[Aerial Threat: Necromancy Guild 7th Air Wing]

  The night sky was no longer a protective blanket of darkness; it had transformed into death's stage.

  As the ground advance stalled, the Guild finally tore off its last pretense and unleashed its air superiority.

  First came the [Gargoyle Drones]. These were constructs, half-mechanical and half-biological, shaped like miniature gothic gargoyles. They had no propellers, relying instead on anti-gravity alchemy runes on their backs to hover, making their flight paths erratic and silent. Clutched in their talons were small laser cutters and high-explosive grenades. Like a swarm of hungry bats, they circled above the ruins, hunting for any exposed firing position.

  Following closely were the [Rocket-borne Corpse Puppets]. It was a sickening technology. The Guild stuffed enhanced corpse soldiers into disposable rocket pods and ejected them directly from high-altitude airships.

  WHOOSH—BANG!

  Black cylinders trailing flames smashed into the corners of the 13th Street like meteors. Upon impact, the pods burst open, and Corpse Puppets, wreathed in green smoke and wielding chainswords, emerged like activated viruses, inserting themselves directly behind Mozi's defensive lines.

  "Air raid! Watch your heads!"

  Miller's roar was drowned out by an explosion. A Gargoyle Drone had accurately dropped a grenade into his cover. If he hadn't rolled out just in time, the pile of acetylene tanks would have sent him sky-high.

  "Damn it! We can't reach them!"

  Sarah raised her Molotov cocktail in despair, but she couldn't throw it that high. No matter how solid the ground defense was, against this dimensional strike from above, they were sitting ducks.

  [Clinic Rooftop · The Final Choice]

  John Doe stared intently at the radar on his screen. Red dots were erupting like measles in the sky; each dot represented a potential death.

  Nightingale was downstairs desperately saving lives, but the wounded were piling up faster than she could stitch them. If they didn't cut off the threat from the sky, this clinic would soon be bombed flat.

  "Grace, what about air defense?"

  "Failed! The Gargoyles' signal frequency is dynamically encrypted; I can't hack it! And they're too fast—our homemade flak cannons (basically firework launchers) can't hit them!"

  John looked at his iPad balance.

  [Current Merit: 1500 (Reserved Air Defense Budget)]

  Only 1500.

  This amount couldn't hire a mage with massive AoE anti-air spells, nor a well-equipped modern AA unit.

  He could only hire one person.

  A swordsman who didn't need radar lock, didn't need missile tracking, and didn't even need a sober mind.

  But 1500 Merit would only sustain him for a very short time. It had to be a one-hit kill at the most critical moment.

  "Wait."

  John's finger hovered over the name, sweat sliding down his cheek.

  "Wait for what? Boss! They're dropping bombs!" Bone pointed at the sky.

  A massive heavy airship, painted with a skull emblem, slowly emerged from the clouds. It was the Guild's aerial command ship, the [Leviathan]. Its belly bay doors opened, revealing rows of bomb racks.

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  Those were incendiary bombs, prepared to thoroughly cleanse the district.

  "NOW!"

  The moment the first incendiary bomb detached from the rack, John pressed the summon button.

  "Bone! The wine?!"

  "Here!"

  Bone tossed the jar of twenty-year-old Erguotou into the air.

  John didn't catch it.

  Because a hand was faster than him.

  A slender, pale hand, gripping a sword that glinted with cold light, steadied the wine jar in mid-air.

  [Responder: Li Bai]

  [Title: Green Lotus Sword Immortal / Wine Immortal]

  [Summon Affix: Drunken Sword]

  "Hahaha! Good wine!"

  A wild, uninhibited laugh rang through the night sky.

  Under the moonlight (or perhaps the searchlights), a figure in white robes with flowing long hair was actually stepping on the empty air, hovering above the clinic's spire like a feather.

  Li Bai.

  He didn't look at the hideous Gargoyles, nor at the massive airship. He simply tilted his head back, slapped open the clay seal, and took a huge swig of the potent liquor.

  Gulp! Gulp!

  Liquor spilled down the corners of his mouth, soaking his spotless white robe.

  "Refreshing!"

  Li Bai casually tossed the empty jar aside (which happened to smash a sneaking Gargoyle), and those drunken, hazy eyes suddenly erupted with a sword intent more brilliant than the stars.

  "What monsters dare disturb my elegance?"

  He glanced drunkenly at the sky full of mechanical beasts and let out a hiccup.

  "Oh, a flock of iron birds."

  "Then... let them be cut."

  [Green Lotus Sword Song · Aerial Combat]

  Li Bai moved.

  He didn't use any flying sword technique, nor did he chant any spells.

  He simply drew his sword.

  SHING—!

  The sound of the sword unsheathed was as crisp as a dragon's cry.

  Then, John saw the most incredible scene of his life.

  Li Bai's figure vanished.

  Replacing it were crisscrossing streaks of white Sword Qi, blooming like lotuses.

  He wasn't flying. He was "jumping."

  He stepped on dust in the air, on the shockwaves of explosions, even on the heads of those Gargoyles, performing a waltz in the sky that defied the laws of gravity.

  "Ten steps, one kill; for a thousand miles, no trace left behind!"

  SLASH!

  A sword flash passed. Three Gargoyles were cut in half at the waist, the cuts smooth as mirrors, the circuit boards inside not even short-circuiting yet.

  "Finished with the affair, I brush off my clothes; hiding deeply my person and name!"

  SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!

  Li Bai's figure pulled afterimages in the sky. Those rocket corpses that had just landed didn't even get a chance to stand steady before Sword Qi descending from the heavens shaved off their heads.

  "This is too..." John watched, dumbfounded. "This isn't scientific! He has no thrusters! How is he changing direction?"

  "Boss, you don't know this." Grace's data stream flashed rapidly on John's wristband, her tone carrying a hint of pride as a cultural database. "In the Eastern cultural system, Li Bai isn't just a poet; he's a 'Sword Immortal.' To them, physics is just... a rhetorical device. As long as the 'Artistic Conception' (Yi Jing) is there, not even Newton's coffin lid can hold him down."

  [Decisive Battle: Leviathan]

  But this wasn't enough.

  The massive [Leviathan] airship was still overhead. Its incendiary bombs were already falling.

  If those bombs hit the ground, the 13th Street would become a sea of fire.

  Li Bai seemed to realize this too.

  He stopped in mid-air, the tip of his foot resting on the back of a falling Gargoyle.

  He looked at the whistling incendiary bombs, then at the massive airship.

  "The Great Peng rises with the wind in one day, soaring straight up ninety thousand miles!"

  Li Bai laughed wildly and pointed his long sword abruptly upward.

  Not a flying sword.

  He turned himself into a sword.

  Man and Sword as One.

  A hundred-meter-long phantom of a green lotus, condensed from pure sword intent, bloomed in the night sky following his charge.

  "BREAK!"

  Li Bai turned into a meteor, going against the current.

  He threaded precisely through the gaps between the incendiary bombs, using the air turbulence generated by his Sword Qi to blow all the bombs away into the open wasteland outside the district.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  A sea of fire erupted in the distance; the district was unharmed.

  And Li Bai didn't stop.

  He shot straight into the clouds, his sword tip aimed directly at the Leviathan's belly bomb bay.

  "DIE FOR ME!"

  RIP—!

  Like a dinner knife slicing through butter.

  That aerial fortress, boasting heavy armor and claiming to be unsinkable, was cut in half from head to tail by this single strike!

  KA-BOOM—!!!

  The airship's power core exploded. A massive fireball rolled through the clouds, swallowing the sliced wreckage.

  Countless parts and Corpse Puppets fell like rain.

  Against that backdrop of a sky full of fire.

  Li Bai sheathed his sword.

  He flipped drunkenly in the air and, like a falling leaf, drifted lightly back onto the clinic's rooftop.

  "Good wine... Good sword..."

  Li Bai yawned, his body beginning to turn transparent.

  "Kid, next time you have wine... call me again."

  The light faded.

  The sky was clean.

  John caught the sword that didn't actually exist (air), his legs gave out, and he sat on the ground.

  "1500 Merit..."

  John muttered, looking at the burning wreckage of the airship.

  "This cost-performance ratio... is simply invincible."

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