This time I chose Paladin.

Chapter 308 The Shortest Path is a Straight Line

Flying in the New World has never been a safe and worry-free experience.

Even someone as powerful as the Second Administrator could clearly sense a pervasive sense of danger as Nie Weiyang continuously increased his altitude and broke through a certain invisible boundary.

That wasn't pressure directed at him; it was more like a background warning.

Of course, this level of warning was not enough to stop him.

Come to think of it, at this point last week, he was still struggling to survive and complete his mission. When would he have had the chance or leisure to soar through the heavens like this and get a close look at this world?

With a thought, Nie Weiyang covered his body with an extremely exquisite illusionary halo, distorting the light and energy fluctuations, making him blend into the background night.

Having done all this, he leaped again, soaring into the deeper sky.

Through the thin clouds, the view suddenly opened up.

Beneath his feet lay an endless sea of ​​clouds, a deep, leaden gray under the night sky. Occasionally, he could see scattered fires on the earth below, as well as faint glimmers of strange energy, which shone through gaps in the clouds, adding dim patches of light to this gray ocean.

Above him was that familiar 'starry sky'.

The stars are in constant positions, their light cold and lifeless, like a meticulously painted wallpaper covering the real sky.

Suspended alone above the clouds, amidst the illusory starry sky and the real sea of ​​clouds, an unprecedented sense of vastness and loneliness envelops the soul.

Nie Weiyang slowly closed his eyes.

I hope the space station... no, the moon hangs in the sky.

A bright moon was there, its light falling upon him. His crimson cloak billowed, and the sound of the wind here became distant and monotonous, a whisper of eternal humanity.

The hustle and bustle of the world, the comings and goings of conflict, the struggles of the human heart... all seemed to be isolated under that thick layer of clouds.

The world... is so beautiful.

At that very moment, Nie Weiyang's mind, which had been racing at high speed, and his ever-vigilant heart, strangely quieted down.

For a long time, he could not hear any inner voices, so he temporarily did not have to think, process information, dig into the conspiracy of the Returning Sect, ponder the peace of the Mother Goddess Cult, and even temporarily put aside his worries about the mind of the Homo sapiens and the future of earthlings.

He simply exists here, enjoying this extraordinary perspective and experiencing what seems like transcendence from the world.

This rare moment of relaxation allowed his mind to catch its breath amidst the immense pressure.

'Om—'

Like a whale, like the wind, like the weeping of rain clouds.

Nie Weiyang's gaze swept across the vast clouds and saw them—some behemoths known as 'atmospheric creatures,' one of the dangers high in the sky above the new world.

What exists here is one of the atmospheric organisms.

They floated slowly in the boundless sea of ​​clouds, their postures incredibly graceful.

It wasn't a rigid floating, but an elegant gliding. The translucent bodies flowed with a faint iridescent light, sometimes unfolding like giant flowers blooming in the air, their thin, cicada-wing-like edges undulating gently with the high-altitude air currents, rippling out circles of hidden waves; at other times, they contracted slightly, their long, tendril-like appendages swaying gently, propelling their mountain-like bodies to glide silently through the clouds without stirring up the slightest ripple.

Their movements possess a natural rhythm, like a beat in the pulse of the atmosphere, the spirits of wind and clouds. Each shift in posture is serene and ethereal, carrying an otherworldly, dreamlike quality, yet resonating with almost everyone's aesthetic sensibilities.

Most of them were immersed in their own world, slowly and quietly cruising around, paying little attention to this uninvited guest with an excessively high density, as if he were just a flying insect skimming the surface of the water, insignificant.

Nie Weiyang could even see further into the distance, where their kind were in higher atmospheres, trailing long, aurora-like ribbons, performing a slow and solemn dance, their coming together and parting like flowers.

However, the boundaries of the domain must not be violated.

When Nie Weiyang's altitude approached that of Earth's conventional flight path, he entered the airspace of an atmospheric creature.

Peace and tranquility shattered in an instant!

To the side and slightly ahead, a calm layer of cirrus clouds suddenly collapsed and began to rotate inward! Immediately afterward, a blinding white bolt of lightning exploded, tearing through the darkness without warning!

In the instant of the flash of lightning, a blinding light engulfed everything, and the world seemed to flicker violently between black and white. And in that split second of light and shadow, the beam clearly outlined a colossal, awe-inspiring silhouette a hundred meters tall—the very atmospheric creature he had intruded upon!

Its ethereal and elegant transparent body was now filled with violent aggression. Lightning surged wildly within its massive, umbrella-shaped form, like the core of an enraged thunderstorm.

Those countless long, gently swaying tentacles were no longer graceful tools for swimming, but transformed into hundreds of lightning whips and spears flashing with blinding electric light, lashing out at Administrator Number Two with a shriek that tore through the air!
Its beautiful form, in its rage, reveals a different kind of breathtaking majesty, turning the once tranquil sky into its thunderous pool!
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[Atmospheric Biology - Aircraft Carrier] -
Belongs to the CSSS Biological Weapons Division.
The creation of wisdom has departed.
• When an unauthorized unit is detected, ...
-
……

CSSS, this pre-civilization's [Crisis Resistance, Survival Guarantee, and Safety Management System] is really scattering dangerous items everywhere... When the world was developing flight technology in the last playthrough, the primary hypothetical enemy was this thing, so everyone had to become very resistant to being struck by lightning.

A systematic introduction to atmospheric organisms flashed in Nie Weiyang's field of vision, which he casually brushed aside.

Faced with this sudden attack, Administrator Number Two did not even attempt to evade it.

He simply raised his left hand and casually pointed his index finger forward.

There was no buildup of power, no warning signs.

A pure, breathtaking white stream of light, like a hot knife cutting through butter, silently burst forth from beside him.

The stream of light was not thick, only one or two meters wide, and compared to the enormous size of atmospheric creatures, it was even ridiculously thin.

But the moment it appeared, the surrounding turbulent thunder, churning clouds, and even the faint light cast by the false stars seemed to be swallowed up by it.

The light stream flashed by.

There was no explosion, no loud noise.

Only a single white ray of light stretched across the sky, straight and cold, lingering for a moment in the night sky as if splitting it in two.

Where the light passes, the enormous, graceful bodies of atmospheric creatures, as large as mountains, gradually lose their color and form, starting from the point where they are hit.

One second it was a mighty, all-encompassing ruler of the sky, the next it was shattered into pieces.

Immediately afterwards, a sudden downpour, without warning, poured down onto the wilderness below.

Mixed in with the rain were some strange things—several huge fragments of tissue, translucent like solidified jelly, falling from the sky, crashing through the rain curtain onto the earth below, shattering and scattering everywhere, gradually melting into the air and bringing fresh air to the area.

(End of this chapter)