Every member of the Chichen Itza Squad pounced down from high ground, their dead iron Mexican machetes slashing in.
In situations like this, battle-hardened elites demonstrated their strength and reflexes, making the most optimal decisions almost entirely without orders.
The division of labor and squads for splitting, pinning down, and strangling the enemy was accomplished in an instant.
Amid the clash of dead iron, the combat perimeter was pulled open and spread out before the defensive position, forming pockets of skirmishes.
The divide-and-conquer slaughter began. In reality, however, not every battle pocket aimed for a swift kill—that was simply unrealistic.
Over half of the squad members were skilled at manipulating formations. Even at a disadvantage, they could effectively pin down their targets, creating space and kill opportunities for the stronger core fighters.
Once three or four core fighters finished off a Great Spike and freed themselves up to reinforce the most critical battle groups, the next Great Spike would find itself facing six Azure warriors, then seven...
This number would snowball, and the speed and efficiency of kills would steadily rise.
Thus, on a battlefield like this, in terms of sustained killing capacity and overall impact, the role of elite squads actually surpassed that of most individual super combat powers.
It was just that this time, there were simply too many Great Spikes. Whether pinning them down or going for the kill, huge risks had to be taken... and sacrifices were inevitable.
To this end, Han Qingyu's trio charged in from the rear, helping take over one of the blue-sheened Great Spikes.
The moment they engaged, amid the divided, bloody chaos of the battlefield, a bizarre scene unfolded.
The blue-sheened Great Spike before them—which seemed to still be in fairly good condition—appeared to freeze for an instant. Then, with somewhat sluggish movements, it turned its head and stared at Han Qingyu...
Covered in full-body armor, Great Spikes never showed facial expressions, but at this moment, everyone present could clearly sense it: it was confused.
Yes, confusion—a reaction far more humanized than anything a black-armored Spike would show. It was not the first time Han Qingyu had witnessed humanlike behavior from a blue-sheened Great Spike. Back during his recruit days, during the Area 1123 incident, he had seen it—and had been hunted across mountains and ridges by a heavily wounded blue-sheened Spike for over an hour.
Right now, the blue-sheened Spike in front of him seemed to be saying: "What is going on here? Why are you flying in to slash at us with a blue-light column sword? Is that... is that even yours?! Are you our Boss Red Shoulder?!"
Whoosh! In that split second of tactical opportunity, the spear in Wu Xu's hands arrived before Han Qingyu's blade.
The spearhead pierced an inch into the iron armor. The blue-sheened Great Spike revealed its true strength, throwing its body back in retreat while thrusting out its column sword.
Instead of retreating, Wu Xu pressed forward, dodging while closing in until he was almost chest-to-chest. The Binggu spear in his hands, which he hadn't withdrawn, suddenly snapped from a straight thrust into a vertical upward strike toward the blue-sheened Spike's jaw.
"Pfft... Awwgh!" The spearhead slashed open flesh. The blue-sheened Great Spike jerked its head back hard to evade, leaving its entire neck and throat fully exposed.
An opening—a lethal opening!
The trio's teamwork was already second nature; without a single callout, they all knew what had to happen next.
Yet this time, Han Qingyu's follow-up kill strike failed to materialize.
The long-range bombardment with the blue-light column sword just moments ago had taken an immense toll—so immense that when he leapt into motion, he realized that the four-turbine source energy surge through his body was utterly flagging.
The opening slipped away, but he was still suspended midair, his source energy surge failing to sustain him.
Having cheated death, the blue-sheened Great Spike instantly spun with a backhanded horizontal slash, tanking a blunt blow from the Binggu spear as its column sword tore through the air toward Han Qingyu.
Unavoidable.
Bang!
A suit of iron armor sprang straight up from the ground. Rusty Sister soared up to shield Han Qingyu, holding her long blade vertically to intercept the blow on his behalf.
Sent flying.
Crashing into Han Qingyu.
One after the other, the two smashed through icicles, tumbling and rolling until they hit the ground below.
"Qingzi, you? Are you alright?" Feeling someone beneath her, Rusty Sister hurriedly turned her head halfway before even getting up, asking in a panicked rush.
"...I'm fine. Get off me first." Feeling a pang of embarrassment, Han Qingyu answered as another block of metal dissolved into him. Stabbing pain instantly shot through every blood vessel, his internal organs felt on the verge of rupturing, and his brain buzzed violently from the overwhelming agony.
"Oh, okay." Rusty Sister seemed a bit dazed, but she obediently executed a kip-up to spring to her feet, her iron armor clattering with a metallic thud.
A kip-up right on top of me?! Han Qingyu nearly spat blood.
Meanwhile, Wu Xu was battling the blue-sheened Spike alone. Caught unprepared by the sudden setback, a blade tip had sliced open a bloody gash across his ribs.
Pushing himself up, Han Qingyu gave Rusty Sister a helpless glance. "I'm good. Let's go."
Whoosh! Whoosh! The two threw themselves back into the fray, flanking the blue-sheened Spike in a siege.
In the end, however, the blue-sheened Spike was only brought down after the captain and vice captain of the Chichen Itza Squad freed themselves to join the kill. When the bloody battle concluded, four corpses of Chichen Itza Squad members lay upon the ground.
A simple fist-to-chest salute was exchanged. Because it was an active battlefield and a language barrier existed, the Mexicans said little, quickly hoisting the bodies of their fallen comrades to carry them back to the defense line. Han Qingyu and his companions returned the salute, seeing off the fallen warriors, before picking up the blue-light column sword from the snow and resuming their sweep along the circular perimeter.
"Qingzi, are you really okay?" Shen Yixiu asked with lingering worry after running a few steps.
"I'm fine." His condition was still off—his body ached, and his head felt dizzy. Han Qingyu gave his head a hard shake, stopped, turned, and tied off a knot in the bandages wrapped around Wu Xu.
He was now very clear on his role in this sector. It was roughly equivalent to a roaming super combat power—helping break enemy formations.
In this battle, Azure had deployed a total of six super combat powers. Two of them had to keep their eyes on the mothership, seeking an entry point and opportunity to breach it. Another was on high alert for Red Shoulder's sudden appearance. Given Red Shoulder's prior performance, if it abruptly showed up along the circular defense line, it could wipe out an entire elite squad in a heartbeat... especially if it had a spare blue-light column sword.
As for the remaining three super combat powers, one operated on the lower battlefield while two held down the circular perimeter. All three did the same thing: relying on bursts of their personal combat power to breach clusters of Great Spikes for the various squads.
Yet even for a super combat power, this was no easy task. Just moments ago, a super combat power from the Indedu Front had been badly injured after throwing himself into breaking a cluster containing four blue-sheened Spikes, forcing him to temporarily pull back and bandage his wounds.
Even uninjured, the sheer span of the circular defense line was far too vast for them to cover everything.
Han Qingyu's arrival helped fill this gap on the battlefield.
Though he, Wu Xu, and Rusty Sister lacked the sheer raw power, the advantage of the blue-light column sword allowed them to achieve a comparable breach effect... and Han Qingyu could even make blue-sheened Great Spikes daze out for a split second.
"If I'd known, I would've found an iron barrel to put over myself too, then painted two red stripes on my shoulders. Who knows, maybe the blue-sheened ones would really think I was Boss Red Shoulder. Rusty Sister, want to disguise yourself as a blue-sheened Spike? Lead a pack of black armors running the wrong way..."
Amid the tense atmosphere, Han Qingyu joked with Shen Yixiu. In reality, that was impossible, of course—after all, they couldn't even speak the language.
Hearing this, Rusty Sister pictured it in her head. The visual formed, leaving her feeling both amused and annoyed. She was about to give him a piece of her mind, but seeing Qingzi's exhausted expression, she only let out a weak huff.
By now, dusk was gradually falling.
Han Qingyu's trio stood between the circular defense line and the mountain slope below. Looking around, squads were desperately dividing and encircling swarms of Great Spikes everywhere, while Great Spikes and Azure combatants were steadily converging toward higher ground.
On the battlefield below, behind a cluster of ice rocks, three figures were huddled as well.
"What do we do now? Where to?" He Tangtang glanced up toward the heights, then back at Wen Jifei. He was the strongest fighter among the three of them, yet besides scouting paths, he had barely engaged in the fighting, which left him feeling a bit unsatisfied.
Wen Jifei pulled his gaze back, lowered his rifle, and said, "Looks like we can't keep up anymore. I can't even spot Sizzling Fish and Meat."
"Sizzling Fish and Meat" was the squad name they had forcibly slapped on Han Qingyu, Wu Xu, and Rusty Sister—the "iron plate" was Rusty Sister, the "fish" was Han Qingyu, and since Wu Xu had "blood" in his name, it had been stretched into "meat."
"Yeah," Liu Shiheng agreed, still crouching behind the ice rocks without stepping out. Poking only his head out, he ventured cautiously, "Then why don't we..." He wanted to suggest just lying low right here. After all, the Great Spikes on the lower battlefield were already thinning out.
Wen Jifei shook his head. "How about we go try and hack that black armor to death?!" he whispered, pointing in a direction with suppressed excitement.
In the direction of his finger, not far away, was a recessed hollow in the ice.
A black-armored Great Spike stood inside. It was alive and moving, but its movements were sluggish, and it appeared completely lost and dazed.
Wen Jifei had noticed it quite a while ago, but because he had been focused entirely on supporting Han Qingyu earlier, he hadn't had the luxury to pay it attention.
Hearing this, Liu Shiheng panicked instantly. "Are you serious? Plague Chicken, just the three of us hacking a Great Spike to death?! Are you out of your mind?!"
"Come see for yourselves, look at it... It doesn't have a weapon. And it looks brain-dead."
"Really?!" He Tangtang's interest surged immediately. He took a couple of quick steps to Wen Jifei's side, found an angle, and peered over. "Yo, it really doesn't have a weapon... and it's just standing there like an idiot. Looks kind of depressed, too."
So, if the three of us could kill one too...
Wen Jifei and He Tangtang went without saying—this was what they had always dreamed of. At this moment, even Liu Shiheng couldn't help feeling a surge of excitement and crept out from behind the ice rocks. The war saber in his grip was the one left behind after Zhang Dao'an had borrowed it; in Zhang Dao'an's hands, it had cleaved black armors and hacked blue-sheened Spikes... but ever since, it hadn't touched a single hair on a Great Spike.
Yet why would such a Great Spike appear on a brutal battlefield like this?
It couldn't be that its column sword self-destructed before it died.
"Do you guys think it could be like this?" Wen Jifei pondered aloud. "That day, Qingzi hauled off Red Shoulder's starlight column sword, right? So Red Shoulder probably just snatched one from a nearby black armor to use..."
"This is that one?!"
"Most likely," Wen Jifei said. "And after that, it didn't know what it was supposed to do. Think about it: a mindless grunt following orders, charging with the main force across the battlefield—charge, charge, charge—and then suddenly its weapon is gone... Nobody gave it back, nobody explained anything, nobody told it what to do... So, of course it's just standing there."
"Come to think of it, could it have been standing there for four whole days?"
"Yeah."
Chapter 263