Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 489: Divine Punishment (2)

Dragon Raja 3

It laughed wildly, mocking those who had tried to stop it—Bondarev, Chisei, Chime… all of them had become its nourishment. By consuming their worth, it had grown strong enough to rule the world!

It danced madly within the clouds, flaunting its power, and drew a line toward the sea with a wave of its hand. A black tide began to rise, forming a new tsunami that surged toward Tokyo. The rain clouds spun around it, forming a massive cloud mountain above the city, its base so low it seemed to press down on the skyscrapers, while its peak pierced the stratosphere.

Gales, storms, tidal waves, and flames—bring them all! It wanted more, as if these were the celebratory salutes for the coronation of the new king!

It halted its wild dance, beating its wings as it soared above the clouds, the raging tide of power within it slightly receding. As the newly reborn king, it hadn’t yet fully adapted to its body or mastered the technique of controlling its power output, and it began to feel some fatigue.

But that didn’t matter. It had time, for its life was incalculable. All the time in the world belonged to it now. It only needed to hunt a few more targets and wait leisurely for its power to recover. Conveniently, the fighter jet squadron coming to provide reinforcements was approaching, launching Sparrow missiles. How laughable—how could sparrows ever contend with a dragon? It suddenly tucked in its wings and dived vertically, slicing through the clouds, rushing toward the ascending F-2 jets. The Sparrow missiles couldn’t keep up with its speed, exploding into a series of fireballs in its wake. Like a great eagle, it spun through the air, once again tearing through the aircraft’s fuselage.

“Kumagaya Base calling Kisarazu Base! We’ve lost four F-2 fighter jets! But we haven’t even caught sight of the enemy!” The duty officer at Kumagaya Base was going mad, desperately calling for help from the nearby Kisarazu Base.

“Kisarazu Base reports two F-2 fighter jets down. We’ve also been unable to capture any image of the enemy. From the radar readings, the thing is barely larger than a human!” The duty officer at Kisarazu Base remained relatively calm, though his voice carried a faint tone of dread.

The enemy was beyond their comprehension, and they had no contingency plan for dealing with such a thing. Their ground-based missiles, fighter jets, and anti-aircraft systems were all designed to target fighter jets or bombers. They simply didn’t have the right weapons to attack something like this.

Is it a UFO? A ghost? Or some other supernatural entity? Everyone harbored these questions.

Letting it go unchecked wasn’t an option, but sending more F-2 fighter jets would only result in sending more pilots to their deaths. Based on the way the previous jets had crashed, it was clear that their maneuverability couldn’t compare to that of the unknown flying object. In modern aerial combat, tailing an opponent is essential to locking on and attacking them, or otherwise, using beyond-visual-range missiles. However, the F-2’s long-range weapons couldn’t destroy the target, and its close-range maneuverability was inferior, making the jets sitting ducks, picked off one by one.

“It’s too fast and far more agile. The F-2 is at least a generation behind it,” said the officer on duty at Kisarazu Base, still trying to consider the thing as a regular aircraft, hence using terms like “generation gap.”

“Can we request F-22s from Okinawa Base? Don’t the Americans have an F-22 squadron stationed there? The F-22 is a generation ahead of the F-2, and maybe it could take it on!” someone from Kumagaya Base suggested.

“Unfortunately, first, we don’t have the authority to deploy U.S. F-22s. Secondly, the F-22 squadron’s stationing was temporary, and based on flight logs, they’ve already left Okinawa Base,” Kisarazu Base replied.

“So, is there nothing in all of Japan that can deal with this thing?”

“There is one possibility… Shinshin could work, but there’s only one prototype!” Kisarazu Base said. “And the only pilot capable of flying it lost contact half an hour ago!”

Western suburbs of Tokyo, Defense Ministry’s Technical Research Headquarters, Kanto Base.

The largest wind tunnel laboratory in Japan is located here, used primarily for testing the fluid dynamics of new aircraft designs, making it the site of Japan’s next-generation fighter development.

There’s also a secret: this base houses the only prototype of the Shinshin fighter jet. Developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to surpass the F-22, this Japanese-made jet was slated for its first test flight in 2014, but the prototype had already been built long before that and was even capable of carrying weapons. Late at night, it would take off at supersonic speeds, testing flights between Tokyo and Okinawa. The only pilot who could fly it was Lieutenant Colonel Tojo Ayumu, as the plane’s operating system was still incomplete and required an experienced pilot to manually adapt to its quirks.

“Out of the way! This is a plane heist! Keep your heads down and nobody triggers the alarm! I’ll grab the plane and leave without hurting anyone!”

An Aston Martin sports car crashed through the wire fence near the tarmac, speeding straight toward the hangar where the prototype was stored. The foreign man in the passenger seat yelled in broken Japanese, all the while firing a tactical shotgun, without showing any genuine concern for not harming anyone.

His shooting was horrendously inaccurate—after all those rounds, he hadn’t hit a single person, making a mockery of his grand entrance.

In contrast, the blonde girl in the driver’s seat was a true professional. In her hands, the Aston Martin became a high-speed, deadly snake, dodging fire from a patrol jeep and forcing it into a ditch with flawless driving skills.

The security at Kanto Base was nothing short of strict, fully automated. If unidentified intruders entered the base, infrared sensors would trigger, and automatic machine guns and anti-tank cannons would rain down fire. Not even an Aston Martin, let alone a tank brigade, could make it through.

But the problem was that the automated defense system had malfunctioned. Even as these two armed criminals penetrated the core of the base, the mounted machine guns and anti-tank cannons did nothing. No matter how many infrared sensors they tripped, the system registered them as authorized personnel. In other words, it didn’t matter how many jeeps they overturned or how many shotgun blasts they fired—the system still thought they were on the inside.

The Aston Martin skidded to a stop in front of the hangar. The burly man spun around, and this time, his shot was on point, blowing out the front tires of the last pursuing jeep.

“Hurry, Your Majesty! Open the door!” the man shouted.

The girl was already working on the hangar’s keypad, but no matter how many codes she entered, the door wouldn’t budge.

“The code is invalid. They’ve set the hangar to full lockdown. In this state, no password will open it,” Zero said, frowning slightly. “Perhaps we’ll need explosives.”

“No, no, we’re smart thieves. Blowing up the hangar door would be too crude. Let me give it a shot,” Finger tossed his shotgun to Zero and started working on the keypad.

The stationed soldiers were too stunned by these two maniacs to approach, opting to wait for the arrival of armored vehicles. They weren’t worried about the keypad being hacked, nor were they concerned about the hangar being blown open. The hangar housing the Shinshin prototype was designed to withstand direct hits from light tank shells.

The most unbelievable part of it all was that these lunatics actually planned to steal a prototype that only one person could fly. There was no way they could know what the hundreds of buttons in the cockpit even did—its designers themselves wouldn’t be able to fly it!

This gave Finger plenty of time. He pulled out his own external keyboard and connected it to the keypad. His thick fingers danced across the keys with incredible dexterity, as streams of machine code that Zero couldn’t comprehend flashed across the screen. After half a minute, the door made a beeping sound, and the light above it turned from red to green.

Though no one knew what Finger had done, it seemed opening the door wasn’t all that hard for him.

Zero coldly eyed Finger, who grinned smugly and gestured for her to go first with a “ladies first” motion.

“With skills like yours, you can’t really be an F-rank, can you?” Zero said. “You’ve been downgrading yourself all these years just so you can stay at the College. Who are you really? Why are you doing this?”

“In a situation like this, instead of reporting to the meteorological bureau, you came straight here to hijack a plane. And it just so happens that this is the only plane that might be able to fight what’s up there. You know quite a bit, don’t you? So who are you?” Finger responded with a mischievous grin.

Zero didn’t answer. She opened the trunk of the Aston Martin and dragged out a terrified middle-aged man. Limping slightly, she walked him into the hangar and closed the door behind them. Now, the sturdy hangar would block the stationed soldiers instead.

“He’s ugly, like a crow!” Finger commented.

As the lights fully illuminated the hangar, the black prototype aircraft’s aggressive design became visible. Unlike the photos circulating outside, the long, narrow nose did make it look like a crow—a black crow.