Snow fell intermittently for three days, piling thick upon Xilang Peak.
Gleaming white snow and glaring glaciers restored the snowcapped peak mostly to its pristine, holy appearance, forming a stark contrast against the black demon-god palace perched at its summit.
To the eye, it looked like a devil enthroned high upon a holy mountain.
Whether such heavy snow accumulation was good or bad for the overall army's operations was hard to say, but for Han Qingyu, who now possessed the blue-light column sword, it was undeniably a good thing.
Reinforcements continued to arrive without pause during this period. Rumor had it that the allied coalition on the frontline had now truly reached the previously proclaimed forty thousand men.
At the same time, the fifth and sixth super combat powers—hailing from Germany and Scotland—joined the field.
In truth, those who arrived as reinforcements in this final stage were essentially each nation's elite forces.
The coalition had made the decision to extinguish the threat, steeling its resolve like hammer upon anvil. This battle might well exact devastating losses, but if Azure could win a breathing space after it, they would truly be capable of taking on large-scale warfare in the future.
Throughout its nearly century-long history, Azure seemed always to have been this way: advancing through sacrifice, reaping and learning amidst suffering, walking step by step to this day. Though source energy technology appeared primitive on the surface, in reality it had likely leapt across a thousand years of technological development.
Humans were creatures adept at learning; everything was forged through learning, and it truly seemed to be so.
Meanwhile, shuttle craft also continued to touch down on the mountain on the Great Spikes' side—roughly a hundred craft, amounting to over two hundred more Great Spikes.
The shuttle craft from every defensive sector surrounding Xilang Peak had converged here.
Over these three days, the allied coalition had continuously deployed elite squads to harass, lure, and bait the enemy. The Great Spike swarm's distribution had now essentially reverted to its state prior to Operation Voice: their defensive perimeter expanded down near the foot of the mountain, dispersing gradually across all four sides of the peak.
The time for battle was ripe.
They could delay no longer.
August 27, 1991, an ordinary day. Before four in the afternoon, everyone on the Xilang Peak frontline ate dinner early.
"Don't stuff yourselves full! Just eat enough. Careful you don't get stomach cramps when we start running later."
At Squad 1777's campsite, Lao Jian walked about with a food basin in hand, yelling with a smile, "Whoever's done eating, go suit up in your gear and check your source energy blocks!"
"And don't wander off, anyone! We have to be at the assembly point by five o'clock!"
Though he made every effort to appear relaxed, he actually looked like an aging father about to take his kid to the college entrance exams. No, he was far more nervous than that.
*Rumble...* The roaring whoosh of wings beating the air echoed overhead.
Yet another transport plane carrying reinforcements touched down at the distant airfield.
Judging by the time, it was likely the last one.
Nobody paid it too much mind. On the earthen ridge, Han Qingyu quietly changed into a set of combat fatigues embroidered with the Legion Saber Insignia. It was the first time he had willingly donned this uniform.
Wu Xu wore his too. Rusty Sister had tied the insignia-bearing strip of cloth to her war blade. Her long blade was slung behind her iron-clad shoulder; the sword tassel behind her head fluttered lightly now and then in the wind blowing over the ridge.
Having finished checking his metal blocks, Bone of Eternal Life, and source energy blocks one by one, Han Qingyu slung both straight blades over the same side behind his shoulder.
Behind his other shoulder was the blue-light column sword enclosed in a cloth sheath. Rusty Sister had made the sheath for him, tearing apart a set of combat fatigues for fabric and using its clasp pins to secure it.
The three echelons stood fully formed.
Lao Jian swept his gaze across them, his eyes warm as he looked over each face, especially the first-year recruits. Then his expression hardened with resolve. "Move out."
Without superfluous words, the forty-one soldiers of Squad 1777's three echelons quietly descended the earthen ridge.
On another mountainslope where they could neither see nor hear:
Azure Huaxia Front, Sixth Army, Squad 472. Captain Fang Zhong regarded each of his squad members with a solemn gaze.
During the previous Operation Voice, Squad 472 had suffered no casualties, and even injuries were few and minor. At the time, they were supposed to face four Great Spikes, but thanks to Squad 1777's aid, their target had been swapped on the fly.
"This time, I don't think anyone will come tell us they're taking over," Fang Zhong spoke before the formation. "No—that's wrong. *We* cannot wait for someone else to say they're taking over and swapping targets."
"Sir!" The squad snapped to attention, roaring back in unison.
"Once the alarm sounds, the swarm of Great Spikes will rush up the mountain toward the mothership, slamming into our circular defensive perimeter. And our mission... is to hold them here and wipe them out. So, no matter how many are in front of us this time... we charge."
"Sir!"
"We hack back what we owed from last time."
"Sir!"
Squad 472 moved out.
Identical scenes, similar moments—from Huaxia, Indedu, Nepal... nearly a thousand squads departed from campsites across the front, stepping toward the battlefield of Azure's first total war of defense.
...
"This thing seems a bit too big."
Having carried the column sword on his back for a while, Han Qingyu found it rather awkward. He tilted it a bit further, wondering whether he should just stop hiding it and, once on the battlefield, pull it straight down and start hacking...
How should he hack with it? If he ran into a dense pocket of Great Spikes, he could probably whirl it around like Yin Caixin's Invincible Wind-Fire Wheels, sweeping clean through them.
Walking near the front of the First Echelon, Liu Shiheng quietly glanced back at Han Qingyu.
He was trembling slightly. This battlefield was spread across too vast an expanse, and the foreseeable scene was far too brutal. There was no telling where might be safe; once they charged up, there might not even be a place to hide.
Stick with Qingzi? It felt so safe, yet at the same time super dangerous.
What a dilemma.
"Shiheng," Han Qingyu called out suddenly.
Feeling uneasy, Liu Shiheng turned around, avoiding direct eye contact. "Yeah?"
"Once we enter the battlefield, you and Tangtang stick with Wen Jifei. Plague Chicken might need to coordinate with me in battle, so you two are responsible for ensuring he has room to shoot. At the same time, find a vantage point to observe the situation and help the squad out. If anything unusual comes up, let me know."
"Yeah, all right."
...
The assembly point sat right at the foot of the mountain, backs to the snowcapped peak. Having seen formations like this drawn up almost every day, the Great Spikes seemed used to it; after all, they did not understand humans.
The spectacle of forty thousand men deployed in full was immense. Moreover, because they needed to encircle nearly half the snowcapped mountain, the pre-battle rallying and organization had been divided across several staging grounds according to language.
At every location, troops formed up directly according to their designated charge formations.
The Huaxia Front's participating force this time numbered around five thousand men. A dozen or so elite squads stood at the very front of the entire host, holding their respective battle flags.
For this battle, every elite squad had its own banner. Most of the banners had been rushed out on the frontline over the past three days; in their haste, they simply took the respective Front's flag, painted a white patch on it, and inked in the squad's number and designation.
Though they looked a bit crude, that would not hinder them from being planted atop the high circular perimeter of the snowcapped peak shortly.
So long as the banners did not fall, there would be no breach—and the Great Spikes below would not even dream of returning.
"Quiet, quiet..."
Calls echoed across the staging grounds, bringing silence to the field.
Before the staging ground, a short Huaxia Front general around fifty years old climbed onto a temporary raised platform.
Commander of the Huaxia Sole Witness Legion's First Army, Liu Yiwu, raised his hand in a salute.
"I just chased away all the translators, guards, liaison officers, and whatever else they assigned me," his opening words carried not the slightest air of a formal mobilization address. Liu Yiwu gave an approachable smile and said, "Because I plan to share a few honest words with everyone first."
With that, this dignified commander of the First Army simply stood casually at the edge of the high platform, looking like he was settling in for an everyday chat.
"Truth be told, I'm a man with plenty of petty calculations. The lead for this coalition battle is the Indedu Front, right? So I don't know if anyone noticed, but in this battle, our Huaxia Front's voice has been very quiet... We have the strength, we have the voice, but we've kept quiet all along.
"Because I wanted to keep our heads down! I thought, since this isn't our home turf anyway, and since they can fight, we might as well step back a little, so I could bring more of you boys back home.
"Thirty years ago, the battle against a Red Shoulder and eleven blue-tinged spikes took place in Siberia. The main combat forces were the Xiongzhanli Front and our Huaxia First Army. Back then, I was only a lieutenant. To tell you the truth, that battle scared the hell out of me. I chickened out. So coming here this time, I kept quiet and didn't act tough..."
Everyone listened intently, hearing a general confess his unheroic petty thoughts, and even his fear.
Liu Yiwu paused here, straightened his posture, and patted his chest.
"But now, there's no way around it. I have to open my mouth and tell you to risk your lives, to sacrifice, to fight to the death and never retreat... Brothers... my soldiers of the Huaxia Sole Witness Legion," he said.
"It's fine!" someone down below shouted foolishly.
Low chuckles rippled through the atmosphere of grim resolve, quickly subsiding.
Liu Yiwu chuckled as well, looking out over them. "It's fine, eh?"
"It's fine!" This time the roar was thunderous, thousands of voices responding in unison.
"Good." Liu Yiwu nodded slowly, his previously placid eyes blazing to life. "Then get ready to move out, Azure, Huaxia Front! Let us go see what the hell those bugs under the iron armor really are. Let's slaughter until rivers of blood flow, and see if those bastards can feel fear too... see if they know how to be afraid!"
"Yeah! Let's do it!"
"Those things wear a full suit of iron armor, immune to radiation, boasting super defense and all kinds of resistances... but inside, they're actually living creatures too, you all know that, right? Flesh and blood."
"We know!"
"Since they're living things, we beat them until they're terrified! Rare is the chance so many have gathered in one place... while we're at it, let's haul one out and see," Liu Yiwu bellowed passionately, then added in all seriousness, "To be frank, I'm from Yue Province. I want to stew one of them!"
Tick, tock... Amid the uproarious laughter that suddenly erupted:
*Wuuu...* A war horn sounded.
The marching footsteps of tens of thousands began to echo.
On the snowcapped mountain, Great Spikes turned their heads and looked down at the battle formations below... They did not yet know that this time, it was real.
The Flag War had begun.
Liu Yiwu swept his eyes across the battle array before him one last time. Reaching down, he drew his blade. *Clang!*
"Prepare!"
*Clang!* Five thousand soldiers of the Huaxia Front spun around, drawing their blades toward the snowcapped mountain.
*Clang...* Ringed around the mountain, forty thousand soldiers turned, drawing their blades toward the snowcapped peak.
Under the dusk, beneath the several-thousand-meter peak of snow, long blades rose like a forest.
*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...* "For all that breathe, no retreat in battle; with our bodies we bar the sky."
Diverse languages, a single creed. Across more than a dozen Azure formations, the blue light of source energy apparatuses shone like a sea of stars.
*Boom, boom, boom...* Powerful launch blasts sounded as the first wave—two hundred suits of heavy full armor—was hurled onto the battlefield by catapult-like contraptions.
Before the armor even hit the ground:
The Great Spikes looked up.
"Hah!" Several hundred voices shouted as one.
Sprinting footsteps whipped up the wind like tearing cloth. Northland's specialized javelin array, each soldier possessing a strength talent, hurled their arms forward in mid-stride...
"Hah!" Javelins left their grips, hurtling like lightning from mighty bows. *Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...* A sky full of sonic booms.
Two relatively dense clusters of Great Spikes near the base of the mountain were instantly shattered by the javelin barrage, several spikes collapsing, never to rise again.
Precisely at this moment of chaos, the two hundred suits of heavy armor descending from the sky landed across the snowslope at their designated positions, like stakes driven into the battlefield, preventing the first wave of Great Spikes from rallying together.
At that exact same instant: "Attack!"
In the second wave, all six super combat powers dispersed among the formations, together with every elite squad, charged forward in a direct assault.
They would cleave the battlefield in two.
Then punch through it.
And reach the heights of the snowcapped peak, establishing a circular perimeter to hold to the death.
By frontline observations, at least a thousand Great Spikes would be trapped beneath that circular line.
Life and death, victory and defeat.
Depended on them holding the line.
And on the remaining thirty thousand-plus long blades entering the fray to reap the harvest.
Chapter 260