A Banner upon His Shoulder

At the edge of the broken cliff, suspended over empty space. Han Qingyu drove forward in tandem with the column sword, spinning and thrusting toward the Red Shoulder. The column sword flickered with blue starlight, hurtling like lightning as it spun. Beneath the immense surge of source energy, the snow and wind across the cliff face seemed swept up in a tornado... instantly lending the strike an overwhelming, awe-inspiring majesty. Yet... that was a Red Shoulder! Could a top combat power really clash head-on against a Red Shoulder like this?! People had already acknowledged Han Qingyu as a top combat power, but he was not a super combat power. By all rights, he shouldn't even be able to breach its defense. Driving forward with this strike, he would likely never return. In that moment, Yin Caixin and the few surviving members of her squad watched, their view the clearest of all. Across the mountainside, soldiers locked in slaughter stole glances toward the cliff, for even the Great Spike horde had momentarily slowed its reactions. At the same time, the defense squads Han Qingyu had aided were watching as well. Most of them had witnessed the devastating force of the blue light column sword, but this strike seemed even more terrifying than before. Because his entire being was following through behind the blade. God Lü and a super combat power from Indedu were sprinting forward at full tilt. "Mister..." This time, it was merely a murmur on her lips, not a cry shouted aloud. Yin Caixin clutched the wound on her body as blood welled between her fingers. She couldn't think of an idiom to express what she felt right now; she was only filled with immense, crushing regret. As for Han Qingyu himself, he had already lost nearly all consciousness. All that remained was the suffocating, helpless despair from failing to pierce its defense with his dual blades just moments before—a feeling that desperately needed release. "Break... for me!" The roar rang across the snow-capped mountain. The instant the shout faded—*boom!* A tremendous, deafening explosion. Han Qingyu's majestic strike crashed head-on into the Red Shoulder's downward cleave. At this end of the cliff, ice and snow splattered violently in every direction! Amid the momentarily obscured field of view, only the sharp *crack-crack-crack* of shattering ice echoed out. "He..." "Qingzi?!" The figures of Wu Xu and Rusty Sister had just scrambled up from the flank. Then, the ice and snow settled. *Whoosh—* A wave of profound shock and clamor erupted. All because of the sight that met everyone's eyes. The black column sword in the Red Shoulder's hand was reduced to half its length. It had been snapped. He had severed the Red Shoulder's column sword. The blue light column sword had shattered the weapon and continued on. Han Qingyu still gripped the hilt with both hands, and the forward half of the blue light column sword was driven deep between the Red Shoulder's left chest and shoulder socket, piercing through the iron armor and plunging into its body... "Is he super?" "Qing..." "King!" ... "Qingzi?!" an urgent, loud shout. "Qingzi!" a hushed, muted murmur. Wen Jifei and the other two no longer cared about hiding their connection with him; Ye Jian had seen through it anyway. At that moment, all three dashed up the slope, froze, and stared toward the distant cliff. Beside them, Ye Jian was watching as well. "That's Han Qingyu, isn't it?" he asked. Wen Jifei and the others glanced back at him in flustered alarm, unsure of what he meant to say. "Don't be afraid. I just find it magnificent... I think that is what a man should be." Ye Jian gazed toward the heights, nodding slowly. The habitual smile on his face was nowhere to be seen. "Then... did Qingzi kill it or not?! Is that thing dead?!" He Tangtang asked frantically. Up above, the Red Shoulder seemed momentarily frozen, while Han Qingyu appeared utterly drained of strength. Without hesitation, Ye Jian shook his head. "That strike already exceeded his limits, and that column sword is quite extraordinary... If it were a blue-sheened Great Spike, this blow would have certainly killed it. But that is a Red Shoulder. He's not quite there yet." The moment Ye Jian's words fell— *"Rooaaar—"* A howl ripped from the Red Shoulder atop the cliff, laced with agonizing pain and monstrous fury. It swung its broken sword upward from below, smashing the blue light column sword away and simultaneously sending Han Qingyu hurtling into the air. As the column sword ripped out of its body, a massive, gaping bloody hole was torn into the Red Shoulder, and blood of fly-blue wrapped in crimson sprayed through the air. *Thump.* Han Qingyu crashed heavily onto the icy ground at the other end of the cliff. The Red Shoulder turned around, facing him. Wu Xu's heavy sword and Rusty Sister's combat blade slashed in from left and right. "Run, Qingzi!" That was all they could do. Yet, *boom!* With a single sweep of the Red Shoulder's broken sword, Wu Xu and Rusty Sister were violently repelled to either side by the concussive backlash. Then, the Red Shoulder abruptly thrust a hand forward. "It..." "Damn it!" The sprinting God Lü and the Indedu super combat power both jolted in alarm: the Red Shoulder was trying to reclaim the blue light column sword! And if it retrieved the weapon... Though Han Qingyu's mind was a muddled haze, he still felt the stirring of the blue light column sword less than a hundred meters away. It was a tremendous pulling force. The Red Shoulder wanted to pull back the column sword?! Han Qingyu summoned every shred of strength he had left—everything apart from his bone source. His source energy apparatus erupted to its peak, his liquid source energy erupted to its peak, his vitalized source energy erupted... pulling back with all his might. A brief stalemate! "Our chance! The final chance!" Lü Moyi and the Indedu super combat power both erupted without regard for the cost, desperate to seize this last opportunity for a kill. Everyone from all directions who could see this unfold prayed that the two super combat powers would arrive before the Red Shoulder reclaimed the sword, using the opening to slay it and save the man on the cliff. For everyone understood that if the Red Shoulder got that sword back, it would certainly kill him. On the entire Xilang Peak battlefield, he was the only one who had ever pushed a Red Shoulder to such a wretched state. "Hurry! Hurry!" people begged anxiously. Because once the situation shifted, even two super combat powers might not be able to pin down a wounded Red Shoulder. Unfortunately... *Whoosh!* A tremendous roar detonated atop the cliff. The tug-of-war finally reached its conclusion. The column sword tore free from Han Qingyu's grasp, shooting toward the Red Shoulder. The sheer momentum and speed of the blue light column sword in that instant! If unleashed against an ordinary squad, or even an elite squad, a single sweep would have left corpses strewn across the field. People watched helplessly as the column sword flew straight at the Red Shoulder. The Red Shoulder stood there, its outstretched arm sweeping across with fingers loosely curled, poised to catch the column sword. "Qingzi!" Wu Xu and Rusty Sister didn't care about the column sword. Though both were drenched in blood, their only thought was to drag Han Qingyu away from this place. Yet as they threw themselves forward, they realized Han Qingyu was staring intently at the distant Red Shoulder. Meanwhile, those who cared about the weapon began to sigh—only for a sudden thought to flash through their minds, making them swallow it back down. When a man had fought to such an extent, regardless of the outcome, Azure had no right to repay him with a sigh. They felt only regret, and deep worry... *Whoosh!* The column sword ripped through the air. *Crack!* An unexpected, sharp report. The scene shifted violently... An arm from the Red Shoulder soared into the sky. To be precise, its entire left arm, along with half its shoulder, was sheared off and hurled upward. "Th-this... what happened?!" "What just happened?!" "Did the Red Shoulder pull the sword so hard that it impaled itself?!" The vast majority of onlookers failed to see what had occurred. Yet what they said wasn't entirely wrong, for that strike had indeed relied mostly on the Red Shoulder's own force. Only the top masters present saw it clearly: the very instant the column sword shot before the Red Shoulder, it underwent an uncanny shift— An eerie burst of acceleration, an eerie upward tilt, thrusting straight into the wound that had just been torn open. This strike combined the Red Shoulder's own force, Han Qingyu's desperate pulling power, and a final preset upward flick driven by the power of his bone source... cleanly severing the Red Shoulder's arm and shoulder together. Blood and the severed limb flew into the sky. Even after flying past, the column sword traced an incomprehensible arc in reverse—it was the movement path of Rusty Sister's Dimple Slash! Rusty Sister understood it... it had simply missed its mark in the end. The bone source possessed an innate tier suppression; once deployed, there was no way the Red Shoulder could freely recall the column sword... That had been Han Qingyu's final calculation. By now, he was on the verge of losing consciousness altogether. In the next breath, the onlookers watched as two super combat powers slashed into the heavily wounded Red Shoulder... cutting deep... The Red Shoulder leaped off the cliff to flee, and the super combat powers gave chase in hot pursuit! Another super combat power flanked in from the side. The outcome was clear: it would never make it back. Azure was about to slay a Red Shoulder once more! Perhaps it would be the three super combat powers who delivered the final blow. Yet... That person on the broken cliff... "Metal block, bone..." With his consciousness practically gone, Han Qingyu moved purely on instinct and the lingering thoughts he held before blacking out. He first patted down his body, feeling slightly relieved. "And then... where are my blades? The column sword?" His slurred mumbles were indecipherable even to Wu Xu and Rusty Sister. Drenched in blood, Han Qingyu staggered forward. Wu Xu and Rusty Sister exchanged a glance, not daring to touch him. And so Han Qingyu stumbled forward, reappearing at the cliff's suspended edge and coming back into everyone's view. Along the way, he picked up his first blade and sheathed it on his back; picked up his second blade and sheathed it on his back; and then, right where the Red Shoulder had just stood, he scooped up the fallen blue light column sword from the ground... The fallen banner of the joint squad lay sprawled in the snow not far from the column sword. Han Qingyu saw it. In the fading embers of his consciousness, he remembered that a banner must never fall. So he picked up the banner, shook off the ice and snow... and before the eyes of everyone watching, grasped the flagpole and drove it down, then drove it down again... thrusting the iron pole through the frozen layer until it stood firmly planted. After that, he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He simply turned around and stood there, numbly lingering at the edge of the precipice over the void. A frozen tableau framed that moment. Just behind him, the joint squad's banner fluttered once more in the wind and snow. In the eyes of the people below the mountain, that Azure banner seemed to flutter upon his shoulder.