As a perpetual weakling in an otherwise awe-inspiring little clique, He Tangtang muttered, "If the three of us hack a Great Spike to death..."
As he spoke, He Tangtang had already sheathed his combat blade across his back and drawn the greatsword that even Chen Buer had coveted. Hunched forward, he led the way, muttering under his breath.
For this battle, he was naturally their main force.
Wen Jifei and Liu Shiheng crept along behind him.
"What if we capture it and bring it back alive? It's just standing there like a dumb log anyway." His mind spinning with nerves, Liu Shiheng cracked a deliberate joke.
The moment the words left his mouth, he bumped headfirst into He Tangtang's rear.
He Tangtang, leading the way, froze. Beside him, Wen Jifei froze as well. Both stood dumbfounded, craning their heads around to stare straight at Liu Shiheng.
"W-What's wrong?" Liu Shiheng looked up and asked blankly.
"Did you just say... capture it? Bring it back alive?!" Wen Jifei whispered in a hushed breath, his heart pounding like a drum. Thump, thump, thump...
Azure had two dream objectives that were considered utterly impossible: capture a living Great Spike, and secure an intact flying craft.
"I think it's worth a shot," He Tangtang said. "Usually, these things only self-destruct once they're wounded and can't fight anymore. But this time, it seems like they won't self-destruct unless they're dying... And the main thing is, this one's completely brain-dead. It might not even fight us to the death."
After creeping a bit closer, He Tangtang inspected it again. There were no marks on the black armor, which likely meant it had just been standing there like an idiot the entire time without joining the battle.
"Then... how do we get it back?" Liu Shiheng was getting excited too.
How to capture it? Tying it up was probably out of the question. Wen Jifei thought for a moment and said, "First, keep an eye on it. While we watch, let's haul over a few big blocks of ice and stack them behind it as prep..."
"And then?"
"Then, if it doesn't move, we don't move. We wait for Qingzi and the others. If it does move, the two of you immediately slice its arms from behind—one on the left, one on the right—so it won't have any support when it falls. Then we shove the ice blocks down and pile on top of it ourselves to try and pin it."
Without hacking at it, there was no way they could pin it down. But if they hacked it... He Tangtang pondered. "What if that triggers its self-destruction?"
"If it self-destructs, there's nothing we can do anyway. Let's just give it a try."
"...Alright."
"Let's do it."
Having reached an agreement, the three crawled behind the icy hollow and began hauling large ice blocks from around the area. They piled them up, mound after mound, then crouched there waiting.
The sky grew darker and darker. By contrast, the blue glow from the mothership atop the peak began to outshine the natural light, making the battlefield appear even more eerie under the shifting illumination.
Meanwhile, the main battlefield continued to shift steadily upward, and the sounds of fighting from above grew increasingly intense.
Suddenly, a figure appeared in their line of sight, walking down from higher up the mountain.
Why would someone be walking down? If it were a wounded soldier heading to the rear, that would make sense. But the man moved with utter ease—on such a brutal battlefield, he almost looked as though he were taking a leisurely stroll in a courtyard. The blade in his hand was still stained with Great Spike blood, yet he appeared as though he hadn't fought at all.
As he drew closer, they could see him more clearly. He was a soldier in his thirties, though his features remained clean and handsome.
Yet... a private? The insignia on his combat uniform identified him as a private. In reality, even among logistics personnel, a thirty-something private in Azure was an exceedingly rare sight.
The soldier suddenly turned and walked toward them, moving with an ordinary, casual stride, as if he, too, had spotted the black armor.
"Shh!" He Tangtang leaned out from the other side and waved him off. "Hold up, buddy, don't."
The man paused, looking at him with mild confusion.
"This Great Spike is a dumbass. We're trying to capture it alive," He Tangtang explained.
By then, it was too late for Wen Jifei to stop him.
Wen Jifei sensed something was off, but now he could only play dumb.
"Oh, is that so?" The man offered a faint smile, then walked over and crouched down alongside the three of them, keeping watch on the Great Spike.
"Which army are you from, buddy?" He Tangtang asked.
The man hesitated briefly, then smiled and said, "The Ninth Army."
"The Erasers?" He Tangtang said in delight.
"That's right. So you're from there too?"
"Yeah, we're in the same army! I'm He Tangtang. What about you?"
"I'm... Ye Jian," the man said with a warm smile.
Ye Jian! S-grade Ye Jian, quite possibly one of the apex super combat powers. Twenty years ago, he had been the Ninth Army's rising superstar, the hope of everyone... Later, he had become the Ninth Army's greatest taboo and deepest humiliation, because he had joined Snow Lotus.
Wen Jifei: "..." Holy shit. No wonder I thought this guy seemed ridiculously strong, yet everything about him felt so damn wrong.
He Tangtang: "..." Fuck! We're dead anyway—should I take a sneaky swing at him just to see?
Liu Shiheng: "..." Dead. We're dead meat.
"So you know who I am?" Ye Jian noticed the change in their expressions. He gave a soft chuckle. "My mistake. I figured nobody would have mentioned me to privates as young as you. If I'd known, I would have used a fake name."
"Now, don't touch that communicator. Leave it off." Ye Jian reached out, stopping Wen Jifei's hand as it reached toward his communicator. Still, he didn't attack. "Don't worry, I'm not here to cause trouble. After all, I have no desire to be besieged by tens of thousands of people plus five supers, do I?
"I just came to have a look. I even helped hack down a Great Spike just now."
With that, he smiled and showed them the Great Spike blood on his blade.
"Don't touch your blade. It won't work. I'm very strong—really," Ye Jian added to He Tangtang, looking somewhat helpless, caught between amusement and exasperation.
The problem was that no matter how genial he seemed, he could take their lives at any moment. None of the three dared make a sudden move, nor did they utter a sound.
"There's still time." Ye Jian raised his wrist to check his watch. "Why don't you tell me about the Ninth Army? How are things in our army these days?"
Nobody answered.
"I heard a formidable young man has emerged named Han Qingyu. Do you know him? I heard he's here too, but I took a turn around and didn't spot him. A pity."
"Never heard of him," He Tangtang and Liu Shiheng chorused at the same time.
"Oh?" Ye Jian turned his head toward them.
"Heard of him, seen him around, but never spoken to him," Wen Jifei said.
Ye Jian looked at him and smiled. "You're very sharp, but unfortunately, a bit too late." He then looked back at He Tangtang and Liu Shiheng. "You two answered too fast... So, you know him well, don't you?
"Don't worry, we're just chatting. I'm not here to kill anyone."
......
Bathed in the blue radiance, the snow and ice took on an uncanny sheen. Along the circular defense line, the truly fierce, bloody battles were now largely concentrated here.
"Qingzi... you..."
Beneath an overhanging cliff that was not very high but covered a wide expanse, Shen Yixiu glanced back at Han Qingyu. Her feet halted abruptly, panic and distress lacing her voice.
They had just stepped in to help three more times...
"What's wrong?" Han Qingyu asked groggily.
By now, he had consumed another two metal blocks.
"Y-You're bleeding," Shen Yixiu said.
If it were merely ordinary bleeding from an injury, Rusty Sister would not react this way. But right now, blood was oozing from the corners of Han Qingyu's mouth and trickling from his nose; judging by the stains on the side and back of his neck, his ears were likely bleeding as well.
"Qingzi, are you alright?!" Rusty Sister panicked. Her alarm spiked when she realized his eyes couldn't even seem to focus.
In a frenzy, she reached out, trying to wipe the blood from his face, but hands clad in iron plates could not wipe anything clean—they only smeared the blood across his skin. Soon, both of her iron palms were coated in red.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Don't panic, Rusty Sister. I just need to rest a moment." Han Qingyu sat down. His body throbbed with pain, and his mind was a haze, but the turbulent surge of four different types of source energy inside him appeared in his mind as if he could see within himself... They were starting to spiral out of control.
"Chhh, clack, crackle..."
The clatter of impacts and static came through the communicator.
In fact, the all-channel broadcast on Han Qingyu's communicator had remained on the entire time, though it was little more than a formality since its reception range was only two hundred meters.
"Can anyone hear this? Are there any super combat powers nearby?... The line has fallen. Our position... has fallen..." In English, Chinese, French, and Portuguese, a weak voice spoke across the communicator in multiple languages.
Shen Yixiu paused. "Hello? Are... Are you Caixin?!"
Less than an hour before the battle began, the last flight had arrived from Switzerland. It couldn't strictly be considered a Swiss elite squad; rather, it was formed by assembling selected elites from several neighboring smaller nations.
Considering their teamwork might be lacking, high command had assigned them a defensive position on a cliff—the easiest ground to hold.
"I..." The response on the other end was somewhat sluggish. "Xiuxiu?!"
"Yes, it's me! And Qingzi's here too."
Women really don't think straight in times like this—what time is it to be chatting?
Han Qingyu hastily snatched the communicator back. "Position!"
Ordinarily, with a maximum transmission range of two hundred meters, even if terrain blocked line of sight, shouldn't intense fighting still be audible? Anxious and confused, Han Qingyu shouted into the mic.
"At..." Yin Caixin started, then trailed off. She knew she was likely very close to Han Qingyu and the others, but... it was a Red Shoulder.
It was precisely because a Red Shoulder had burst out from beneath the ice and snow that the battle had not been fierce at all—their resistance was simply far too feeble.
Having been deployed to the battlefield immediately upon arrival, Yin Caixin had no idea Han Qingyu had already clashed head-on with a Red Shoulder. In her mind, his coming over would be nothing short of suicide.
"Mister... I think I've exhausted my literary talent," she said, her weak voice tinged with grievance and helplessness. She had misused an idiom again. "Quickly, go find a super combat power..."
At that moment, not far above the cliff, the flag of the joint elite squad collapsed.
Cries of shock rang out all around as the signal of the fallen flag was relayed in various languages... Any squad within sight that still had strength to spare detached fighters to reinforce the position, and supers were rushing toward it as well.
Cries echoed across the mountain slope as everyone stared up toward the heights above them.
Han Qingyu knew the location now.
In an instant, two metal blocks dissolved into his body. Rather than searching for a path, he leapt straight up, plunging his combat blade into the ice face to scale the cliff.
Under the power of his source energy apparatus, every surge of force as his blade bit into the ice propelled his entire body upward in a leaping bound, shooting up dozens of feet at a time.
With a final push from his blade—whoosh!
Han Qingyu launched upward from below the cliff face directly into the air... vaulting into the sight of everyone converging on the position.
Chapter 264