A Fight to the Death

Wen Jifei was stationed on the perimeter of the combat zone on guard duty... except with twelve people in the perimeter team, they hadn't spotted a single soul from start to finish. Holstering his gun, he scrambled up from the ground, dusted off the dirt, and turned his head to listen to the distant commotion. "Sounds like it's about wrapped up. You guys keep watch; I'm going in to see if this Grade A master needs to step in and lend a hand." A few logistics personnel looked at him, opened their mouths, and then gave up. Let him go—it wasn't like anyone could out-talk him anyway. He activated his device, but terrified of falling, he didn't dare accelerate. Running through the woods from the perimeter toward the sounds of battle for a short while, Wen Jifei came to a stop. From a distance, he caught sight of the Great Spike, besieged and hacked by over forty soldiers from the first and second echelons, suddenly begin to self-destruct. It had no other choice; its entire body had already been slashed to ribbons. Right then, without waiting for the self-destruction to finish, the forty-plus soldiers of the first and second echelons began moving toward the other battlefield. Lao Jian led the way, wiping the corner of his mouth with a hand, dirt and grass clinging to his back. "Oof, with such an overwhelming advantage, how did Captain Lao still end up coughing up blood?!" Wen Jifei muttered in surprise at the sight. In reality, Captain Lao had suddenly gotten ambitious and used this Great Spike for live-combat training. Then a recruit, overly excited, slipped out of position and nearly met disaster... Lao Jian had taken a blade strike head-on to shield him, which sent him flying and coughing up blood. "Da—Captain Lao, you alright?" Wen Jifei shouted, hurrying forward a few steps. "You..." Lao Jian turned his head, originally intending to scold him and ask why on earth he had run over here, but paused and decided to answer first: "I'm fine. Nothing to it." "What about Qingzi and the others?" Wen Jifei asked. "Over there," Lao Jian pointed with his blade. "Don't you come over!" Then he lunged forward. Wait, things couldn't be going badly on Qingzi's end, could they? Not daring to cause trouble, Wen Jifei stood still and pondered. "Get down, quick, get down!" A moment later, Milla's voice carried over from not far away. Bewildered, Wen Jifei nonetheless dropped flat to the ground immediately. *Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka...* The crunching screech of the shuttle craft self-destructing followed right behind, still setting teeth on edge. Then came a storm of whizzing shrapnel slicing through the woods. That presumably meant the Great Spike on Qingzi's end had also been hacked into despair and self-destruction right around the same time... Otherwise, the shuttle craft would not self-destruct until the bitter end. After the shrapnel rain ended, the field was cleared for spoils of war. Wen Jifei picked up a few fragments along the way and tossed them into a bag—he wouldn't take anything from his own squad... Turning around and looking up, he spotted Han Qingyu resting on the ground, and then Shen Yixiu and He Tangtang. "Where's Wu Xu?" "Huh? Didn't see him." "Impossible. That guy thinks about fighting every single day." Hearing the exchange between Wen Jifei and He Tangtang, Han Qingyu gave it some thought. It was true: Wu Xu had memorized the sector maps, and he looked forward every single day to Great Spikes arriving just so he could fight. Under the circumstances just now, he definitely should have come down to help. Even if Han Qingyu and Rusty Sister didn't need him, when Captain Lao was suddenly knocked flying and chaos erupted with injured men over on the other side, Wu Xu surely would have stepped in. "Two possibilities..." Han Qingyu muttered as he thought. "He got lost," He Tangtang said. "Though that's not very likely. As long as he can find Block 8, he'd definitely hear the noise over here." Wen Jifei rolled his eyes as he looked up. "Nothing happened to him, did it?! But he was back at the outpost—what could possibly happen to him?" No one could answer that question, but Han Qingyu stood up at once anyway. "Captain Lao, something's come up—we're heading back to check." "Ah, alright... Everyone, hurry up," Lao Jian urged, a sudden pang of unease washing over him as he watched them hurry away. ... Wu Xu was actually quite intimidated by Wen Jifei on normal days. As Qingzi put it, every group inevitably had a rascal or two, and Wu Xu was least equipped to deal with rogue friends, which was why he was always being pushed around. For instance, whenever Plague Chicken wanted to shirk a chore and pawn it off on him, if whining didn't work, he would simper, "I'm Nurse Wen Ji, remember?" At times like that, Wu Xu would get goosebumps all over, utterly helpless and suffocated with gloom. Worse, he couldn't very well beat the guy up. Yet at this moment, Wu Xu truly wished Wen Jifei were present. When it came to hacking Great Spikes, Wen Jifei couldn't help Qingzi much anyway... after all, he still had no way of talking to Great Spikes. But if he were here, he could talk to these people—or even shout from far away and run off immediately. He could probably talk sense into them. Wu Xu thought this in earnest, annoyed with his own clumsy tongue for once. But before he could speak again, the thirty Yu clan war slaves, already somewhat unnerved, were driven by Yu Yindou to pounce on him once more. They were being used as sacrifices to wear down Wu Xu's combat strength... just as their status and fate had always dictated. Third-Generation internal devices; eyes devoid of hope. It was as if he were looking at his past self—different in some ways, perhaps, but strikingly similar. The moment they clashed, the black spear pierced out once more like a startled swan, but in the end, it only thrust down hard against the ground to vault him backward. Wu Xu's figure retreated explosively, dodging the encirclement while shouting: "Master, Wu Xu requests a duel!" The words had simply jumped into his mind on the spur of the moment. And so he spoke them. As his voice fell, the thirty men in front of him froze almost in unison, then turned their heads. Such a rule did exist. It had been established back when the head of the Yu clan was still Yu Jinkui: among the war slaves, if anyone could challenge the clan head, they could cast off their slave status and obtain a legitimate identity and a respectable post. It had been the old Yu family's way of motivating people and selecting talent. When the rule was established, Yu Jinkui was formidable. Supposedly people had tried, but fell far short of succeeding. Gradually, no one tried anymore, no matter how unwilling they were. Later, by the time Yu Yindou's era arrived, the matter had somehow been forgotten, and no one ever brought it up again. Yet the rule itself seemed to still stand; no one had ever heard of it being abolished. Now that it was suddenly brought up, the thirty-plus war slaves came to a halt, turning back to gaze at Yu Yindou. In this moment, they turned as war slaves to see whether the clan head still honored a rule tied to the fate of the Yu clan's war slaves. Was Wu Xu trying to earn himself freedom? Judging by the current situation, probably not. But that did not matter, because to the other war slaves present, on this rule at least, they stood on common ground with Wu Xu. It was not that they secretly hoped Wu Xu would win. It was just that it was better if the rule still existed. Under such gazes from his slaves, Yu Yindou felt his authority challenged in an instant. A flicker of disarray struck his mind, fury rising before cunning could intervene. The old man pointed his sword and snarled: "What did you say?!" The butt of the spear planted into the earth, plowing through soil and stone as Wu Xu's retreating figure came to a halt at the far end of the deep furrow. He looked up at Yu Yindou, without expression, without inflection: "Wu Xu requests a fight to the death with the Master." He yanked the butt of the spear free, carrying up a spray of dirt and stone. Wu Xu gripped the Binggu spear and stood there. Silence hung over the scene, broken only by the thirty-odd pairs of eyes waiting. Yu Yindou withdrew the sword he had leveled and pointed his other sword forward. Pausing, he snapped, "You traitor! What right do you have now to invoke my Yu clan's rules?!" "A slave since I could remember, ignorant of the years, serving loyally like a dog or horse—that is my right." Wu Xu finished speaking. Of the thirty-odd war slaves present, which of them had not been a slave since their earliest memories, serving like dogs and horses?! Yu Fengzi said, "Father, then just hack him down." The boast her elderly father had made days ago—that he could slay Yuan Qing within three moves—was still fresh in the Eldest Young Mistress's mind. In reality, while killing Yuan Qing would have posed no problem, claiming he could definitely do it within three moves had mainly been Yu Yindou's way of reassuring the war slaves and boosting morale. How many moves it would actually take, how could he possibly know? Caught on the horns of a dilemma, Yu Yindou gritted his teeth and leapt down from the large boulder before the outpost, dual swords in hand. Wu Xu turned his wrist. As if keeping to an inherent rhythm, the black spear flipped its tip and carved an arc—half behind him, half at his side... The shaft bowed into a taut curve.