Chapter 377: Dinosaur Island's 1943
The shape of the Gates LB Aoko remained almost unchanged, just as it was when it was taken. No other presences were detected around it, but this did not mean there were no enemies.
Although Cheng Tian's Domination skill now had a much wider detection range, it was still largely limited to humanoid forms. Therefore, its detection range in this Cadillacs and Dinosaurs instance was narrower than imagined.
The specific origin could no longer be traced, but in many works, aliens, especially when limited to 'Martians,' often had composite forms that combined mushrooms, octopuses, and jellyfish. Doraemon was like this, and Metal Slug was also like this. The aliens in Adventure Island 3 were also similar, far from the traditional 'humanoid' definition, and naturally not within the detection range of Domination. Thus, it was impossible to determine if they were still present.
Moreover, while Domination only showed the outline of a humanoid mech, there were a large number of dinosaurs inhabiting the volcanic region below.
Even the appearance of Helion, a creation of steel, had already disturbed the dragon-beast units here.
Large numbers of pterosaur units of various colors were already flying all over the sky.
On the land side, various herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs were somewhat evenly matched, forming a coexisting mode of predation and resistance with the help of super genes. However, the sky was almost exclusively occupied by pterosaurs. Archaeopteryx had no resistance in front of pterosaur populations.
It was only because of the pterosaurs' body structure and feeding habits that they preferred to eat fish and small animals; otherwise, they would certainly have intervened in the terrestrial ecological niche as well.
However, unlike the dinosaur populations in the swamp jungle, which had countless encounters with humans, the dinosaurs in this area had clearly not had much contact with people. They appeared very panicked by the appearance of the steel bird, but at the same time, they were also more aggressive.
After only circling and observing Helion for a while, some of the bolder individuals among them suddenly launched an attack on Helion.
Fireballs, ice shards, and rocks basically corresponded to the three skin colors of pterosaurs: red, blue, and green. These also corresponded to the three bloodline mutations: Spades, Hearts, and Clubs.
Far from being flustered when he found himself under siege, Cheng Tian's face instead broke into an excited smile.
"Hold on tight!"
After shouting this at Aileen, who was clinging to him like a koala, Cheng Tian's hands began a dazzling flurry of operations.
Today, he was going to experience the joy of a flight shooter game within a side-scrolling action game!
With the integration of the Heart of Jielgard, two psychic crystals appeared on either side of Helion. And with the help of the Heart of Jielgard, the psychic crystals summoned through the mech body directly became proper wingmen.
In helicopter flight mode, Helion's combat methods were relatively singular, only possessing a Vulcan cannon and carpet bombing capabilities for ground targets. However, Cheng Tian's own variety of skills made up for it.
His exceptional piloting skills allowed Cheng Tian to precisely dodge all frontal barrages, passing by without a scratch.
And in situations where dodging was impossible, a Heart Barrier, scaled up proportionally to the mech's size, appeared out of thin air, precisely intercepting the trajectory of every fireball, ice shard, and rock attempting to hit Helion.
After briefly satisfying his desire to graze bullets, Cheng Tian, having confirmed that these mutated pterosaurs offered nothing new, pulled the trigger. In an instant, four streams of fire — two from the sides of the mech and two from the psychic crystal wingmen — burst forth towards the dumbfounded pterosaur swarm!
Although these pterosaurs, which could originally only glide, had gained flight capabilities comparable to birds due to game rule interference, they could not contend with certain laws of physics—
When the Vulcan cannon's bullets pierced through their wing membranes, no matter how powerful their bloodline mutation, these pterosaurs with leaky wings could only wail and plummet from the sky.
The super pterosaur populations, which had believed themselves to be the overlords of the sky, were met with a head-on assault from the transforming mech Helion and Cheng Tian.
Pterosaur corpses and near-corpses continuously fell, and land carnivorous and omnivorous dinosaurs, smelling the scent of flesh and blood, emerged from all directions.
These super dinosaurs, with little contact with humans and not particularly high intelligence, merely continued to scavenge the pterosaur corpses on the ground, only occasionally looking up to glance at the aerial dogfight in the sky.
But soon, something even more interesting appeared to Cheng Tian.
In his initially startled, then delighted gaze, an entire formation of flying pterosaurs appeared in his sight. The leading pterosaur was even glowing.
Almost instinctively, Cheng Tian mercilessly swept his Vulcan cannon across the entire formation of flying pterosaurs. And these hit pterosaurs showed unexpected fragility, their bodies exploding in mid-air. When the ammunition hit the last pterosaur, a strange item, suspended in mid-air, burst out—
A contraption consisting of a super-large initial letter "P" and two consecutive small letters "OW."
Upon seeing this item, Cheng Tian, controlling Helion, crashed into it without hesitation amidst Aileen's exclamations.
As a result, not only did the mech not suffer any damage, but the energy loss that was inevitable in intense aerial combat, i.e., Helion's durability, was instantly restored by 8 points after colliding with this "POW."
Good heavens, they just directly used the flight shooter system from "1943," didn't they?
This is truly Capcom! So good at saving effort!
Having confirmed that this was a situation exclusive to the flight shooter mode, Cheng Tian now fought with even greater enthusiasm.
After an unknown amount of time shooting, the pterosaur population inhabiting the Bromo volcano region, after sacrificing an unknown number of corpses, finally broke down and began to flee en masse. The sky in the current area became unprecedentedly quiet.
Cheng Tian himself finally landed on the ground, completely satisfied.
When the canopy opened, Aileen, who had stopped making any sounds about ten minutes earlier, stomped on Cheng Tian, ejected from the cockpit, and moved aside. She then opened her mouth and spat out a string of things that, being a beautiful girl, should probably have a rainbow mosaic over them.
Aileen was airsick.
To be precise, she was airsick in the passenger sense.
If she were the pilot, Aileen, who was already highly agile, would be very difficult to make dizzy. But she was only a passenger, and she could only cling to Cheng Tian, with the back of her head facing outwards, using her body to perceive everything outside. And so, she got dizzy.
Enduring until this point before throwing up already proved Aileen's strong tolerance. Otherwise, spraying mosaics in a confined cockpit... The thought of this possibility made Cheng Tian's face turn quite ashen.
"Do you need a moment?"
Aileen, squatting on the ground in a very ungraceful manner, waved her hand behind her, and then the sound of a drill chiseling through rock wall echoed.
When he turned his head again, Cheng Tian had already disappeared into the rock wall with the drill tank.
The Gates LB in the Domination radar's perception grew closer and closer, but while there was still a significant distance between them, the rock wall was breached. What followed was a very familiar crystal slab space, and an exclamation that made Cheng Tian feel slightly familiar.
"Elder?"
Looking at the purple dragon-beast huddled in a ball with two large tails not far away, Cheng Tian pushed open the hatch and poked his head out.
"Welcome to the Purple Dragon Elder's Dragon Egg Playhouse."