The remaining Gunpods aimed their weaponry at the target. Although the opponent was clearly a Master-level expert, his ability to maneuver a Master-level fighter jet, weighing in the tons, purely through psychic power was naturally inferior to the jet's own propulsion system; its speed was even slower than that of an ordinary Ape-man fighter.

In reality, before opening fire, Blade had been contemplating how the Master-level fighter would counter his attack. However, upon witnessing Bensa move the fighter with sheer telekinesis, he realized that the speed involved was entirely within his capacity to handle.

"Attack!" With a mere thought from Blade, all one hundred and seventy Gunpods fired simultaneously. A dense array of energy beams instantly shot toward the Master-level fighter!

The positioning and angles of the beams were perfectly coordinated, coalescing into a solid cage of light that enclosed Bensa’s fighter in a three-dimensional structure—front, back, top, bottom, left, and right—leaving not a single gap.

However, Master-level expert Bensa was not entirely helpless. The very instant the Gunpods opened fire, he willed the Master-level fighter to vanish from its position, only to reappear tens of meters away.

This was the application of the Shrinking Ground technique to the fighter jet, allowing the craft and its pilot to instantaneously shift space and evade the luminous prison formed by the volley.

Blade knew this was the optimal moment to eliminate his opponent, a chance that would vanish in an instant. If he missed it, dealing with the enemy once their power reserves were restored would be far more difficult. Therefore, without pause after the initial volley, the Gunpods continued firing relentlessly, raining down beams like a deluge upon Bensa’s fighter.

"I must shoot you down!" Blade controlled the Gunpods, pursuing the direction Bensa was evading, launching continuous beams that forced Bensa into a desperate retreat.

Purely relying on telekinesis for instantaneous jumps had its limits. In barely ten seconds, after thousands of beams had been fired, Bensa’s fighter had sustained five or six hits, suffering significant damage.

"This is bad. If this continues, by the time these whitish arcs dissipate and the power recovers, this fighter will be scrap."

As a Master-level expert, Bensa’s physical ailments were irrelevant; he was immune to the ravages of cold or heat. He could freely control his perspiration function, so even under extreme tension, only his mind felt stress; his forehead remained perfectly smooth, his body entirely uninfluenced by mental anxiety, allowing him to operate at one hundred percent capacity at all times.

"Explode for me!"

Blade sensed Bensa was reaching his breaking point, that the moment of decision was near. In a state of heightened concentration, his spirit pushed further, applying one hundred and twenty percent focus; he managed to elevate the destructive power of the Uranium Beams another notch.

Bensa felt the enemy beams growing faster and truer. A vast net of light burst towards him. Looking up, down, left, and right, he saw no escape route.

"I can't block it! Ah! Small—"

The next instant, Bensa’s Master-level fighter was struck by dozens of beams, exploding violently, its fragments scattering everywhere.

"Hit!"

A surge of joy swept through Blade. He clearly witnessed the Master-level fighter disintegrating. A blinding sphere of light erupted from within the craft, expanding rapidly like a miniature sun. Anything caught in an explosion of this magnitude would face mortal peril, even a Master-level expert.

However, he quickly saw a figure phase out of the periphery of the tiny sun—Bensa had blinked out just before the main explosion occurred.

Blade let out a breath. As expected of a Master-level expert, his endurance was formidable. Yet, Blade had long since decided that having deployed this array, he would leave no one alive.

Even if the Ape-man Master-level expert was involved.

"Die, Ape-man Master."

With a thought, Blade recalled two Gunpods whose energy was depleted for recharging, while the remaining units accelerated, continuing their relentless beam assault on Bensa.

Bensa was not in good shape. Although he escaped the cockpit, fragments from the exploding fighter slammed into him. The impact force was tremendous, far more perilous than shrapnel from a high-explosive shell on the ground battlefield.

Five or six fragments lodged themselves deep within his body, and he could even feel one smaller, sharper piece piercing clean through him.

Though he managed to constrict his blood vessels in time to prevent massive blood loss into the vacuum of space, such injuries were catastrophic, undeniably impeding his movements.

Seeing the shadow-like beams racing toward him again, Bensa abruptly drew his Light Staff, simultaneously executing a Shrinking Ground maneuver while using the staff to deflect the beams he couldn't dodge.

The reflected beams were all aimed back at the Gunpods. If Blade hadn't been vigilant, making evasive maneuvers the moment his Gunpods fired, Bensa might have succeeded.

While reflecting the beams, Bensa silently cursed. A second-tier Uranium Beam Cannon was entirely different from a Uranium Gun. Although he could push the beams back, each successful reflection sent him staggering backward, severely compromising his stability.

Blade recognized this weakness and, with a flash of insight, immediately shifted tactics. He ordered half of the Gunpods—fourteen units—to focus their fire on a single point, attacking Bensa with the power equivalent of a third-tier Uranium Beam Cannon.

Although this halved the density of the beams, the difference in sheer destructive power was astronomical.

"Stubborn Ape-man Master! I admire your tenacity, and I admire your strength, but let this strike send you on your way!"

Blade timed his attack perfectly: the moment Bensa completed a shift and reappeared hundreds of meters away, he unleashed a full barrage from twelve Gunpods targeted at him. Eighty-four second-tier Uranium Beams were used for area denial and lockdown, while six beams, equivalent to third-tier Uranium Beams, served as the main assault.

Bensa was already spent. Although a Master-level expert possessed superhuman physical and mental fortitude with near-limitless stamina, mental power was finite. A chain of instantaneous shifts in the fighter, compounded by the continuous shifts he was performing now, had utterly exhausted his spirit. Even his perception had dulled significantly.

Before Blade launched this final wave, Bensa felt a vague premonition, but it was hazy, lacking the sharp clarity of before.

As a Master-level expert, he understood exactly what that meant.

"Damned humans," Bensa muttered to himself, but before he could finish, Blade's assault erupted. His Light Staff, raised one last time, managed to intercept two of the third-tier penetrating beams. However, the remaining four converged on him, instantly vaporizing him; his body was atomized, leaving behind only the shattered remnants of his Light Staff, drifting silently in the void of space.

Blade let out a long sigh.

Finally!

He had killed him!

Blade, Yang Ying in the bridge of the Distant Number One vessel, and all of Yang Ying’s clones, collectively released a deep, heartfelt sigh of relief.

This was the first Master-level expert he had killed.

For so long, the might of the Master-level experts had been deeply ingrained in their minds. Yang Ying had continually striven toward this singular goal, pouring immense energy into elevating his own spiritual essence to reach the Master realm. His total entity—the main body plus all clones—amounted to twelve individuals. Usually, more than half of these individuals were either engaged in rigorous cultivation on the Floating Continent or training in various parts of the world.

His cultivation was like a ceaseless river, flowing day and night without a moment’s rest.

Due to the sheer number of his active bodies, the experience he gained through this method was several times greater than that of ordinary individuals, leading to ferocious progress. Whether it was swordsmanship, the refinement of psychokinetic application, or the intensity of mental focus, he had reached a state of consummate mastery. Yet, the essential distance to the Master realm remained a profound gulf.

It was like the far shore of a sea of suffering, perpetually shrouded in mist—infinitely approachable, yet utterly unreachable.

But now, today, a supreme warrior who had already achieved the Master realm had finally been defeated and slain. The sense of accomplishment surged like a tidal wave, merging with his consciousness and causing a subtle shift in his state of mind.

This shift brought him a level of progress that surpassed the sum total of one month’s cultivation for his main body and all his clones combined.

"A pity we didn't manage to ask this Ape-man Master his name," Blade noted. Despite the fierce battle with Bensa, there had been virtually no dialogue, so he knew little about the enemy's name.

"Right, perhaps—"

His eyes lit up. He immediately piloted his fighter toward the spot where Bensa had been vaporized. He opened the cockpit hatch, reached out toward the shattered Light Staff, and pulled sharply. The staff immediately flew into the cockpit, caught securely in his hand.

Blade turned the staff grip over and over, discovering a line of grain-of-rice-sized Ape script engraved near the center of the handle.

"Bensa. I remember now."

Blade reverently placed the Light Staff into a storage compartment inside the cockpit, intending to proceed with eliminating the rest of this ancient legion's fleet.

Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of extreme danger caused his entire body to jerk. He slammed his hand onto the control stick, pushing it to the floor. The Ghost Fighter’s thrusters erupted to maximum power, simultaneously accompanied by a violent surge of psychic energy that enveloped the craft, executing a Shrinking Ground maneuver that instantly moved him twenty meters away.

Almost immediately after he moved, a spectacularly magnificent rain of light descended upon his previous location. Judging by the visual effect, it seemed even more imposing than the simultaneous volley of the twelve Gunpods!

"A psychic weapon, a Scattershot Cannon, and another Master-level expert?" Blade was still shaken; his heart rate, which had stabilized after killing Bensa, spiked anew.

A thunderous voice boomed directly into his mind: "Vile Earthling! You dare kill Bensa! Such an act must be repaid with your life! I, Mika, will avenge Bensa!"

Hearing this, Blade’s heart sank. In that previous deluge of light, his Gunpods, which had not shifted with him, were entirely caught in the blast and destroyed. Now, he was left with only two Gunpods beside him, facing a Master-level fighter equipped with a Scattershot Cannon—a truly unequal contest.

He activated the optical screen and aimed the targeting system toward the direction from which the light rain had originated. He saw a gray fighter, its nose crowned with a lightning rod-shaped spike emanating a spherical, pale red halo. The scattershot beams emerging from the tip could be telekinetically guided to curve freely within that halo, striking precisely where aimed.

But what shocked Blade even more was that enveloping the Master-level fighter's outer shell was a second, pale blue halo.

If he wasn't mistaken, that was some kind of energy shield.