High Martial: I Use Everything as Swords

Han Feng rubbed his numb shoulder and smiled at the tower-like figure.

"Don’t worry, Brother Meng. I’ve got this."

Wang Meng laughed heartily and turned toward his fighter jet.

It was a struggle for him to squeeze his massive frame into the narrow cockpit.

Han Feng watched him cram himself inside, and the jet’s suspension dipped noticeably.

"This plane’s load capacity is seriously impressive."

Han Feng muttered under his breath.

"Alright, enough with the wisecracks."

Captain Zhang Hao’s voice came over the common channel, crackling with static.

"Attention, everyone. This mission’s codename is ’Silent Harvest.’ Full deployment, a total of eleven fighter jets."

"Take off in pre-established tactical formation."

"First squad, Vice-Captain Lin Qing and I will take the lead."

"Second squad: Wang Meng, Gu Yun, Old Liu. You’re on left-wing fire support."

"Third squad, cover the right flank."

"Han Feng, you’ll pilot the Gray Donkey and bring up the rear. Stay within radar range and be ready to provide support at a moment’s notice."

"Roger!"

A chorus of unified replies echoed over the channel.

Zhang Hao’s jet, an all-black, command-type Hunting Falcon, was the first to taxi from its hardstand.

It cut silently through the air, gliding into the shadows.

Next came Lin Qing’s reconnaissance plane, a massive electronic warfare pod slung beneath its fuselage.

Then, Wang Meng’s fighter jet, painted with a blood-red shark’s mouth, let out a bestial roar and followed suit.

"Gu Yun, you punk, stay on my tail!"

Wang Meng roared over the channel.

"If you dare fall behind, I’ll personally paint that flashy jet of yours pink when we get back! Then I’ll add two giant bows!"

"Understood, Brother Meng... but please, don’t mention the color pink. It’s a desecration of art!"

Grumbling, Gu Yun maneuvered his custom jet nimbly onto the runway.

’The kid’s skills really are top-notch.’

His takeoff was impossibly smooth, the fuselage pulling into a graceful climb the instant it left the ground.

The White-haired Witch painted on the wing shimmered iridescently in the morning light.

"Alice, take off!"

Gu Yun’s cry, full of grandiose flair, echoed over the channel.

The runway lights turned green in sequence, giving the torrent of steel the all-clear.

One by one, the fighter jets accelerated.

Ghostly blue Spiritual Power flames erupted from their engine nozzles.

After taxiing for a few hundred meters, they tilted their noses skyward and roared into the clouds.

Finally, it was Han Feng’s turn.

He took a deep breath and shoved the throttle all the way forward.

The Gray Donkey’s two specially modified, high-power turbofan engines didn’t emit the typical sharp shriek of a fighter jet.

Instead, they let out a deep, guttural roar, like an ancient beast awakening.

RUMBLE—

The fuselage shuddered violently, and the instrument panels in the cockpit hummed.

Weighed down by a belly full of supplies and heavy Armor, it taxied forward—clumsy and slow, yet filled with a sense of immense power.

There was no feeling of being pushed back into the seat.

Only a heavy, oppressive sensation, as if an invisible giant’s hand was crushing him into his seat.

The jets ahead were like arrows loosed from a bowstring; his was like a solid iron ball kicked off a mountaintop.

The speedometer climbed at a despairing crawl as the runway lights blurred into streaks.

"Lift!"

Han Feng’s arms tensed as he yanked back hard on the control stick.

Simultaneously, the Sword Control Technique Mental Method within him began to circulate furiously.

Surging Qi Blood Power flowed down his arms, through the control stick, and flooded violently into the jet’s frame!

The Gray Donkey didn’t leap gracefully into the air.

It raised its heavy nose with a kind of brutish arrogance, as if it were crushing the very runway beneath it.

It wasn’t until the end of the runway that the behemoth grudgingly broke free of gravity’s pull.

Its two massive landing gears skimmed the grass at the end of the runway as it lifted off.

Its ascent was crude, filled with a raw, violent beauty.

[Piloting Lower Grade Magical Artifact: Falcon - Heavy Support Type (Gray Donkey)]

[Heavy payload detected. Qi Blood consumption increased by 30%. Power Attribute honing effect increased.]

[Sword Control Technique Skill Proficiency acquisition rate: +150%]

Han Feng grinned at the prompts that appeared on his retina.

’Slow is fine by me.’

’These bonuses are too good to pass up.’

As the light blue text scrolled across his retina, Han Feng’s grin widened.

’Being heavy has its advantages.’

Piloting this steel behemoth was a hundred times more demanding than flying those flimsy little training jets.

Every second furiously drained his physical stamina.

His Qi Blood surged and roared through his meridians like boiling water in a furnace.

The way it tempered his physical body was more direct and satisfyingly brutal than lifting weights in the gravity room.

The others were just flying to a destination.

He was cultivating.

Through the canopy, East Sea Fortress City shrank rapidly below.

The hundred-meter-high Inner City wall looked like a winding black scar, violently separating the oasis of human civilization from the decaying, gray wasteland.

Beyond the fifty-kilometer Safe Zone, the landscape instantly became desolate and deathly still.

The radio signals from East Sea Fortress City vanished completely.

All that remained in his headset was the Sharp Sword Squad’s internal comms channel, along with the faint, incessant static caused by atmospheric interference.

"Gu Yun, control your speed. Maintain Mach 0.7."

Captain Zhang Hao’s voice came through.

"Don’t lose the tanker. If he goes down, we’re flying home on empty."

Up ahead, the flamboyantly painted fighter jet reluctantly dipped its wings and slowed its pace.

Its fuselage even wobbled from side to side, as if agitated.

"Roger. But this speed... is a flagrant insult to Alice’s aerodynamic configuration."

Gu Yun’s voice was laced with a lazy drawl of complaint.

"Captain, at this cruising speed, Alice’s engines are going to fall asleep."

"My Witch belongs at ten thousand meters, not down here strolling with an old ox."

"Too slow for you?"

A rough, booming voice cut in—it was Wang Meng, on left-wing fire support.

"Then why don’t you get out and push Han Feng along by hand?"

"Perfect timing. Weren’t you just bragging the other day that your bench press went up another ten kilograms?"

"You crude barbarian."

Gu Yun snorted.

"Alice’s hands are for casting Forbidden Curse Magic, not for your kind of manual labor."

"Besides, that Gray Donkey is hideous. If we get too close, I’m afraid Alice will have nightmares."

Han Feng sat in his cockpit, turning a deaf ear to the bickering in his headset.

He was busy sensing the "meridians" of his new "Flying Sword."

His Spiritual Power spread silently from the control stick, instantly enveloping the entire airframe.

The vibrational frequency of every screw, the resistance of the hydraulic fluid flowing through the lines.

Even the imperceptible heat from the friction between the aircraft’s skin and the thin, high-altitude air registered clearly in his mind.

Compared to the simplicity of the Initial Training-3, the Gray Donkey’s Spiritual Energy Circuits were a hundred times more complex, but also a hundred times more robust.

The feeling was like wielding an impossibly heavy Warhammer.

It wasn’t agile, nor was it sharp.

But if you could bring it down, it could shatter mountains and split stone.

He was intoxicated by this weighty feeling of immense power.

After about thirty minutes of flight, a new signal band abruptly appeared on the radar screen.

The instruments automatically identified it: Golden Ears Farm.

The scenery below began to change drastically.

A patch of bizarrely bright color suddenly appeared on the gray-yellow wasteland below.

It was purple.

At first, it was just a small, inconspicuous speck, but it rapidly grew into a vast expanse.

Finally, it transformed into a boundless, churning ocean of violet.

"We’re here."

Zhang Hao’s voice sounded over the channel, tinged with gravity.

Han Feng dipped the plane’s nose slightly, leaning against the canopy to look down.

Even though he had seen pictures in the mission briefing, the sight still shocked him.