The captain and the two vice-captains leading the Khezhi Detachment were all Masters of Psionic Energy, and Cheng’er… all were experts, none below the rank of High-Tier Psionicist.

Before the assault began, the Observers had scouted the surface of Io, mapping the exact distribution of anti-aircraft emplacements, choosing the breakthrough point perfectly; the sparse defensive beams posed very limited threats to the Detachment.

Upon approaching the ground to a certain altitude, Master Yan Shouyi, the Detachment Captain, issued the turning order. The Detachment executed a synchronized maneuver, leveling out parallel to the ground, flying toward the caldera where Fortress One was situated.

As they flew past the anti-air defenses, the beams fired by the cannons caused some trouble for the Detachment. The closer they got to Fortress One, the denser the beams became, with energy streams assaulting them from nearly every direction, every second.

Dao Feng expertly manipulated the Ghost fighter through a dazzling array of evasive maneuvers, like a slick, darting fish weaving through the gaps between the beams. The other fighters in the Detachment mirrored this; the unmanned automatic anti-air cannons posed limited threats. Amidst the dense fire, each fighter evaded with effortless grace; not a single craft fell behind.

Inside the caldera, in the main control room of Fortress One, the space was saturated with display screens—radar screens, computer monitors, and dozens of screens showing various other systems. Several rows of operational consoles lined the room, each manned by a tense Ape staff officer meticulously processing data.

"Sir, anti-air radar has detected an incursion."

Jin, an Ape staff officer, looked up from his console and reported to a hulking Ape standing within the glass-walled enclosure on the second floor of the control room.

"How many enemies?" The hulking Ape was a full three meters tall, considered tall even among the Ape clans; this was Gangdi, the Ape Master renowned for his resilience despite repeated setbacks.

"Fewer than one hundred fighters, but judging by their speed, they are all Psionicist fighters!" the Ape staff officer replied.

"Bring up the optical feed and project it onto the main screen."

"Yes, sir!"

Seconds later, on one end of the control room, a massive light screen suddenly illuminated, displaying the image of the Khezhi Detachment.

"A squadron of Psionicist fighters, three Master-level craft leading. The one in the front is that old thief Yan's personal fighter—that old bastard actually showed up? Hmm, the one right behind that must be one of the two Master-level Ghost fighters that killed Kordemi. These are all difficult adversaries."

Gangdi clenched his fist tighter and tighter as he spoke, until it seemed he meant to crush his own palm. Kordemi had worked directly under him, serving as the Vice Commander of Gangdi’s fleet just six months prior; their bond was deep. Seeing his enemy before him now naturally fueled his rage.

In the next instant, the entire screen abruptly went black; the optical feed vanished without a trace.

"Sir! We've lost the signal!" the Ape staff officer reported loudly.

"That’s because the lens providing the optical feed was blown apart. Monitoring a Master-level expert isn't that easy!"

Gangdi stated this with a chilling tone. He suddenly recalled the beginning of the Jupiter Campaign, when, led by Wengsha Lie, ten thousand Viper fighters launched a surprise attack on the United Fleet advancing toward Jupiter, only to abruptly turn back midway. The reason was that they had been detected by reconnaissance methods that remained entirely unseen. He recalled having argued against Wengsha Lie’s cautiousness at the time.

"To monitor a Master-level expert invisibly, even a Peak Master can only sense the reconnaissance presence but cannot locate the source. What powerful warfare technology. According to intelligence, the Terran Mercenary Corps is behind this. And the time before that, six months ago, my fleet was destroyed by an orbital bombardment attack from the Terran Mercenary Corps. Damn the Terran Mercenary Corps! I, Gangdi, swear eternal enmity with you!"

Gangdi slammed a fist onto the armrest, sending a spray of sparks flying. Violent Psionic fluctuations undulated around his body, seemingly mirroring the volcanic eruption of rage in his heart.

The Ape staff officers below fell silent, not daring to utter a single word until Gangdi’s temper subsided.

After a while, once Gangdi calmed down, the staff officer asked, "Sir, how should we handle this force? The base defense fleet still has over two thousand fighters, including two hundred Vipers..."

"Don't mention it," Gangdi waved his hand, stopping the staff officer. "This group is clearly composed entirely of High-Tier Psionicists. Most of our two hundred Vipers are Apprentice-level; they are no match for the enemy. Sending them to intercept would just be sending them to die. Report this to Lord Wengsha Lie and request reinforcements!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Also, release the Beast Swarms and deploy them across this first sector, where the main control room is located, and the fourth sector where the power facilities are. If the enemy penetrates the fortress interior, an attack on those two locations will be unavoidable." After issuing the order, Gangdi fell silent.

The Khezhi Detachment navigated through layers of obstacles until they reached the caldera. Hot sulfurous smoke billowed upward from the volcanic opening. Visible within the caldera were numerous defensive nets woven from cutting beams, segmenting the space into discrete squares. These rays were as thin as sewing thread, and the mesh openings were about the width of a hand span.

Layer upon layer of such large nets—“There must be over a dozen layers,” they silently lay spread out, waiting for the torch-bearers to approach.

"Full firepower! Destroy the generators for the ray nets!" Master Yan Shouyi’s voice echoed in Dao Feng's headset.

Dao Feng deployed his swarm of floating cannons. One hundred and seventy Uranium Cannons locked onto the edges of each ray net layer, unleashing a rain of beams toward the surrounding cliffs.

Boom, boom, boom.

The Psionicist fighters opened fire simultaneously. Although their craft did not carry psychic weaponry, under the guidance of their powerful mental forces, their conventional Uranium Cannons fired with incredible accuracy. The three Master-level fighters, too, possessed destructive power no less than Dao Feng’s floating cannons.

The fighter group circled the caldera once, covering three hundred and sixty degrees of the cliff face. The rock walls were struck by beams, sending stone fragments flying, shrouding the area in smoke.

The ray net generators buried within the cliff face were destroyed one by one. The ray nets thinned out, became sparser, and finally vanished completely.

"Alright, let's go down."

Master Yan Shouyi’s fighter led the charge, plunging into the caldera.

The main structure of Fortress One was regular in shape, composed of six sectors, arranged like the vertices of a perfect hexagon, encircling the mountain wall evenly. The exterior surfaces were clad in alloy walls, half protruding from the cliff face and half recessed into it. The structures were connected by fully enclosed corridors built within the rock. The building surfaces were numbered one through six in the Ape language.

There were few anti-aircraft cannons positioned inside the caldera; with the combined efforts of Dao Feng and the Psionicist fighter squadron, the majority were neutralized in just a few volleys.

"Large door below and to the left—that should connect to the runway. Let's blast open the runway and enter the fortress interior."

Dao Feng looked in the direction Master Yan Shouyi indicated. There was a thick alloy door, tightly sealed, approximately twenty meters wide and ten meters high—clearly the exit of the flight runway.

Although modern fighters were capable of vertical takeoff and landing and hovering, the flight runway still existed, not primarily to slow down landing aircraft, but for structural necessity.

"Copy that."

With a thought from Dao Feng, the floating cannons instantly pivoted their barrels and unleashed a full volley at the massive door.

One hundred and sixty-eight streams of Uranium fire focused on a single point, instantly turning the metal red, melting it, vaporizing it, and blasting a huge hole through it.

Due to the narrow terrain, the Khezhi Detachment could not fully deploy. Only about a quarter of the fighters could fire upon the door, but that was sufficient.

The three Masters plus Dao Feng accounted for half of the entire Detachment's firepower. A massive barrage of beams hammered the door, and a large hole was quickly burned through.

The Detachment formed a long line and entered through the breach one after another.

Passing through the several-hundred-meter-long flight runway, they reached the deepest part of the track. The access tunnels for incoming fighters were all sealed off. Master Yan Shouyi, leading the way, used two missiles to blast open the path leading to the hangar bay.

The moment they burst into the hangar, the three leading Master-level fighters zipped forward. Dao Feng entered fourth. He saw hundreds of combat robots and over a hundred Apes standing in the hangar. Almost simultaneously, they looked up, raised their Uranium guns, and aimed the barrels at the incoming squadron.

However, before they could fire, the three Master-level fighters opened fire first, sweeping massive beams across the lower part of the hangar. The first wave of attack destroyed more than half the robots and all the Apes; the beams hit almost perfectly, none wasted.

Dao Feng was a step behind, but he cleaned up the remainder, his floating cannons erupting in a fierce rain of light that annihilated the remaining combat robots.

"We land here. The rest of the way, we go on foot," Master Yan Shouyi stated.

The Detachment fighters found empty spaces in the hangar to land. After landing, Dao Feng and the Psionicists jumped out of their cockpits and organized their weapons.

A few Psionicists, experts in programming, located the interface for the fortress's local network in the hangar, connected to the fortress's main computer, and downloaded the layout map.

For those awakened with eidetic memory, achieving some mastery in certain fields of knowledge was not difficult; many Psionicists concurrently held roles as scientists or engineers.

The surrounding Apes and robots were all annihilated, their bodies and wreckage strewn about. Hundreds of standard-issue fighters belonging to the Ancient Legion were parked neatly in the hangar, and now, with nearly an equal number of Khezhi Detachment fighters, the space felt slightly crowded.

After organizing their gear, Master Yan Shouyi gathered everyone and announced, "According to the initial assignments, we are now splitting into three teams. Team One will follow me to the main control room; Team Two will assault the fortress power core; Team Three will remain here to guard the fighters. Understood?"

"Understood," everyone replied.

As planned, each of the three teams was led by a Master-level expert, and Dao Feng was assigned to Master Yan Shouyi’s Team One.

A few Psionicists shared the fortress layout map. Once everyone confirmed reception of the map, the teams departed separately.