The First Military Academy was caught in a pincer attack from both the rescue aircraft and the mutant beasts, one from the air and one from the ground.
"The safety officers must have been swapped out — they'd never go this hard on us!"
Wu Pingzhuo lost focus for a moment, and the bug swarm slipped through a crack in his mental defenses.
For a few seconds, it felt like he'd been yanked into some other-dimensional space, and then he was seeing someone else's everyday life?
Fu Xingyuan lunged forward to catch his falling teammate, while He Siyu immediately traced the source of the mental attack and struck back.
Only then did Wu Pingzhuo snap out of it, and once he regained his senses, he re-engaged the mech and climbed back into the air.
"Pfft! Your mental strength is nowhere near Elizabeth's or Hiranuma Yusho's, you got that? Garbage!"
He was genuinely furious, because the last part he'd seen was clearly something that had actually happened.
"How dare you peek into other people's daily lives?"
"Wu Pingzhuo. Focus."
Fu Xingyuan didn't know what he'd seen, but if rage clouded his judgment right now, their teammates would be in serious danger.
Wu Pingzhuo accepted the reminder and realized his current state wasn't doing the squad any favors.
"...Understood."
The words barely left his mouth when the rescue aircraft fired three electromagnetic cannons at Leola in rapid succession!
The first two shots she dodged and blocked, but the third flew straight toward the cockpit. Leola barely avoided the critical hit, the blast landing on the mech's shoulder instead.
Red warnings flashed on her control screen, telling her the mech had taken heavy damage — the shoulder, the arm, and the firepower system on the left side of the back were all temporarily unresponsive...
"Damn it!"
Seeing a second wave already charging up, Leola had no choice but to slam the accelerator and get out of the way.
Wu Pingzhuo aimed his firepower tube at the aircraft overhead, and Fu Xingyuan locked on from the other side at the same moment.
"Stay away from her!"
The rescue aircraft's defense coefficient was extremely high — several cannon shells hit it without much effect.
But at least the firepower tubes that had been hammering them were now bent out of shape. Seeing that the enemy had lost its attack capability, the four from First Military Academy finally let out a breath.
"The cannon barrels are busted — watch out for the ground forces and mental attacks!"
But what they didn't expect was for the aircraft to suddenly accelerate and descend?
The star beasts and mutant beasts deliberately cleared a space, the hatch slid open, and several "safety officers" stepped out.
The First Military Academy squad, who had been keeping an eye on this while running, almost did a double take — those did look like the safety officer instructors they'd met before...
But then those "safety officers" moved in perfect unison, fixed their eyes on them, and pulled mechs out of their space rings.
"!?!?"
"Safety officer instructors! We're sorry, okay?! We won't file a complaint!?"
Wu Pingzhuo stared at the scene, completely dumbfounded. His answer came in the form of non-stop grenade fire.
Their firepower was clearly far stronger than the students', after all, the students had already burned through a lot of their resources over the previous four days...
"Crap! Is today seriously the day I die?"
Leola's firepower had been cut in half — she could only use the remaining half plus her mental strength to support her teammates.
He Siyu had a rough idea of what was going on. She glanced at the mutant beasts below, infested by the bug swarm, and clenched her jaw so hard it hurt.
She could never bring herself to say the words, "If we fall down there, better to take our own lives than let ourselves get infested!"
These three were her teammates!
Fu Xingyuan kept calculating angles in his head — forty-five degrees down-right, thirty degrees down-right, fire! Then forty-five degrees down-left, open fire...
One pursuing mech had nowhere to dodge. Its parts stopped functioning one by one, and with a "BOOM," it exploded and plummeted.
"It works!"
This was from the five critical points he'd written down during a lecture by the military district's mech engineer. The instructor had said that multiple core systems converged at these five spots, so they mattered a lot!
The enemy were seasoned fighters; protecting the cockpit had been drilled into their very bones, but they didn't pay nearly as much attention to the other parts.
He'd only just realized — even without getting close, and even if he couldn't hit the cockpit, he could still render them immobile!
"Nice one, Fu Xingyuan!"
A familiar voice came through the comm channel.
"Instructor Ye's lecture wasn't wasted."
Wang Tianwei had barely finished speaking when she stopped her mech and deployed all her firepower.
There were relatively fewer star beasts and mutant beasts on this side — so take care of this area first, then head back as fast as possible to support Valk.
"It's the Qilin squad!!"
Wu Pingzhuo saw four mechs with yellow stripes appear and almost shed tears of joy. Reinforcements had arrived!
Before the bug host chasing the First Military Academy could even process what was happening, Zhang Lyra slammed the throttle all the way down and charged out, barreling through the mass of mechs left and right — yet somehow still dodging her own side perfectly. And of course, her guns never stopped firing; everywhere she went, a string of "fireworks" exploded.
Once Huang Yan arrived, the pressure on He Siyu dropped considerably. Jian Jingyu focused on the star beasts and mutant beasts whose eyes just looked wrong.
"Black, black, black, gold!"
Inside the rescue aircraft, Kes was just now realizing that things had spiraled beyond his control. He hit the broadcast button.
"Qilin Military Academy, Fourth Squad, cease attacking the safety officers immediately!"
"BOOM!"
"BOOM!"
The little drones in the air kept getting blown apart.
Wang Tianwei's hands were too busy controlling her mech to spare a look at the camera in front of her.
"Stop impersonating safety officers. And also, cease harming the Federation military academy students immediately."
Kes paused for a moment, then gave orders to the subordinates aboard his aircraft.
"Lock onto them with mental strength. Prepare for battle."
With the four newcomers joining in, the First Military Academy squad finally regained their footing.
Leola followed Jian Jingyu's call and started taking headshots on the infested star beasts.
Wang Tianwei finally had a moment to deal with the camera on her end.
"Worthless bug swarm. You've been stalking us this long — what have you even learned?"
With that, she swung her wrench and smashed the little drone in front of her into pieces.
Jian Jingyu added, "You parasites, I've been putting up with you for way too long! Even Federation kindergartners know to rely on themselves, and you're still playing at parasitism?"
"CRACK!"
Another camera went down.
The Qilin squad stopped holding back and dropped the act, all of them fighting at full strength.
"My mom said bad bugs get smacked down."
Little Bear had already cleared the enemies in front of her. Braving the enemy's mental attacks, she re-launched and shot straight for the aircraft.
Huang Yan and He Siyu had already locked onto the two aircraft in the rear, clearing the way with their mental strength.
"Take them down, Little Bear."
"You got it."
Kes had originally assumed that a safety officer's skill level would be more than enough to handle a few students. He never expected the students to be this troublesome.
Even relying on the safety officers' combat instincts, they were fighting tooth and nail?
Zhang Lyra, under the protection of the two squad leaders, stuck herself to the underside of the aircraft. She pried open the panel with her long blade, quickly unscrewed a few bolts, and tore off the aircraft's floor plate.
Expressionless, she aimed her firepower tube at the delicate components in the center.
"BOOM!"
