Zone D of Medical Station 101 comprised five buildings arranged in an L-shape. Behind them rose a sheer cliff tens of meters high, with rushing river waters churning far below.
The medical station's safe room lay beneath Zone D, equipped with a passageway that led straight down to boats on the river. However... earlier that night, as the first boat was boarding, the tunnel entrance had been discovered. To prevent an enemy breach, the passage had to be sealed off temporarily.
The security detachment had dispatched a small force to hold the clifftop to the rear as observers. All the rest formed a defensive battle array in front of the L-shaped zone, resolved to fight to the death.
They had about forty men left, and their combat capability was not particularly strong...
Zone D, Building 11.
On the third and fourth floors, lights still burned in at least four operating rooms. Even after the broadcast notice blared across the station, the surgeries continued.
Even with battle raging just downstairs and the sounds of slaughter ringing clearly in their ears, those operations carried on.
"Don't panic. Keep your hands steady... It'll be over soon."
"Honghong, quick, pinch me hard. Harder."
Focusing her mind and steadying her movements, the doctor began the final sutures...
At last, an operation that had lasted five full hours came to an end.
With the wound stitched closed, the wounded soldier remained unconscious. While a nurse wiped the sweat from her brow, the doctor stripped off her gloves and said, "Take him down to the safe room first."
"What about you, Doctor Mu?" the nurse asked.
"I'll sit for a moment to catch my breath."
The wounded soldier was carried away on a stretcher.
The doctor stepped out of the operating room, sank into a chair by the door, and tilted her head back, gasping for air.
Mu Qijian was a doctor, born an Azure child. Though she was a girl, her family had still given her such a name—praying for a sword.
Her name longed for a blade to slay enemies on the battlefield, yet in the end, her hand had taken up a scalpel... Her mentor had told her that saving lives was also slaying the enemy.
Pattering footsteps echoed from the direction of the stairwell.
Mu Qijian hastily stood and hurried over.
Four girls appeared before her carrying a stretcher. They were four nurses, and among them was Guan Honghong, who had just finished the previous operation with her and had returned after delivering the patient to the safe room.
A warrior from the security detachment lay on the stretcher with a short blade driven into his abdomen, already unconscious.
"Doctor Mu, he... right now..." Guan Honghong tried to explain the situation, her eyes rimmed with red. Her frantic hands froze halfway through an erratic gesture, leaving her looking utterly helpless.
Mu Qijian pulled back her hand from the wounded man's body and said, "Prepare for surgery."
"Doctor Mu, don't you need to—"
"Prepare for surgery."
With that, Mu Qijian turned and walked straight back into the operating room.
At the same time, the door to another operating room not far away swung open. A nurse appeared in the doorway and called out, "Doctor Zhao says we're almost finished here! If there are wounded, bring them in quick!"
With that, she slipped back inside.
The sounds of battle rang out not far below.
The remaining warriors of the security detachment, joined by a portion of the wounded who were in better shape and had rushed over, formed a battle array to make their stand.
Behind them, the doctors and nurses who refused to head down to the safe room stood nearby, ready to provide aid at any moment.
"Master Ping, we have to hurry. If we drag this out, their reinforcements will arrive."
"I know. Were the first batch of doctors and nurses captured outside already taken away?"
"Yes. What about these ones...?"
"Kill them! Slaughter them all, find that safe room, and that's it. We only need the wounded, the doctors, and the nurses."
Ping Guangliang finished instructing his subordinate, glanced around, and called out to the masters of the other families, "Everyone, time is of the essence. It seems these bastards won't learn fear until they die. Kill them all!"
"Master Ping is right... Kill!"
Instantly, more than two hundred men surged forward in a coordinated slaughter.
Four men in the security detachment's formation fell in an instant, and their line was broken.
The melee began.
Seeing an enemy's short spear thrust toward his face, a young warrior made no attempt to dodge. Instead, he drove his straight sword directly toward the man's heart, prepared to trade life for life.
"Get out of the way!"
A thunderous roar erupted from behind him.
A figure wielding a blade crashed into him, knocking him aside while bringing his own blade down in a brutal slash that sent the enemy flying... Only when the figure landed did it become clear that he had only one arm; thick layers of gauze were wrapped tightly around his other shoulder.
The gauze was soaked through with blood.
First Army, Squad 147, Captain and Deputy Squad Leader Li Jincheng had joined the fray.
With one arm and one blade, after striking down one enemy, Li Jincheng charged straight into the opposing ranks, cutting down three men in rapid succession.
Drenched in blood, he staggered to a halt, leveling the edge of his blade.
"Fuck your mothers! Do you hillbillies even know what Azure means?!"
Ran Qiuling dared not allow herself to pause and feel the pain. Lunging forward at full speed, she plunged almost directly into the fray, her blade slicing across an enemy's throat.
Three enemy weapons lunged toward her simultaneously.
She could have dodged to the side... but her left leg failed to support her weight.
*Whoosh!*
A roar of a source energy apparatus surged in from the flank, instantly slaying one attacker and knocking back the other two.
"Watch out, sister!"
Fourth Army, Squad 516, Major and Squad Leader Wang Zhanpo had arrived, his body bound tightly in thick bandages as he rushed everywhere to provide support.
Word was that he had only arrived a few days ago.
His sternum and ribs were fractured in four places.
*Whoosh, whoosh...*
Simultaneously, one wounded soldier after another, one squad after another, joined the battle. Some had fought their way in from the perimeter, while others, having originally been urged down to the safe room, had stepped back out to fight.
The battle line began to push forward. The remaining forces of the seven clans instinctively retreated, leaving behind more than twenty corpses on the ground.
This was something the seven clans had failed to foresee. The wounded were supposed to be captives in their plan, yet after an unexpected clash, they found themselves pushed back outside the L-shaped zone.
A temporary standoff formed once more.
On the seven clans' side, roughly one hundred and sixty men remained.
Facing them at this moment, the Azure security guards and the wounded still capable of fighting numbered nearly a hundred as well.
Yet among them, almost none was in sound condition.
Dead iron straight swords.
Three-dimensional apparatuses.
The Azure insignia.
Some supported each other or leaned together, while others had blood steadily seeping through their bandages.
"They're a bit tough to handle."
"Masters, Master Tian, if you don't step in personally, this won't work."
"Those few across from us are not weak."
At the rear of the seven clans' one hundred and sixty men, three figures exchanged glances. Maintaining their 'noble' status, they had barely acted up to this point.
"Still, those few are worth quite a fortune." Tian Hetai looked only in his fifties, but in truth, he was nearly seventy.
As the old man spoke, he drew a traditionally styled single-edged saber and stepped forward alone.
"Surrender. This old man merely wishes to borrow your services. Why must you persist?"
"'Old man' my ass! What era is this? Still talking in that dumbass tone!" Li Jincheng had a fiery temper. He charged forward immediately, swinging his blade in a sweeping strike.
*Clang!*
Tian Hetai flicked his saber upward in a reverse slash, and the two blades collided.
*Spurt!*
Li Jincheng was thrown back through the air, coughing up blood.
Several men behind him rushed to catch him...
Doctors and nurses ran up from behind.
"I'm fine... I'm... fine." Li Jincheng raised a hand, waving off the doctors and nurses as he forced himself to stand. *Cough.*
Another mouthful of blood sprayed from his lips. He knew full well that even in peak health, he would still be completely outmatched by the man before him.
"Well then... surrender?" Tian Hetai asked again. "Is there anyone among you stronger than him? Come, why not give it a try?!"
The answer was no.
Yet silence did not mean surrender.
Wang Zhanpo stepped forward. Li Jincheng staggered forward as well, and more men moved up with them... Today, they might well fall, but it did not matter.
For Azure, there was only fighting to the death.
"By special operational order of Legion Commander Chen Buer."
As the highest-ranking officer on the scene, Wang Zhanpo spoke. This so-called special operational order had in truth merely been words Chen Buer once said during an all-corps assembly, but what the old man said always stood.
"Anyone who targets our medical stations shall be slain on the spot, with no prisoners taken... If they do not die, hunt them across ten thousand li... Until they are destroyed, until they are dead, fight without end!"
Chapter 212