"Boom, boom, boom, boom..."

A string of loud booms rang out clearly in the control center through the soul communicator. The thunderous explosions were met by stunned silence from all those in the control center.

The First Air Regiment had been completely wiped out...

In such a short span of time, the First Air Regiment, which had earned countless accolades and firmly cemented itself as the premier air squadron of the Central Legion, had been completely decimated.

Not even a single aircraft was able to emerge.

Yu Guanzhi's hands instantly balled up into tight fists, and thick veins began to bulge on his forehead.

Never did he think that such a tragedy would take place, and he was struck by a bout of tightness in the chest.

This was the best air squadron under his command! Had it really been decimated just like that?

Only now did the thousands of laser beams reach the battlefield, where they sped toward the "dark cloud", but the swarm of hornets instantly spread themselves out through the air. 

As a result, the laser beams were only able to strike a very small proportion of the hornets, reducing an entirely insignificant number of them to grey mist. The 50 fighter aircrafts of the First Air Regiment didn't even get a chance to self-detonate before they were erased off the face of this world.

This was far too heavy a price to pay this early in the battle, and Yu Guanzhi was struggling to come to terms with what had just happened.

Deep within the abyssal passageway, Ghost Emperor burst into raucous laughter. "Splendid! As expected of the Abyssal Bomber Hornets; your brethren are unmatched in mass destructive power, Hornet Sovereign!" 

At this moment, there were over 10 people standing deep within the cave. Ghost Emperor and Infernal Emperor were among them, and the rest possessed auras that were no less powerful than theirs.

One of the people in the cave replied, "This is nothing; you haven't even gotten to witness the true power of the abyss yet."

This was the ruler of the eighth level of the abyss, Hornet Sovereign!

Just like all of the nine sovereigns of the abyss, the Hornet Sovereign possessed a human form, and the fact that she was ranked above the Black Sovereign was already sufficient testament to her power.

In contrast with a normal human, the Hornet Sovereign's eyes were very attention-grabbing as they were at least twice as large as those of a normal person. Furthermore, they were circular in shape and glowing with green light, and if one were to look closely, they would discover that the eyes were comprised of countless compound eyes, presenting a harrowing sight to behold.

The name "Abyssal Bomber Hornets" had been coined by Ghost Emperor, and the most fearsome thing about these hornets wasn't their sheer numbers; it was the fact that they had a single commander whose orders they followed without question.

The Hornet Sovereign was their sole commander, and to put it simply, each and every Abyssal Bomber Hornet could be said to be a part of the Hornet Sovereign's body.

The Hornet Sovereign was like the queen bee of the hive, communicating with her brethren through some special means, and all of the Abyssal Bomber Hornets carried out her orders with immediate effect as soon as they were transmitted by her will.

The Abyssal Bomber Hornets had an enormous population, and they weren't all that fearsome individually, but they possessed two abilities, one of which was to ignite their own wings to produce a burst of instantaneous propulsion force that would push them over the sound barrier, while the other one was to self-detonate to unleash fearsome destructive power.

In a one-on-one battle, the Hornet Sovereign would be inferior to the Black Sovereign, but in a battle between races, even if there were two Black Sovereigns leading all of the Black Empresses, they would still be no match for the Hornet Sovereign.

Even the sovereigns ranked above the Hornet Sovereign were very reluctant to engage her in battle as her style of battle was far too dangerous and insane.

At this moment, there were some dark golden Abyssal Bomber Hornets flying around above the Hornet Sovereign. Each of them was around the size of a human head, and they were giving off cold and forbidding auras.

Despite their limited numbers, Ghost Emperor was aware that all of them were extremely fearsome.

Normal Abyssal Bomber Hornets could virtually be instantly resurrected as soon as their energy returned to the abyss, but it took far longer for these golden Abyssal Bomber Hornets to be resurrected, and there weren't that many of them in total.

At the moment, all of the Abyssal Bomber Hornets had dispersed themselves through the air so that the human army's long-range attacks wouldn't be able to fall upon concentrated clusters of hornets. They had a very simple goal, which was to keep all scouts from the human army at bay.

At the control center, Yu Guanzhi took a deep breath to keep himself calm as he instructed, "Collate and analyze the data that we've received."

Soon, a series of statistics were reported to him, quantifying the level of destructive power that each Abyssal Bomber Hornet released upon self-detonation.

A single self-detonating Abyssal Bomber Hornet naturally wouldn't be able to overwhelm a fighter aircraft's protective barrier, but each aircraft had been bombarded by hundreds of explosions at once, so it was no wonder that the protective barriers were destroyed.

In the face of such a fearsome explosion that covered such a huge area, no amount of technical proficiency would've been enough to ensure one's survival.

"According to our analysis, we discovered that the maximum duration of these hornets' acceleration is most likely very limited. Even some of the hornets that didn't manage to reach the First Air Regiment self-detonated after flying for a certain distance, so the best way to deal with them would be to wait for them to accelerate, then evade them and wait for them to self-detonate."

That was the analysis from the advisor, but even the advisor himself was rather unconvinced by his proposed course of action.

In order to evade the Abyssal Bomber Hornets after they commenced their acceleration, one would have to virtually instantly reach a speed that was superior to that of the hornets, and that was clearly an implausible feat.

The demise of the First Air Regiment was truly a heavy loss. The loss of the fighter aircrafts was obviously very sobering, but what was even more worthy of anguish was the loss of those exceptional pilots. Who knew how long it would take to develop 50 more pilots of such an exceptional caliber?

"Commander." A voice suddenly rang out from the soul communicator, and Yu Guanzhi faltered slightly upon hearing this.

As the commander of the human army, the only ones who could directly contact him through this channel were the commanders of the major legions, as well as the leaders of the major Soul Master organizations.

This was a very familiar voice; it belonged to none other than Tang Wulin.

Yu Guanzhi was just preparing to issue the next set of orders, and he was rather displeased to be interrupted at a time like this. "Is there a problem, Sect Master Tang?"

"Leave the scouting mission to us, Commander; we have someone perfect for the job," Tang Wulin replied.

"You do? I'm sure you saw what happened just now; are you sure you have someone suitable?" Yu Guanzhi was clearly urging Tang Wulin not to make unnecessary sacrifices.

If Tang Wulin hadn't suddenly interrupted him, he would've already issued an order for the long-range weaponry units to bombard the location that Gu Yuena had scouted earlier.

Tang Wulin replied, "Rest assured, Commander; I'm absolutely sure about this. If we can get your approval, we'll act right away."

"Alright, then I'll be expecting good news from you," Yu Guanzhi replied without any hesitation.

In contrast with blindly bombing an approximate area, it was naturally far better to establish the exact enemy location first.

Inside a cabin near the secondary tree of life, someone beside Tang Wulin turned to him with a smile, and said, "I'm going now. It's about time I put this body of mine to good use, haha!"

Tang Wulin replied with a serious expression, "Don't get careless, Senior Disciple Brother; make sure to remain vigilant at all times."

A'Ruheng patted his shoulder with a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, there's no one in this world capable of killing me. I'm off!"

He stepped out of the cabin as he spoke, and in the next instant, golden light flashed from his body as he shot up into the air like a cannonball, heading directly toward the core circle of the continent's northernmost region.

No one was more suited for this scouting mission than he was. Abyssal Bomber Hornets? More like Abysmal Fodder Hornets!

Flying at full speed, A'Ruheng was fast enough to keep pace with even the fastest of fighter aircrafts, and shortly after rising up into the air, he had already broken the sound barrier as he sped into the distance.

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