Blade and the Ghost Fighter wing didn't secure themselves in the forefront during the Ape Legion's initial assault. They weren't positioned at the absolute spearhead, but they were still far enough forward to be considered the second wave.

Following the first wave, the Human and Ape fighters became hopelessly intertwined. At the point of contact, both formations were shattered, descending into a chaotic dogfight.

Blade glanced at the radar, noting that a significant number of Ape fighters were still relentlessly assaulting the lead fleet perimeter, many of them being Fang-class fighters.

“Eliminate the enemy, or save our allies first?” Blade muttered quietly to himself, shoving the control stick over and accelerating forward.

Apes fighters zipped past him, but the skill level of these common Ape pilots wasn't enough to cause him any tension.

Blade squeezed the trigger, unleashing stream after stream of Uranium Pulse fire. The Ape fighters seemed to fly right into the beams, as if eager to die; every beam he fired connected with an enemy.

Blade’s fighter was a specialized variant of the third-generation Ghost fighter. In addition to tougher armor and superior maneuverability, the craft was equipped with twin Pulse Cannons—weapons only the size of a first-generation Uranium Cannon but possessing the destructive power of a second-generation unit. He still carried twelve missiles.

A second-generation Uranium Cannon delivered ten times the destructive force of a first-generation Hammer Cannon. Even a glancing blow to a non-critical area could disintegrate an Ape fighter.

In front of Blade, there was virtually no opponent that could withstand a single engagement. He cut a path through the Ancient Legion fighter swarm without slowing down, driving toward the two lead fleets.

Behind him, over a thousand third-generation Ghost fighters tailed him, surging forward through the opening he created.

Some of the Ghost fighters peeled off to screen the flanks, preventing the Ape fighters from attacking from the sides. As for the rear, tens of thousands of allied fighters held the line, ensuring the Ape forces couldn't roll up their backs.

Among this wave of intercepting Ape fighters, the Fang-class units were few; the majority were engaged in the siege surrounding the lead fleets. The fighters piloted by common Apes were child’s play against the third-generation Ghost fighters.

With the potent support of the Ghost wing, Blade ignored the flanks and the rear, driving straight ahead. Though the Ape fighters before him parted like waves against a hull, they were relentless, multiplying layer upon layer as if endless.

It was clear he had plunged deep into the heart of the Ape fighter formation, yet his mind remained utterly calm, unconcerned.

One hears of the many killing the strong, but where does the many kill the anteater? Warships could be sunk by sheer numbers of fighters, but a single, supremely skilled fighter could move through a massive swarm as if it were empty space.

An army cannot stop a Master, but a Master cannot stop an army. Blade was not yet a Master, but he certainly wasn't a pilot these Ape fighters could stop through mere quantity.

The radar blared an alert. Blade spared it a glance and saw over a dozen Ape fighters swarming in from every angle—above, below, left, and right. His eyes narrowed; his hands moved with blurring speed, targeting the Uranium Cannons one by one. Two rapid strings of light swept across the vectors, vaporizing the dozen fighters sequentially.

Behind him, the endless stream of fighters continued, but Blade knew clearly that their numbers were finite. The third-generation Ghost fighters were blindingly fast; once they flashed past an enemy, it was extremely difficult for the Apes to catch up.

Unnoticed, the allied fighters following behind surged into the gap carved through the Ape formation by Blade and the Ghost wing. A rough, spearhead-like formation began to coalesce.

Blade, at the very tip, absorbed the greatest pressure from all directions. Hundreds of beams lashed out at him every second. Most missed his agile fighter, splashing harmlessly into the void, but sheer volume meant some hits were inevitable, forcing Blade to evade.

“Break through!” Blade rolled and tumbled his fighter, weaving at high speed through the network of laser fire. At their closest, the beams came within a hand's breadth of his fuselage, yet he slipped past them unscathed.

Suddenly, the space ahead cleared. Blade had sliced through the Ancient Legion fighter mass. He checked the radar again and realized he was the first one out.

And the lead fleets were right there!

In the next moment, the Ghost wing followed him through. During the breakthrough, they naturally reformed their ranks, automatically aligning into tight operational formations with the assistance of the automatic navigation system, followed by tens of thousands of other allied fighters.

“Well done!” “Beautifully executed!” “Who are you?” “I never knew Ghost fighters could do this!” “They actually cut straight through! It’s maddening to compare ourselves!” “The lead fleet is under attack! Brothers, move out! Drive those monkeys back!”

All manner of voices erupted over the comms. The allied fighters loudly praised Blade’s astonishing feat of leading the breakout through the Ancient Legion swarm; their tone was electrifyingly excited.

Blade did not reply. He shifted his fighter’s vector, turning toward a Pacific-class battlecruiser that was currently enduring a heavy siege. The other allied fighters dispersed rapidly, each selecting a target, joining the defense of the escort fleet.

When the reinforcements arrived before the two lead fleets, a cheer erupted immediately over the close-range communications channel linking with the fighters aboard those lead vessels.

Though the lead fleets had been battered badly, they were not yet at the point of total collapse. From commanders down to the lowest enlisted soldiers, the will to resist had not faded. Earth and the Ancient Legion had forged a blood feud over half a century of conflict; compromise and surrender had been absent from the battlefields for years. In the contests between Earth forces and the Apes, it was common to see units fight on even after losing eighty percent of their combat power. While the losses sustained by these two lead fleets were not that extreme, they certainly topped thirty percent.

The sight of reinforcements arriving doubled the morale of the embattled forces, making the surviving pilots fight with even greater fervor.

During the siege, each warship had deployed its anti-aircraft shell curtain, designed to keep enemy craft from closing to point-blank range. Within that dense wall of fire, even fighters piloted by Ape Masters struggled to approach a warship. To prevent friendly fire, the IFF transponders on the flak cannons were active; if an allied fighter entered the line of fire, the cannons would immediately cease their barrage.

The thousand-plus Ghost fighters accompanying Blade all carried the IFF signature of the Earth forces. They sped toward the Pacific-class battlecruiser Blade had arbitrarily targeted. This ship was being assaulted by over five hundred Ape fighters, including more than fifty Fang-class units, while the human defenders were down to only three hundred fighters.

Upon spotting Blade’s squadron, the Ape pilots immediately disengaged and pulled back, simultaneously calling for support from surrounding units. They consolidated every Ape fighter attacking the nearby Human warships. Once they had amassed over two thousand fighters, they launched an assault against Blade’s Ghost wing.

These Apes clearly understood the capability of the Ghost fighters. This was largely due to the skirmishes that had occurred around the asteroid belt over the past six months. While there had been no major war, minor contacts had been continuous, and the Ancient Legion had learned about the downgraded performance of the first-generation Ghosts; their capabilities were no longer a secret.

Based on Ape experience, while the Ancient Legion's standard fighters were inferior to the Ghosts, a single Fang could effectively counter one Ghost piloted by a top Human pilot, sometimes engaging two. In the Apes’ estimation, assembling two thousand fighters, including two hundred Fangs, to tackle just over a thousand Ghosts meant they were at a slight disadvantage, but they could stall the enemy until reinforcements from the more distant Fang wings arrived, ensuring the enemy would be destroyed in space forever.

However, they failed to recognize that they were facing third-generation Ghosts, vastly superior to the first, and that the pilots were not standard fliers, but combat clones possessing innate piloting talent!

The two fighter masses collided. Beams rained down like sheets, and missiles streaked across the void, instantly inflicting catastrophic losses on the Ape side. Over two thousand Ape fighters were halved in moments. The Fang-class units were singled out for intense focus; under the deluge of accurate fire, almost all were annihilated!

Only a single Fang, piloted by a high-ranking Ape, narrowly escaped an encirclement by three Ghost fighters, but it was spotted by Blade. A stream of light shot out, tearing it to fragments.

After shattering the Ape formation, a further five minutes of chaotic fighting ensured the total annihilation of that Ape contingent. The Ghosts then moved on, without pause, toward the next target.

Gradually, Blade led the force closer to the center of the lead fleet area. Most allied fighters were concentrated here for defense, along with the most critical warships of the fleets. Consequently, the Ancient Legion’s attacks here were the most ferocious.

Dozens of Pacific-class battlecruisers maintained a dense, interlocking shell curtain, holding back over three thousand Fang-class fighters. Standard Ape fighters couldn't survive for more than a minute within such intense flak; only the Fangs could endure. Miles away, the main body of the Ancient Legion fleet focused its firepower on this spot, launching waves of attacks where hundreds of thick columns of light hammered down, inflicting severe damage on the battlecruisers.

Suddenly, the radar blared a high-pitched alarm. Blade turned and saw a single fighter—entirely blood-red, ferociously styled, and unlike any other—approaching him at high speed.

“An Ape Master-class fighter.”

Blade’s heart rate immediately spiked. A long-dormant fighting enthusiasm ignited in his chest. Now that his Psionic power had reached the Quasi-Master level, coupled with the Blade Emperor transformation, could he truly contend with a Master? It was time to see the result.

He opened the comms channel, loudly instructing the Ghost fighters behind him to use their own judgment, then wrenched the control stick, executing an abrupt change in vector, and charged toward the Master-class fighter.

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