What Exactly Is Inside the Great Spike Mothership

In the ranks of Long Blade, Cao Min wrapped a bandage around his arm while craning his neck, constantly jostling forward. He bumped into Lu Chengzhong's back. The squad leader frowned with resignation, glanced back to glare at him, and reached out to shove him back into formation. The atmosphere around them was tense and suffocating, yet Cao Min was completely unfazed. He was as excited as a young boy who mistook dynamite for New Year firecrackers and could hardly wait to light the fuse himself. "Five super elites!" Even after being shoved back, Cao Min refused to stay still, standing on tiptoe and craning to gaze feverishly toward the front of the formation. There, five of the Azure Alliance's six super combatants deployed in this battle stood in formation, the sixth having been gravely wounded earlier. Without a war of this scale, even an outstanding fighter in an elite squad like Cao Min would find it extraordinarily difficult to witness a super elite fighting in person—let alone five at once, and right before his eyes. *If there really are more Red Shoulders, I'll definitely charge over and try taking a swing at one this time,* he thought, on top of wanting to see the super elites in action. On the other side stood the Fourth Army's Kuanglan Squad. "Uncle Deng, lemme ask you something. You think something this big could bring down the whole mountain?" Yan Fuwen, who had earlier been among the reinforcements snatching metal blocks near Han Qingyu, pointed toward the Great Spike mothership and asked the veteran beside him in a whisper. Remembering Liu Yiwu's earlier words, he had suddenly grown worried that Han Qingyu might get buried alive. "Who could say for sure?" The veteran thought it over. "Still, my guess is it's dead dangerous down there. Otherwise, command would've had us dig our way in to ambush the bastards, wouldn't they?" "...Yeah." Yan Fuwen nodded, glancing somewhat uneasily toward the side of the snowy slope. That Han Qingyu should have already entered. *That guy looks about my age... Back in his village, he must have been the naughtiest kid around.* "So Uncle Deng, what do you think is inside?" "Who knows? Something that huge, not quite a ship, not quite anything else—it could hide a hell of a lot." The veteran pointed toward the mothership. "Look at it. It's completely surrounded, yet it doesn't even twitch... Probably won't be easy to crack open." "Easy or not, we've gotta crack it. We'll punch right through the damn thing," a teammate beside them chimed in with a grin. Everyone let out a breath and took the chance to chuckle, easing the tension. In the ranks of White Eraser, Liang Ge was grinning as well. Leaning forward, he opened his mouth, apparently preparing to holler a couple of jokes of his own. Knowing the fool had no brain, Captain Wei Jiang promptly seized the back of his neck and twisted him around. "Shut it! With that mouth of yours... you think you're gonna spout your nonsense at a time like this?!" Liang Ge twisted his head back. "Boss, do you even know what I was gonna say?" "Filthy jokes! What else could it be?! That's why I'm telling you to shut up!" "Heheh." Liang Ge tacitly admitted it, giving his captain an embarrassed grin. "By the way, let me remind you," Wei Jiang added. "Don't go picking fights with Han Qingyu anymore, got it? Speak politely when you run into him... We owe him our lives. That includes you." "I can't do that. If I owe him a life, I'll pay him with mine, but I'm not bowing my head to that punk," Liang Ge refused outright, shaking his head. "Just looking at that kid makes me sick. Even if I can't beat him right now, I'll find a way to disgust him to death..." "..." Blood rushed to Wei Jiang's throat in sheer exasperation. "Oh, so you actually know you can't beat him right now? Fine. Next time I'll give him the word in advance... If you run your foul mouth again, I'll tell him to beat the hell out of you, anywhere, anytime." "Huh?" Their captain was usually the most fiercely protective of his men, and White's tradition had always been to maintain an iron fist regardless of a bad reputation. Liang Ge sounded caught off guard and incredulous. "B-but..." "White's face, right? Screw our face. You threw it all away long ago anyway." With that, Wei Jiang turned his back and ignored him. The time was late at night, nearing midnight on August 27, 1991. On the Xilang Peak battlefield, the Flag War had raged for nearly seven hours, engaging forty thousand Azure Alliance fighters in bitter combat. Above the ring position, three thousand elites from every Azure nation stood arrayed with drawn blades. The battle formation was less than a thousand meters from the Great Spike mothership, which loomed like the palace of a demonic god. Yet even at such close range, the colossal craft wrapped in blue radiance remained completely unresponsive. Even its sirens had long fallen silent. "Where you stand right now is one thousand meters from the summit... There is no path down from here. If we want to descend, we must first cross the summit." Turning his back to the peak, Huaxia Front Commander Liu Yiwu looked down at the battlefield below. "Otherwise, we cannot walk past those blood-soaked ridges below, cannot pass the bodies of our fallen comrades... and cannot face the brothers who already wiped out over a thousand Great Spikes and are still waiting down there." "Sir!" the formation responded in unison. "The Great Spike mothership is heavily defended. The situation inside remains unclear, and there is a high probability that Red Shoulders remain..." Facing the impending battle, Liu Yiwu candidly shared command's intelligence assessment. This was humanity's first time confronting a Great Spike craft of this tier. Historically, mankind had never even launched an assault on an ordinary shuttle craft... Humans simply knew too little about the Great Spikes, and no one knew what awaited them up there. Everything was unknown. Yet no one dared make the call to wait for another opportunity or hold out for further probing. The existence of the Great Spike traction array had already been confirmed; if they continued waiting, no one could predict what horrors might descend... Their current, unnatural composure likely meant that something was about to happen very soon. "Are you feeling nervous right now?" Looking at the elite fighters before him, who had likewise fought through a long, grueling struggle, Liu Yiwu asked. "A little, yeah," Yan Fuwen answered instinctively, caught off guard in his wandering thoughts. Amidst soft chuckles, Liu Yiwu smiled at him, looking like an elder relative. "A little, huh? That's fine. To tell the truth, so am I." The soldiers' laughter grew louder. Sweeping his gaze over the ranks, Liu Yiwu's expression hardened into solemn resolve. He said in a deep voice, "But remember this: you are elites, the treasured pride cradled in the palms of your respective armies. Do you know what it means to be an elite? Do you know why you are treasured in normal times?" Pausing briefly, his eyes burned like torches as he continued slowly, "Elites are treasured during peace so that when the crucial moment comes, they can fight to the death." "Sir!" the warriors thundered in unison, raising their blades. "White fights to the death! Long Blade fights to the death! Kuanglan fights to the death!..." Across the plateau, the vast night sky stretched out beneath bright stars. The pale moonlight and starlight striking the mothership's blue aura were swallowed by the glow. The snow-covered slopes lay cloaked in shadow, broken only by the forest of Azure battleblades reflecting a sea of glittering starlight toward the heavens. *Tick, tock...* *Boom!* The source energy of the five super elites erupted in unison, sounding the signal to attack. Across the formations circling the mountain, a thunderous sonic boom shattered the night simultaneously. Hearing it, the soldiers below stood up and looked toward the peak of Xilang... The final assault of the Flag War, a silent charge through the night, had begun. *** Having blasted through the rock and earth, Han Qingyu stared blankly at the iron plate before him. Judging by the sound earlier, he had assumed there was a hollow cavity beneath the Great Spike mothership. It turned out that wasn't the case; the cavity was probably inside the ship itself. What lay before him, Wu Xu, and Rusty Sister was a sheet of dead iron plate sloping downward and inward. Visualizing the mothership's structure, one could deduce that beneath the hull exposed above ground lay a massive, inverted trapezoidal suspended structure. Upon landing, this section had driven deep into the rock and earth through some special mechanism, anchoring itself like the roots of a tree. "No wonder it's so huge yet sat so firmly on the peak. Turns out a whole chunk is embedded down here," Shen Yixiu said, stepping forward to touch the dead iron plate. "It looks really thick. What do we do?" This ought to have required careful deliberation, but Han Qingyu answered on reflex, "Let's try prying it open." Since shuttle craft could be pried open to reveal good loot, why couldn't a mothership be pried open too? Wasn't it just a slightly bigger Great Spike craft? "Mm, okay." Rusty Sister obeyed without hesitation. Raising her battleblade, she braced it against the plate and shoved hard. *Crack!* A notch chipped out of the blade's tip. Rusty Sister's battleblade was actually the most ordinary weapon among their small group. It couldn't compare to Wu Xu's spear and heavy sword, and even compared to Han Qingyu's paired blades and her own iron armor, there was a noticeable gap in craftsmanship. The girl froze on the spot, looking both startled and heartbroken. Han Qingyu quickly pressed a hand to her shoulder in comfort. "Don't worry, you were due for a new blade anyway." "Due for one? How?" Rusty Sister felt rather wronged. Where was she supposed to get a replacement? He had already given the Yu clan's other heavy sword to Tangtang. "Yeah, time for an upgrade. Once we're done here, we'll haul this slab of metal off... and forge you a brand-new one." Han Qingyu reached out as well, rubbing the iron surface a few times. *Whoa?! This...* Rusty Sister turned to look at the iron plate, suddenly thrilled. "Mm!" Why did Qingzi always figure out a use for things the second he laid eyes on them? Well, it seemed more like whenever he saw something, he automatically decided it belonged to him. "This material seems formidable." Wu Xu reached out to touch the iron plate, then looked at the Binggu spear in his hand. It had recently been confirmed that Binggu's material was superior to ordinary dead iron, but not overwhelmingly so. When Wu Xu sparred with Rusty Sister, he had never managed to chip her battleblade. Using Binggu or the heavy sword to pry at the plate now would likely be just as futile. "You're right, it's tough. So it's time I showed you two my skills." Han Qingyu glanced back at them with a grin and hoisted the blue-light column sword. *Tap, tap.* The tip of the blue-light column sword struck the iron plate twice, gouging out a tiny pit. Evidently, the dead iron grade of the blue-light column sword truly was superior. Han Qingyu's ability to sever the black column sword earlier had not been entirely due to an explosive burst of strength. However, in their current position, he didn't dare use too much force for fear of making too much noise and alerting the Great Spikes inside. Wu Xu and Rusty Sister had the same thought. Once their brief surprise faded, worry set in: at this rate, when would he ever pierce through? Before they could voice their doubts, Han Qingyu set the column sword's tip firmly inside the small pit. Leaning back, he dropped onto his stomach and clasped the hilt between his palms. With his hands positioned one forward and one back, he gave a violent, twisting rub. *Skrrr...* Like a drill bit, the column sword began spinning frantically. The noise wasn't overly loud, but the hole in the iron plate expanded rapidly, boring inward at a brisk pace. Han Qingyu drilled away with immense gusto, his eyes gleaming. Rusty Sister and Wu Xu rarely saw such an excited expression on Han Qingyu's face, except... The two exchanged a glance. *As expected of the guy who carried off a Great Spike craft while stabbing it on the run back at the Nepal trial grounds. Qingzi really is an expert. When it comes to cracking open Great Spike craft, probably no one in the entire Azure Alliance can match him.* *Clack, crunch, crunch...* The process of prying open the plate after drilling through inevitably produced some noise... Soon, an opening large enough for a single person to squeeze through appeared before them. Holding their breath, the three listened intently for a moment. There was no movement inside. "I'll take a look first," Han Qingyu said. Checking the metal blocks and bone source on his person, he took a deep breath and slowly peered through the opening. At the very same moment, a black-armored Great Spike—which had come to investigate when the tip of the column sword first breached the plate—had been standing beside the hole in utter bewilderment for quite some time. Finally, it bent down and poked its head forward to look. The two creatures came face-to-face instantly. The black-armored Great Spike froze in confusion. *So it really wasn't the Red Shoulder boss coming back?!* "Holy crap..." Han Qingyu was frightened out of his wits, his face draining of color. If what greeted him hadn't been a face but a thrust from a column sword... In the next half-second, five metal blocks dissolved into his body, his bone source surged, and all four turbines engaged at full blast. Han Qingyu jerked backward, but his arms shot through the hole, wrapped around the Great Spike's neck, and pulled it down with all his might. Fearing it would run off to sound the alarm, Han Qingyu acted on pure reflex, refusing to let it go. *Thud!* The hole was far too small for a Great Spike, so this sudden pull slammed the upper half of its face violently against the iron plate, while its body below the neck bent backward inside. It had never encountered such a situation... Neither had Wu Xu nor Rusty Sister. They hadn't even grasped what had just happened. "What is it, Qingzi?!" "A Great Spike!" Han Qingyu strained with all his might to hold it in place while gesturing toward the exposed neck of the black-armored Great Spike. "Stab it! Quick, stab it!" Understood! Wu Xu tossed the heavy sword to Rusty Sister and brandished the Binggu spear. *Thrust! Squelch...* Spear and sword plunged repeatedly into the Great Spike's neck—twisting, tearing, yanking free, and stabbing again. Reddish-blue blood sprayed all over Han Qingyu. Within seconds, the creature died. Its neck had been punctured into a honeycomb of gory holes, dying without a shred of dignity. This was likely the first Great Spike in the history of cosmic civilizations to be slaughtered using a technique reminiscent of slaughtering pigs in an Azure village. The three waited for a while longer, confirming there was no further movement inside. "I'll go check again." Having learned his lesson, Han Qingyu thrust the blue-light column sword in first. Seeing no danger, he finally stuck his head in. The interior was indeed empty, resembling the bottom hold of a massive vessel. Or rather, it was the bottom hold of the Great Spike mothership. *Only a single black armor was guarding this place? Then again, the battle above has already started.* With that in mind, Han Qingyu squeezed through the opening, stood up, and planted his feet inside the Great Spike mothership.