten thousand meters up.
Even with the T6 super-soldier serum behind him, falling all the way from that height would have meant certain death.
Indeed, had Zhao Chen not been enhanced, the conditions outside alone might well have made an ordinary person faint.
Rather than leaving him as he was now, like an ordinary person who had climbed four or five flights of stairs in one go.
The Dragon-Fang fighter was still falling, and below it was the swarm of aliens coming up.
The Dragon-Fang fighter was about to drop into the swarm.
When at last its engines came fully to life; the exhaust flared, and in an instant Zhao Chen had the Dragon-Fang fighter climbing with everything it had.
Its speed rose to the limit in the shortest time.
By degrees it opened the distance from the swarm behind.
To the pilots of the flight squadron who had watched all this, the sight left every face as though turned to stone.
In their minds they went over the scene again.
Had they not seen it with their own eyes, they could never have believed there could be such a feat.
Ten thousand meters up, to open a fighter's canopy, leap out, cut down a grade-five alien with a light-blade in hand, then judge where the engine-dead Dragon-Fang fighter would fall and get back into the cockpit.
And start the fighter again!
Such a feat… anyone who did not know would have taken it for something out of a war game…
And what of that thirty-meter light-blade?
The length and shape of a light-blade did vary from person to person.
But no one had ever heard of a light-blade thirty meters long!
In that moment everyone was watching that XG091 chasing after the flight squadron.
On the command channel, no one spoke.
Not a sound.
Whether they were dumbfounded by XG091's feat just now, or ashamed at having said nothing when XG091 was in danger before, and so dared not speak now.
In any case, that uncanny state,
lasted until they flew their Dragon-Fang fighters along the assigned route to the assigned carrier starship.
As for the swarms of aliens chasing behind XG091, with only grade-four and grade-three aliens left they could hardly catch up.
And with the interstellar drone swarms sent out by the interstellar warships in low orbit striking at them besides.
They could all get away safely.
Only now could Zhao Chen set his mind at ease.
He took a deep breath and sat in the cockpit,
listening to the words of a carrier starship's guide officer, directing his Dragon-Fang fighter as to when and on which strip to land.
Because of what Zhao Chen had done, he had fallen behind the rest, and was naturally the last to land.
While he waited,
he looked down at the planet.
A very ordinary world; several space elevators could be seen linking it to the stations in low orbit.
Zhao Chen felt little for this planet,
even though it was soon to be destroyed.
Such was the cruelty of interstellar war.
A thing that could not be avoided.
Zhao Chen looked next at the interstellar warships stationed in low orbit.
He saw no T6- or T7-grade interstellar warships.
Most were still T4- and T3-grade interstellar warships.
Farther off, some T5 interstellar warships could be seen, about thirty of them.
So this fleet had T5 interstellar warships as its main strength, T4 interstellar warships as its backbone, and T3 interstellar warships making up some sixty percent.
This proportion, without knowing these ships' true performance and fighting power,
fell short even of the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's front-line fleets as they now stood; their second-line fleets were somewhat stronger than these.
It was on a level, at a stretch, with the better of their third-line fleets,
such as the Holy Dragon Angel Legion led by the angel Tilia.
But what level a fleet of this grade counted as in this world, there was no knowing.
Zhao Chen rubbed his head.
Even now he could not make out whether he was dreaming or had crossed over.
For there had been several very lifelike dreams before; everything he felt in them had seemed real, pain included,
so that now he could not tell whether this was a dream either.
But there was one difference.
If this were a dream, the dream had gone on far too long.
The dreams before had generally lasted only a few minutes, or, counting the broken and blurred stretches together, about half an hour.
But now, from Zhao Chen's waking, to flying the Dragon-Fang fighter in battle,
and on to the present, half an hour had passed.
This was the first time a dream had been so clear for half an hour.
Which made Zhao Chen suspect he truly had crossed over…
And as for the memories of this world, and this body.
Zhao Chen had not inherited them entirely, only fragments, and the more important information tied to the body itself.
But information of lesser importance he could not recall.
Such as which interstellar warships were in service in this world, or which powerful interstellar powers there were.
That part of his memory was very blurred.