Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 635 - 576: Heart

Li Ang’s attitude toward those seeking to kill him had always been to retaliate directly. He did not deliberately avoid the pain nerves in the pilots’ bodies. Instead, he forcefully controlled their bodies using Elemental Material, compelling them to target a friendly helicopter far away and launch a Hellfire Missile.

(The Apaches dispatched to hunt Li Ang were equipped with the AGM-144, the latest model of Hellfire Missile, featuring both laser and millimeter-wave radar guidance, suitable for air-to-air and air-to-surface missions.)

SWOOSH—

The missile, forest green with three yellow stripes painted down its middle, shot out and hurtled directly toward a friendly Apache.

A warning alarm immediately sounded within the targeted helicopter. The pilot tried to maneuver evasively while glancing at the panel on his right.

Unlike other helicopters, the Apache’s chaff and flare dispensers were in different locations; the latter had a separate panel that, when set to auto mode, would launch automatically upon detecting an approaching missile.

As expected, the targeted Apache automatically discharged a barrage of flares. Combined with the helicopter’s evasive maneuvers, the Hellfire Missile was successfully redirected. It slammed into a nearby unoccupied building and exploded. The pilot had dodged it. Having narrowly escaped, he breathed a sigh of relief. Yet, the next second, the aircraft shook abruptly, accompanied by a loud alarm inside the cabin.

A mass of Elemental Material, somehow, had attached to the helicopter’s nose. It rapidly spread, swiftly covering the cockpit glass and beginning to corrode the metal fuselage.

It was too late. Colonel Ryan Hunter, running along the low rooftops, silently made this judgment. His dynamic vision had barely allowed him to perceive what happened: Li Ang had preemptively attached a blob of Elemental Material to the surface of the Hellfire Missile before firing it. The moment the Hellfire Missile was diverted by the flares, the Elemental Material used the missile as a springboard, leaping onto the second helicopter that thought it had escaped.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!"

Along with the heart-wrenching cries for help over the communication channel, the second helicopter emitted thick smoke and spiraled uncontrollably, crashing onto the rooftop of a tall building. The explosion was dazzling.

"Shoot them down!" Ryan Hunter shouted, his bone-conduction earpiece transmitting his command clearly to the pilots in Apaches Three and Four.

"But the crew inside is still alive..."

The pilot of the third helicopter hesitated, but was immediately targeted by a second approaching missile. The Elemental Material, employing the same tactic, easily evaded the flares and latched onto the exterior of the third helicopter, destroying it.

Seeing this, the pilot of the fourth Apache no longer hesitated, immediately targeting and firing at the first helicopter.

The Hellfire Missile had a six-second firing cycle, meaning the first helicopter didn’t have enough time to fire another. Li Ang immediately controlled it to adjust its chain gun’s direction and fire.

M230 chain gun rounds could travel 1,000 meters in a mere two seconds, faster than the Hellfire Missile’s Mach 1.3. Although the chain gun’s accuracy against aerial targets was extremely poor, the Elemental Material attached to its rounds only needed a general trajectory.

BANG!

A palm-sized blob of Elemental Material successfully struck the fourth Apache, swiftly penetrating its fuselage and corroding the metal.

Meanwhile, the first helicopter, unable to dodge, was also hit by a missile and spiraled toward the ground.

CRACK—

The tethers of Elemental Material passing through the cockpit suddenly snapped. Standing on the rooftop, Li Ang withdrew the Elemental Material. As if sensing something, he abruptly spun around, his right hand clamping onto a wrist.

Moon Woman, clad in a kimono, had appeared behind him at some unknown moment. She held a shuriken in a reverse grip in her right hand, its cold glint reflecting light, aimed to pierce his temple.

Just a hair’s breadth away.

Li Ang’s grip was like an iron vise, tightly clutching Moon Woman’s wrist. The sound of bones creaking under the pressure was audible as he prevented her from exerting more force to push the shuriken dagger. The Elemental Material coating his palm jabbed toward Moon Woman’s skin like countless fine needles.

HISS.

The needles of Elemental Material missed. Moon Woman’s form rapidly turned ethereal. Like a ghost, she broke free from Li Ang’s grasp, her body drifting lightly backward until she reached the edge of the rooftop, where she solidified and regained her color.

Phase walking? Li Ang’s brow furrowed unconsciously. At that moment, the sound of shattering glass echoed from the building beneath their feet.

Ryan Hunter’s palms smashed through window after window, striking the concrete floors between levels. His burly figure scaled the high-rise with the agility of a monkey, flipping over the railing to land on the rooftop as well.

The desperate cries of the helicopter pilots still echoed in his bone-conduction earpiece. Ryan Hunter faced Li Ang with a grim and solemn expression.

An Apache costs between 130 and 250 million USD. In just the past minute, Li Ang had destroyed assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, not to mention the damage to high-rise buildings from the battle’s fallout.

To achieve this, having only been awakened for a few hours, was truly remarkable. No wonder Washington had classified him as S-tier—a superpower they had to secure by any means.

"Your Elemental Material is indeed powerful," Ryan Hunter broke the silence, "but it also has significant flaws. For instance, during the recent combat, you twice used Elemental Material to remotely destroy armed helicopters, yet you chose not to control the pilots."