High Martial: I Use Everything as Swords

East Sea Fortress City, Air Defense Command Center.

A piercing alarm suddenly blared without warning, and red emergency lights bathed the entire hall in a blood-red glow.

On the massive holographic screen, a red dot representing a high-risk target was Tearing through the cloud layer at a terrifying speed, hurtling straight for the city’s airspace.

"Warning! Unidentified flying object approaching!

Speed... Mach eighteen?

Dammit, is the radar broken?"

A monitoring officer stared at the frantically fluctuating data on the screen, his voice trembling.

Mach eighteen. If it were a missile, East Sea City’s interception systems would have less than a twenty-percent chance of stopping it.

If it were some kind of High Tier Demon Bird, it would be an aerial overlord of at least Tier Five.

"Anti-aircraft missile arrays are fully charged!"

"Laser weapon systems attempting to lock... Lock failed! The target’s flight path is too erratic! It’s impossible to predict!"

The command hall descended into chaos. The major on duty was drenched in sweat, his hand already resting on the protective cover of the red launch button.

Just as he was about to order the entire city to enter First Level combat readiness, a female soldier at the communications console suddenly shouted.

"Hold your fire! We have an identification signal! It’s a friendly!"

The major froze, his eyes wide as he roared, "Are you kidding me?

What plane in our East Sea City can possibly fly that fast?

Even if you pushed those beat-up Night Falcon refits until they were spewing smoke, they couldn’t reach that speed!"

"It’s the ’Ghost’! A top-secret special project, the X-01 prototype!"

The female soldier pointed to the green identification code that had just appeared on the screen, her voice trembling with disbelief.

"Pilot call sign... Han Feng."

The hall was instantly plunged into a dead silence.

Everyone stared at the point of light that was still rapidly approaching, their throats going dry.

"It’s that monster again..."

The major’s hand fell limply away from the button. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "Notify the perimeter defenses to disengage their locks. Let it through.

At that speed, if a fight actually broke out, unless the Speaker himself intervened, I’m not sure our arsenal here would be enough to stop it."

A technician nearby watched the trajectory on the screen, which was almost a perfectly straight line, and couldn’t help but gulp.

"That’s not flying a plane; that’s practically Sword Flight.

Even a Grandmaster in the Celestial Human Realm can’t fly this fast, can they?"

The major shot him an annoyed glare.

"Get back to work! Encrypt and archive this data. Anyone who leaks it can report directly to the military tribunal."

...

「Seventh Military Airport.」

A streak of black light tore through the clouds, yet there was no deafening sonic boom.

Instead, it was accompanied by a sharp whistle, as if slicing through space itself, plummeting in a vertical dive that seemed to ignore air resistance.

The instant before it would have impacted the ground, it didn’t rely on roaring engines.

Instead, it froze abruptly in an eerie silence, as though caught by a giant, invisible hand, and hovered noiselessly in mid-air.

Then, the fuselage tilted slightly, touching down as lightly as a feather. The sound of its landing gear was almost inaudible.

The canopy slid open. Han Feng removed his helmet and jumped down from the fighter.

Li Tiecheng and Chen Beixuan, who had been waiting on the tarmac, immediately rushed forward to meet him.

"Damn it all, were you flying a plane or firing a cannonball?!"

Li Tiecheng closed the distance in a few large strides, spittle flying as he yelled in Han Feng’s face. Despite his tone, his eyes glinted with a fanatical light he couldn’t suppress.

"Those bastards at Air Defense Command almost aimed the Sky Base orbital cannon at you!

Do you have any idea that one shot from that thing would’ve vaporized you?!"

"They couldn’t get a lock on me."

Han Feng stated it as a simple fact, casually tossing his helmet to a ground crew member. He rolled his neck, his sharp gaze fixed on Li Tiecheng.

"General, you should have received the battle report from Dragon’s Fang Port."

"We did."

Chen Beixuan looked Han Feng up and down, and only nodded after confirming he wasn’t missing any limbs.

"Nice work.

You not only defended the port, but you also cleaned up a bunch of treacherous scum on the side.

Now, the spies from Jiangbei City and Celestial Wind City are behaving themselves."

"They were asking for it."

As Han Feng spoke, he flipped his palm. The Blood Shadow Shell he had stored in his ring appeared out of thin air and thudded heavily onto the concrete tarmac.

"This is the Blood Shadow’s physical body."

The gazes of Li Tiecheng and Chen Beixuan were instantly drawn to it.

Both men were seasoned veterans with sharp eyes, and they could tell at a glance that this corpse was extraordinary.

"The strength of this body..."

Li Tiecheng crouched down and squeezed the corpse’s bicep. It made a sound like metal striking metal.

"Even though it’s dead, its cellular activity hasn’t completely ceased?

This isn’t a human; it’s a Fierce Beast in human skin."

"It’s a Secret Technique from the Blood Feeding Sect,"

Han Feng explained. "The original owner of this body has been brain-dead for a long time. An independent Energy circulation system was engineered into it, specifically to bear the parasite’s power.

Furthermore, it can burn its Qi Blood to multiply its combat power for a short time."

"Interesting."

A glint flashed in Chen Beixuan’s eyes. "If we can analyze the principles behind this, we might be able to apply them to our ’Genetic Warrior’ project.

Even just adapting some of its concepts could drastically reduce the side effects of the augmentation."

"That’s what I was thinking, which is why I made a point of bringing it back for the old-timers at the research institute to study."

Han Feng smiled. "I’m turning this over to the state. That should count toward my Contribution Points, right?"

"You’ll get your fair share."

Li Tiecheng rolled his eyes at him and waved over several medics in fully-enclosed hazmat suits, who carefully carried the corpse away.

After the spoils of war were dealt with, Chen Beixuan suddenly spoke up. "Since you’re back, it’s time for you to go take care of that other mess."