He Tangtang felt restless and somewhat unwilling to sit still. Keeping low with his head tilted, he crawled toward the mouth of the cave, took a peek outside, and turned back to look at Wen Jifei.
"Don't even think about it." Wen Jifei obediently huddled in the innermost corner of the wall, crossing his arms and shaking his head firmly. "My sole aspiration in coming here was to avoid being a burden or causing trouble. My head has never been clearer."
Seeing Plague-Chicken Fei act so quiet and well-behaved for once, He Tangtang laughed. "I didn't mean to drag you out to watch with me. I was just wondering, if you weren't here, do you think they'd have brought me along?"
"Nope."
Having answered, Wen Jifei looked up at him and continued, "Wake up, Little Tang. If I weren't here, Qingzi would just say, 'He Tangtang, stay put, hide yourself, and don't make a sound'... Hell, he might've even left someone behind to protect you."
It was a bizarre logic where the weakest always had to be protected.
Hearing Wen Jifei's words, He Tangtang felt a bit indignant and stiffened his neck. "In actual combat, would I really be weaker than Invincible Wind-Fire Wheels?"
"Not necessarily," Wen Jifei affirmed. "But if you made Qingzi choose, he'd definitely take her... because she speaks a foreign language."
"Isn't that just because she's a foreigner in the first place?"
"Well, she can speak Chinese too."
"Can't I speak Chinese as well?"
"Huh, you have a point. Why does the logic suddenly feel messed up?"
Wen Jifei shook his head. "Never mind that. Do me a favor. Once you hear them coming back, pick a fight with me on purpose and challenge me to a duel."
He Tangtang blinked in bewilderment. "Why?"
"Because if you don't challenge me, Little Caixin is probably going to challenge me when she gets back, and Qingzi will just gloat on the side... I'm afraid I might accidentally cut her down with one slash."
"Oh... When did you get on Caixin's bad side?"
"It's... kind of complicated," Wen Jifei said with an aggrieved tone. "Anyway, I just helped Qingzi experience what it feels like to possibly have a woman like him for the first time in his life—and the most direct, barefaced declaration of affection, at that... Of course, if it weren't that blatant, he never would've picked up on it."
He Tangtang didn't understand in the slightest.
Wen Jifei didn't bother explaining. He sighed to himself and continued, "Unfortunately, judging by how things turned out, he probably missed it completely anyway. Talk about ungrateful."
While the two were whispering inside the cave, the observation on the reverse slope continued.
Down at the pass, the fight between the twenty-some turbanned men and the single, black-clad Easterner was still ongoing.
According to Yin Caixin, the one clearly being protected among them was very likely a prince from some sheikh's family in Sha'ah.
That would explain how he managed to assemble a squad of over twenty people after entering the trial grounds.
In truth, Han Qingyu still knew very little about the world of source energy. As he watched the battle while listening to the quiet exchange between the two high-ranking scions on either side of him, he realized something:
In this world hidden behind the curtain, the most surreal, the most grounded, and perhaps the most intriguing entities were actually the Self-Preservation Faction.
Though they shared an umbrella name, it was an extraordinarily colorful and diverse faction composed of countless branches, families, and individuals.
Virtually none of them walked the same path. For the most part, each looked after their own interests, took their own stance, and operated in their own way.
For example, in Sha'ah and some of the wealthy oil nations around it, quite a few of the ultra-rich belonged to the Self-Preservation Faction.
They would spend money buying "tickets for an illusory ark," "deep-sea luxury estates that didn't exist yet," and "land plots in unknown future habitats"... essentially purchasing insurance on multiple fronts.
At the same time, they donated massive sums to Azure every year, yet never allowed themselves to get too close, let alone join.
Furthermore, they used money and luxuries in the City of Iniquity to purchase source energy blocks, driving up prices, and occasionally tried to entice Azure soldiers with material goods, urging them to defect and become their bodyguards or tutors for their children... They even held internal source energy combat tournaments among their aristocracy.
In older, more traditional Huaxia, on the other hand, there were richer mythologies, a deeper heritage of hermit philosophy, and a broader tradition of smallholder, self-sufficient mindsets.
As a result, some within the Huaxian Self-Preservation Faction had begun sealing themselves off as early as the 1910s and 1920s—the period when the Huaxia Front had just been founded, facing its greatest hardships and interacting most heavily with society. In the form of clans or martial sects, they started plotting survival paths for the end of the world.
Among them were warlords, wealthy gentry, veterans of the old martial underworld, and prominent figures from various past governments.
Some had participated in the early Azure organization, while others had provided aid. Thus, they learned of the Great Spikes' existence, came into contact with Azure's technology and knowledge of the time, and hoarded a share of personnel, devices, source energy, and acquisition channels for themselves.
Afterward, they withdrew, closed themselves off, and prepared for the apocalypse... Over the long years, their thinking gradually became muddled, and they cobbled together their own convoluted theoretical systems:
*Ancient myths and legends were real; those cultivators were simply using source energy to train.*
*Later, because source energy dwindled and dried up, they gradually died out.*
*Therefore, we are cultivators.*
*Ascension to immortality as described in legends is also possible. When someone cultivates to a high enough level, they can journey to planets richer in source energy across the universe...*
In short, they had completely lost their minds.
Over the following decades, most of these families and sects were overrun and dragged into the light by Azure's forces. The vast majority of the rest quietly withered away, losing their roots and heritage.
Yet a very small number had somehow survived, only gradually emerging from their isolation over the past decade or so.
***
"Should we help?" Shen Yixiu asked suddenly from his right, breaking Han Qingyu's train of thought.
"Help who?!" Han Qingyu asked back, bewildered.
Shen Yixiu paused. "Right, good point."
Under the current circumstances, the turbanned group was undoubtedly from the Self-Preservation Faction, and judging from Yin Caixin's description, they didn't seem particularly deserving of hatred.
If the one being besieged had been someone from the Huaxia Front, Han Qingyu would definitely have stepped in to lend a hand. But he wasn't.
The man was alone.
His build and height were standard enough, but the black clothes and trousers he wore looked as if they had been tailored in an old-fashioned shop. Aside from that, he had only a short, stubbly buzz cut, looking like he had shaved his head himself with a blade before the hair barely grew back.
He didn't even look like a member of Azure.
"He doesn't look like Cleansing Faction either," Yin Caixin added.
"Yeah, probably not," Han Qingyu said, nodding with a touch of admiration. "This guy is really strong, and his endurance in combat is terrifyingly high."
Shen Yixiu nodded in agreement. "And he seems to be wearing an older Generation 3 device—one that was surgically grafted, at that. Throughout the entire fight, he's been desperately trying to conserve source energy."
*Just what is his background? Could he really be from one of those legendary hidden clans?*
In the battle below, the young man in black fought with all his might, seemingly to protect someone. To keep the pursuers from getting past him, he held the pass entirely on his own, refusing to let a single person through even at the cost of his life.
Han Qingyu counted at least six blade wounds on the man's body. Though they had all avoided vital points and weren't fatal, his body was already heavily wounded, and his movements were hampered.
Yet his face was devoid of expression. In a situation that should have been agonizingly painful, exhausting, and desperate, he didn't even blink or grimace once.
Once again, at least ten custom curved dead iron blades slashed toward him in unison.
Dropping into a lunge, the young man in black held his spear horizontally, blocking with one arm. With a shout, he forced the black spear upward, but couldn't parry the curved blades away...
This was the first time Han Qingyu had seen anyone fight with a spear in the world of source energy. The black spear appeared to be forged entirely from dead iron; it looked ancient and plain, devoid of fancy embellishments, resembling the spears wielded by Three Kingdoms generals in television dramas.
In the next instant, blue light erupted from his chest. With another desperate shout, the black spear spun and vibrated violently in his palm—*clang, clang, clang!*—shattering the formation and knocking back over a dozen curved blades all at once.
Then, stepping back and pivoting halfway, the young man swept the spear—over two meters long—horizontally from his waist. It roared like a dragon, temporarily forcing every enemy back.
"Pfft."
A mouthful of blood splattered onto the ground.
The man's body swayed.
He lifted his head, straightened his back, and stood resolute with his spear poised.
Looking down from Han Qingyu's vantage point, he truly gave off the feeling of one man holding the pass against ten thousand.
Chapter 129