The sudden explosion startled the three of them, who had just relaxed, thinking the mission was a complete success.
Raina, acting as the de facto leader of the three-person squad, immediately pressed her comms and demanded urgently.
"All squads, report status!"
"Alpha Team, all clear!"
"Beta Team, all clear!"
"Charlie Team..."
After the string of reports ended, everyone on the comms channel looked at each other in confusion.
However, that massive explosion just now definitely wasn't fake. How could there be no anomalies?
Raina made a split-second decision and quickly ordered.
"Alpha and Beta Teams, converge on the mid-deck to secure the Vibranium! Wanda! You're in charge of watching Ulysses!"
After speaking, Raina controlled Ulysses to slam his head into the metal wall next to him.
With a thud, the guy passed out cold.
She then released her mind control and quickly refocused her mental energy, sending out waves of invisible psychic detection pulses.
In fact, psychic perception was the ability she was most proficient in right now.
Mind control, on the other hand, was something she barely managed with the help of the Yuri-tech amplifier helmet, purely because she lacked direct combat methods.
As her psychic power spread out, the entire abandoned tanker and the surrounding area appeared in Raina's mind within a gray, three-dimensional vision.
Immediately, she was horrified to discover that on the ground on both sides of the tanker's stern, a huge, straight trench had appeared out of nowhere.
This trench, which looked like it had been carved by a giant blade, clearly hadn't just destroyed the ground.
Perhaps the cutting attack was too sharp and sudden.
It wasn't until this moment in her psychic vision that the stern of the tanker slowly separated and crashed heavily to the ground.
BOOM~
Another massive roar echoed.
Nearly a fifth of the ship's hull completely broke off and collapsed.
The entire tanker shook violently from this sudden destruction.
Chaos erupted on the comms channel as a new round of reports flooded in from the squads.
But Raina ignored the noise. In her psychic vision, directly above the break in the hull, three objects resembling stealth fighters were hovering eerily in mid-air.
Clearly, everything happening in front of them was caused by these three aircraft.
Not only that, before Raina could relay what she saw in her psychic vision to the others, the hatches of the three aircraft opened simultaneously.
Immediately after, seven or eight people jumped out rapidly from each plane.
But...
"Spears?!"
At this moment, even Raina, who "saw" this with her own eyes, was dumbfounded.
Stealth fighters? Unknown slashing energy attacks? African tribesmen wielding spears?
She couldn't connect these things together at all.
However, she knew this wasn't the time to dwell on confusion. She immediately reopened the comms and shared what she saw with the rest of the combat team.
"All other squads, rally at the stern on the north side. The enemy is there! Do not hold back!"
After speaking, Raina turned to Quicksilver beside her and said seriously.
"Pietro, I need you to go help. I have a feeling something's off about those guys!"
Hearing this, Pietro nodded just as seriously, not finding any issue with Raina commanding him.
The next moment, he turned into a streak of silver-white light and rushed out.
This left Raina with her arm still raised in the air, frozen.
"The boss said... pay attention to stray bullets when you fight..."
In fact, the two sides had already engaged in combat by now.
However, after the initial shock of seeing these 'savages' wielding spears passed, more surprises followed one after another.
Upon contact, the Aurantius combat squads discovered with disbelief...
The armor plating they once considered internally 'indestructible' was as fragile as plywood against the spears in these savages' hands.
With a casual swing, a drone was sliced apart. A simple thrust could pierce right through the humanoid combat robots assisting them.
And as for the bullets and even ion lasers fired from their side? The savages simply shook the cloaks on their backs, conjuring incredibly sturdy energy shields out of thin air that blocked all attacks.
At this moment, the Aurantius combat squads could vaguely understand how the militants they had just crushed with superior equipment must have felt.
Thank god Aurantius soldiers were trained to prioritize using support AI units as the main combat force; otherwise, their casualties right now would be much higher.
"Die!!"
One Aurantius soldier saw an agile black man leap over drones, kill two of his teammates in succession, and turn toward him.
He immediately unslung a beam rifle—upgraded from the 'Dominator'—from his back, frantically pulled the trigger, and fired beams of ion energy at the enemy.
However, the enemy in front of him simply swirled his cloak again. The instantly appearing energy shield steadily blocked all the beams.
Seeing this, the Aurantius soldier didn't panic. Instead, seizing the moment when the cloak blocked the enemy's vision, he held down the trigger to fire a charged melting orb.
The pale green orb flew out rapidly, hitting the ground beneath the man's feet in the blink of an eye.
Yes, beneath his feet.
Since he couldn't determine the upper limit of the enemy's energy shield, the soldier chose to aim at the metal deck under the enemy's feet this time.
The moment the melting orb hit, the man felt the floor give way and instantly fell into the circular hole.
Even the energy shield cloak in his hand deactivated and vanished due to his loss of balance.
The Aurantius soldier chose to attack the ground not just to restrict movement.
Seizing this fleeting opportunity, three drones immediately followed up, raining laser beams into the hole where the enemy had fallen.
The scream lasted less than half a second before disappearing completely, leaving only a wisp of smoke and the smell of burnt flesh drifting slowly out of the hole.
"Savages remain savages!"
The soldier cursed in a low voice with disdain.
An energy shield that required holding a specific pose and blocking one's own vision to work was simply a disgrace in weapon interaction design.
"And backward spears!"
But just as he said those words, a roar suddenly came from the distance.
Immediately after, a laser beam shot rapidly from the spear in another black man's hand.
Blasted backward by the laser, the soldier could only watch helplessly as the spear-wielding man rolled and jumped continuously, actually stepping on the hovering drones in mid-air, raising his spear high to thrust at him.