Mid-Air Interception

At night, after their charter flight from the Capital landed at Yangcheng Airport, Chu Jizhen and his group headed straight for the high-speed railway station.

By the time their vehicles arrived at a standard high-speed railway station in Yangcheng, the station had already been closed to the public under the pretext of a technical malfunction.

Inside the station, Wu Jingyi and several of his disciples stood quietly, waiting.

Surrounding them were about a hundred soldiers. Compared to ordinary soldiers, these men were far more robust, and their eyes were pitch-black.

“Teacher, is such a massive turnout really necessary? We've wasted several hours just waiting for them. We should have left earlier,” a middle-aged man smoking a cigarette beside Wu Jingyi said, repeatedly checking the time.

Wu Jingyi stood there silently. Upon hearing his disciple's words, he slapped the back of the man's head. “What do you know, kid? The Ghoul's classification has already been raised to the nation's highest security level. If they weren't worried about alerting the public, an even more formidable escort squad would have been deployed.”

The middle-aged man rubbed the back of his head and smiled, remaining silent.

After they waited for another ten minutes, the sound of car horns echoed as two black SUVs drove directly into the station.

“Let's go, they're here,” Wu Jingyi said, stepping forward.

The door of the lead vehicle opened, and the first to step out was a young man in a suit who looked thoroughly exhausted, with a pale, sickly complexion.

He scanned the surrounding Ghoul soldiers, a look of surprise crossing his face. Such dense vital energy.

Having formed a contract with an Evil Spirit, he was exceptionally sensitive to the vital energy of living beings. The life force of these black-eyed soldiers was several times greater than that of ordinary men.

As he observed the soldiers, a white-haired elder dressed in a gray suit walked up to him. “Captain Chu?”

Chu Jizhen turned to the elder and said politely, “Professor Wu, sorry to keep you waiting. Are the Ghouls secured?”

“They've already been secured in the eighth carriage. Would you like to take a look? To be safe, we've also used some serum to enhance a hundred soldiers. If anything happens, they definitely won't hold you back,” Wu Jingyi said.

Hearing this, Chu Jizhen turned to look at Wen Yu. She nodded, sending a wave of spiritual power to sweep through the eighth carriage. Inside were two iron cages, each containing a Ghoul.

After confirming the Ghouls were secure, she spoke to Chu Jizhen, “Captain Chu, the count is correct. Everything is in order.”

Chu Jizhen quickly assigned their guard duties. “Xu Mo, Wen Yu, you're in the seventh carriage. Yu Renjia, Zhang Liu, Liu Wangao, the three of you take the ninth carriage. I'll guard the eighth carriage myself.”

“Yes, sir!” the others replied, nodding.

With the tasks assigned, Chu Jizhen looked at Wu Jingyi. “Professor Wu, let's head out. Let's try to reach the Capital before dawn.”

Their high-speed train would not make any stops, maintaining a speed of four hundred kilometers per hour throughout the journey. It would only arrive an hour or two later than a flight.

Seeing Chu Jizhen's readiness, Wu Jingyi nodded. “Depart!”

Just as the high-speed train departed, over at the Yangcheng Military Airport...

A large black military transport plane took off from the runway.

Up above, two escorting gray fighter jets were already circling slowly. Once the transport plane ascended into the sky, they maintained a matching speed, flanking it on either side.

Inside the transport plane, five supernatural agents from the Special Bureau dressed in suits sat to the side, expressionless.

A woman stood before them, looking at them with a stern expression. “Even though this is a covert operation, do not drag us down. The Ghouls are a matter of national importance. If anything goes wrong, you must protect them even if it costs you your lives!”

“Understood!” the five replied in unison.

Across from them, a black-haired elder—who was Wu Jingyi's partner—smiled as he looked at the confident Special Bureau agents. “There's no need to be so tense, everyone. We're flying at an altitude of ten thousand meters with fighter jets escorting us. Just being ten thousand meters off the ground is enough to avoid most potential threats.”

Hearing the elder's words, Shen Duo'er, the team leader, felt her tension ease slightly as well.

Two hours after the high-speed train and the transport plane left Yangcheng...

At an altitude of ten thousand meters, Liu Zhian sat cross-legged in a white suit atop a surfboard-shaped mass of purple energy.

He stared quietly at his phone, which displayed the transport plane's trajectory in real-time. It was currently less than a hundred kilometers away from him.

“No matter how confidential it is, in this supernatural era, even a will of steel cannot withstand mental control,” Liu Zhian muttered as he stood up. The energy surfboard beneath his feet suddenly accelerated.

High in the sky, fierce winds howled. The three small braids at the back of his head whipped in the wind as his speed broke the sound barrier and continued to soar.

After consuming quite a few fingers obtained from Fengcheng, his physical body was at least twice as strong as it had been a month ago. This allowed him to withstand extreme acceleration without any physical protection.

Meanwhile, inside the left escort fighter jet...

It wasn't until Liu Zhian was just over twenty kilometers away that the pilot noticed a fast-moving blip suddenly appear on his radar. He frowned in confusion. A bird? But what bird flies at Mach 3?

“One, One, this is Escort Two. Did your radar pick that up? Something is rapidly approaching. Suspected supernatural entity!” the voice of the right fighter pilot crackled in his earpiece.

Pilot One immediately engaged his targeting system, a cold smirk playing on his lips. “So what if it's a supernatural being? I've always been curious if these so-called supernatural beings can actually withstand my missiles!”

But in the next instant, his smirk froze.

On the radar screen, the single target was rapidly multiplying. Ten, fifty, a hundred, five hundred!

“What the hell is that!” Pilot Two's panicked voice came through the comms.

During the few seconds of their confusion, Liu Zhian had already closed the distance to within a dozen kilometers.

Around him, numerous one-meter-wide, purplish-white light wheels in the shape of half-moons materialized, filling the airspace around him.

“Go!” Liu Zhian waved his left hand. Five hundred half-moon light wheels, completely intangible, instantly broke Mach 6 and hurtled toward the three aircraft.

Inside the transport plane, alarms blared.

“Special Bureau agents, we have hostile signatures ahead! Five hundred targets are approaching at Mach 6. Estimated time of arrival is seven seconds!”

Shen Duo'er bolted upright from her seat, her face pale. “Protect the Ghouls!”

Outside, the two fighter jets fired all their missiles, while the transport plane deployed decoy flares as all three aircraft pulled up sharply.

Not long after they were fired, the missiles were detonated in mid-air by the dense cluster of purplish-white light wheels. The massive chain of explosions created a wall of fireballs high in the sky.

In the next moment, the dense half-moon light wheels tore through the fireballs, climbing upward and instantly catching up to the two fighter jets.

Several light wheels sliced through the fighter jets from tail to nose. Sparks erupted from the gashes, and the fighter jets exploded into two massive balls of fire in mid-air.

The remaining swarm of light wheels began to orbit the transport plane, surrounding it completely.

Inside the transport plane, the Special Bureau agents led by Shen Duo'er waited grimly for the enemy's next move.

One of the young men pulled out a square red cloth about seven or eight meters wide from his coat. In a solemn tone, he said, “If anything happens to the plane, we'll be counting on you to keep us alive!”

A mouth materialized on the front of the red cloth, speaking in a somewhat comical tone, “Got it, got it. Just remember to feed me well afterward.”

At that moment, a harsh, screeching sound of metal being sliced echoed from the rear cargo door.

Shen Duo'er looked back and saw a purplish-white beam of energy carving a two-meter-tall opening in the door.

The moment the section of the door was completely sliced open, steam erupted around her. She barked, “Do it! Kill him!”

She opened her mouth, spewing superheated steam of several hundred degrees toward the rear.

Beside her, a young man wearing sunglasses took them off. His eyes glowed with a pale blue light as two beams of blue energy shot toward the opening.

However, a flash of purple light zipped by at Mach 6. In an instant, the heads of everyone inside the transport plane flew off, save for the Ghouls and the black-haired elder.

Utter disbelief filled Shen Duo'er's eyes as her vision faded. So fast...

Behind them, over a dozen half-moon wheels spun at high speeds, the blood coating them instantly vaporized by the energy.

Mach 6 meant over two thousand meters per second. It was simply impossible for them to react in time.

At the back of the cabin, the severed opening caused a violent decompression, and loose objects were instantly sucked out into the open sky.

Liu Zhian walked inside calmly.

He looked at the terrified, black-haired elder buckled into his seat. “Professor Hu, the Xichang Liu family would like to invite you to pursue your career in Xichang. You wouldn't mind, would you?”

As he spoke, the corpses on the floor were sucked out of the plane, leaving behind only pools of blood.

The heavy scent of blood agitated the Ghouls. “Roar!”

Hu Wei looked at Liu Zhian, who had just slaughtered so many people in the blink of an eye yet remained completely unfazed. Gulping hard, he said, “I don't mind. After all, Xichang is still part of the Nanming Kingdom. Going there is still serving the country.”

He was convincing himself that this wasn't treason; they were all still citizens of the Nanming Kingdom.

Liu Zhian suddenly burst into laughter.

He casually waved his hand behind him, and purplish-white energy formed a square barrier that sealed the breach. “Professor Hu, rest assured that I, Liu Zhian, will never treat you poorly. As long as you are genuinely willing to work for the Liu family, whatever the officials are paying you, my Liu family will quintuple it!”

Having said his piece, he ignored the elder's reaction and strode toward the cockpit.