Having a meal with an elder—and an elder who happened to be a senior in their same line of work—the thing youngsters loved doing most was naturally to pry for details and listen to stories.
In Azure, the word "stories" essentially meant legends and people—those standing at the apex, and the deeds they had done.
And conveniently enough, the old man sitting before them was the former commander of the Ninth Army.
"Commander Shen."
"Hmm?"
"The experts in this world of ours... just how formidable are they?"
Han Qingyu asked the question he cared about most. Not out of boundless ambition, but to gauge what level he was currently at, and thereby figure out just how difficult those assassins from the City of Iniquity would be to kill.
When setting up a lure to hunt someone, the very first step was to consider how to keep from accidentally ending up as the prey.
"That depends on which tier you're asking about."
Shen Fengting pondered for a moment and said, "Taking what's right in front of us as an example: back on the arena stage with Shao Xuan, that whatsit slash of yours, ahem... even if he hadn't turned to parry and just stood there, he would've been perfectly fine. It just would have been rather embarrassing to take the hit."
Just embarrassing—meaning zero damage.
Beside them, three mouths full of rice mumbled curses in awe and disbelief.
Han Qingyu nodded. "I see."
He remained fairly calm himself. After all, he hadn't played his trump cards back then either, and it was his very first time using the Rusty Sister Vortex Slash in combat.
"However, that strike you used later against that Little White Eraser—if you'd unleashed your full power, he'd probably still have had to block it a little," Shen Fengting continued thoughtfully.
"That easily?!" He Tangtang blurted out, looking thoroughly unconvinced.
"That easily, yes. Because Shao Xuan is already standing right on the threshold of the final step from top combat power to super combat power. He's already got half a foot through the door. When he came to visit me this morning, he mentioned it himself, saying he was certain to break through within three months."
Shen Fengting introduced these kids to a new concept.
Usually, on the frontlines and at the bases of the Sole Witness Legion, the apex that soldiers could see and look up to was conventionally referred to as 'top combat power,' because that was the 'ceiling' for the vast majority of people.
And breaking through that ceiling to transcend the notion of an ordinary soldier was what the old man called 'super combat power.'
Super combat powers were not all S-rank. Shao Xuan, for instance, was not S-rank; he was an A+.
The old man explained that the difference between a super combat power and an ordinary top-tier fighter lay first in a qualitative transformation in their source energy constitution. The specifics were complicated and varied from person to person, but they shared at least one common trait:
"Unarmored, they are invulnerable to blade and spear; armored, they can withstand direct dead iron straight sword strikes from any fighter below the top tier; and the source energy surges in their bodies flow endlessly, like rivers and seas."
In addition, another vital factor was that they had all blazed a path of their own.
In school terms, it was called a specialty.
In martial arts terms, a signature move.
In esoteric terms, their own Dao.
Among super combat powers, differences in strength naturally existed, but life and death could not be determined simply by who was higher or lower. Armed with their own Dao, most super combat powers stood a fighting chance in a life-or-death struggle.
The old commander finished his explanation.
Han Qingyu suddenly remembered Shao Xuan saying he hoped to apply to assassinate Ye Jian within five years, wiping away that stain of historical disgrace for the Erasers.
What he would rely on was likely that desperate chance the old commander had spoken of. Yet Han Qingyu wondered: what kind of Dao would such a smooth-talking, genial, and amusing person have once he reached super combat power?
"None of you have seen an S-rank, have you?" Shen Fengting asked.
"I've seen one," Han Qingyu said. "Back with Squad 1123. He carved up an injured blue-sheened Great Spike in less than ten seconds. He..."
"God Lü." Without waiting for Han Qingyu to mention a name, Shen Fengting guessed which S-rank he had seen from the brief description alone. He continued, "God Lü is fast, Marshal Hua is sly... God Lü's blade cannot be seen; Marshal Hua goes everywhere unseen... That was how the high brass used to joke about them in the past.
"Later on, after I retired, I ended up owing each of them quite a few source energy blocks, so I stopped meeting them." The old man gave an embarrassed chuckle. "You didn't see his face, did you?"
"He was wearing a mask at the time."
"Right. S-ranks usually like to do that, and it's also a requirement from above. Generally, their names are known, but their faces aren't." Shen Fengting said, "The last time I heard news about Hua Bixuan..."
"A woman?! Marshal Hua... is a woman?!" Wen Jifei blurted out, cutting him off in surprise.
"What would be so strange about being a woman?" Shen Fengting looked at him and said, "Though he happens to be a man."
"Has to be a woman. That name sounds like a young girl's name right off the bat," Wen Jifei mumbled.
"..." Shen Fengting was momentarily choked up. He really couldn't fathom what there was to argue about. If you won the argument, could you change the man's gender? "Then what about Little Tao, the sixty-two-year-old guard watching the gate at our logistics base? Isn't he still called Little Tao?"
The old man produced the counterexample in huffy irritation.
Wait, that old geezer was named Little Tao?! Tsk, tsk. Goosebumps broke out across everyone's skin.
"In any case, he's a man." Shen Fengting composed himself and continued, "The last time I heard of him was two years ago. He challenged Ye Jian to a duel in the City of Iniquity. When they met, they spent two days drinking together first."
Wen Jifei: "They knew each other?" The group naturally knew about Ye Jian by now.
Shen Fengting: "Comrades-in-arms back in the day."
Wen Jifei: "But didn't that Ye Jian defect? Aren't they bitter enemies?!"
He Tangtang: "Maybe Marshal Hua knew Ye Jian couldn't outdrink him and planned to get him plastered before killing him."
"..." Shen Fengting paused to catch his breath and glanced at his granddaughter, thinking to himself, *Xiuxiu, you really are the one with true mental fortitude.* "Reminisce over old ties first, discuss convictions second, and then decide life and death... What's wrong with that?!"
This was something these young ones couldn't quite fathom just yet.
"Once people reach that level, unless it's an outright assassination, they can actually meet calmly, have a chat... and settle life and death another day," Shen Fengting continued.
"So... who won?"
"Nobody knows."
"How could nobody know? Whoever didn't come back lost and died, right?"
"The problem is that no one knows if Ye Jian went back. As for Marshal Hua, Azure granted him special dispensation to roam the world freely, only needing to report in once every three years. So at present, no one knows if he's back either."
The kids nodded. "Oh."
"Commander Shen, there's another question I'd like to ask." Unlike the others, who were captivated by the stories, Han Qingyu's focus lay elsewhere. He asked, "Since their source energy surges are so terrifying, what about source energy blocks? Are there enough? How do they sustain it?"
"The source energy blocks they use aren't like yours. As for the specifics, that's research department business—I don't really understand it either. I'd guess they're highly concentrated, and their war boxes hold more than one at a time." Shen Fengting smiled suddenly. "Take the Legion Commander you saw yesterday, for example. He's quite an exception—to this day, he still prefers wearing his custom Sixth Generation rig... That thing looks like a military tactical vest. Front and back combined, it has a full twenty-eight ammo pouches... all capable of holding source energy blocks."
That getup! Connecting this to the Legion Commander they had seen yesterday, the group imagined it, their expressions growing a bit exaggerated.
"He's gotten old too..." Shen Fengting took a sip of liquor and said, "Back in the day, he was the man who fought to the very end and took off the Red Shoulder's head with a single slash!"
"Clean off?!" Han Qingyu was stunned.
"Yes, clean off," Shen Fengting said. "Granted, the Red Shoulder was already at the end of its rope back then, but that slash... It's said that many who witnessed that strike on the spot went on to become top experts later on... And after delivering that strike, Chen Buer aged twenty years in appearance overnight."
"..." The table fell silent.
"Actually, those with very high fusion degrees who have absorbed source energy to a certain level barely age at all," Shen Fengting added with a tinge of desolation in his voice.
Hearing this, a sudden realization struck Han Qingyu: *Could it be that the source energy absorbed and stored within one's own body is used in tandem with the rig to strike?! Similar to me?!*
"So that's why he..." Liu Shiheng, Wen Jifei, and the others recalled the Legion Commander's withered appearance from yesterday.
"Looks very old, right?" Shen Fengting asked. Then a proud glint suddenly surfaced in his eyes as he said, "Yet masters across the entire world still revere and fear him... all because of a single rumor... He can still deliver one slash. And whoever that slash strikes, dies!"
Chapter 115