"Do you truly dare turn your backs on me?"
Amid the echoing, lingering scrape of a drawn blade, Han Qingyu asked this single question. Everyone was listening; even those who did not understand the language could guess roughly what it meant, not to mention that several people muttered and unconsciously translated the words.
The feeling made them inexplicably uncomfortable and enraged.
Ahead, the heavily wounded silhouettes of Shen Yixiu and the other two were receding into the distance.
Under the circumstances, there was no time left to deliberate whether to pursue them or not—it hung on a single fleeting thought. Yet they could not help but listen to the voice behind them, could not help but think about it.
Because that man behind them—his blade had not long ago carved a silent, flawless arc through the air, embedding itself directly into a captor's skull from twenty meters away.
He had just lured away two Great Spikes, left, and returned.
This was the man they had schemed so desperately to keep here today, and he had stayed... Now, what they had to do was kill him.
The end result was that not a single person gave chase, nor did anyone dare continue turning their back on that voice. If they gave chase, their heads might suddenly tumble off as they dashed forward; continuing to turn their backs on him meant the same—their heads might fall at any moment.
In their line of sight, the three injured figures had nearly vanished into the mountains.
Comforting himself that there were blockades waiting outside anyway, Yuan Qing gave an embarrassed chuckle, lowered his arm, and turned around... Then, along that stretch of the canyon, everyone turned back with him—around a hundred men.
Their gazes shifted back.
The far end of the canyon was still a dead end where one could only fight to the death to break out.
Just moments ago, three people holding blades had stood there, encircled and besieged by them... Now, there was only one. Han Qingyu stood at that end of the canyon, wearing the combat uniform of the Azure Huaxia Front's Sole Witness Legion, accented with red along the shoulder collar.
His left shoulder sword remained slung over his shoulder, its hilt slanting upward.
His right shoulder sword had just been drawn and now rested in his right hand, the tip of the standard-issue dead iron straight sword angled toward the ground. His left hand was clenched into a fist.
Inside his fist was a metal block—the largest metal block Han Qingyu had seen to date—rapidly dissolving against his palm.
Compared to before, the process was unexpectedly sluggish. His body yielded a faint sense of resistance, perhaps because just a few short days ago, he had absorbed his third metal block and gained a tremendous boost.
Absorbing another one in such a short span was something Han Qingyu had never tried, and he had no idea what would happen. But facing over a hundred people before him—including an expert who had been Grade A and armored for thirteen years, and who claimed there were at least three other top fighters—Han Qingyu had no choice.
In truth, the moment he deduced that the Alphonse family was very likely behind this, his thoughts had dimmed into bleakness for a second.
Then Han Qingyu braced himself—just like his forebears who, with faces turned to the yellow earth, lifted their heads and straightened their backs under heavy burdens.
He made his decision.
Fearing the Alphonse family might eventually step in directly, Han Qingyu traded himself for Shen Yixiu and the other two. While doing his utmost to ensure their safety first, he hadn't said anything like "don't come back" as people did in movies or television...
Instead, he told them that if possible, they should use the pretext of a large-scale clash with the Self-Preservation and Cleansing factions to call back all the Azure personnel outside.
This wasn't in hopes that they could arrive in time to help in battle; rather, he simply needed that many Azure personnel present so he could guarantee he would walk out in the end. He reasoned that since the Alphonse family had chosen such a restrained, secretive approach, they were definitely afraid of exposure, definitely fearful of something... No one was unafraid of facing Azure's massive system directly.
Of course, the prerequisite for any of these contingency plans to work was that Han Qingyu himself had to fight to the end here... and remain standing to the end.
A sense of overflow.
This time, absorbing the metal block brought a sensation of overflowing fullness.
Swelling energy surged through his veins, muscles, and bones.
"You're just one man. Once you're dead, it's over," Yuan Qing said coldly to Han Qingyu. Then, in French and English, he shouted the same sentiment passionately to the others in the canyon.
A man assigned to the same squad as the reclusive Yu Fengzi's family actually spoke both English and French. This proved Han Qingyu's deduction all the more: he was the Alphonse family's direct pawn.
Yet for now, none of that mattered. For now, Han Qingyu had to strike first.
The enemy's opening wave—relying on sheer numbers to bully the lone man, a hundred against one, unleashing the murderous momentum accumulated over so long—could not be dissolved by words or anything else now... except a blade.
"Kill him!" they shouted.
Kill him, and not only would they get a massive share here today, but far more would follow in the future.
Greed and the blind courage provoked by cowardice and fear erupted collectively amid shouts in a mix of languages. Screams boiled across the canyon, three-dimensional apparatuses roared, and over a hundred men wielding over a hundred blades surged like a tidal wave toward Han Qingyu.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
Under an explosive burst of power, the spinning dead iron straight sword was fast enough to vanish from sight, skimming the ground as it swept forward.
It wasn't a defensive stance. It wasn't defensive at all! Alone and without a sound, Han Qingyu suddenly launched forward, charging head-on to meet the enemy.
The blade in his right hand had already been flung skimming the ground, while his hand reached for the hilt at his left shoulder... Ahead of him, the straight sword clearing his path stayed less than twenty centimeters off the ground, whirling into the crowd.
Thwack... Argh!
Blood splattered. Piercing screams rang out in succession. At least five men charging at the forefront suddenly collapsed downward, clutching their legs as they tumbled to their knees.
Yet the sword lost none of its momentum, still flashing like lightning.
Until—clang!
A sharp clash.
After cleaving several meters into the enemy ranks, the blade was finally deflected back when a burly giant swung a long-handled cleaver blade, meeting it head-on.
The sword flew backward with a piercing whistle.
Those standing in the front ranks who hadn't fallen were just breathing a sigh of relief.
Han Qingyu arrived.
He reached out.
Caught the sword.
His forward charge didn't hitch for an instant.
A burly Cleansing Faction fighter suddenly snapped back to his senses, blade still raised, only to find a blurred sword silhouette ahead. In his eyes, that silhouette expanded, growing larger and larger, clearer and clearer, until... darkness.
He lost his vision—not blinded, but simply dead.
The dead iron straight sword, back in Han Qingyu's grip, slashed across several throats along his path forward.
He plunged straight into the crowd as countless blades and swords hacked down at his head.
Han Qingyu leaned back, his chest dipping under the sweeping blades as his heels planted and kicked off the ground... His inverted V-shaped charge compressed its angle within the canyon, rebounding in a near-straight line. Yet his blade remained horizontally leveled, carving through a row of waists and bellies as he withdrew.
The overflowing energy coursing through his body made this charge surpass anything he had done before in both speed and power.
When he came to a halt back at his starting spot, at least thirteen people lay dead or wounded on the ground ahead.
"Argh!"
From the slowing crowd, one person lunged out—the mute who had brought Han Qingyu here earlier. Screeching strangely with ferocious eyes, he was still charging forward alone at high speed.
He reached Han Qingyu.
A blade light flashed down. The mute remained standing, but froze in place.
The people behind him looked blank for a moment.
Crack.
A sound suddenly came from the mute—the noise of a three-dimensional apparatus snapping apart.
Then came clattering thuds: clack, clatter, clack.
Shattered fragments hit the ground.
Whoosh. Han Qingyu whipped his leg in a sweeping kick. Smack. Bent sharply at the neck and shoulder, the mute's body folded and went flying, slamming into the rock wall on one side before sliding down with a limp thud.
The canyon fell quiet for a moment.
Their line of sight was clear once more.
The charging crowd stalled. Lifting their eyes, they saw Han Qingyu still standing there. Apart from more blood on his body, it was as if he hadn't moved at all. Even the sword at his left shoulder had not yet been drawn.
They had heard... they had heard that the man they were supposed to kill today was the strongest recruit in ten years from the Ninth Army of Azure's Huaxia Front.
Chapter 141