"Reporting: Squad member Han Qingyu, Sole Witness Legion, Regiment 425, Squad 1777, serial number 771209, requesting permission to return to the squad." Walking up the earthen knoll, Han Qingyu offered a crisp, routine salute, reporting according to regulations.
"Permission granted," Lao Jian returned the salute just as calmly.
Han Qingyu then stepped into the formation, finding his usual spot and falling into rank.
Going from forty members to forty-one, the squad continued marching downhill in formation, heading toward their designated staging area for the battle.
In truth, even with Han Qingyu back, Squad 1777's standing in this war remained nothing more than that of an ordinary squad.
Yet the quiet shift within the unit made it feel as though a slumbering beast had come back to life. Previously, they had carried themselves like kings back in their little forest, but after suddenly arriving upon this vast grassland of bloody slaughter—where people were turned to dust without a trace left behind—they had spent some time in sheer panic. Now, however, they felt much better.
None of them would show this change to Han Qingyu. At least, none of them would ever bring it up voluntarily, because doing so would be far too embarrassing.
"I think I saw you getting off the plane earlier," Wu Xu murmured after they had walked for a while.
"Really?"
The two quickly compared notes on the time and scene.
Han Qingyu said, "That really was me! Why didn't you call out to me? I had to ask around forever and spent half the day looking for you guys."
"Too far away," Wu Xu answered.
"So, did you get to see your parents?" Wen Jifei asked next in their hometown dialect.
"Nope. As soon as I reached the city, I hurried back." Han Qingyu grinned, cursing in their dialect, "Screw that."
The two kept chatting away in dialect.
In the first row of the formation, Liu Shiheng glanced back at Han Qingyu without saying a word. If Han Qingyu hadn't returned, Liu Shiheng had already made up his mind: the moment they went up the mountain, he would find a snow cave to hide in. In any case, his place in the formation was entirely dispensable.
As the squad marched, Han Qingyu did not pay much attention to his surroundings. Having just arrived, he knew little of the current situation. After a short while, he borrowed the scope from Wen Jifei's Milla 9 rifle and began observing the distant mountain.
The battleship-class Great Spike craft came into his view.
*Damn, that thing is terrifying. But the metal block it uses must be enormous... If I could haul that back, I'd strike it rich... No, greed gets people killed. I came back this time to make sure nothing happens to the squad. The scale of this war is way too big.*
"Look lower. Don't just stare at the big one—you can't haul that anyway. Look down from the peak, all the way below the mountainside," Wen Jifei quietly reminded him from the side.
Han Qingyu nodded. He tilted the circular field of view downward. Amid the pure expanse of white snow, a black speck appeared—not a rock—and then another speck... *Whoa, that's quite a lot.*
On this single mountainside alone, at least dozens of shuttle crafts lay haphazardly scattered all over, as if deemed inconsequential and discarded wherever they had touched down.
To Han Qingyu, those were all individual metal blocks.
It didn't matter that the shuttle crafts hadn't self-destructed. Back at the trial ground in Nepal, Han Qingyu had already tested them and knew the hulls could actually be pried open; it was just rather difficult. Now that he was stronger and wielded new swords, he figured he could manage it faster.
If worse came to worst, he could always carry them away...
"They say Great Spikes haven't been landing in any of the surrounding regions lately," Lao Jian explained beside him. "It's as if having a beacon here has drawn them all to this spot, and even the Rejecters can't mislead them. My guess is they're setting up a landing base centered around that big one."
That was his own deduction.
Han Qingyu nodded perfunctorily, not delving deeper into the thought. Such matters were too far removed from him. Situated in an ordinary squad, serving merely as a grunt on the battlefield, he lacked the power to resolve problems of that magnitude. All he could do was fulfill his duty as an Azure soldier and do everything possible to ensure that the people beside him walked off this battlefield alive.
*It's not that I don't care about the Azure Alliance or humanity; it's just that I'm far too insignificant to afford caring. So, I'll just care about the people around me,* Han Qingyu murmured to himself. With that thought, he pulled the scope away, handed it back to Wen Jifei, and did his best to suppress the craving for metal blocks burning in his chest.
Once they were truly on the battlefield, he couldn't leave his squad, let alone drag the whole unit along to haul spacecraft. *We're an army, not mountain bandits.*
Previously, after the massive craft touched down, skirmishes between Azure and the Great Spikes had broken out several times. Those, however, had primarily been blocking actions or small-scale probing raids designed to gather intelligence.
This upcoming operation, codenamed "Voice," would mark the first large-scale proactive offensive in human civilization's history.
A total of 150 ordinary squads had been selected, amounting to over six thousand soldiers. These 150 squads would be grouped so that ten ordinary squads were attached to a single elite squad, forming secondary combat units.
Approximately two super combat powers would take the field directly, while another two would remain hidden on standby against high-grade Great Spikes attempting to breach the battle lines. This was public information, though neither pair had shown their faces openly.
Around the perimeter of the targeted offensive zone, roughly one hundred Great Spikes were present, of which ten to twelve were blue-sheened Great Spikes—a remarkably high proportion.
The detailed operational plan was passed down echelon by echelon. As a baseline combat unit, Squad 1777 learned very little. Like the other ordinary squads, once prepared, they waited on the plaza at the staging point, listening as interpreters repeated in various languages the pre-battle address delivered by the supreme commander of this campaign, Combat Legion Commander Nitesh of the Indedu Front.
Once the rally speech concluded, members from various elite squads appeared before them, rosters in hand.
"You've got to be kidding me..." Wen Jifei muttered discontentedly from within the formation before long.
They didn't know the exact criteria or allocation methods high command was using, but looking around, they couldn't shake the visual impression that they, the ordinary squads, were being picked over like cabbages in a market stall.
Liang Ge of White Eraser walked past alongside a vice-captain. Coming up to Squad 1777's formation, he stopped and stared at them.
*Looks like we're going with White Eraser after all. We both hail from the Ninth Army,* the squad members thought.
"Reporting—" Lao Jian's saluting hand had only risen halfway.
Liang Ge and the vice-captain turned and walked away.
White Eraser had passed on Squad 1777. The Ninth Army held a substantial presence in the Southwest Region, and plenty of squads had arrived from nearby to take part, so White Eraser had no obligation to choose 1777. Given their past friction with Han Qingyu, avoiding unexpected incidents on the battlefield that would be difficult to explain later made their decision entirely reasonable.
*If that's the case, why the hell did you stand there gawking at us for so long? Were you deliberately trying to humiliate us?* A wave of irritation washed through the squad.
Squads whose names were called broke into runs one after another, heading to the grounds of their assigned elite squads to receive frontline orders.
Yet no word came for Squad 1777.
"Damn it, they're not really going to stick us with foreigners, are they?" an old soldier muttered impatiently. "Even with interpreters, translation takes time! Out there, a single second's delay could get people killed."
"If it's that 'Very Big' squad from Venezuela, that'd be fine," Wen Jifei said, standing on his tiptoes to crane his neck and look around. Since nations from so far away hadn't brought along ordinary squads of their own, the possibility he raised was indeed real.
Hearing that, Han Qingyu froze, suddenly curious.
He knew the Sixth Army had Long Blade, the Ninth Army had Eraser, the Fourth Army had Raging Billows, and the First Army had Vanguard under its direct command—all of these were codenames of elite squads belonging to the Huaxia Front.
"The Venezuelan elite squad is called 'Very Big'? Why such a funny name?" Han Qingyu asked earnestly in a low whisper.
The group beside him fought back laughter.
"Yeah," Wen Jifei nodded solemnly. "They're called Very Big, Very Deep, Very Perky, Very Bouncy..."
Han Qingyu listened, realizing something didn't sound right.
"Stop listening to his nonsense!" Qin Guowen snapped irritably from the side. "That Venezuelan elite squad is called Mérida!"
"So how do you know, Vice-Captain Qin?" Wen Jifei turned around immediately. "Did you actually go ask around?"
Qin Guowen fell silent.
"All right, that's enough arguing," Lao Jian intervened, his tone tinged with displeasure.
Though fear certainly lingered in their hearts, as Huaxia soldiers—and members of a squad with ambition—could they truly have fallen to the point where nobody wanted them?
Captain Lao felt a twinge of bitterness.
"If nobody wants us, does that mean we don't have to go?" Liu Shiheng muttered softly, wearing a faintly hopeful expression.
A rapid clatter of footsteps sounded.
First Lieutenant Cao Min of Long Blade Squad jogged up to Squad 1777's formation, snapped a salute, and barked, "Greetings, Captain Lao!"
"Hello," Lao Jian returned the salute, doing his utmost to maintain a calm demeanor.
"Captain Wei Jiang of the Sixth Army's Long Blade Squad formally invites Squad 1777 to join our detachment in battle—to stand shoulder-to-shoulder defending the azure skies and upholding the undefeated glory of our Huaxia Front!"
"It will be an honor."
Chapter 248