Chapter 550
Three white trails ripped open the clouds.
Cruise missiles screamed downward, smoke tails carving straight lines toward Leander.
His gaze hardened.
“So this is how you play it,” he muttered. “Then I’ll turn those ten supersonic fighter jets into your warning—and make sure you remember what it means to provoke Jeff Ashcroft p>
Leander had already steeled himself.
Even if it meant staking everything, he would carve a warning in blood for whoever thought they could hunt him.
However, resolve alone wasn’t enough.
They move at over 600 miles an hour. I can burst faster briefly, but that’s only for a moment. I can’t keep up by chasing them like that.
Plus, their range is worse. Three, maybe four miles out. They can hit me without ever showing their faces. Even a Dragonfire spear won’t reach that far. Two miles and it’s already losing power. After that? Might as well be throwing air.
Which means there’s only one real option left.
Windchaser Arrows.
Still, that thing eats energy. I’ve got to lock onto them first… and I need at least half my spiritual strength to fire another round.
What do I have right now?
Not even a third.
Not enough to strike.
Not enough to even find them.
That’s the trap.
The entire analysis flashed through his mind in a heartbeat.
His body never slowed.
While tracking the diving homing missile, Leander was already moving, adjusting his position and getting ready for what might happen next.
Three cruise homing missiles were pursuing him when he suddenly changed course, spun in midair, and dashed toward the ruins of the town ahead.
The area had once served as Torre’s refuge, a spot to hide and buy time. Now, Leander charged into it too, his silhouette quickly engulfed by the shattered streets.
“What p>
Up in the cockpits, the fighter pilots all went still.
“What? He can’t outrun radar p>
They crowded around the radar console, staring as if their eyes might force the answer out of it.
A moment earlier, a bright marker had been tracking the target’s path across the screen. Now the display was empty—no signal or return.
That made no sense.
Radar wasn’t fooled by walls or rubble. Its electromagnetic sweep could accurately map distance, direction, and velocity, similar to how a bat uses sound to detect its surroundings ahead. From miles out, it had given them a perfect lock to guide their missiles.
Once a target was painted, hiding was pointless.
Yet the instant Leander slipped into the town, the trace vanished-clean and total.
No fade, no scatter-just gone as if he had stepped out of the world.
“Hell… what just happened p>
The pilots kept their distance with steady throttles and focused on their instruments. However, the radar screens showed a different picture.
Empty.
No signals. No traces.
They adjusted, rescanned, widened their sweep-but Leander was gone.
Seconds later, the three missiles in flight hit the town’s edge, causing a chain reaction of fire that destroyed a nearly 300-foot-long row of buildings.
Dust and flame rolled upward.
Still nothing.
“We’ve lost him,” a voice crackled over the channel. “How did Jeff vanish like that p>
Deep underground, officers leaned forward, disbelief etched across their faces.
Radar blindness?
On this scale?
Impossible.
We’ve got the best tracking and anti-stealth tech ever built-stuff made to hunt jets, missiles, even things that are supposed to be invisible. And now we can’t even keep a lock on one martial artist?
It’s absurd.
They all remembered the events years ago on Agylae soil when a King Phase master attempted chaos. Just one fighter jet was sufficient. Despite his efforts to escape or hide, radar tracked him incessantly. Ultimately, a missile obliterated him. That was how it always went.
Yet, now?
Leander wasn’t driven away or trapped. He just vanished entirely-no way back, no signs, and no reason given.
None of them realized it yet, but this was his own unique method—something
modern warfare had never learned how to face.
Inside a half-collapsed building,
Leander pressed his back to a cracked wall. Blue light flowed across him in slow waves, spreading outward like a veil. Invisible pulses rolled from his body, swallowing every electromagnetic trace that passed through-no echo, no reflection.
Radar needed a return, but he gave it none.
Every signal passed straight through him, leaving no trace to bounce back. To the scanners above, he had simply vanished.
That was why he had rushed into the town first. With ruined buildings everywhere,
the pilots had already lost any chance of spotting him by sight. Now even their instruments were blind.
Leander took the moment.
He lowered himself to the floor, crossed his legs, and relaxed his breathing until his mind quieted. Spiritual strength emanated from him like a rising tide, flooding the room and extending through the streets, enveloping the entire town in his awareness.
Every pebble shifting, every breath of wind-no movement was too small for him to
sense.
Simultaneously, the power of heaven and earth surged around him, pulling in from all directions and gradually restoring his depleted spiritual strength.
“Command, this is Falcon Lead. Target lost. No radar return. Requesting orders— over p>
The pilots remained at a high altitude, engines humming as they circled. No one dared to approach the town any closer. They maintained a distance of about three to four miles, observing the ruins below while awaiting further instructions.
In the operations room, officers clustered around the screens. The town remained quiet and motionless. Leander was nowhere in sight, and a growing sense of unease filled the room with each passing moment.
“Tch p>
The senior officer at the front finally broke the silence. His eyes were cold as he lifted his hand.
“All ten fighter jets,” he stated flatly, “Switch to saturation fire, level that town, and leave nothing standing p>
The pilots immediately took command. Their formation changed as engines flared, with fighters curving inward to prepare for an attack run. High-yield bombs were armed, poised to obliterate the town.
For a heartbeat, the battlefield went eerily quiet.
Then shapes began to gather around the distant perimeter.
One after another, figures stepped through the air. They claimed the high ground far
from the ruins, watching the scene below.
Each of them was a master of the
Transcendent Realm, including one
with the Infernal Crown Transcendent title. These elite martial artists of the Sahar Wastes were drawn here by the intense
upheaval to learn from the one whose presence heavily influenced the atmosphere witnessing
whatever was unfolding.
When their eyes fell on the ten supersonic fighter jets converging overhead, their
expressions froze.
“Since when do fighter jets show up in battles here p>
Disbelief spread through the group. Even in the bloodiest conflicts the Sahar Wastes
had seen, aircraft had never been part of the fight. This was entirely outside the
rules of this land.
While they were still trying to make sense of it, the supersonic fighter jets had
already taken position above the abandoned town.
Then-
A streak of light erupted from the ruins below.
A glowing crescent sliced through the sky.
All Transcendent Realm masters froze stiff.